Wengerball : back again?: Page 2 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Wengerball : back again?

Jed

Giroud still has his uses, but he shouldn't be a starting striker ever again in this team.

Mirth

Clrnc wrote:
goon wrote:
I feel bad for Giroud, I like him and he's a good player but I just don't want that kind of striker up top for us anymore. He'd be good to have on the bench but if Alexis gets injured it'd be Lucas who I'd want to see playing up top.

The differences is obvious. We really should not persist with Giroud up top anymore, or for the matter of fact that kind of targetman in front. It just doesn't work with Wengerball. The amount of goals we are scoring without him as compared to with him, and the type of goals we are scoring says it all.

Agree - unless we're playing Burnley or need a target man in the last 10 minutes of a game, Giroud has limited use.

I really like Giroud but he's just not suited to what Wenger wants to achieve with this team. I had an inkling that this would be the case after we looked a much better team with Welbeck leading the line in Feb/March.

JazzG

Qwiss! wrote:
Its not the first time we've hit a run of good form and good football in recent years. I'm waiting to see how Wenger handles the inevitable curveballs that will come over the season. Thats usually where he is found lacking.

Don't think we've played good football like this for what feels like years. Saw on Twitter we have the same number of goals this season (in 12 games) as we did after 20 last season. Creating better quality chances and our finishing is much improved this season.

goon

Mirth wrote:
Clrnc wrote:
The differences is obvious. We really should not persist with Giroud up top anymore, or for the matter of fact that kind of targetman in front. It just doesn't work with Wengerball. The amount of goals we are scoring without him as compared to with him, and the type of goals we are scoring says it all.

Agree - unless we're playing Burnley or need a target man in the last 10 minutes of a game, Giroud has limited use.

I really like Giroud but he's just not suited to what Wenger wants to achieve with this team. I had an inkling that this would be the case after we looked a much better team with Welbeck leading the line in Feb/March.

Don't forget we looked good with Theo up top for a few games early last season too despite his limitations as a centre forward.

General

JazzG wrote:
Qwiss! wrote:
Its not the first time we've hit a run of good form and good football in recent years. I'm waiting to see how Wenger handles the inevitable curveballs that will come over the season. Thats usually where he is found lacking.

Don't think we've played good football like this for what feels like years. Saw on Twitter we have the same number of goals this season (in 12 games) as we did after 20 last season. Creating better quality chances and our finishing is much improved this season.

We had one of our worst goal returns last season so this should be hardly surprising. The good football this season has been punctutated by near misses like Swansea and Burnley so it's been far from plain sailing. By all means let's enjoy it whiles it lasts but we've seen this familiar tale before. Wengerball now but would it be Wengerbomb in February.

General

It is like embarking on a train journey that's always ended up in a crash. You enjoy the familiar scenery and food offerings but brace yourself for the inevitable crash until you've gone past the stage where it has normally happened.

goon

I've heard that said a few times but I completely disagree that we've played like this before, maybe with the exception of the 07/08 season. Every other occasion that we've threatened to look like contenders it's never been through scintillating football.

ElGeniodeOviedo

goon wrote:
I've heard that said a few times but I completely disagree that we've played like this before, maybe with the exception of the 07/08 season. Every other occasion that we've threatened to look like contenders it's never been through scintillating football.

Dunno about this, the season we had Van Persie up top, Nasri and Theo flanking him and Wilshere, Fabregas and Song in the midfield we played some very good stuff. That would've been 2010-2011. We continued to play very good football in 2011/2012 as well. The football we played after those two seasons quickly fell to shit afterwards though

General

The football we are playing now is not unfamiliar. It's a bit of a red herring anyway. It won't define our season.

Tactics

Think people are more excited because this is the 1st time we are playing the sort of football we used to play when we won trophies or consistently competed for the title. I have always been against the possession football we tried to play post 2005 and have always felt a game based on quick transition with a lot of pace and movement was the way to go. Of course it doesn't mean we won't end up bottling it like we have done in the last decade but I like what I'm seeing from the team right now. Long may it continue.

JazzG

General wrote:
We had one of our worst goal returns last season so this should be hardly surprising. The good football this season has been punctutated by near misses like Swansea and Burnley so it's been far from plain sailing. By all means let's enjoy it whiles it lasts but we've seen this familiar tale before. Wengerball now but would it be Wengerbomb in February.

The seasons before we didn't manage many more to be fair. Burnley to their credit put in a great defensive performance, Liverpool lost there so not as easy as it looked. While in terms of goals the Swansea game was tight we missed like 3 or 4 sitters in that game. I'm not saying we are going to win or anything like that but going forward we look much better than we have in years. Last season it was sometimes a chore to watch us, so boring and unimaginative, while we do need to tighten up a bit at the back it is fun watching us play again.

Like it has been mentioned we need to keep this up for the entire season, still 30 games to go so still a lot of football that needs to be played. I'd rather see us finished 2nd or 3rd playing like this though, rather than the shite we've seen in the last few years.

Ray

I'm most looking forward to watching Sanchez upfront. VP and Adebayor scored goals and were decent forwards but nothing as electric as Sanchez. I think that's what separates this team from any other team post 2005.

arsedocmd

just keep giroud away, we'll do great. even welbeck would work.

Bold Tone

Giroud will be important for the congested fixtures after Christmas which may help us avoid that 2/3 month period in the new year when we seem to be running on empty with players knackered after the additional stress of international fixtures. Unlike our rivals, Wenger hardly ever reinforces the squad in January so the relative freshness of Giroud, Ramsey and Perez should help.
He should also be much more effective as a plan B (lumping long balls) when things are not working like when the team was off-colour against Burnley.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/10/02/burnley-vs-arsenal-premier-league-live-score/
or if teams prepare heavy pitches to slow down our passing in the hope of neutralising our pacy attack like Slovenia did against England.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/oct/12/theo-walcott-disappearing-england-duty

Art

I'm still not convinced this is our real level, got a nagging feeling we are just in middle of purple patch. Our performances against the likes of Burnley, Soton and Leicester worry me. Right now all our attackers are firing, the problem for me is that Sanchez is scoring at a similar rate to before if I'm recalling right. The other two being being Ozil and a patchy player like Walcott. Sanchez is bound to get a burn out sometime during the season, and the latter two are almost certain to drop off. The hope is when it happens, the likes of Perez and Giroud can step up this time around.

Actually Ozil hasn't really hit top form yet, so if he can reach similar heights to last season that could offset any other players dropping even without the squaddies steppng up.

General

JazzG wrote:
Last season it was sometimes a chore to watch us, so boring and unimaginative, while we do need to tighten up a bit at the back it is fun watching us play again.

It's difficult to play decent football when you have a donkey upfront who goes missing for half a season. This team will always look better with a mobile striker upfront. There is nothing magical happening here. Welbeck and Walcott showed that last season and Sanchez has taken it up a level but he sure won't last the whole season playing like this. I think this thread is a little bit premature and some people never learn their lesson but I guess it comes down to what your expectations are. You could even sense that Wenger is a little cautious this season about our progress and rightly so because he has seen time and time again how it's often ended in abject failure. We kick off 1230 on Saturday at Man U after the next international break and that's when the tough questions get asked. I can't even remember the last time we won there in the league.

Mirth

General wrote:
JazzG wrote:
Last season it was sometimes a chore to watch us, so boring and unimaginative, while we do need to tighten up a bit at the back it is fun watching us play again.

It's difficult to play decent football when you have a donkey upfront who goes missing for half a season. This team will always look better with a mobile striker upfront. There is nothing magical happening here. Welbeck and Walcott showed that last season and Sanchez has taken it up a level but he sure won't last the whole season playing like this. I think this thread is a little bit premature and some people never learn their lesson but I guess it comes down to what your expectations are. You could even sense that Wenger is a little cautious this season about our progress and rightly so because he has seen time and time again how it's often ended in abject failure. We kick off 1230 on Saturday at Man U after the next international break and that's when the tough questions get asked. I can't even remember the last time we won there in the league.

Don't think anyone's really disputing that so there's no 'lessons' to be learned. Even if we beat United, would you feel any differently? Questions will be asked till we finally win the league - that's pretty obvious.

Like most of us, I'm just enjoying us play like this because it makes games memorable and worth watching. I don't think we've played with this kind of pace in attack for a long while (and this pre-dates Giroud) which is supplemented by two very good centre backs and a reasonably solid midfield.

I fully expect us to finish between 2nd to 4th but the standard of football has been high quality and will at least have me looking forward to the next game. You've come at it from a - 'well, if we don't win anything, this is all pointless' which is fair enough but I don't think that's what this thread is about.

General

If we beat United away, it would be huge and this cannot be under estimated. It would be a more important indicator of our ability to last the distance than any football we are playing currently. Questions are asked because we often fold at the earliest sign of trouble. What makes games memorable for me is not the football we play anymore but the challenges we overcome and all this talk of us suddenly playing scintillating football like never seen before is slightly bemusing. I'm sure some of you were singing the same tune when we beat United 3-0 last season. I was more impressed by the Burnley game than the Ludogorets game tbh because we stuck to the task and didn't lose our organisation like has often happened in the past. Lets see if we can repeat this deep into the season.

DiabyKungFu

We've played great football everytime we've played a front 4 of Ozil, Sanchez and Walcott plus another attacking midfielder and we will continue to play great football so long as we continue to play a front 4 of Ozil, Sanchez and Walcott plus another attacking midfielder. It's not that complicated.

arsedocmd

Bold Tone wrote:
Giroud will be important for the congested fixtures after Christmas which may help us avoid that 2/3 month period in the new year when we seem to be running on empty with players knackered after the additional stress of international fixtures. Unlike our rivals, Wenger hardly ever reinforces the squad in January so the relative freshness of Giroud, Ramsey and Perez should help.
He should also be much more effective as a plan B (lumping long balls) when things are not working like when the team was off-colour against Burnley.

I was just talking in the context of wengerball. yes, it'd be great to have different options-especially when there's most likely going to be new acquisitions in jan by the bald pisshat at city or/and the cuntbucket at united- although i'm hoping that'd be lucas perez than giroud ever. Lumbering oaf is such an apt description for his football style with the ball at his feet.

« Previous Page Next Page »