Monday 8 February 2010

Tedious exchange and how long til things change?

Whatever Arsene said, and frankly most of it was very reasonable, I don't think it merited the response that it has received from Michael Ballack. Although Ballack had a point in that Arsene does look like he is making excuses when pointing out just how dire and negative Chelsea are as a football side, the way he makes the point does make him look rather aggressively defensive of Chelsea's style, does someone protest a bit too much? Certainly the mild mannered Ancelotti hits the spot where the repugnant German fool does not:

"Maybe Arsenal had more possession than us but that is not football. Football is about results."

It is a simple fact that we will not win the big games when defending like a collective of lemons. Chelsea are a rather vile bunch of individuals that have been cobbled together into a very effective football team. They may not be nice, they may not be pretty, they may cheat and dive, they may be boring to watch a lot of the time, but they win matches and are very hard to beat. It must be added that their side was assembled at huge cost, they have numerous twenty million pound players and a monstrous wage bill.

For an excellent game summary check Goodplaya's piece, his words on Mike Dean's performance are perfect, this little weasel had no idea how to impose discipline upon the game, some of the cynical shirt tugs and fouls that Chelsea got away with were a disgrace, it started from the first minute when Ballack hauled back Cesc in a dangerous position, a yellow then would have set the tone.

The general point still stands though, we are too easy to score against, we lack the players and the tactical variation to be able to really challenge a side like Chelsea. If you can't beat them then you should show them the respect they deserve, they are a damn effective bunch of c*nts, that is the most respect either I or Arsene should show them. But we should learn from them just what we lack and then address it.

We have big problems at the back and they have been present all season. We are slack from set pieces, we are naive to the counter attack and we make too many slack errors. The shield to the back four is too reliant on Song and Diaby, it is not good enough to have only two midfielders in your squad who can defend. We have too many midgets and not enough muscle in the squad, we need a balance so that we can defend with our backs to the wall when needed, so that we can use different tactical approaches against different opponents, so that we can change our approach when Plan A is not working. Our lack of strikers is also a very preventable problem, why was someone like Benjani not brought in as short term cover for the rest of the season. Only two injury prone strikers is not enough for a battle on two fronts. I could go on but I think some fairly substantial changes need to be made, not only to change the balance of the squad, but also to send the message to some underperformers that enough is enough.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

WE lost. No excuses there.

When we say that teams like Man City, Chelsea and ManUtd have large wage bills, we are not far behind either.

Players like Diaby, Denilson, Almunia are overpayed. Tell me which other team pays 50k pounds for such palyers? I would rather have a player like Essien and pay him 100k. Its a better deal.

Anonymous said...

Since November 2008 we have played Chelsea and Manchester United 9 times we have lost all of these games scored 5 goals and conceded 23. Drogba has scored 11 goals in 10 games against us. We have played Man City twice this year scored one and conceded 6 goals. Lets stop arguing about ref bias-Wenger has not corrected basic defensive deficiencies which have been there for the last 4 years. Arsenal are gifting these games to opponents by poor defending.Surely fixing this peoblem is a priority above all others.

Anonymous said...

arsenal have a monstrous wage bill you seem to forget and we also have the highest paid manager in the country which you also forget. we have a team of gutless shite players managed by Wenger who is the biggest conman in the league

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Anonymous said...

it's either till or until. Just a heads up.

Ted said...

Well its quite a relief to hear 1979 admit that we have problems with our defenders. His story all season has been that our defenders are not the problem.

Secondly, I agree with the comment above that we need to stop blaming the ref. I don't think there is a ref in the world who would achieve 1979's exacting standards. I actually thought Mike Dean did ok. If you turn the Premier league into a ballet then games like the Liverpool game will end up with 6 players left on the pitch.

Football has always been a physical game. And rightly so. Players like Keown, Vieira, Parlour, Dixon etc all knew that you have to commit professional fouls.

Maybe Mike Dean should have booked Ballack, but the more important message is that maybe we should be playing a bit more like him.

Its a sad day when someone like Ballack gets to show someone like Wenger how to win a football match.

Our pretty, pretty passing game is an obsession, wheras our opposition prefer to achieve results.

Wenger is on thin ice for next year.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous:

No!! It's either 'til or until. Till is where money goes.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous:

O.K. Till is allowed too.

marcus said...

Ted, re the ref: we were denied 2 legit penalties. Also, for 80 mins the ref allowed foul after foul and then suddenly decided to book both sets of players after 80 mins (incl. 2 Chelsea subs for their first fouls).

While I've been very critical of Le Boss this week I'm in complete solidarity with him in his self defense argument at his latest press conference in which he chastizes the press for fixating on 1 or 2 negative comments out of several positive ones about his opponent. The press do this all the time. This week he's been trashed for his comments re Chelsea, comments that have been twisted out of all proportion. The totality of his comments were not in fact critical of Chelsea but the press take one comment and proceed with headling about "WENGER FURY!" "WENGER BLASTS CHELSEA!"

Still, Ballack is right -- we are easy to beat.

The best defensive analysis I've seen of the Chelsea game came from Lee Dixon:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_prem/8503280.stm

It's a clear, fair view of our failure to get very basic defensive organization from this team. Schoolboy stuff, that's what's shocking.

THIS IS A PATTERN -- CONSISTENT, SEASON AFTER SEASON.

Anonymous said...

i thought the Ref was pretty good. He allowed a lot to go on, but was fair. thats all you can really ask of a ref. to be fair.

its funny that basically the same squad was doing the double over United 2 seasons ago, beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, and in two games of actual poor referring lost to L'Pool in the champions league.

it was the same team except RVP was healthy and Ade was around.

There's just something mental out there with the boys, hopefully they can sort it out.

If things go right, there's a good chance we will be playing Utd or Chelsea again in the CL. thats a big IF. I just dont want a rerun of whats happened the last nine games.

rahul

1979gooner said...

Don't take point about the ref.

They are generally very poor in the premier league, they referee based on trends without any consistency.

Now the studs up tackle is being punished harshly across the board, good, but the tackle from behind with no intention of playing the ball cleanly has come back into vogue because it is very rarely yellow carded anymore.

The same thing is true for cynical shirt tugs when teams are breaking away, the refs are far too lenient with these fouls, they are 100% deliberate and cynical and need to be rewarded with yellows every time.