Let's get some subs on soon and rest some of our key players. Strong bench, but I'd like to see Eddie and Kola get some minutes today.
I'm just catching up after being away. 2-1 after a beauty of a FK by Judge. So much for seeing mass substitutions now by Emery to relieve some of our A-teamers.
All game long I've been getting tons of drop-outs of my ESPN stream... the official one. Dropped video frames, audio-dropout, etc. They seem to happen on average like once every 30 secs. Pretty annoying. Anyone else who's watching on ESPN.com having similar issues? It could be something weird with my laptop I guess, but I don't see these kind of problems when I stream on NBC.com, etc. Edit: it got better in the last 30 mins, so who knows.
It's a little scary how any team that wants to attack us can. We're utterly incapable of shutting a game down.
Yeah this is way more nervous than it should be!! And we're playing a large number of first teamers. Emery obviously didn't want to take any chances. Maybe he doesn't have so much confidence in our kids. But this lot look anything but confidently in control. If there's a next goal it'll be huge.
3-1 Laca! Phew, glad this is over. I was just thinking of writing how we're winning games but don't look so good or commanding. For tonight, I would revise that to say we just left it a little late to seal the game. Onward.
One thing I noticed from what I caught watching the second half - our crosses from the wings and corner kicks were garbage. I don't recall anything that wasn't 10+ yards away from anyone wearing a red shirt. In several instances, closer than 25 yards might even be generous.
I seem to notice how we leave the middle of the pitch largely vacant during possession . I assume this is by design though I’m not sure why. I guess it’s so players can flash central and ditch their markers. I think the flip side of this is that when other teams transition, there is a lot of space centrally which sucks defenders and subsequently opens up the flanks. Hopefully we improve in this regard soon. Liverpool would murder us with this space.
It's by design to allow the CBs to play the ball directly to the forwards, at least that's what it looks like. Also because our attack approach is wing heavy, so it makes sense to add another player to either wing.
Right. Does that vacancy have anything to do with how even Brentford can put us on the back foot so easily?
I doubt it. We just suck at defending deep right now, and we can't keep possession. Say what you will about Wenger: we were able to defend deep under him, and we could keep the ball to slow a game down.
Ya, but we were 8th and 6th in goals against the last two years which is bout where we are now so not sure that was that productive.
Yeah, Wenger was not good at seeing our matches Our attack is so much more direct now and uses width better With a proper lb and left wing we will be much better
Some people thinking we have better CBS for a 3-5-2 or such. I wouldn’t mind seeing it in action. ————auba—laca Kola—ozil—tor—xhaka—bell ——mon——sok——mus Essentially it’s how we play now with the other forward swapped for an extra CB. Since Ramsey often duplicates the work of the CF from the 10 and ozil drifts to the 10 anyway, I can see it offering something.
I actually like the idea of us having 2 ST up top and am a bit partial to a variation of the 3-5-2 (i would go 3-4-1-2) but I don't think we have the CB or WB depth to pull it off right now
I've made this point before, the 4 years prior to the last two seasons, Arsenal were joint third, third, fourth, and second in goals allowed. In the joint third year they allowed one more goal than the league leader. So this appears to be a question of personnel rather than one of tactics. I don't believe it's a coincidence that the drop in defensive effectiveness coincides with the arrival of Xhaka and Mustafi.
I like 3 at the back so it could work Personally 433 is the way forward We have some interesting g decisions to make with auba/laca and the never ending Ramsey saga