We do this to plenty of young players. We leave the squad short and then throw our young players into a variety of positions, and they inevitably turn into a rather poor jack of all trades. It's a really shitty habit of Wenger's and one he needs to b called out on.
Please stop with the incessant midget ball references. The defending was horrid today. I concur with that assessment. We all get you think Wenger is an idiot. But you seem to think using the word "midget" is hip or cool. It's not. We are all adults here. Constant repetition is simply lame.
You can always get talent if you're willing to open the wallet. That's one major truth of football. That being said, the Wenger era of the last several years has been a repeat of the same shit. I love Wenger, but I don't know that he's capable of winning CL or the Prem ever again. It is a tough spot to be in. He always delivers good seasons. At this point we're hungry for some great ones. I wouldn't mind a switch to Klopp. The timing might be right for both parties. Honestly, I wouldn't mind another season of Wenger either, provided that we finish top 4 and he actually addresses our shortcomings in the transfer windows.
A win today would have had us 10 points off in a wide open title race with half the season left. Beating City in a couple of weeks would have narrowed it to 7. We had momentum going into this game from the WHU win, how did we manage to **** this up
A terrible mistake by szcz, a lucky bounce to a southampton player to score, we take none of our chances. We'll get better and still sneak forth, but these games are tough to watch.
hmmm..... i don't get it...good win away at the Boleyn...now this shit... I'll just say i don't get how many Gooners can still be arsene in.....i see no reason to believe he is willing or able to turn things around....use some rationality, not wishful/baseless thinking...
We've been playing without a real midfield for a while now and today our defense had an off day. Hopefully the return of our midfield players will lift us. We have been fortunate to take 6 of the last 9 points.
Turned the match on around 11, saw the score in the trending section of twitter. Happy I was spared from sitting through it. But a midfield with Chambers and Coquelin was never going to beat a top 4 team.
I disagree with this assessment, that's kind of the point. It's not like the players for Barca, Chelsea or Real work for free. Even if some other club can match or beat them on the money, the ability to play in and win big games and play with other good players in addition will carry the day. Let me step back for a bit and paint the big picture, because that's what's important for me today. For the last couple of years, say the last half of the season before last, we've had some idea of where we stand. We're held back by the weight of complacency, incompetence, and pennypinching. But as bad as that is, it's not the whole story: we also have most of the pieces of a title-challenging or title-winning squad. So, from 30000 ft, the way forward was clear. Throw off the chains of complacency, incompetence and pennypinching, make the improvements that are there to be made, and take our chances. What I'm afraid of is that the window on that is closing for us. Even if we did throw off the complacency, incompetence, etc., we just won't have enough stature as a club to get the players we need to be successful. As bad as Wenger has been, the one thing that he has been able to do is convince good players to sign for us. If we lose that, we'll really be fcuked. How much more money would it have taken to finish the perfect window from last summer or last January? 50M GBP, maybe 100M tops? By contrast, how much money did City spend since they bought Robinho? 400M maybe. However much it is, it would be a lot more now. More money than we have, that's for sure. It's much more likely that we'll end up like Liverpool or Aston Villa.
I'm not much for hamhanded efforts to enforce PC conformity. That said, the midget thing is only part of the picture. For example, today we had Chambers, Marty, Larry, and Szcz on the field, 6'2" at least for all them, and none of them had a good performance. We also had Alexis, Rosicky, Cazorla, Ox, as our forwards/creative players, and there were times where the ball was up for grabs in the Southampton penalty area and we needed more physical presence there, so you can say the midget thing is legit. But Rosicky and Cazorla especially, weren't able to pass through the midfield effectively, something that we should expect them to do, size or no size. That's why I'm looking at the big picture for this one. There were just so many failures here, individually and collectively, it's hard to sort out which ones "really" cost us.
Real/Barca/Bayern haven't been our competition for at least half a decade. We're not beating those clubs to any signings, so that's nothing new. Bale, Neymar, and Lewa aren't coming here. Our big signings of recent years are guys who were surplus to or unwanted by the giant clubs (Alexis, Cazorla, Ozil). That said, Man City is walking proof that a fat wallet matters more than club stature alone. You pay enough money and you can get Yaya Toure and Sergio Aguero too. It will always be that way. Expenditure doesn't explain why we're losing to Southampton though. We have the money, prestige, and reputation to attract better players than them. It just seems like some other clubs are doing a better job of maximizing their resources. I like a lot of what we have and think we're just a few pieces away from being where we need to be, but for whatever reason we've really been stuck in the mud this season. The weak links are killing us. Having said all of that, we're only four points out of the CL spots and there's a lot of time left. We've done a good job of rallying the last few years. Add a starter in January, get everyone healthy, get motivated, and we can still finish in the top four. The real shame is that we can't seem to break out of this pattern every year. Wenger can get us to 3rd-4th every year, but we seem to have hit a ceiling with him.
Soton are good this year, even if they're a "small club" historically. The issue is Arsene's methods, he's past it. had we had good methods, I strongly believe we could be in the top 2/3, even top. We're our own worst enemy, and we've drawn/lost many matches we shouldn't have. And Real/Barca sign unwanted/surplus players all the time....it's nothing to shirk at. Cesc for Chelsea was surplus, as was di Maria for United, Balotelli for Liverpool, etc. who cares if they're good players with international experience?
I see the same things, but to me they mean substantially the opposite of what you're suggesting. When the Arabs bought City, they wouldn't have been able to get Yaya Toure or Sergio Aguero. They had to buy Robinho first (and then Jo and then Nigel DeJong and a couple others). And they had to spend significantly over market value to do it. If they hadn't bought those players first, they wouldn't have been able to get Yaya, Aguero, Silva, etc. When you factor in the cost of the stepping-stone players, plus the over-market value they had to pay for their good players plus the ones they bought and got rid of (eg Gareth Barry, Adam Johnson, Adebayor), it's pretty clear for me at least that the cost of building a contending roster is several times higher for a club without stature than it would be for us. Therefore, if we do lose our perceived stature as a perennial CL participant and League contender, I don't think we'll have the financial resources to get it back. We are going to get established talent primarily from talented players who are politically out of favor or a poor fit at a mega-club (Alexis, Ozil, Illarramendi), or young players from non-elite clubs who are looking to succeed a higher level (Rodwell, Rooney, Bale). Liverpool would love to have a player like Alexis. They may even be able to afford him. But no matter how much money there is, you can't force him to play at a place where he has no realistic shot at achieving his football ambitions. That's true, but given what's happened so far this year, even if we finish 3rd or 4th in the League it's going to be difficult to create the perception that we're a team on the upswing. Without that, just finishing in the CL places may not be enough.
My streak may have ended, and Arsenal may have lost, but at least I won today. I got engaged, so there's that
Our injury/unavailable list: Ramsey, Wilshere, Arteta, Ozil, Walcott, Giroud, Welbeck. That says it all, doesn't it?
for me, the combination of the first team defense being back and, again, playing with 2 holding midfielders (as oppose to what he has done in the past and either play cazorla or oxlade-chamberlain in the middle) leads me to belief that he went back to where he tended to be more "defensive" on the road and tries to control the ball. what we routinely think of as "midget ball" was reverting back to a few years back when he had two 10s in cazorla and rosicky up front and a 9 who is not a 9 but who tends to roam, including dropping deep to collect the ball. this is no knock on oxlade-chamberlain because he has really come on but it may have worked if walcott was wide right because he would try to make that run to push the defensive line back but, as was, the defense was free to push up and congested the middle - something we saw time and again a few years back. i think it's a thing where a pretty good hammer is still better than an amazing screwdriver at driving a nail. i know he has plenty of detractors here but, while he may not be world class or, as frequently pointed out, "arsenal quality", he provides an aerial outlet as well as a link up. his attempts to challenge central defenders in the box and his runs forces the defense to be honest instead of just being able to push up at will, correcting what we think of as "midget ball". there were a number of times today where somebody was making a run to the byline with no bodies in the box and the majority of our attackers floating at the edge of the box. it was frustrating.
it's amazing the number of people who jizzed their pants during preseason and early season about wenger finding the next great buy and the number now who says he sucks. he is still the same 19 year old who came into the season with 22 appearances in top flight football and was bought to be the 2nd fullback and 3rd centreback but has been forced into more appearances than he is ready for due to injuries (and wenger's either unwillingness or inability to have additional defensive depth). i still think the kid has tremendous potential but, as you said, wenger is doing him no favours throwing him into an unfamiliar position on the road against a top four team. ugh. i think it is neat how you are able to venture that chambers sucks without having watched the game.
There was a play late in the game when we were desperate for a goal when Gibbo flew to the biline and delivered a cross. THERE WAS EXACTLY ONE PLAYER IN THE BOX trying to get at the end of that cross to try to score a goal. Akpom. He was the only one---the rest of them couldn't be bothered. And then you realize that Akpom only came on with like 5 minutes left! Naturally, I would have imagined that Ollie would have also added some more direct and forceful play. But of course he lost his head with the three Game red card. Theo had what, one-two total touches of the ball in like 30 minutes?? Why bring him on if you are not going to adjust the play to take advantage of what he can offer? That would involved some dynamic concept of tactics and strategy. Afterwards Wenger of course rued the two brain fart goals that were conceded. And then acted like we controlled the game otherwise.
You guys need to chill out. We went to Southhampton with a third choice midfield, and the only goals we conceded were on "OMG!" level defensive howlers. Those don't happen all that often. I've never seen a more bipolar bunch than the Arsenal fans on this board, and I'm a Jets fan.