There is no question that the defense is nowhere near title contending level. We conceded 49 goals last season. Citeh - 29 Manyoo - 33 Liverpool - 40 Everton - 40 Sperz - 41 Here is the problem. Who do you bring in to tighten the defense? Who of the following do you remove from the equation? Sagna Mertesacker Koscielny Vermaelen Gibbs Song Sczcesny These guys seem to be near locks to the 1st team. I get the premise of defending as a team, but the guys who hold the line will not change. Very concerning. Thoughts?
Could poor tactics/positional discipline be more to blame than just "bad players"? I mean, Koz & Verm should be, and have proven, that they can be excellent in the center together. I feel they just need more disaprin.
This is a great thread topic. I agree that the key problem is that we gave up too many goals. 4 goals to Blackburn, and 3 goals against Swansea and Norwhich is totally unaccaptable. While the data is galling, I'm trying to keep in mind the following: We rarely were able to play our first choice defensive lineup on a regular basis this past season. It was asked in another thread, but how many of our 49 goals against were caused by defensive players NOT on that list? Also have to keep in mind that 8 of those 49 goals came in one match when our lineup looked quite different than that list. I think cohesion is a big factor as well. Our squad had so many injuries combined with new players - it seems they really had to learn each other on the pitch during matches. Mert and Santos were late deadline signings, which didn't help matters. Our other players (depth) are decent overall: Santos, Djourou, Jenkinson are all acceptable support, imo. Djourou has his moments (good and bad), but for 4th choice and flexibility to play RB, he's not bad, imo. Jenkinson was a project player who got thrown in quicker than hoped - but played better than expected, I think. He'll come good - at least better than this year - I think. For the most part, I'm willing to wait out another season with our current defensive squad. It'd be nice to have a little more cover when injuries arise though.
Consistency in midfield would've helped this past year, methinks. And as a team they've yet to find the right balance between form and style that allows the defense to aid the attack without leaving them incapable of holding their own at the back. But it sure seems so much of it is just a mental fortitude of the squad. They're not coached to be a defensive wall so lapses are imminent, especially with certain personalities. Because it's not only the total # of goals but who they're given up to and when they're ceded. Need to compare the goals surrendered to the top clubs and to the rest of the league. I'd wager that Abu Dhabi FC and ManU gave up a lot fewer goals to the lower half of the table and gained a lot more points than Arsenal that way. Missing out on 2-3 points in one game against ManU is one thing, but dropping points against teams that you're supposed to drub is mind-numbing.
No team gets to play consistently with their 1st choice squad. We need better depth so that there isn't such a huge dropoff when we need to call on the depth. Plus, depth breeds competition for places, so that we don't have to stick with guys when they're playing like dump. (as I said in some other thread, I'm really hoping Bartley is ready to step up)
I wasn't meaning the exact same foursome, per se. Rather, the players we've been rotating in and out of the midfield have decidedly different strengths, roles, etc. Especially going from Cesc+Nasri+Wilshire to Arteta+Ramsey+_____. Quick look at goals allowed and the points Arsenal earned vs each club. GA Home / GA Away / Pts Manchester City 0 / 1 / 3 Manchester United 2 / 8 / 0 Tottenham Hotspur 2 / 2 / 3 Newcastle United 1 / 0 / 4 Chelsea 0 / 3 / 4 Everton 0 / 0 / 6 Liverpool 2 / 1 / 3 Fulham 1 / 2 / 1 West Bromwich Albion 0 / 2 / 6 Swansea City 0 / 3 / 3 Norwich City 3 / 1 / 4 Sunderland 1 / 1 / 6 Stoke City 1 / 1 / 4 Wigan Athletic 2 / 0 / 3 Aston Villa 0 / 1 / 6 Queens Park Rangers 0 / 2 / 3 Bolton Wanderers 0 / 0 / 4 Blackburn Rovers 1 / 4 / 3 Wolverhampton Wanderers 1 / 0 / 4
Even if you discount (and personally I dont) goals scored in the 8-2 and goals scored when we're missing personnel our defence looks poor. We constantly look like we're going to concede from open play. I'd also like to say that in the 8-2 game, despite us missing certain players, you can bet that if certain other managers had the same players, they'd have lost 3-2 or 4-2 or maybe 5-2 but never 8-2. Apparently our defence from set plays has improved a decent amount, (I dont know how accurate this is, IE have we had to defend the same amount ?) but to me this just means we're weaker in open play. We could put the best 4 defenders in the world there, and we'd still concede a load because of how we defend in front of them. I'd bet that the main reason why we've improved from set plays is not because we've bothered to practise it, but simply because we now have a decent confident keeper. And this is where it's really really frustrating because all it really needs is practice to improve. In open play when one player moves forward, another needs to spot it and fill the space. Its not rocket science, its stuff that pretty much anyone here could do, and yet we dont. Year after year after year. Do we need new personnel ? I'd say no, we don't need them, however as I honestly can't see our coaching team changing it's ways, maybe the only way is to bring in players who have practised it in their previous teams, such as Arteta.
the defense has improved on set pieces this year. The last goal Arsenal conceded off a set piece was against Fulham on New Years Day, iirc. Wenger moved RVP/striker to the near post and he cleared a lot of balls away. Open play defending went to shit, but I feel a lot of that had to do with Arteta going out. That is not to say that our defending wasnt crap this year, but things did improve this season before injuries started to take shape. Another thing, goals were up in the premiership this year across the board.
I do think if we grabbed a solid Dmid we would concede less. And this is just so that is Song and Arteta are ever out we have another player to protect the back four. Also, hopefully with Bould in there we would be defending better as a team. I think the defense/midfield has to work better together. Lastly, Ramsey being in all those games I think hurt us. He lost the ball a lot and caused us to concede.
Wouldn't you guys say our defense is better when we hold better possession? Which is 10 times better when Arteta plays. I'll love to see Wilshere and Arteta play in the midfield the same time. Both players can hold possession really well.
i can't tell you how many times i see a Rooney, a Drogba, or a Tevez playing next to his centrebacks helping out defensively.. our guys just jog and hope they miss.
I would like to see some versatile but quality guys added. I would love to see us add a Capoue or a Vertoghen (sorry if I misspelled either) who can play DM and CB and a young player like a Clyne who can play both RB and LB and had the durability to play every single game of the 10-11 season. We all know that our defense will go through a obscene number of injuries so get quality back-ups and sell them on a rotation. Actually, if we have more quality in-depth, we could be on a rotation that might reduce the injuries we seem to endure every year.
We have a terrible defensive work ethic which hopefully podolski helps with if he goes wide left. Vermaelen is a headless chicken and needs reigning in, same as song somewhat. We defend poorly in transition as a team, especially in midfield and our defensive line is suicidely high against quick sides. Look what chelsea did with a counter attacking cl team, we did that in 06 and got to the final. We don't change the way we play enough imo
I decided to follow the advice mentioned earlier and look at who was on the pitch for each of goals against in the Prem this season. I calculated goals against per 90 mins played. The worst was of course Squillaci who managed to be on the pitch for only 10 minutes but the team gave up 2 goals in those ten minutes. The best was Diaby who only played for 94 min but no goals were given up while he was on the pitch. Obviously neither of these guys played enough to matter so I restricted further analysis to players who played at least 450min or 5 games worth. The worst 5 in order were: Jenkinson 2.71 GA per 90min Arshavin 1.87 GA90 Djourou 1.78 GA90 Coquelin 1.70 GA90 Rosicky 1.64 GA90 The best 5 in order were: Sagna .90 GA90 Vermaelen .91 GA90 Gibbs .94 GA90 Arteta 1.02 GA90 Walcott 1.09 GA90 Some mentioned that dropping the ManU disaster would better reflect the squads defensive prowess. I disagree but decided to run the analysis again without that one game. Traore only played in that one game so his data dropped out entirely. I again left out anyone who played less than 450 minutes (not including time spent in the 8-2 loss). The worst 5 in order without counting the 8-2 loss were: Benayoun 1.59 GA90 Coquelin 1.41 GA90 Rosicky 1.29 GA 90 Djourou 1.26 GA90 Santos 1.24 GA90 The best 5 in order without counting the 8-2 loss were: AOC .68 GA90 Walcott .88 GA90 Sagna .90 GA90 Vermaelen .91 GA90 Gibbs .94 GA90 Players who benefit the most from dropping the 8-2 loss (except Traore who obviously saw his GA drop from 8 to zero and excluding players with less than 450min played including the 8-2 loss): Arshavin 1.87 to .99 GA90 Jenkinson 2.71 to 1.92 GA90 AOC 1.44 to .68 GA90 Djourou 1.78 to 1.26 GA90 Rosicky 1.64 to 1.29 GA 90 The data make it pretty obvious that our best defense has Sagna, Verm, and Gibbs. Koscielny, who had a GA90 of 1.32 (1.1 without 8-2 loss), Santos (1.24), and Mert (1.23 GA90) clearly cost us goals against although the overall poor results when Mert and to a lesser extent Santos got most of their minutes might let them a bit off the hook. I think overall the data supports the idea that our best eleven (with some questions for who should partner Verm at CB) are fine but the subs quickly hurt Arsenal's defense. Best 11 based on best GA90 overall would look something like this Gervinho/AOC, RVP, Walcott Arteta, Song, Ramsey Gibbs, Mert, Verm, Sagna Szczesny best subs: some GK (no GA data), Santos, Kos, Benayoun, Rosicky, AOC/Gervinho, Chamakh
Good work, Cannon. I don't know what this means, but most of those with the worst GA90 average were players with demonstrably less playing time, even for second teamers/bench. In our injury riddled season, some of the players who played the least, more likely played out of position.
Pretty interesting data. While they should not be overlooked, there is no doubt for anyone watching Arsenal this season, that Kozcielny has been, by far, our best defender and perhaps with Arteta,our second most valuable player. He is an automatic starter for Arsenal, no question. i would be just insane to start Verm and Per over him. I will also add that his individuals stats are up with the best, leading the league with Interceptions (104), tackles (85) and last man tackles (9). I totally agree with this comment from this OPTA season review below article " I really feel he doesn’t receive the credit he deserves and I’ll compare him to the centre-backs who made the team of the year; Kompany and Colocinni." http://www.eplindex.com/14569/season-forget-arsenal-season-review-20112012.html
Cannon, I am in awe man.... thanks for the stats. Jenkinson... poor guy. Arsene did him a disservice by playing him 3 years too early.
It's not so much the personnel, but the organisation. Sagna is arguably the best PL right-back (amongst the best certainly). The Kos and Verm are individually good players, and Gibbs is a good prospect. Against West Brom, the issue was poor organisation. we need somebody to come in and teach them collective defending. Why not get Tony Adams in? or, laugh or baulk at this i don't care, George Graham? At the least, he can transfer the skills he used to build the Dixon, Bould, Adams, Winterburn defence, which for nearly a decade was the best defensive unit by far in England (probably in the history of English football).
Is Sagna expected to be back for the first game? If not, is Jenkinson his immediate back-up or Coquelin? Jenkinson starting would throw up a red flag for me. All the talk has been about our attacking force with new signings, but we can't forget how many goals we conceded last season to sloppy defending.
I bet we see Koscielny at fullback with the BFG and Vermaelen in the middle (assuming those three are healthy and Sagna's not, which I believe is correct).