Burnwinter wrote:
On the contrary. We're fortunate to have gotten the win against Stoke - deflected free kick - and we all know it.
Because United never get jammy goals? Maybe if we didn't defend like Arsenal right through January we would have beaten Liverpool and Chelsea. Hell, we nearly got knocked out by Brighton because we couldn't defend for shit.
There's no point in cherry picking one or two games, you'll find one to fit every argument. The point is looking at the overarching trend - not just the last six months but the last six years!
I like all our forwards at the moment as players and individuals. Yes, they have improved, they even take some simple chances now! I even like Theo's attitude, but we're still short on the quality up front you absolutely must have to challenge for major trophies. Let's not convert positive sentiment into a comfortable deception.
Yeah, we could also do with that dominant, reliable, mountainous, aggressive centre half, sure.
I'm not denying we lack quality up front to challenge for trophies but you're plain wrong if that is enough to compensate for our defence. We wouldn't even get ahead of City, never mind catch up with United if we had another van Persie in the team.
Look at the points to scale ratio that Y put up elsewhere, that's a gap that won't be covered by just one or two top players.
And the reason I'm more concerned about the defence is that Wenger, for all his faults, eventually gets the best out of his team going forward. Probably not as efficient as the Arsenal teams of old but the goal return has always been pretty good. Meanwhile, our defence stays roughly on target to concede around 35-40 goals every season - no matter who plays. To get around that, I think we need 3 or 4 high quality defensive players that can cope with the obvious lack of organisation shown by the midfield and defence.
