Arsenal v/s Southampton, EFL Cup Quarter-Final, Wednesday, 30th November, 19:45: Page 14 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Arsenal v/s Southampton, EFL Cup Quarter-Final, Wednesday, 30th November, 19:45

y va marquer

jones wrote:
y va marquer wrote:
That team was cobbled together from whomever it was that Wenger didn't fear would get injured, they are barely on first name terms and will never play together again .
Most of the players bar Ramsey, Ox , CoqElneny and possibly Lucas will be last 20 minute subs at best.
Though we are probably looking at Gabriel at RB until Bellerin is back.

The notion that all we needed was a game plan ignores the lack of quality and experience that was the hallmark of that team.

Of course they are on first name terms, they train together every day. That they lack cohesion is Wenger's fault too as his squad rotation is appalling

And even so, Southampton had players out like McQueen, Boufal or Sims who have no standing in their squad to speak of either. Decent managers keep all of their players on their toes knowing that they get a look in if they impress, and most players especially at top clubs chomp at the bit of having a chance to force their manager's hand. Not with us and not with Wenger at the helm

For heaven sake 😆 - obviously they are on first name terms, that was what I consider exaggeration to stress a point.

I have never subscribed to the idea that you can make wholesale changes to a team and expect cohesion, particularly when you replace your most creative players and goal scorers with players who've scored just a few between them all season.

Managers know that the key to winning the league is keeping your key players fit and playing a tweaked variation of the best starting X1 week in week out - like Ranieri last season, Chelsea the season before.

y va marquer

goon wrote:
You guys have been fretting about Bellerin being out for a few games and it impact it might have and yet make 10 changes to the side and it shouldn't be a problem 😆

That first half performance had little to do with tactics beyond team selection.

Stop making sense!

jones

y va marquer wrote:
jones wrote:
Of course they are on first name terms, they train together every day. That they lack cohesion is Wenger's fault too as his squad rotation is appalling

And even so, Southampton had players out like McQueen, Boufal or Sims who have no standing in their squad to speak of either. Decent managers keep all of their players on their toes knowing that they get a look in if they impress, and most players especially at top clubs chomp at the bit of having a chance to force their manager's hand. Not with us and not with Wenger at the helm

For heaven sake 😆 - obviously they are on first name terms, that was what I consider exaggeration to stress a point.

I have never subscribed to the idea that you can make wholesale changes to a team and expect cohesion, particularly when you replace your most creative players and goal scorers with players who've scored just a few between them all season.

Managers know that the key to winning the league is keeping your key players fit and playing a tweaked variation of the best starting X1 week in week out - like Ranieri last season, Chelsea the season before.

That's exactly what Puel did though. Why does it work for him and not for Wenger?

Klaus

It can work some of the time but most of the time it won't. It's a blind gamble. The players Southampton fielded today have, on average, played a lot more together than our lot had too. We should still have been able to come up with something against them but it's not that hard to understand why we lost.

goon

Clrnc wrote:
goon wrote:
That first half performance had little to do with tactics beyond team selection.

They pretty much played like how our first team has been playing the past month, albeit with unfit players, uninterested players and returning from injury players. Our manager is clueless if he thinks we can just continue playing this toothless way and depend on individual brilliance to win games.

You think our style and form over the last month has been a tactical issue? Maybe to an extent, the midfield balance hasn't been quite right, but I think it's overwhelmingly been an issue with form.

jones

I never said I didn't understand why we did, I even pointed out the reasons earlier. It's Wenger who doesn't get it

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

Was there tonight, what a disgraceful experience.

Jenkinson is an embarrassment and Ramsey is so shit I genuinely get enraged when he has the ball.

Jeff is crap.

Captain

I reckon when your entire back five comes in cold, you're really walking the tight rope.

Klaus

Captain wrote:
I reckon when your entire back five comes in cold, you're really walking the tight rope.

Striker up front who has only played 60 minutes for us there before too. And a guy at #10 who is still getting up to speed and out of position. It's basically the entire spine. We would have needed a big game from someone to swing it but it didn't happen.

Qwiss

Rohit wrote:
I find the attempt to lean on tactics after every match boring. They sat back and hit us on the counter like all teams coming to the Emirates do and executed that very well. We played right into their hands by being unable to keep the ball in their half because we just didn't have the quality to do so. The best teams in the world will not find it easy opening up a packed defense and we had our best attacking players out. Wenger's insistence on trying to play the game we love to play or whatever that means is baffling. He has a vision of his players playing that football but they aren't good enough for it.

But thats exactly the problem. No matter who is fit, no matter who is selected we always try to play the same way and it mostly fails. We had a handful of good performances this season, one outstanding one and everyone wet themselves about Wengerball being back and title challenges etc when it was plain as day as soon as we had an injury it'd fall apart and Wenger wouldn't be able to fix it.

Thats where we are now, its where we've been in the last few years. Nothing has changed. Groundhog season.

goon

I'm quite relieved about avoiding two games against Liverpool in Jan. Our league fixtures all look very winaable and we could do without the distraction.

flobaba

I see we picked up the Big L in this one.

And we played Jeff!

Sicario

goon wrote:
I'm quite relieved about avoiding two games against Liverpool in Jan. Our league fixtures all look very winaable and we could do without the distraction.

True but if Southampton got Hull would we be then gutted on a missed opportunity and the possibility of getting revenge on Mourinho in the final ten years since we lost to him in a league cup final....

I was at the game tonight btw and Jenkison was so, so bad. Looked like he regressed 5 years and was the Jenko of 2011. Ramsey also played like the Ramsey of 2011. On the whole we didn't really give a damn enough about this trophy.

Tactics

goon wrote:
I'm quite relieved about avoiding two games against Liverpool in Jan. Our league fixtures all look very winaable and we could do without the distraction.

Yep keep our players fresh for the 4th place trophy. There is serious lack of hunger to win trophies at the club IMO and even some fans seem to be cool with it. The Chavski squad that won the league and cup and reached the CL quarters 2 seasons ago was much smaller than our current squad. Wenger simply doesn't want it enough IMO, and as I said earlier, tries to achieve the bare minimum. Time to move on.

Sicario

Tactics, lets say if we won the Carling cup and finished fourth versus winning nothing and finishing fourth, the former would not mean we would had a good season. Little between the two.

Another question for you, would you rather we won tonight and dropped points on Sat or vice versa?

Wenger has to do a risk assessment per game. Wengers risk appetite for this game was not high and rightly so. Win our next two league games and we would have forgotten this game already.

goon

There's plenty of hunger for trophies, just not this one. I want to win the league and am more than happy to sacrifice this competition to try and achieve it.

y va marquer

I wouldn't classify not being too bothered at being knocked out of the EFL Cup as serious lack of hunger to win trophies, especially when the winning of two back to back FA Cups wasn't rated enough to stave off the very sour and angry mood that permeated the club from August last season.

I couldn't imagine that we'd have had many on here using "oh but we won the EFL Cup" as an argument in favour of Wenger if we fail to win anything else this season.

Summer signings are regarded more than the EFL Cup these days I reckon.

Tactics

Sicario wrote:
Tactics, lets say if we won the Carling cup and finished fourth versus winning nothing and finishing fourth, the former would not mean we would had a good season. Little between the two.

Another question for you, would you rather we won tonight and dropped points on Sat or vice versa?

Wenger has to do a risk assessment per game. Wengers risk appetite for this game was not high and rightly so. Win our next two league games and we would have forgotten this game already.

Not in my opinion . For me winning a trophy and finishing 4th would make it a much better season than just finishing 4th. This is exactly how our barren run started, thinking we are above the domestic cups but then failing spectacularly every fking season in the league and CL. Maybe we should try to be a bit humble and don't consider the league cup to be beneath us? We have to be real, we have never won the CL and our current manager doesn't look like he's got what it takes to win the league anymore. How long are we going to go through this same route before we finally realise a change of approach is needed?

2 seasons without a trophy quickly becomes 4, 5, 6.....and then the whole issue about lack of trophies becomes a 'thing' for our players. They start bottling it again every time they come anywhere near a trophy. Creates loser mentality at the club. Winning is a good habit , it breeds confidence and creates winning mentality - that's what seperatie the proper clubs from say, Spurs for example.

Tactics

goon wrote:
There's plenty of hunger for trophies, just not this one. I want to win the league and am more than happy to sacrifice this competition to try and achieve it.

Sacrifice the cup for the league ? Why not go for both ? City did it recently, the Chavs (with a much smaller squad) did too.

Also, deep down, do you really believe we'll win the league this season ?

Tactics

And it's not like the likes of Walcott have been picking up injuries because they were overplayed, he picked up his last injury in training ffs

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