Jump to content
IGNORED

Arsenal

cubeadvance

By cubeadvance
in Sport

 Share

Recommended Posts

The Fox

The Fox

Posted
Posted

The most concerning thing is that's actually the best we've played for a few weeks in the league. Could and probably should have won 3-0, but still were poor. The unit isn't functioning properly; we've been relying on moments of individual brilliance for quite a while now.

Coquelin-Ramsey should be an improvement but I'm not sure it'll be enough. Wenger doesn't seem to think Elneny is physically up to it yet so we can probably rule out Elneny-Coq with Ramsey on the right, even though that could actually be interesting.

Edit: also think Gabriel has a lot of work to do on his game. Very fast, which is good, but he doesn't look comfortable on the ball and for someone as aggressive as he seems, he's worryingly weak in the air. Early days though

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Rev

Rev

Posted
Posted

The problem, well probably the main one, is that Wenger is preaching that this is a normal season so we shouldn't change our approach. It's entirely understandable from his point of view because he clearly believed that we could have won it every year, so the fact we could have this year doesn't change anything. That means the players aren't being any different to normal, there's good play (even with everyone managing to be out of form at once) and decent results. Playing for fourth this mini run of three games is actually fine.

The end of that should have been one goal down in a cup final, but it just sort of petered out. That's a disgrace.

Good luck to Flamini with his new fuel to replace oil. I think it's reasonable to say that it would be better for everyone if he focused on that now as he has become one of the most consistently bad footballers I've ever seen. His moment of bringing a potential counter-attack to a stop so that he could play a precise pass to an opponent was horrific.

Anyway, congrats to Pellegrini and fingers crossed for top 6 next season.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
The Fox

The Fox

Posted
Posted

Would be getting Theo on here I think (just not on the left). With Ramsey playing more conservatively, and Alexis being Alexis (ie never ever going on the outside or running in behind), there's not a lot of attacking movement.

Well this sure as fuck didn't work. Another non-performance from him.

1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Larsen B

Larsen B

Posted
Posted

Theo's done for some reason. And Ramsey is a great player that just can't work in the centre for how we need to play. I don't have any faith in Coquelin/Ramsey at all.

Hard not to think that this is a pretty special collapse. Worse than Gerrard slipping against Chelsea, this is a squad repeatedly slipping in every game in 2016.

I wouldn't mind winning the FA Cup again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Silent Runner

Silent Runner

Posted
Posted

Good luck to Flamini with his new fuel to replace oil. I think it's reasonable to say that it would be better for everyone if he focused on that now as he has become one of the most consistently bad footballers I've ever seen. His moment of bringing a potential counter-attack to a stop so that he could play a precise pass to an opponent was horrific.

Anyway, congrats to Pellegrini and fingers crossed for top 6 next season.

God, that was pathetic. He had options everywhere and he starts looking behind him. I half expected him to hit it 70 yards back to Cech.

Tricky one away to Bournemouth the weekend. Easily see us losing that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Steve007

Steve007

Posted
Posted

I did say we were not in anyway shape or form ready to make a challenge for the title with the squad we've got and everyone thought I was just being negative. As ever, I was just being realistic and saying it as it is.

You can't be optimistic and hope for success in sport, you have to go & earn it. You have to give 100% every game like Leicester are doing. Giving 100% enables you win games you were otherwise expected to lose or draw. Ozil, Cech, Monreal, Koscielny & Sanchez aside, the rest are not trying or are simply not good enough. You cannot win league titles with a squad like ours and I am sick of having to say this.

I still think we are good enough for a top 4 finish, which incidentally is all the club are worried about. Maybe we need to finish badly & drop out the top 4 in order to get some damn investment in that squad & start again. Nothing will change otherwise. It would also be refreshing to clear all the deadwood out (Flamini, Gibbs, Arteta, Mertesacker, Rosicky, Ospina, Szczesny etc) and recruit some decent talent in the summer. Speaking of deadwood, I wouldn't be sorry to see the entire coaching staff get slung out as they are not coaching the players properly. They get everything from conditioning the players to set-piece training completely wrong. We still can't take corners properly and no one ever knows what's going to happen with a free kick. And why isn't Giroud getting the coaching he badly needs? Who's fucked up Oxlade-Chamberlain and made him play like a complete muppet for the last 12 months? How can Walcott still be absolutely useless at everything? Something isn't right.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
The Fox

The Fox

Posted
Posted

Can't say I've seen a lack of effort in recent weeks. That certainly wasn't a problem last night, and we created plenty of chances. The finishing was the issue: Özil, Koscielny and Walcott all missed fairly simple chances to score.

The stats fad currently is talking about 'Expected Goals' (often written as xG), and it's an area where Arsenal are consistently underperforming in tight games. Similarly, everyone always talks about opposition keepers having worldies against us, but surely at some point you have to say that's not just down to luck.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Steve007

Steve007

Posted
Posted

Sanchez aside, our players are not ruthless in front of goal. Giroud & Walcott in particular are so damn wasteful.

We don't have a natural goalscorer in the entire squad and haven't had one since Henry left. Henry is obviously impossible to replace, but how hard can it be to pluck someone who can finish all the chances we create and stick him in an Arsenal shirt?

To use Leicester as an example again, they seemed to pluck players from lower leagues and abroad that no-one else was monitoring and took a chance on them for very little money with massive success so far. Why can't so-called big clubs do the same? It doesn't always have to be a big-name signing that we need. Our supposed world-class scouting network appears to be continuously sending scouts to the wrong fucking games and has been for the last few years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
The Fox

The Fox

Posted
Posted

To go back to the stats nerd stuff again, Giroud is actually the only player converting above his xG this season.

xG as far as I know examines number and quality of chances created to determine how many goals you *should* be scoring. Alexis and Özil are a bit under par, while Ramsey and Walcott are having very poor spells in front of goal.

https://twitter.com/colinttrainor/status/694838787793391616

Re: the Leicester point - the likes of Koscielny and Gabriel weren't big names by any means. Elneny could be another one. I'm not sure it's really a valid complaint, to be honest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
wev

wev

Posted
Posted

Indeed, Wenger and the scouts pluck somebody from obscurity and its "why won't Arsenal spend big/buy World Class?", Wenger and co bring in Özil, Sanchez and Cech and the criticism becomes that the scouts aren't picking out players no one else is linked to.

Although it does seem to be that the club applies one or the other far too often but the days of unveiling a Petit/Overmars combo (for example) are highly unlikely in this age of wide spread global coverage of most of Europe's top leagues.

1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Gabe

Gabe

Posted
Posted

Can't say I've seen a lack of effort in recent weeks. That certainly wasn't a problem last night, and we created plenty of chances. The finishing was the issue: Özil, Koscielny and Walcott all missed fairly simple chances to score.

The stats fad currently is talking about 'Expected Goals' (often written as xG), and it's an area where Arsenal are consistently underperforming in tight games. Similarly, everyone always talks about opposition keepers having worldies against us, but surely at some point you have to say that's not just down to luck.

People used to say that about my lot too when the reality was that we just weren't creating good chances. It's like the current situation where the stats show we've created loads of chances this season but when you actually watched our games (hint: don't, we're pretty rubbish) most shots were either tame and straight at the keeper or miles high and/or wide.

I'm surprised at the mood in here though. You guys are only 5 points off the top with both City and Leicester to play; you may or may not be playing well but that deficit hardly looks too daunting, no? I think you, City, Leicester and Tottenham are all serious challengers right now, and you have to play all of them. Your rather dysfunctional midfield has got you to where you are currently, why do you think that won't be good enough in the remaining games?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
The Fox

The Fox

Posted
Posted

It's been a combo of factors. Flamini-Ramsey is dysfunctional, but it's compounded by lack of quality in the wide areas. The squad balance is very delicate, unfortunately; we get a couple of injuries and suddenly the unit goes to shit and we have real issues maintaining our style of play.

It's not over just yet but we have a tricky game away at Bournemouth next and we need the midfield and wide forward positions functioning better immediately.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Use of this website is subject to our Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, and Guidelines.

  I accept