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Hello everyone,


That was very painful isn't it. Losing against any team brings pain but losing against Stoke, after all the things that happened in our previous meetings was very painful.

Djourou started the game after passing the fitness test, but Clichy missed out and so Gibbs took his place.

We started the game very well. Arshavin had a early chance which he dragged wide. The second chance fell to RVP after a great ball from Ramsey but he took his time and shot wide. Two good chances wasted in the first 10 minutes and when you do that, it will surely come back to bite you. Arsenal continued to dominate and we had 72% possession after the first 20 minutes.

Gibbs, who started in place of Clichy really struggled. Arshavin was  doing a double role because of this and he did it pretty well until the 27th minute, then he conceded a cheap free kick on Pennant from which Stoke scored. Our defense went to shambles when Pennant put the ball into our box. Gibbs was just standing still instead of making an attempt to head the ball and Djourou, who had a torrid game left his man Jones to have a free run and Jones scored. Arsenal were shaken and you can easily smell a self destruction. It happened after 6 minutes. Ramsey, who had a decent game until then gave away the ball cheaply, Sagna instead of closing down Pennant, ran away from him , Djourou waited and waited and waited before eventually closing down Pennant, but by that time Pennant unleashed his shot which took a deflection  via Djourou and sailed past Szczesny. Szczesny could have done well. His positioning was not perfect and that's why he could only get a hand to it. That's our self destruction well and truly done. Djourou was at fault for both of Stoke's goal. Minutes later Stoke had another chance. Walters had the ball on the right, Song who was defending him slipped and that allowed Walters to have a free run at goal and his super shot hit the cross bar and that was half time.

Arsene reacted to our poor first half my taking off Ramsey and Arshavin at half time for Bendtner and Chamakh. I was very much surprised by Arshavin's substitution. He was playing pretty well except for that one costly mistake. At the other flank Theo was completely abysmal and we could have take him off instead of Arshavin. RVP switched to the middle, Nick went to the left and Chamakh played up front  with Theo on the right ( or that's how it looked from outside)

We looked a bit sharper now. First chance of second half fell to Chamakh, which he lashed wide. Bendtner then curled a shot just wide. Stoke then had a great chance to extend their lead but Sagna produced a brilliant last ditch tackle to deny him and minutes later Szczesny saved well from Walters. Arsenal had a great chance when RVP was played in by Bendtner but Begovic produced a great save to deny him. Arsene brought on Rosicky for Song and minutes later RVP got the goal  he deserved with a thunderous shot with his chocolate leg.

Before the celebrations from the away crowd could complete, we went back to self destruction mode. Wilinson' shot was terribly cleared by Djourou (again) and Walters took the opportunity to score Stoke's third goal and that's how it ended.

Our performance deserved the defeat we got. Lots of players played below par. Djourou had a terrible game, Gibbs struggled a lot as expected, Theo was completely abysmal and our midfield which was awesome against ManU was very poor as well. On the positive side, Koscielny had another great game. He has outstanding both on the ground and on the air. Hands down he was my MOTM for Arsenal. RVP  also played well  and continued with his amazing goal scoring streak.

It was a very unexpected performance and lets wait and see how the team is going to bounce back when they face Aston Villa at the Emirates next week. Until then, have a good time.