Yeah Giroud was completely invisible, but then again what did we create for him in 1T? But Ozil played the whole match including 45 mins without Giroud. And Ozil was poor... in creation, execution and impact. Ox gets credit for playing pretty well (though not as well as last time) especially after picking up what seemed like a serious knock at the time. Seems like he just played through that. Without Sanchez & Iwobi our offense was lost. Iwobi was his usual forceful-yet-a-little-ragged self. Sanchez his usual energizer-bunny self. There was one really funny moment when Iwobi got into a jam in the corner, looked like he didn't know quite what to do, so Sanchez runs over, literally takes the ball off his foot and starts to create space for himself like only he can do. Not their best nights perhaps, but man without those two, I shudder to think what we'd have done tonite.
Yeah I had that same thought midway through the match. I wonder if we'd have won tonite with that bunch. The contrast between the two first halves (Saturday @Soton vs tonight @home) couldn't be more stark.
I disagree about any of our players as wrong signings or that we needed to make a move in this window. This team has the talent to win the league. We have the talent to beat many of the teams where we drop points. We don't lack talent, we lack leadership. As big of douchebags Rooney, Terry or Lampard are, they led their teams and made everyone keep there shit together. We have no one, not even the manager holding guys accountable.
exactly. clus been that way for a while...years actually. Which explains our mediocrity with the inability to win it all. You get to start even if you suck and there are better options on the bench. Must suck if your trying to break into the starting line up even if you have spectacular starts and show real talent. Lands on the Manager to get the line up right and adjust. Not AWs strength as we all know.
Giroud is a supersub. In the last 20 minutes of a game he is absolutely deadly because the defense has been worn down by the speed and positional interchanging of the more mobile front 3. He can be our Ole Gunner if Wenger commits to not playing him until the clock hits 60 minutes.
I just heard Wenger's post-match interview. He came as close as you'll ever hear to slagging off his players, regarding how they started the match. He said their mentality wasn't right, they weren't "at it". He went on to say the 2nd half was how he wanted them to play, and we were unlucky to not equalize. Of course he was masking some real anger & disappointment. What an opportunity we threw away, by not showing up in the first 20 mins.
It's at this point in the season where I kind of get disillusioned and mentally and emotionally check out. Came earlier than expected this year. In fairness, Chelsea's incredible run of form is making the rest of the pack look like a bunch of chumps. Champion's League or bust.
Indeed. Chelsea are playing out of their skulls- I think they're on pace for something like 93 points, which would be close to a league record. I see no shame in not keeping up with that. On the other hand, coming in second to Leicester last year, who won with 81 points. THAT is embarrassing.
Arsenal cant improve on the margins where the trophy winnging happens cause manager aint good enough and too arrogant and set in his ways
That may be true, but I've reflecting lately on two alternatives: Guardiola & Klopp. And coming to the conclusion that they are as stubborn and inflexible with their tactics as Wenger. Maybe even more so? For me that's a little sobering, since I've been day-dreaming this season about us having Jurgen instead of Arsene. To give him some credit, yesterday Wenger actually adjusted the tactics at halftime and we had a much better 2nd half, although not enough to actually come back and get a result. His decision to start Giroud up top did seem to backfire, and yet I can understand why he did it for rotation purposes amongst other things. But honestly I don't think you can blame that on how badly we played defensively in the first 20mins... we lost nearly every 50/50 ball, and several times let them run through our defense at will.
Against a team with 2 giants in the back, he didn't instruct the team to prioritize the second ball. That's a failure on the manager.
Didn't see the match--thankfully it sounds like. But to compare a watford team who is "up for it" to a soton B team is a bit of a stretch. As good as niles and co were Saturday, I don't think too many of us would have complained about the team sheet pre match. In my memory coq-Ramsey has never worked but even so, it was a side that should have beat any watford side at home. First goal seemed lucky and even the second, but defensively we have been fragile all season. Even early we had games where the opposition just couldn't finish--now we have the opposition getting a bit lucky. As boring as it sounds, I think post wenger we need a return to the old Arsenal days of lock-down defense if we ever want to win again. Statistics show that in terms of league points a clean sheet is more valuable than a goal--so while you can only get one clean sheet per game it should be the first priority.
Early f*** ups aside, I think Wenger made a mistake bringing on Perez for Coquelin (even if Perez did hit the bar). Completely screwed up the spacing in attack, and messed up the balance in midfield, and the team couldn't get anything going.
Interesting from the daily mail regarding Coquelin http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...nal-won-10-games-season-without-Coquelin.html
Diego Simeone please. He can bring Koke and Saul with him And strong defense is not boring. I grew up watching GG's Arsenal, and wasn't bored. I watch At. Madrid, and don't get bored.
i would! why were we playing bellerin 90 against soton's B side and gabriel in this game? bellerin's presence would have helped both offensively and defensively. and gave our lineup balance. and throw-ins would have likely been less of a mess. he may not have had a choice with midfield but he did up front and starting giroud against a defense that featured kaboul and prodl is silly. sanchez's movement would have given those two much more trouble than giroud attempting to physically fight them. the defense got even more fragile once sanchez became his usual frantic self when we fall behind, leaving the left side which pushed monreal up and alone on the left. and, instead of having gabriel stayed deep (as vermaelen did when he went to left-back), he kept going forward where he is less useful offensively than flamini was at the end. i'm still irritated that we were dominated in the middle of the pitch by a midfield that had a right-back in janmaat in as a right-mid and a right-winger in behrami in the middle. WTF?