Considering his play on Saturday, this indicates that the rest of the Arsenal side can't score in a whorehouse with a thousand dollar bill. Which would be accurate.
.. True .. But thats wat we are looking at. Develop some striker into a good / regular scorer. RvP is not bad at that but unlucky for him. JAR could have been the one, but to bad. He isn't. Maybe its gonna be Walcott .. Time will tell !!
Henry himself would probably be the first to admit that he isn't 100% match fit and that he should have finished his opportunities on saturday. It's not a matter of bringing our players down, but a matter of the fans being hungry for success, just like the players.
In defense of Sasha, I'd have passed that ball back, too, since his angle was bad, and if we'd had a center mid doing his job to crash the box, it would have been a simple shot and much more likely a goal than Hleb going solo. Having said that, I suspect when Rosicky returns, we will indeed see more goals from midfield, because he will shoot from anywhere at anytime. Whether we can "expect" them is another story, and whether or not there will be "lots" of them...is an estimation for Pollyannas quite different from me. Arsene simply doesn't understand and doesn't coach tactical awareness in the third dimension. That's always been a shortcoming. It's only that now, without Bergkamp and his beautiful passing skills, it's more nakedly obvious how the Arsenal approach of short ground passes is completely inadequate to deal with modern Prem defenses. If two or three of our seemingly endless short passes around the top of the penalty area had been aimed at Van Persie's or Adebayor's noggin instead of through three or four defenders' outstretched legs...we'd have had a real result in the past two games...or even in the past twenty or so. Say lavvy.
i think the problem is that they weren't moving forward in waves, but were content to take control of the ball near the top of the oppenents box and passpasspasspass... i think when they play the ball slowly but surely forward, as opposed to a long pass to get forward and then waiting for an opening, is when the best opportunities present themselves. it doesn't help that the back four ain't so grand these days.
Rosicky played in this match.......and he was just as bad as every one else(as far as not shooting....)
Well Jose hasn't played this season and if Henry hadn't played you'd be saying that titi was the soloution. I think they just need to rediscover self confidence and belief
Yes, but he's clearly not yet healthy. I mean the real Rosicky. But the underpinning of your point is there, too. I think there's something in our coaching technique that encourages our lack of shooting. Hleb was never known to shoot, so I'll exempt him, but RvP and Reyes for instance seemed to stop shooting after they "settled in" to the squad, and I believe that's part of the problem.
now c'mon tmak. van persie will have a go from any angle, at any time... that first time effort vs. citeh was genius.
Ya, I know. It was a good sign. But remember when he first came to the club? He had a couple of brilliant games (Southampton, for instance) where he would shoot whenever he was anywhere close, and then, a few weeks later...suddenly he wouldn't pull the trigger at all. Same with Reyes. He arrived in a blaze of goals, including brilliance like the FA Cup match against Chav$ki. And then...suddenly he wouldn't pull the trigger either. Do you have a different recollection? I just think it's strange. And as much as I love the beautiful, simple "pass the ball into the net" approach when it's available, sometimes you have to shoot from 22-25 yards out just to keep the defense honest, and presumably score some goals as well. When we passpasspasspasspass without any real penetration in the the area, teams just bunker down like Villa or Bolton, and we have a hard time getting any result at all.
One thing I have noticed is that RvP, Reyes, et al take much fewer shots when Henry is on the pitch. They seem to pass more an look to give it to Henry. Hopefully this will not be the norm and when there is a chance, any player will take it. You are spot on T about the longer shots at times. Arsenal can't rely on them, but they have their place.
I don't want to reach January saying "I told you so" but we need someone to come in and grab the goalscoring burden off Henry. In effect, that will take the pressure off Henry so he can take his time and work his way up while taking some stress off the Boss. Only two games over so no need to get overly worried and I'll wait for the transfer window to shut in order to get a look at our real squad. My only real concern is Henry. He has been worked like a horse for 12 months now, barely had any off time and we expect him to just go on like a freakin robot?! Add to that his achilles. I feel he'll do ok over the entire season but whether he gets his 25goals or not will depend on how well he rests and works his way up to full sharpness in the next month or two. Remember last season, he was out at the start and once he was back - WOW! I say make an excuse and sit out the French international.
I don't know that it's coaching, I mean, maybe it is. I kind of think part of it is have TH14 in the squad. If I were a young player at Arsenal, and I was barrelling down toward goal at a tight angle, perhaps my first instinct would be to shoot. But then knowing you have TH out there, it might be better to get him the ball farther out, than take the chance. It's his team, he's lead the Prem in score 3 (?) years running, so I think it's always in the back of the young players minds that if they only have a half chance, they are going to try and get the ball around to Henry, figuring thats the better chance. Its more a psychological thing about being young, and on a team with such a superstar. At least that's my amateur thoughts on the subject, and not having played soccer in 20 years, I might be totally off base about what players are thinking.
It might also be the very public bollocking and filthy looks you'll get from Henry if you don't score.
I was thinking the exact same thing...no offense to Henry but he is not the most supportive when he thinks he would have had a better chance to score........
Rosinski! (as the announcer was calling him). I was mad when that play happened, but looking at it now it was a very difficult angle. Who was that on the pass to Rosicky? it was perfect.
Someone said it earlier..until we learn how to score off of crosses, we're always going to have this problem of defenders crowding the 18-yd line, denying shooting lanes. Been a problem for years now. Nothing new. Basically, Henry's off-form has been the big difference and provides a glimpse of how much we struggle without him.
The thing that we're missing is movement. The thing about the Rosicky move is that everyone passed, then moved, passed, then moved, passed, then moved, with pace. We didn't allow City to get back and form two banks of four like teams usually do and squeeze the play. The movement issue is where I feel Ljungberg has to play this season. he is an attacker and knows where to make his runs and when to make them. The only thing is that if our game speed is low as it has been for a season now is that his runs are wasted as he can't take advantage of the oppositions holes at the back and make himself the extra forward. For our game to be effective, we have to be one step ahead of the opposition, and so far, they have been one step ahead of us as they can reorganise. We were famed for our one touch, quick passing game and players aren't making themselves available to receive passes thus forcing players like Fabregas and Hleb to slow the play and look up for a pass, leading to the situation I was referring to in the latter part of the first paragraph.
Absolutely correct on both counts. The other alternative is to be able to one-time a shot, something that the team has been noticeably weak in, even though at least two of our recent goals have been scored that way. In general, even the bad teams won't allow a player two touches within say 12 yards of goal once they have recovered defensive position.
Re: SO... what needs to change? People said TH had a bad game against Villa. I personally didn't notice. He did have a poor game against City, and I don't have to take anybody else's word for that. The thing that dismays me the most, though, is the lack of initiative shown by club management. The team has been treading water for at least six weeks on all fronts. Events just seem to happen to the team, as opposed the team asserting some influence over them. The most immediate cause to our poor start, is overuse of Thierry Henry in international football. So when he gets called up to play a friendly against Bosnia and Herzogovenia, Le Boss or David Dein should simply say "F u, he's not comin'. Period." Whatever the consequences of that are, it's much more proactive that Wenger whining to the football writer for the Guardian after the fact. The same with Tevez/Mascherano, etc. Mascherano fills an immediate need, where Tevez frankly doesn't. But, they are both outstanding footballers, and would be viewed as a massive talent influx for the squad. Transfers such as these are difficult to pull off, so I will be surprised if either one will be here by the end of the month. They should have been working on this six weeks ago. Instead they've lost the opportunity define the course of events instead of merely following them.