Are We Unbalanced???

I admit that after watching this weekends game I was wishing we had held on to Parlour for another season. He was such a ball of energy and grit during their match. PV normally gives us all of that but he has not been himself this season.

 

I dunno. The whole team was clicking at the beginning of the season and now everyone is not playing well. If our defense was solid than we could grind out a 1 nil win, see Citeh. If our offense is on then we can win 3-2 or higher, see Boro

500 posts!!!!!!

 

You people make it too easy for me with threads like "are we unbalanced". That's almost a Kangaroo Court violation.

 

Whoooosh!

I wasn't referring to your formation being unbalanced, fella.

 

I would agree with that article. For your sake, Wenger needs to target some defense minded players. How long can you cope with the likes of Cygan?

 

Mentally?

Well, I can't speak for the rest of the board, but I've been feeling a little "off my feed" for a few days now....

 

If the money was available I'd take Ledley King off the scum and Wright-Phillips to play on the right. If Silva was out for longer I'd stick Freddie in the middle next to Paddy where he can make the late run into the box like he did so often in 2002.

Cesc and Silva worked well together at the start. Paddy and Cesc doesn't.

 

I have to agree with the article. I think alot of it comes down to missing Sol and Silva. But for me the team is missing a little of the English grit, exemplified by players like Parlour and Adams. I liked how the Arsenal sides of the Early Wenger era grafted continental flair onto a solid British defensive backbone. To me this was the best of both world as it gave the team two ways to earn points, either through a high powered offense or with a stingy defense. This has been lacking this season due to injuries and the lack of depth forced by the move to the new stadium. I think we miss the depth that players like Parlour and Upson provided. Hopefully Le Boss will be able to address these problems in January.

 

Fabregas is good but perhaps Edu deserves more chances, is he fully fit? I didnt see the Man Utd game but how did he do?

 

Edu has not played well this year in my opinion. He has had minimal impact in the midfield, contributed nothing going forward, and has been a liability in defense. I've never been a great fan but I thought he had improved towards the end of last season enough to seriously pressure (or even win) Silva's spot. Now, I'm wondering if we wouldn't be better off trading him in January. He deserves another chance over the next 2 months but if he shows as little desire as over the last couple of games it might be time for him to go.

 

I agree we should have held on to Parlour. He was one of my favorite players for his tenacity and hard work. I loved it when he woudl make a hard tackle and then look at the ref like he had to be out of his mind to call it a foul. Gritty to the core!

 

I am most definitely unbalanced. So are Arsenal.

Observations from me, on this board have all the value of Yugo, but I'll throw up [sic] a couple anyway. (The brilliance of that pun will go unnoticed.)

1. Arsenal suck in the air. The best player in the air on this team is Jens Lehmann, and Lehmann doesn't get into the opposing 18-yd area too much. This is, I think, why Arsenal pass the ball into the box from high positions a la Bergkamp, rather than cross it from low. I've always found this odd. A team that has the kind of speed--Ljungberg, Pires, Henry, Reyes can afford swift give-and-go strikes, and fast counterattack crosses, but I can't tell you the last goal before Palace where I saw this. Passing from high positions requires a patient unlocking of the defense, and a defensive lapse. When teams play nine behind the ball and defend deeply (Fulham last year, anyone?), this becomes nearly impossible.

2. Attacking Arsenal players love to run wide out on the wings. This is not bad in itself, but how many goals are scored from thirty yards out on the wings? In order to score from the wings, it is essential to have a good crosser of the ball, preferably one who can cross into the box. Simply, Arsenal don't have such a cross option. AND, even if they did, they have absolutely no one who can win the ball, much less score regularly, in the air. This is precisely the team's weakness on corner kicks, and free kicks not directly in front of goal as well. When a ball comes in from wide out, there needs to be either a) a good header of the ball at the top of the 6, or b) a withdrawn striker or mid at the top of the penalty arc who can and will shoot quickly from distance. Whatever one might think of Ray Parlour's shots from 35 yds out, this is nevertheless something he would do that no one on the team any longer will. Unfortunately, our withdrawn striker tends to hold the ball and look for a clinical pass into the box, rather than shoot, and this is much easier to defend against when it is completely predictable.

3) The defense is very much out of position lately. Y'all may heap a lion's share of this on Pascal Cygan, but in truth, I think Kolo Toure is at least as much at fault. He simply doesn't track back quickly enough. It isn't that he can't; he has the speed. He simply fails to choose the proper angled path back to the 6 when he has to defend a counterstrike. I'd actually say he's gotten worse at this from late last year, when he seemed to have it down pat finally.

4) Without Sol to defend in the air, Lehmann has to come off his line much more, because our other defenders are a joke. Cygan's too slow by far, and Kolo is less than accurate. Lauren won't even try, and Ash is too short. The midfield is *never* back in the box, or to the top of it, on time, worse with Edu in than not. With the keeper off his line, and a massive open hole between the back line and the lazy midfield, near post strikes are much easier. Riihilahti found exactly this space, and he isn't the only one. Bolton's goals and two of Boro's fall into this problem. There isn't enough linkage between the back four and the midfield. Vieira's at fault here, for playing as poorly as he has lately. When Cesc was in early on, this wasn't an issue.

5) Beyond all this, though, Arsenal simply aren't scary enough. There isn't a single imposing player on the team anymore, except for Paddy perhaps, and at the moment everyone knows he's not up to it. When Arsenal had Adams and Keown and Parlour, opponents knew they had a good chance of getting roughed up by a relatively fearless crew. This affects play in ways we haven't even begun to discuss. I submit to you:

Last year when Reyes showed up after the transfer, he went to ground a little too easily, sure, because he's coming from the Spanish Liga where players simply do that. He very seldom picked up hard fouls.

Why? Because if you committed a hard foul on Reyes, Parlour or Vieira or Cole or Keown when he was in would cleat your arse in a major way two plays later, and didn't care if they picked up a card for it. Right now, though, Reyes has a bullseye on him the size of Sir Alex Ferguson's ego, and there isn't anyone to do a thing about it, so all teams figure: well, foul Reyes hard early on (Gary Neville, anyone?) and then we can just take our game to the Arsenal with their best crossing threat neutralized. Then Arsenal HAVE to play their short passing into the box crap, which we've already defended with our entire back line and midfield posted up in the penalty area.

So, yeah, Arsenal need some grit. They need several players, not just one, who will kick ass if need be, and they simply don't have any. Vieira right now looks like a gangly, tepid puddytat in the middle of the field, shorn of all temper or competitiveness. Man, what I wouldn't do to have Robbie Savage or Steven Gerrard shore up the attitudes at Highbury. Hell, even Ryan Nelsen or Carlos Bocanegra would be nice.

 

Good Analysis.

 

Good post, tmaker. I agree with many of your points.

However, I think your comments about Kolo are simply wrong. I've paid a lot of attention to the defense and think that his problems have been nearly always caused by poor ball retention and tracking back by midfield and horrible positioning by Cygan. Notice that when Edu and PV are in midfield, Kolo is constantly getting dragged forward to cover for their recent habit of turning the ball over and then failing to work hard to regain it. When you add this to his normal work in covering for Lauren's movements up the right flank, it is understandable that he'd have more trouble getting back over the 90 minutes.

When Cygan is in Kolo has been moving further to the left to cover Cygan than he ever does when Sol plays. Cygan who goes forward to often, plays the ball only to turn it over, and then fails to mark attackers as they move towards Jens forces Kolo to try to cover both his area and Cygan's. I've actually been quite impressed with how well Kolo has done given the defensive failures of those players.

 

Oh, I completely agree with you. I'm not so much pinning blame on him as saying he's just trying to do waaaay too much. He's out of position on aerial crosses because he's too busy trying to cover for Cygan (or even Sol at moments), where this is really the holding midfielder's duty.

And you're quite right about the midfield. It is frankly the midfield of our team that frightens me most. The defense sucks at times, but it isn't just the defenders' problem. I'm completely amazed we haven't conceded more goals than we have to enterprising teams who are smart enough to skyrocket a long ball past central midfield into the Arsenal defending third. The midfield have been routinely lousy at overlapping support of the defenders who've pushed up. Why? I dunno. It's just an observation. Somebody really should slap Superbob for being almost up at the half line when certain goals have been scored.

 

I totally agree. Thats why I didn't want parlour to leave. I seems like the team (not including campbell) is bing built to a finese type of footie (as hnery would say, "va va voom!"). I also think we need a typical out and out striker rather than 2 winger converted strikers (although i like reyes playing anywhere for us, i think he would be better on the left wing).

 

i agree with that and the post you were referring to. the article was really good too. i have realised that we focus too much on "sexy football" which i loved all this while but now i see that it's just not enough. we need to be more solid.

and that stuff about the lack of a scary figure is so true. but not savage! too many cards...

anyway, wenger is too smart a man to not learn from these past few games, right?? so i'm trying to keep hopeful for this weekend. it is the spurs, after all...

anyone think that it's odd our last two wins have come from a team with the average age of 19.8 years?? i hope wenger gives some of them more first team place though i know he won't...