Thinking of a way how to save the season (without sacking Wenger)....?: Page 5 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Thinking of a way how to save the season (without sacking Wenger)....?

spacemanspiff

Don't think Mikel's passing is incisive enough to play at 10, nor does he have any real pace which I like in forward players. I think he's fine where he is, and has dipped due to overexposure and asked to play a far more ball-winning role than he can, but I love him as a constant outball and deep playmaker.

I think 352 would be too adventerous right now (although funnily I think we're better built for that formation given the players we have - lack of true wide options, all our forwards being better/wanting to lay through the middle), but until January I'd just play deep and on the counter with 2 of Poldi/Theo and Giroud up top, and Cazorla on the wing. Arteta/Caz are fucked basically, neither can realistically not play until we get new signings in.

Biggus

If Wengers football philosophy is not dumped he must be, this league is simply too physically demanding for it.

Klaus

It's too physically demanding to have one central midfielder when we should have three, but the solution isn't to remove the one who's actually working.

MuswellHillGooner

Could part of the problem be that we have 3 slow CMs? On top of that, none of them are natural ball winners.

Claudius

why were we not in for Nigel de Jong? He won't give you fabulous distribution from deep, but he'd give us real steel in the middle.

MuswellHillGooner

Not too long ago, players like de Jong/Yaya were deemed not top top enough for us. Now, look at the no-names in that Swansea team that have just outplayed us at home.

Klaus

Because De Jong is a spanner.

Muswell Hill Gooner wrote:
Could part of the problem be that we have 3 slow CMs?

Pace has never been a problem. The ball can move at six times the speed of any human anyway. We don't move it quickly enough. We don't have enough angles in midfield because the distance between the three who play there is either too big or too small at any given moment, and having had Jenkinson as support from the right flank for most of the season has hardly helped in that respect. Couple that with a forward line where no one can beat their man and you've got a flashier version of Stoke.

MuswellHillGooner

Good point Klaus (Barca*).
Edit
Only thing is it doesn't address the defensive side of the game. Tracking, intercepting and tackling runners for example

Mirth

qs! wrote:
Look at all the teams above us and tell me more than 3 of them have much better squads, they just don't.

That's true but it's also unlikely that the teams above us, bar Tottenham, will be in the mix for Champions league places come April. The league is still very tight for everyone apart from the two Manchester clubs and it'll take an absolute catastrophe to stay where we are.

I predict we'll eventually shape up and slug it out for fourth place like we always do but maybe this is the season where we narrowly miss out. It'll help our chances if Chelsea continue to implode though

Mirth

Muswell Hill Gooner wrote:
Good point Klaus (Barca*).
Edit
Only thing is it doesn't address the defensive side of the game. Tracking, intercepting and tackling runners for example

Ball winning midfielders are hardly the quickest out there.

But I disagree with Klaus, I think we need someone who can run with the ball in midfield. Someone who can carry it from deep and start off a counter - I suspect Wilshere can do it but until he gets back to his best we'll struggle.

Claudius

We need a healthy version of Diaby basically.

Klaus

Muswell Hill Gooner wrote:
Good point Klaus (Barca*).
Edit
Only thing is it doesn't address the defensive side of the game. Tracking, intercepting and tackling runners for example

You don't need pace to defend though. You just need to be positionally disciplined. Since you mentioned Barca, have a look at Busquets and Xavi. Mertesacker could beat them in a sprint.

We're usually punished on counters when someone loses the ball. The defensive transition doesn't happen quickly enough. Wilshere is starting ten yards higher up when he's trying to defend. Cazorla is even further up due to the nature of his role. The fullbacks we've played with for most of the season aren't good defenders and rarely around anyway so the wide players often have to cover - again starting from a disadvantage higher up the field. The only guy left is Arteta who has to cover a third of the field himself while making sure that the opponents doesn't stretch the defence too much. He does look like his legs are heavy but you could probably put it down to being tired and overused because he wasn't like this when the season started. The issue isn't pace. It's constantly being let down by the rest of the team.

Qwiss

Claudius wrote:
We need a healthy version of Diaby basically.

Even if Diaby suddenly manager 3 seasons without so much as a splinter it'd still be the wrong player for our midfield. We need a proper ball winner in midfield, Diaby isn't that and he never will be.

Bold Tone

Also Stoke have a solid game plan based on set pieces which their resident australopithecines thrive on. We (apart from Theo) just pass, pass, pass back, wait for defence to set then cross an aimless ball

Biggus

I can't believe some still think tippy tappy is a viable style for us to play.....
Sure every team needs an Arteta a Cazorla or a Wilshere in midfield but not 3 of them, they need some serious steel to protect them.

I laugh when I hear people mention Diaby, apart from the fact that he hasn't played 10 times in the past year and a half- When he was fit he was more a danger to our own players and himself than the opposition, we need a real cunt to intimidate them like that guy Jones that plays for Schalke.

goon

You can't 'cunt' your way through the opposition defence.

Biggus

Err your cunt is to stop them getting through you Oft.

Does no one think of defending first thing anymore?

First rule- Don't concede.

Ray

We have aggressive midfielders to an extent but we dont have a midfielder who has the height and physical brute strength to just shrug off the opponent like the yaya toure's, and fellaini. Currently the closest player we have to that is diaby but he is so injury prone that he isnt worth the time. We need to go out and buy two solid midfielders who are physically strong but can also play a bit.

Last time we had that was with Gilberto, Edu, Vieira.

goon

That's generally the philosophy of most of the teams in the bottom half of the table rather than those at the top.

A better attack would have gotten us significantly more points than a better defence this season.

Klaus

Aye, it helps to have forwards who can beat their man.

« Previous Page Next Page »