Podolski is worthless to me in Fifa13, besides the fact that he has a rocket launcher shot. There were at least two offensive runs he made today where he would have been clean through but Walcott or Wilshere tried to take another dribble and got fouled/loss the ball.
He had two great blocks at 32'. Gerv would not have had those. He depends on his mids for offense and they were not having a good day offensively. It was good day for avoiding injury.
he started out as a striker/second striker afaik and has gradually been moved out to a left sided, wide forward.
hmm, it's hard to say really, because he has been successful in both positions, as a striker for cologne and as a wide forward for germany, but i guess his preferred position is as a striker.
Just got to watch the match...pretty "meh" performance all the way around. Defense was under a lot of pressure, but handled it pretty well I think. Midfield 3 were pretty weak today IMHO--don't know if it's that they are tired or were under too much pressure or what, we couldn't get the ball into their third to save our life. Anyway, 3 points is 3 points...we are in 3rd for the moment with some favorable results going our way elsewhere. I'll take it.
The fans should appreciate the reality that our performances have actually been more consistent than they've been given credit for. Swansea, Reading, and today against Wigan all look the same to me from Arsenal's point of view. The difference in results are almost entirely due to the the performance of the opponents imo. Walcott has really put us in a bind. We can go back and forth (and some have) regarding whether Walcott's desire to play center forward is a smokescreen or not. But, it's bad news for Arsenal either way. Walcott has a position, he's a winger. If he plays center forward, he hurts himself, Giroud, and Podolski. But if it's about money, and we give him the contract he wants, does he have any transfer value left over? Wenger isn't doing us any favors either. We've got a decent enough squad. Unfortunately Wenger insists on coaching it. Incompetently.
One more thing. Our goal was a soft foul but not a soft call. The penalty call was ice cold. Walcott gets his square in front of Beausejour and clearly has control of the ball in the area. Beausejour runs up the back of him and knocks him over, never even makes a play on the ball. Any other call would have been outrageous. Either one of their handball shouts in extra time could have been given, but as a practical matter very rarely are where the player has his arm pinned against his body.
Kinda agree with him that our performance was shambolic, but a win is a win. 3rd is a pretty good position to be in considering how we have been.
Excellent considering how we have been. Overall it could be much, much better with some games being winable but we could not do. But I will look at this. Reading kept Man City at 0-1 while they could only keep us at 2-5. At our best we are among the best.
TV5 has been very disciplined, for him, in the past few games. Kudos to him. Good win. Glad to see the squad on the bounce. Will be interesting to see who leaves/comes in IF ANY in the January Window.
Good to see one of the most vocal of the 'Vermaelen is pants' crowd acknowledge his play, which as you said has been pretty solid for the past few (or more) matches. He's not as good as many think, but he's also nowhere near as bad as a few have made him out to be.
We played him there for a couple of games near the start of the season and he was pants, in fairness to him he was just settling in to a new country/league so its hardly fair to judge him. I think he would have buried that chance that Theo had yesterday from Ox's cross
Theo as CF is an intriguing idea...kind of like how Arshavin at CF was a couple of seasons ago. Ultimately, he is not our answer through the middle, this I believe.
I wonder if all of the talk of a new striker is an indirect admission that Wenger got it wrong with Giroud. I mean, it's only been half a season. Actually, Giroud, Gervinho, Chamakh, Arshavin...Wenger's record with forwards and strikers has not been that great lately. Personally, I think he got it right with Podolski and Theo (finally), but even they are inconsistent.