Sunday 22 February 2009

The goals have dried up

Robin Van Persie 9 goals in 19 starts

Adebayor 8 goals in 20 starts

Bendtner 3 goals in 10 starts

Nasri 5 goals in 20 starts

I think the above statistics tell the story of our recent problem in scoring goals. While no one can deny that RVP has scored some absolute crackers and put in some very good performances, his goal scoring record could still do with a bit of improvement, the same goes for Ade and Bendtner.

The lack of goals from elsewhere is rather obvious. Without Nasri we've hardly had a goal from a midfielder all season. Obviously the injuries to Walcott and Fabregas have not helped, but they were hardly banging them in before they hit the treatment table were they?

It's easy to try to put it down to one thing, but I think too many things have gone wrong this year to do that. The strikers have been very wasteful in my opinion, the media loves to talk of the lack of creativity without Fabregas, but I think that is just lazy talk, it hasn't stopped our strikers missing sitter after sitter in recent weeks. Eboue's lack of end product is another cause, there's a lot of huff and puff without any end product.

Something Alan Hansen said on MOTD last night rang true, we do lack a bit of tempo and urgency at times, it's all a bit too ponderous and predictable, we need to mix it up with a bit more variety and a bit more directness at times. The centre of midfield doesn't look right, it looked right against West Ham with Diaby dominating the show, but again we were let down by some rather poor finishing again.

There are just too many ifs and buts at the moment. If only Diaby and Eduardo could get fit and stay fit, then I feel we'd have a bit more drive and a bit more razor sharpness in the box. The problem is that if you are going to challenge for the league, you need a squad with more strength in depth. The loss of our midfield drivers in the form of Flamini and Gilberto in the sumer, combined with the intermittent absence of Diaby through niggling injury has left our ship rudderless and lacking direction. The problem is that it's not just a rudder we need at the moment, we need a canon that doesn't fire blanks.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

agreed.

unfortunately, we are running out of time and can't wait for everyone to get fit. please please please win a couple of games and secure the CL for next season.

he's been gone for a while, and I hope he comes back strong . . . Rosicky. miss him. he's a guy that will have a go from a bit out. we need more of that.

-rahul-

Obsinho said...

Balls to it. We were rubbish again. And the blame for this one again falls to Arsene.

Ignoring the imbalanced nature of the squad he now has, he isn't even getting the one he does have to play the right way. There is no proper urgency, and when we do show urgency it is in the form of reckless abandon that leaves huge gaps exposed at the back.

Strikers aren't scoring, midfielders aren't creating and unsurpsisingly the points aren't coming.

Wenger has the cheek to have a pop at Sbragia as he was shaking his hand, saying that his team was too defensive. But at least Sbragia's team had done what their boss had asked them to.

Anonymous said...

Nothing Alan Hansen says EVER rings true.

But we do need to play back to front quicker and not be so wasteful in front of goal.

This has been masked in recent seasons by creating 20 sitters and scoring a couple. Now we create 5 or 6 chances and score none.

Anonymous said...

wenger rests on his laurels which is not good enough considering manure don't and there the ones we always chasing.If it's down to finances tell us because during the summer with all the b******s thatwas going on with the 1 season wonder adecrapyor he should have covered his arse.Also with the injuries we already had and the lacklust performance from team players he should have strenghtened the squad instead of giving excuses.George graham all over again!!

1979gooner said...

Obs,

the point is we ARE creating chances,

in virtually all the games we've drawn or lost recently we've missed several great chances,

for example against west ham we had two or three outstanding chances, against sunderland we had at least four or five excellent clear cut chances,

the midfield is poor centrally from a point of view of shielding the back four and adding a bit of tempo, it also isn't as creative,

however the point I'm trying to make is we've had so many problems, it cannot be blamed on just the midfield, we've leaked too many soft goals, we've been week in central midfield, we've missed too many chances etc etc

it's not just one thing as the media make out, i really don't think a fit fabregas would have made that much difference given the way he was playing

Anonymous said...

Ugh! Eboue is in the starting line up v. Roma

Methinks we'd play better with 10 men...

Anonymous said...

Around the 70 minute mark now and things are looking very good.

1-0 up and have been very impressive.

But we should be several goals ahead by now. I wonder to myself if the players have an ongoing bet to see who can miss a sitter the most audaciously! Eboue and Bendtner must be in contention

Anonymous said...

God !! How many chances will we miss ?? If someone actually count the numer of sitters which arsenal players have missed , he / she will faint :O