team in the world at taking goal kicks? Lehmann is absolutely horrible at punting the ball upfield... and when he does actually manage to keep it on the pitch, our forwards/mids are pants at winning a header. i think i am going to see in the chelsea match how many times we lose possession due to goalkicks.
I think we may also be the worst at taking penalty kicks aswell! How many have we missed? Fulham, Man Citeh, Ajax, etc, etc
I was thinking this while watching the Newcastle game...I do like Lehmann but I would say we lose posession at least 65-75 % of the time when Lehmann is distributing the ball via his foot.
Lehmann is bad at goal kicks and he's REALLY bad when the team plays the ball back -- he always seems to splice the ball into the sideline when someone plays the ball back to him. It's not only embarrassing, it also puts the team on the back foot because they have run back and play defense in our half. That being said, I don't think we're any good winning the ball in the air either. It doesn't help much. It's strange, now that you mention it, because Arsenal are fairly crappy at some basic, fundamental aspects of football: goal kicks, crossing and headers, defending against set pieces and crosses, defensive tenacity in general. Arsenal are fun as hell to watch on counter-attacks and when they have possession (but only when we shoot), but when they are sucking it up (see Bolton and Newcastle), they really stink.
You're basically referring to two extremes of football style, one exemplified by Arsenal at their best and the other represented by teams like Bolton. One style led to an unbeaten season and the other... is Bolton.
The funny thing about our goal kicks and distribution from the back is that, as bad as Lehmann is, Stuart Taylor was worse. Not only did he not kick it to the right people, but he had this bad habit of booting the ball out of bounds. I realize that punting like that isn't exactly a precise science, but you almost have to be trying to kick the ball out of play.
Well, kicking up field is just something you have to practice. A half an hour of practice each day for Lehman would sort out his goal kick problem. I practice my kicking, and if our keeper in my team is shoddy, I can take a goal kick and kick it to the other keepers box or whoever....all you have to do is practice. The thing with Lehman with pass backs is that I think he is actually trying to kick it almost out. After incidents of kicking the ball into the on rushing striker (Viduka and Leeds Utd), I think hes made a mental note. Now this is where the problem arises. To kick it not near the striker, you have to: -kick it to the side, therefore making it go out. -or get really under the ball giving it backspin. This type of kicking is hard to get precise direction with though. Now even if he could get some direction, we still have the problem of our players not being able to win the ball! This is why I started a thread a while ago about Arsene's Ignorance. We seem to be missing simple fundamental parts of our game...I put this down to Wenger focussing on what people are good at, and ignore what they are bad at. If you have this type of attitude within a team, yu are going to be found out, especially against teams who are particularly good at what you aren't.
whats the verdict on just kicking it short? with arsenal's passing game and terrible record of winning headers, why not just pass it to lauren or cole or whoever's playing fullback?
Yes, I'm not sure why we don't short pass more often. I've always thought that our players like Campbell are good at playing good balls.
So why doesn't Mad Jens pass the ball up and just slowly build momentum, running thru the gears as you move thru the midfield with short, quick passing...the Wenger way. But I'm just a supporter...lol.
We actually did this a few times today, usually following a quick roll-out to one of the fullbacks. Arsenal's style is more suited to distributing the ball by hand than to long punts, I think.
LOL, I was watching the match thinking, 'Did some1 from the team read this thread because they were doing what we wanted them to do.
Despite Jens' inefficiencies of distributing with his feet. You have to admit he did come off his line rather well against Chelsea. He was playing the keeper/sweeper role well against a team (kick and run on) you need that.