Are we naive vs the better teams?: Page 7 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Are we naive vs the better teams?

FrancisJeffersAwfulCareer

Our main problem is how far ahead of the ball our players are in relation to the ball carrier.

We need to be far more staggered positionally in midfield and attack.

Clrnc

Even now, it is still insane that we played Ox deep in midfield. Even Rosicky there would have been a better option with his positional discipline.

That, coupled with the fact we wouldn't have taken advantage of his pace outwide to create something. Really a stupid thing to do.

Burnwinter

Timothy wrote:
I was only messin.

If Wenger stays then probably nothing will really change, although I do think he'll spend a fair bit this summer. If he goes then it's all change, the new gaffer has a blank canvas and IMHO plenty of quality raw materials to work with....and a load of cash and wages to throw at new players.

We'll just have to see.

Fair play. I also think we'll spend but I think we've missed a good chance this season. Why spend 50m-100m next summer (if we go that far) when we could've shelled it out last summer and gone over the top?

Spose Wenger's screwed himself by signing Ozil and defying our very low expectations before that late recruitment occurred. In August none of us thought we'd be anywhere near challenging, and we've ended up unexpectedly close to the leaders.

Biggus

Well Ozil wasn't a great buy but at least it's spilled the beans about how loaded we are.
Now the apologists don't bother pleading the poor mouth anymore.

Klaus

Özil was a great signing. It's the rest of the job that Wenger bottled.

Clrnc

At that time it was a great signing.

We have manage to give him a team to fail in though.

Biggus

Tactics

Shall we please stop pretending to being among the elite in Europe?

I remember reading some posts after the draw was made saying we should top the group, anything else would be a failure. That is a group containing a Dortmund team that has outperformed us in Europe over the past few seasons and has shown far more quality and tactical nous against the top teams. I found it unbelievable reading those posts.

Our record and performances against the top teams have been downright abysmal for sometime now. We see the same mistakes and clueless tactical mistakes over and over again; 2 fullbacks push up, CMs do the same, Arteta and and our CBs all at sea, is it really difficult to work out why the opposition always have a free ride to our goal every single time we misplace a pass in the opposition half??? Seriously, is it?

Fans and the media always go 'they (we) need a DM to fix that'. Let's get real, no single footballer is capable of plugging those gaps all by himself, not even a super human combination of Mathaus and Vieira all into the same body. Yes, Arteta is slow, but that fact that that particular weakness is exposed time and time again is a sign he's playing in a poorly coached side. I mentioned it in the match thread, I have not seen a team forced to defend facing their own goal as much as we did in that 1st half, what kind of amateur stuff is that?

I'm known as an Arsene knows man in real life (even though that is no longer the case) but I keep on questioning him more and more as the years go by. He's deluded in his team's ability, it looks to me we spend very little time analysing the strengths and weaknesses of the top teams and devising a plan to neutralise their strengths and exploits their weakness, we just go out there and play our game. That is not good enough at the highest level and no wonder we've mostly looked a 2nd rate side under Wenger in Europe. Even a football purist like Guardiola adapts and sets up his team to counter the strengths of he opposition. We saw him push Javi Martinez forward in the German cup final against Dortmund at the end of last season (a game they went on to win) and told his defenders to hoof the ball to him. Yes, Guardiola who harps on about beautiful football told his defenders to hoof the ball to bypass Dortmund's heavy pressing. Would Wenger do something like that? Nah, never, and no wonder we mostly look clueless against quality sides.

flobaba

Don't worry mate, we won't be this poor all season.

The quality of the players will come through - they'll figure it out eventually, and the opposition gets easier.

But no progress is being made on the pitch. That much is clear. We have no system.

GooneriC

Its ok to be naive one or two times , but this has been going on for YEARS , why is Wenger not being pulled up on it? Ive heard many many times how he gives this excuse after defeats. If its the same thing happening with different players over so many years then you have to say the team management is at fault and should have been held accountable.

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.

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