Are we naive vs the better teams?: Page 5 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Are we naive vs the better teams?

Biggus

At the top level clubs most of the players are much of a muchness, okay we can quibble about this player being a bit better is this area and that player in that area and this team having a bit more depth etc, but all in all teams are pretty evenly matched.
This is where the managers come in, the way they set up their teams and the tactics and systems they use to get the best out of their players.
When a top team is comprehensively thrashed by a team of similar players is where tactical ineptness will be most most ruthlessly exposed.
So when Wenger says time and again that this is some kind of an accident he is in a sense right- With greater skill and care it should not normally happen.

Clrnc

Klaus wrote:
We're not naive against the bigger teams. We're simply not good enough as a squad. It has been obvious to everyone but Wenger for the last six months.

We are absolutely naive.

Which other teams in the league get thrashed this badly against these 3 teams?

Coombs

Dunno how anyone can make this game, this game of all games, an issue of "team quality" rather than the obvious problem. Crystal Palace lost 2-1 at Stamford Bridge. We lost 6-0.

It's all about individual player quality? And they can't help it? And Wenger's only real failing is in the transfer window?....yea, ok. Let's keep saying that until the bald eagle calcitrates the kettle.

y va marquer

Well that's what a lot of people were arguing in January.
Allegedly all Wenger had to do was buy a couple of brilliant players and we'd have won the league.

Coombs

y va marquer wrote:
Well that's what a lot of people were arguing in January.
Allegedly all Wenger had to do was buy a couple of brilliant players and we'd have won the league.

People (me) said we needed to buy a top striker to even have a remote chance of winning the league. It's not even about that anymore anyway, it's about not losing 6-0 to Chelsea and that fuckwit of a man they call a manager.

y va marquer

Nope Biggus and a few more said he'd done us out of the league by not buying a striker in January.

Klaus

ebouefan wrote:
Klaus wrote:
We're not naive against the bigger teams. We're simply not good enough as a squad. It has been obvious to everyone but Wenger for the last six months.

Well then, why do we fold within 10 minutes where even the shite sides put up a fight?

Because we're still playing like we were good enough. And fair enough, maybe that is naive in itself, but it's fundamentally a squad problem. Why is there no one to back up Ramsey, Walcott and Özil properly? Why couldn't we find these players in the last two transfer windows? Why do we still have that absolute fucking donkey up front? We're set up as a top team but the fundamental quality outside the ideal eleven just isn't there.

innervisionscm

Yes, that's the naivete. We're set up like a top attacking/possession team and we can barely string three passes together in midfield. Barca can play 2-3 men behind the ball because... they know how to keep the ball. If we can't do that, then Wenger needs to be a little more flexible tactically.

Klaus

It's a fair point, but it's missing the bigger issue: we're talking about losing by one or two goals instead of six when we should be talking about winning. If we had reinfocred properly in the summer and january windows we wouldn't be here now. That is inarguable to me.

innervisionscm

Well we certainly could have gotten a 1-1 or 0-0 draw out of the game which would have kept us in the race. Draws away to Liverpool and Chelsea and the table looks a lot different. With our injuries we're best set up as a counterattacking team with Rosicky, Chamberlain, and Podolski making runs. Our three best midfielders are injured, so make an adjustment!

I agree about the squad of course. This is a big summer for Wenger - the money has arrived, and if he fails then I'm going to start to lose faith. Hopefully his logic was that he didn't want to spend on a Remy-level player in January because he wants to buy top quality in the summer, but who knows. We absolutely need a striker and a central midfielder, and getting a left winger and a left back (and saying goodbye to Podolski and Monreal) wouldn't kill us.

MistaT

We have better players than almost every team in the league yet lose by bigger margins to the top teams. That to me speaks more of a naive, unplanned approach than squad quality.

Biggus

y va marquer wrote:
Nope Biggus and a few more said he'd done us out of the league by not buying a striker in January.

No I didn't, I said that to give ourselves a really fighting chance he would have to supercharge our title push in January by buying a top striker.
Do you think I'm Squalkid or someone? 😆

You'll remember that my mood changed instantly when the window slammed shut- I knew it was over, only you and a few others believed there was any hope.

y va marquer

Biggus wrote:
y va marquer wrote:
Nope Biggus and a few more said he'd done us out of the league by not buying a striker in January.

No I didn't, I said that to give ourselves a really fighting chance he would have to supercharge our title push in January by buying a top striker.
Do you think I'm Squalkid or someone? 😆

You'll remember that my mood changed instantly when the window slammed shut- I knew it was over, only you and a few others believed there was any hope.

No, prior to Walcott being injured you didn't even think we needed to buy a striker.
Then when we didn't buy a striker in Jan you said Wenger had ruined our chances of a title.
I never said we were going to win the title, I thought we had an outside chance, maybe, but I wasn't swayed one way or the other by the Jan window.
You said that we'd fall apart and be out of every comp within weeks but since then, despite woeful defeat to Liverpool and today Chelsea, we have battled away, we're in the FA Cup semi.
Hell if we beat Swansea we're still only four points off Chelsea 🙂
Not that I genuinely believe we'll catch them, or the other two for that matter.

Gunner89

y va marquer wrote:
Nope Biggus and a few more said he'd done us out of the league by not buying a striker in January.

Having better squad depth and better players means more chances of winning and more points. It's not hard to comprehend really.

Can Wenger do better than Giroud?

Can we have a better alternative striker than 0 goal Sanogo or Bendtner?

If it was a 15-20 point difference I grant you but if it's a 5-7 point difference it can be.

These games have slim margins. If a better striker had converted that Giroud chance and the one he had at home against Chelsea plus the numerous sitters he's missed over the course of the season not accounting for the positions he fails to get in due to his lack of speed we'd be top of the league.

y va marquer

If we were only narrowly beaten by Liverpool and Chelsea, even City back when Theo and Ramsey were fit then I'd be more inclined to believe that a Jan striker purchase would have helped make a key difference
We gave away early first goals and were battered though, so I don't quite see how any striker bought in Jan would have fixed that.

Biggus

y va marquer wrote:
No, prior to Walcott being injured you didn't even think we needed to buy a striker.
Then when we didn't buy a striker in Jan you said Wenger had ruined our chances of a title.

Err Yes BEFORE Walcott was injured (and when it was apparent that he hated Podolski), some even mentioned Bendtner and Sanogo. 😐
But things changed very quickly I was forced to change my mind and agree with those that said "if we don't get some quality in we're stuffed".
And when Wengers answer was some midfielder with an injured back on loan, it was apparent the exciting impending birth of our title challenge was miscarried.

goon

People didn't want better than Giroud, they wanted a Backup. Berbatov and Vucinic wouldn't have won us the league.

Klaus

😆 That's absolutely fucking ridiculous. People didn't want better than Giroud?

The problem was that we were only linked to the likes Berbatov and Vucinic. Hardly the fans' fault that the club couldn't come up with a name.

Burnwinter

Of course we wanted better than Giroud—we were haplessly discussing Costa for most of winter.

Klaus

Fat chance of convincing him - or anyone like him - to join the fourth best club in England this summer, by the way. We've really screwed ourselves over in the transfer market by not fixing any problems at all, short term or otherwise.

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