yup, this is where I am THIS season. The stat monkeys keep saying (over the years) that buying a striker wasn't necessary.
Wait, who has said this? I certainly haven't. I've said that the kinds of strikers that would be an upgrade at Arsenal aren't on the market often, and are well outside Arsenal's price range. And the ones in Arsenal's price range, the Perezes and the Janssens of the world, aren't all that great.
For a while now, modern football has been about patterns, rehearsed sequences. Many, wrongly, decry it as a loss of creativity. Arsenal still try to play a free flowing sort of game and often it's too labored and too slow.
I was thinking about this, comparing Wenger to Belichick in my mind while watching the Super Bowl. Part of the reason why they are so different is that on a continuum American football is choreographed whereas soccer is improvised. Wenger likes to train the generic "quality" of the players, hopefully they'll be able to handle whatever circumstance arises. But we're well past the effectiveness of that idea. We see the same situations over and over again, and our guys are woefully unprepared for how to deal with them.
I wonder if that's one of the reasons that players generally like Wenger so much? That he's not a micro-manager like Pep? Wenger gives them quite a bit more freedom to play and "express themselves"? Not saying it's a more successful strategy, just that it might be more popular with the players.
This. As a soccer coach, I'm a bit of a geek and I've literally watched every goal Barca goal between 2008-2012 (under Pep) and I'd challenge the idea that they are not rehearsed in the final third—maybe in principal, but in practice they definitely have patterns. There are several recurring themes to how their goals were scored. In contrast, Arsenal are not as easy to characterize but that's for a myriad of reasons (personnel changes being one). Pep's growth is interesting because he adapted and built-upon ideas that had come full circle when he came to Bayern. Pep is a disciple of Cruyff, so the gegenpress isn't really a new concept to him. Anyway, when we were playing well early in the season we were quicker out of transition—not letting defenders get set up and we were, to steal an NFL term, ball hawks. We were first to loose and 50/50 balls. But Wenger has let that slide. Alexis is back out wide like last year (and we look like last year). Giroud is back up top (and we look like last year). A healthy Bellerin is on the bench?? There's just no growth at Arsenal. Hasn't really been for several years now. There are spikes in form and performance but rarely sustained. It's always "pretty good" overall but I think his ego got the best of him. Any team, any sport, a vast majority of the time needs a "best of" to win (or several).
Barca had great patterns they would use to break vertically and then back horizontally. They would play a 1-2-3 with three players that got free runs on goal all the time. They would also keep their wingers really wide so they would come into the back post with acres of space.
Wenger is sort of like Phil Jackson, in that they are great when they have all time greats but when they don't... As I said before, Wenger's ceiling is the invincibles so there's that. He just can't seem to deal with the fact that he doesn't have the same caliber player at his disposal. Even with those players, one can argue that they should've conquered Europe. In any event, we all "lose it" at some point, assuming one has "had it" at any time.
oh, no. i don't disagree with you about his lack of quality at all. my issue with that article (beyond the elneny/coquelin partnership that mebe and prince noted) in the fact that they consider him a failure at defensive midfield . . . when he does not play there.
i mean, to be fair, wenger would like to play a midfield playmaker EVERYWHERE if possible. i miss lauren. the problem with the xhaka/ramsey partnership i have so far is he still wants xhaka to direct from higher up than he should and he wants ramsey (or oxlade-chamberlain who he seems to see the same thing in) to be the deepest receiver who then bombs forward to provide the additional threat.
agree and disagree Riley's Knicks and early Heat teams did not have anywhere near the talent his Lakers teams had, yet were always serious title contenders because he adapted to his personnel. Look at Popovich. I think the issue is that Wenger doesn't have a structured system.
I would say he doesnt adapt He has an out dated system Popovic adapted and rileys teams had different superstars in various positions so ran the best offence for those stars