Humble Rex wrote:
A lot of people are saying that this player and that player couldn´t "handle playing in our system". Hernandez couldn´t play as a striker here, Valencia couldn´t play wide here, Samba would be a useless defender here and so on.
I really can´t see what´s so great about this system of ours. Static and boring in attack, constantly vulnerable on the counter, constantly leaves our FBs exposed. Is it the system that dictates that we can´t defend set plays by the way?
As a plus though we can play 150 meaningless passes in a row between the back 4 and the midfield! Not when it matters of course, like when we are winning. Then we can´t string 3 decent passes together.
Maybe we should just abandon this stupid system so that a lot more players can actually play for us? Just an idea.
Fair enough. If you'd change the system of course other types of players would fit in.
But as things stand, Wenger is the manager and the system is the system, and within that framework he wouldn't work, neither would Valencia. Hernandez might work well, but most likely from the bench.
As for set pieces, you could argue that by opting for mobility in our defenders over brute strength and size we are at an disadvantage. But the counter argument to that would be the resultant lack of quality in possession resulting from our defenders staying far deeper when we have the ball. I think we'd score less goals, or let in more if we tried not to change the defensive system but only change the players.
We have a lot to go on purely tactically on set pieces, and we've definitely conceded too many this season. But lower teams will always focus on set pieces as it is one of the few ways they can regularly get into the box and cause a chance. I'm pretty sure you'd find lower league teams score a higher percentage of their goals on set pieces v. top level teams than against their own level teams.
