Martin’s Musings on the Arsenal defeat: ‘we deserved more’

With thanks to Jake for adapting Kartun Malaysia's caricature*

Martin O’Neill must have read my comments at Sixer’s Sevens about Arsenal probably if narrowly deserving to win. He uses his post-match e-mail tell me how wrong I was …

Click here for the Martin O’Neill ‘Team of all Talents’ mug: £9.50, post-free for UK buyers, from the Salut! Sunderland Shop


Dear Colin,

It was very disappointing to lose to a late goal.

I don’t think we deserved that because even after the exertions of Wednesday night, the players put absolutely everything into the game.

The players did tire towards the end, but even so I don’t think we deserved to lose the game.

It has been a tough task to play five games in two weeks, but the advantage might sway in our direction when Arsenal have to play midweek next week and we have the cup tie, there’s still everything to play for.

It was disappointing to lose in the manner that we did.

The team applied a lot of pressure on Arsenal in the second half and that’s how we got our goal.

I had hoped that would be enough, but Arsenal are a fine side and the players were getting tired. It’s a shame we didn’t see it through.

It looked as though we should have won a penalty kick in the first half, but it wasn’t given.

On another occasion it might have been given, but that wasn’t the case today.

I could never fault the team in terms of effort and determination. They put everything into the game.

There were times where we had to sit and play without the ball, which can happen against a team like Arsenal, but the players are learning all the time and that was tough to take today.

All the best,

Martin O’Neill

* See Kartun Malaysia’s Flickr images at this link

8 thoughts on “Martin’s Musings on the Arsenal defeat: ‘we deserved more’”

  1. Quietly confident we will win the cup game. Hugely disappointed we got nothing from the league game.
    Still, they were the better team, but with our valiant defending it was always going to take something ‘special’ to score and that was what Ramsey produced.
    Henry? Hats off to him, he has been a talisman type figure for Arsenal and to grab that late winner was out of this world if you are a Gooner. Sadness at the loss, but, the reality sinks in. We were second best towards the end.
    C’mon the Lads! We will win the cup encounter.

  2. Someone on Facebook said “Bring on the Arse!”

    I don’t think Bendtner will be eligible though, even if it’s a cup tie.

  3. Everyone’s unhappy that we were beaten by an Arsenal side full of talent and experience because we thought, rightly in my opinion, that we had a chance of at least a point.

    Compare that to…

    ….the end of last year
    ….the beginning of last year
    ….two years ago.

    We’ve come a long way. Some distance still to travel but I, for one, am optimistic.

  4. We defended very well but you could see a few of our lads blowing hard toward the end,conceding possession is a difficullt game stamina wise.We got away with it against Swansea but Arsenal’s finishing abilities are far greater.

    I cannot feel too downhearted as we gave it a good go and that is all you can ask.Penalty decison was a farce,but we seem to get one big error every week now and it sure makes games a lottery ,especially in tight games like that.The referee may well have cost us 3 points ,let’s hope we get that one controversial decision next game

  5. A draw’s the last thing we need. That replay against Boro, going into extra time, too, took its toll yesterday. West Brom are on a bit of a high and we can ill afford to go there on the 25th straight off another midweek marathon. But I fancy us for a win against the Gooners this time.

  6. I hope you’re right Jeremy, It should be a different game. My main hope is that if we play Campbell we do so up top and ‘go for it’ a bit more. Obviously no Bendtner again so we need to do that as a draw’s no good to us is it?

  7. Had it ended at 1-1 I’d have felt hard done by, but to lose was tough to take.

    Very unusual for 2 subs to get on the scoresheet for the visitors but next week they will be missing both Henry as well as Mertesacker. I fancy us to put them out of the cup. I suspect that MON has a strategy to treat both these games differently and he would prefer to win the second game. We will be more of a threat in the final third next week and will treat them with a little less respect. We looked a little leggy in the final stages of the game. We will have had a week off while they will be more tired after a midweek trip to Milan.

  8. You deserved shooting for a pitch as bad as that. Not acceptable in 2012 my friends.
    A good contest none the less, but with the right result imho. Thats not to take away the good work MoN is doing.

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