Same shit, different day
1. We need depth at left back
I remember saying this before the start of the season, neither Gibbs nor Santos had convinced me. While Gibbs has proven me wrong with his great performances since the start of the season, his injury has only allayed fears of a lack of depth. I said in the last match report that there was way too much blame on Mannone for the goal. Santos was careless and played Norwich onside, and made the exact same mistake for the first goal in the Schalke game. The Schalke wingers ran past him with ease and quickly learned of our weakness and it was just plain embarassing.
2. Gnabry created the first real chance again
Yep, just like the Norwich game, a player who many of us hadn’t heard of a 17 year old kid was responsible for the first real shot on goal. For the Schalke game, the only shot on target, and it came in the third minute of stoppage time. Really don’t need to say much more, it is absolutely pathetic on every single level. The fact that we were at home, the fact we were trying to bounce back, its just unbelievable. The players attitudes must be questioned.
3. Defence is only the beginning of our problems
As discussed in point 2, we have a massive problem at the other end of the park. The midfield has looked absolutely lifeless, lacking ideas and the hunger. For a team that is known for its attacking prowess, I’d be more concerned with the attacking side of things and at how Wenger’s philosophy has gone horribly wrong in the past few games. Under this philosophy, the plan is to keep the ball, attack, score early, and repeat the process and put the opponent under more and more pressure, creating a vicious cycle. Unfortunately, with almost nothing to show for our possession, the jokes on us and we are put under pressure and eventually fall apart at the back.
4. This is a disturbing trend
Look I’ve watched football for many years, I know every team, even the best teams have their ups and downs, it happens. The disturbing trend with us is, every year, we tend to have more dry spells than the other big teams, and our dry spells tend to be much worse than theirs. You may think I’m overreacting here a bit, its only been two games, but if we look at how bad these two games were, where we could barely muster a goal on target and our most lively player was a 17 year old whom most of us had never heard of before last week. The Norwich loss put us 10 points behind the league leaders, a psychological blow of being double figure behind so early on in the season. The Schalke loss makes our Champions League qualification much harder. We had envisaged resting players for our last couple of games, but now that will not be possible. This sort of thing happens every season, we are going well, and our season jsut derails suddenly, and its not just an unfortunate bump in the journey, its a full blown derail which we can never get back on track for.
5. Its still early on in the season
The only positive that can come out of this is that it is early on in the season. If the team can stay fit and motivated and not have these ridiculous “bad runs”, or keep them to a minimum, there’s enough time to rectify this. 10 point leads have been clawed back, Champions Leagues have been won after slow starts. Its about how hungry the team is and how much desire they have, because we know they have the ability to succeed at the top level, its just frustrating to see them slip up so terribly from time to time.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
What i learned is when cazorla doesn’t run the show arsenal dont win! Also i think gnabry is just simply going to be 1 of the best 1day he already looks more threatening then most the team. Did anyone see hes skill near the corner flag before he crossed the ball lol shalke defence was absolutely taken out the game. Watch this kid is special he will be in first team very soon and walcott will be forgotten. Also afc should buy Huntelaar and wenger make him better then RVP how pissed would rvp be if huntlaar did that and became hollands 1st striker.
I saw that and loved it. He is talented but he needs to keep on coming on when matches are steady not just at the deep end when loosing. Haha! Walcott loves the club and there are very few players of that caliber, like Henry etc. Those who would sit on a bench than beating Arsenal. Give a chance at the sriking line esp in Captal cup and some other matches as a sub at the front to check himself.
I think you hit the nail on the head there.Arsene is a classy, ssiapotichted man, who treats his players like adults, and deep down can not really force himself to act like bacon face or other low IQ managers. He also started being successful at Arsenal when he had mature, competetive players in the side (Bergkamp, Adams, Vieira, Adams etc..) players who knew how to get the job done.But the problem is, beyond football and financial issues, we can see that Over the past 6 to 7 years, our different teams have had a psychological,problem. Either collapsing in February/March, or showing relegation form after losing a cup final, losing a 4 goal lead away from home etc On the other hand, MU who play mediocre football at the best of times, always fight to the end to salvage a point (helped by some scared referees, but that’s another topic).When you read players interviews, they all say that Wenger is like a father for them, and that he is always positive in the dressing room , and he tries to instill belief in his players.This doesn’t work always. And we see the big difference in mental strength *sigh* between Manure and ourselves. MU players have one extra incentive to produce a result: the fear of fergie. Classless cunt as he is, his players not only respect him (like I’m sure our players respect Arsene) but also fear him.Praising a team’s mental strength after it lost a two goal lead over local rivals away from home doesn’t always make the players believe it (assuming it is a message for the players).I seem to remember reading an interview a few years ago. We were playing at Anfield, playing horrible football, with no desire and no commitment, and of course we were losing at half time. Arsene savaged them at half time, using the F word and letting the p,ayers know they were not worth wearing the shirt.What happened next? We completely turned the game on its head and came away winners. 19 2
Rayed, I agree with you on point 1. That number needed a signing, I also spoke about it often because Gibbs is injury prone and Santos is more 11 than 3. He has no pace at all for that number once he overlaps and looses the ball.
Defensive middle field is another issue, Arteta needs a reliable cover for some games, him alone can’t do much for 2 games a week, even the number is not his natural number but plays it due to experience. He can’t last, he needs a break often to keep performing at the needed level.
Creativity is lacking that is why Arteta mentioned it. That is exactly his area of specialization. Carzola is a good ball player but he is new and the only one being over worked in that number game in game out. He is tired, if there was a defensive mid, Arteta would have relieved him without loosing games or dropping points. People blame Gervi and Giroud, but there are no clear chances like the ones we used to create in previous seasons for them to net. Some of the few chance, they create for themselves either from their pace or good movements. Otherwise, the likes of assists we used to talk of are not there. Arshavin was praised for assists last season, walcott and Song from behind that is minus Arteta but now who is there to talk about?
Agree with point 4 also as this season is also gone. Wenger needs to build a team for a FA and Capital Cups now. Premiership and Champions league are gone. We have no team to compete effectively every match.
I also think, its time Wenger to give Walcott an opportunity in the striking position for some matches for some minutes as he seem to be ready and we still want him as he has a strong love the club. He don’t want to see him in another team.
Players are paid and every player should evaluate himself individually after a game. Have I made an impact, have I have I saved a team. Every player should deserve a minute on the pitch, not just trying every game to lift them up for other teams to buy when they mature. So every player who comes on and get off the pitch withoput a short on goal, no tackle, no ball won, no chance created etc.
It’s so interesting that in Arsenal a player comes on for about 10-20 minutes and doesn’t attack, defend etc and still comes on the bench the next game. ha ha1 try that with Fergus or Morinouh and you will sort yourself for the rest of the season. Haha
I can see two problems with our team.We canont play our attacking game when we are facing opposition closing us down and pressuring us all over the pitch. This happened twice, against Chelsea and Norwich and it was very close also against Olympiacos. However, we do not adapt our ways and instead keep losing the ball and passing the ball sloppily and so conceding possession and inviting counter attacks.Also, we have completely lost the organization and the discipline in defending we had for the first few games (till Liverpool). This was one weapon which helped us a lot against teams who work hard but are not technically very good like Stoke and Sunderland. I know we did not win those games but we were better and just needed to improve offensively.I believe this team needs to play more on the counter attack (as in the first few games) or at least be calmer and possession with more movement and exchanging of positions between the midfielders or else what happened against Norwich is going to repeat itself.Finally, I think Vermaelen and Gervinho need to really up their games because we have players out of the first 11 who I believe are better, namely Koscielny and Chamberlain, or be left out of the starting line up (of course when both Chamberlain and Koscielny regain fitness), 21 0
AW has absolutely NO idea about a tactical game of football, his only substitutions coming after injury or at 70 mins on the dot.
He does not know how to react to the opposition’s reaction to AFC, this is why AFC is getting worse.
At least it was entertaining when we played “pretty football”, now there is not even that.
AFC has become a boring business, instead of a football team, which is not all bad IF someone with grass roots football knowledge is actually running the team, and let the “economical meister” go sit on the board or elsewhere.