🏆 Arsenal vs Bayern, Tuesday, 8pm: Page 33 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

🏆 Arsenal vs Bayern, Tuesday, 8pm

Big Willie

RocktheCasbah I mean I get that. You get all sorts of types on the optimistic/pessimistic/realistic spectrum. You have:

The optimistic guys who think we'll win everything and are extremely disappointed when they dont,
the optimistic guys who are happy enough without winning things, who live in hope but not really in belief
the pessimistic guys who think we're not good enough to do anything and isnt upset at the end because he didn't let himself believe,
the pessimistic guy who, whilst they expect us not to win anything, will keep moaning because they expect more.

Numbers 2 and 3 are probably the more realistic types just skewed towards the positive or negative. Numbers 1 and 4 are possibly the most annoying types.

Actually scratch that, should add a number 5. The most annoying types are the ones who go from one extreme to the other. From having no chance, to we'll deffo win it, to we are bottlers.

RocktheCasbah

Big Willie can I be an optimist with belief, but not expectation? 😁

RocktheCasbah

QuincyAbeyie I don't think anyone on here expected us to roll over them. Like I said, maybe Twitter fans (with respect to your uncle, he sounds a bit similar to one).

No, that's absolutely a fair reading of him. It's not his fault, my granddad raised him to have impossible expectations of sportsmen - be they footballers rugby players, cricketers or athletes. I'd forgotten about this, but my mum recently reminded me, I actually stopped watching football with them when I was a kid because of the relentless negativity. Perhaps it's why I'm a bit sensitive to it here, I don't know.

Not having a go at you here, but if you thought we were going to win the CL, wouldn't it make sense for you to also think we would win against Bayern at home?

I don't think I've ever said I thought we were definitely going to win the CL, I think you might be thinking of Sicario. I definitely thought we could - and indeed we still might. But yeah, I did think we would beat Bayern at home (and let's be fair here, we probably should have), but not that it would be easy.

As I've said many times on here, there's nothing about Arsenal's European history that leads me to think any success would come easily. I mean, we get trolled by fans of Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa for chrissakes! 😄

Big Willie

RocktheCasbah Big Willie can I be an optimist with belief, but not expectation? 😁

You can be whatever you want to be. 😂

I guess that's kind of my point, fans can expect and demand, or accept and excuse whatever they want. It just reflects how they see the game and will define how they feel after the fact. Doesn't necessarily mean anything, or at least it shouldn't mean anything in the way the team prepares and going into games.

The only thing that could potentially affect them is a super negative vibe in the stadium making them play on edge, but being too excited or overconfident should not result in the team being complacent.

Clrnc

Pre match I said, this is as good a chance to face Bayern as it gets. They are at their weakest since 2008 and if we want to win the UCL we have to win against these lot.

I don't think thats wrong at all and definitely that isn't underestimating a team.

QuincyAbeyie

I still think we'll go through.

daredevil

People didn't outrightly state that we would roll them over, they tried to paint Bayern as being poorer than they were which was completely false, because they had more or equal points at that stage of the season (when we drew them) than all but one season over the past 5. The Bayern being poor narrative was taking hold because people were confusing Leverkusen being incredible with Bayern being poor.

Granted, Bayern's form has fallen through the floor since they lost away to Leverkusen, but it's clear that they have thrown the league, given that they are resting players or subbing them at half time, and are focusing solely on the CL. Those same people are now stumbling after the game with narratives like the team choked, bottled it, shat the bed etc. when they had misjudged the opponent.

QuincyAbeyie

daredevil did you think it was a good defensive performance? We "limited" them to 2,28 xG.

If no, is your opinion that we aren't actually good defensively normally either, it's just that we're not usually punished for our mediocrity?

Clrnc

daredevil In which matches are they resting players or subbing them off at half time regularly? They are down to bare bones with many injuries of which some only just came back against us.

daredevil

QuincyAbeyie

What a silly question.

We have the best defence in England and one of the best defences in Europe.

Does that mean I think we would stop Bayern, Real or Barca from scoring against us? No, I think they would all score several goals against us, because we play attacking football and defend through counter pressing. Counter pressing which is susceptible to transitions which teams like Bayern have exceptional quality to thrive in.

If we played low block football against these teams then I would expect us to concede very few because we're also excellent at low block defending which is much harder to penetrate like City found out, but we were never going to do that at home, perhaps rightly so, but they then exposed the space we left.

If we played Real in the semi, and we pressed high and squeezed up, I'd expect Vini and co. to score a truckload like they've done against City. If we parked the bus and played on the counter, I'd favour us to concede fewer.

Qwiss

We were favourites for the match and if the ref wasn't a coward we'd have won it. No one here claimed they were easy though.

Weird to see people being so negative about us when we are top of the league.

Mirth

Qwiss Weird to see people being so negative about us when we are top of the league.

You’ve got to be more considerate. It’s the first time in 2024 folks have had a chance to push their agendas

Clrnc

They were not even good at the Emirates. Without us gifting them those 2 goals they were not scoring.

QuincyAbeyie

daredevil you really should be a betting man if you aren't, you'd be rich. The odds definitely didn't favor Bayern scoring several goals.

awooga83

I think for me I thought we had a great chance to win this match. I was aware Bayern have a good attack but I actually thought we'd shown we can defend well and I thought that might be enough to nullify them. In the end we made some pretty big defensive errors that I didn't think we would. Yes Bayern are a good side and perhaps can punish you more but we didn't play at our level in the game and I hadn't necessarily anticipated that performance. It's made me a little more cautious on the rest of the season just showing how fine the margins can be. If we can't quite meet our level for whatever reason in the remaining fixtures with the games coming thick and fast that could be fatal.

Claudius

My prediction for second leg… we tighten up, it’s low scoring draw or low scoring win for us. We will use depth to our advantage. Can throw on five good players and go the full 90 or 120 minutes.

daredevil

Claudius

It's practically 0-0, so it's a single away game that we have to win. Not out of the realms of possibility and playing low block will suit us and might not suit them.

I'd be wrapping Martinelli in bubble wrap, because he's our best asset to get a result.

Meatwad

if you believe bayern were going to score several goals against us then that means you knew beforehand the occasion would get to us. the only way bayern were scoring is because of amateur defensive mistakes.

Claudius

Meatwad you go on like this is Mustafi’s Arsenal. We’ve been the best defense in Europe this year, and it’s a team effort, from the strikers to the goalie. The mistakes we made were uncharacteristic.

If you said to me - we conceded transition goals similar to Porto and Lens, then I’d listen. These Champs Lwague teams punish mistakes severely, so there is a learning there about reacting when we lose the ball.

Clrnc

Meatwad Exactly. People still think Bayern is good after watching the match? Like what Pep said, the occasion got to us and we need to treat these lot like Brighton or West Ham.

If we play to our full potential they are no match for us, home or away.

Meatwad

Claudius
the good thing is that with the way our schedule lines up, they'll get a great chance to prove those best defense in europe credentials.

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