Are we naive vs the better teams?: Page 8 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Are we naive vs the better teams?

lorddulaarsenal

It's ok. Champs league $$$$ has been banked.

Wenger will splash in Han to get top four

Kel Varnsen

How do you defend when two of our three central midfielders don't know how to defend? Ramsey runs a lot, but is hardly tactically disciplined. Wilshere has no clue how to defend. He'll chase the ball, put in an ill timed tackle here and there and that's it.

Tactics

Kel Varnsen wrote:
How do you defend when two of our three central midfielders don't know how to defend? Ramsey runs a lot, but is hardly tactically disciplined. Wilshere has no clue how to defend. He'll chase the ball, put in an ill timed tackle here and there and that's it.

It is the managers job to coach them ie tell them when to push up, when to drop back, when to press etc If you don't create a system(meaning you shouldn't be a coach in the 1st place) and teach your players how to operate well in that system, of course they are going to look clueless. That applies to almost every single football team. Why do you think the same Man United players that looked so disciplined under Fergie suddenly looked clueless under Moyes?? It's all down to coaching.

We have seen all those players you mentioned play a disciplined role before (mostly when our 4th place trophy is in danger - see Ramsey mostly sitting along side Arteta at the end of the 2012/2013 season), but somehow Wenger thinks we are too good for that, he mostly opts for a more attacking approach whenever he feels very comfortable in his job; we mostly played a somewhat boring style after the Villa fiasco last season, yes our football was not free flowing, it was mostly about solidity and efficiency. But Wenger opted for a more attacking approach as soon as he felt more comfortable in his job and we all know we performed after that. Our players are not perfect, but our problems against the quality sides are mostly down to tactics IMO. Switch those managers around tonight and we'd have 2 different performances from both teams.

Doc

Ramsey know how to defend, when he first started finding his form he was playing a more defensive game, no problem.
He needs to be told to sit, this formation is madness and it's only wengers fault.. Wengers team management has been getting worse every year, he has lost any vision or advantage he once had. Past it.

kamikaze

yes we are naive. a good attacking team shouldn't have to commit 6-7 players to an attack like we often do. if you defend well and have intelligent, athletic, skillful attackers, you score goals with 3-4 players.

another issue if we have too many players who want to roam freely in central areas. ozil, ramsey, wilshere... that's three already, when one is the max! we had the same issue when we had fabregas - the team around him wasn't disciplined enough to compensate. look at chelsea - mourinho surrounds him with matic, willian, ramires - though chelsea have now started to concede lots of goals, too.

all of this has been pretty obvious for years. this is why people say arsenal is soft in the centre. this is why united was able to win so many trophies over the years with arguably, a mediocre central midfield. they at least held their ground and kept a solid platform for their attackers.

evoh

We aren't naive we are caught out by teams with greater desire when it comes down to it.

As a team we need everything to go our way, or as a group the team starts to go missing as a unit.

We don't pressure to ball or offer any sort of disruption to opponents. They get a free reign of the ball as we simply don't have the will or ability to effectively close down space or trouble players with the ball.

We want to play our game first and foremost. If we don't get to enforce our passing 1-2 exchange game then we get messed up as we have no plan to stop another team playing.

Basically, we still think we are one of the best in europe but can't deal with taming a team that is out-performing us. These days there are far better teams then us on any given day.

Irishgunner

Yes we're naive, we're also not very good.

Biggus

I blame Giroud/Flamini/Sanogo/Ozil/Ramsey/Cazorla/Arteta/Sanchez/Szczesny.

Gazza M

kamikaze wrote:
yes we are naive. a good attacking team shouldn't have to commit 6-7 players to an attack like we often do. if you defend well and have intelligent, athletic, skillful attackers, you score goals with 3-4 players.

another issue if we have too many players who want to roam freely in central areas. ozil, ramsey, wilshere... that's three already, when one is the max! we had the same issue when we had fabregas - the team around him wasn't disciplined enough to compensate. look at chelsea - mourinho surrounds him with matic, willian, ramires - though chelsea have now started to concede lots of goals, too.

all of this has been pretty obvious for years. this is why people say arsenal is soft in the centre. this is why united was able to win so many trophies over the years with arguably, a mediocre central midfield. they at least held their ground and kept a solid platform for their attackers.

aye. movement and formation sucks, so to compensate we pile body after body forwards hoping to force a chance, then get hit on the break. i'm going to make some serious cash this season betting on us getting thumped away from home by top sides.

kamikaze

our attack is nowhere near as good as its reputation. look at how much possession we have, and then look at how many goals we actually score. watch other teams play and they create good chances on the break that we, for some reason, cannot.

we insist on letting the other team get all their men back. then we have 7 guys right outside their box, so when we lose the ball, there's 70 meters of space behind us to run into. if you're a halfway decent attacker, you're salivating that the opportunity that presents.

oh, and we did this against dortmund with aubumeyang starting. the guy is a pace merchant and we looked like we had no clue what he was about, and played right to his strengths.

naive. lack of preparation by the manager. what the fuck do we do in training? cos if it's possession drills, we're not even that good at that, either.

flobaba

We try to combine with the 7th man

Anzac

I don't think it's any more complicated than our possession short passing style being well enough suited to enable us to beat the lower half of the table, but it's inherently weak/vulnerable against our peers, let alone the elite.

evoh

Short, rapid passing requires 100% precision to within 1 inch. We simply do not have that ability on a regular basis.

We then end up with players beyond the ball and gifting the opponents a run out our defense. Its not rocket science. Man City attack in ones an twos, we flood all sorts forward but not into the box, leaving a Dm and CB as the only players behind the ball. That is criminal away from home and suggest our attacking players can't do a job without overwhelming the opponents in numbers.

FEBravo

I think we are naive in that we think we are better than we are.
The problem is the lack of quality, and it becomes obvious against the top teams.
But we refuse to accept that and adapt accordingly, and pretend we are good enough to play "our game" and take it to anyone, not to mention what "our game" is right now is quite unclear.

Rex

We certainly don't lack in quality. Our 'style' is just mainly crap, and that is down to the manager. He obviously wants his players to play with freedom, and the only ones who seem exempt to that are the CBs and Arteta/Flamini. In a set defense we seem a bit better, but because of this freedom we end up in transition defense waaaay too often, and that is of course because this 'freedom' constantly leaves us with waaaay too many players ahead of the ball at any given time when we attack.

Qwiss

I think its more complicated than us just having too many players ahead of the ball. If that was really the problem we'd swamp teams in the final 3rd and score a lot more goals. I've said it before but Wenger some how has a system that seems to leave us with not enough bodies forward when we attack yet we're easily caught on the counter. Its a bizarre system that leaves us with no real strength at either end of the pitch.

Irishgunner

Our problem is a lack of movement, nobody exploits space, nobody runs in behind, they all just stand still waiting to play a stupid 1-2 on the edge of the box.

Qwiss

Thats not the case as much now with Welbeck and Sanchez. Even Ozil likes to exploit space, and Jack for that matter.

Rex

We don't transition the ball quick enough from defense to attack, and that is the root cause why we end up with too many players ahead of the ball, and the movement is poor and ineffective because we end up mostly playing against a set defense which is strong in numbers.

Another real problem is that for all the possession we have, we don't end very many attacks with an attempt at goal. Even a poor attempt towards goal has the advantage that it ends a phase of play, which in turn always gives our boys time to fall back and regroup.

Rex

What I mean is this - it is better to play the high risk, longer ball early and lose possession more that way. When losing the ball like that, a team always has plenty of bodies in a position ready to defend. Instead, we most of the time transition the ball slowly, looking to play safe passes, and save our high risk ball for when we have too many players ahead of the ball. It is extremely stupid IMO.

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