Another characteristic performance and yet more frustration, fortunately with City dropping points yesterday our hopes of holding onto third spot remain, but that is all. You know what you are going to get at Stoke and we got it, we simply didn't do the basics well enough defensively and got punished for it by a workmanlike Stoke side
Johan Djourou has had a brilliant season but he has made some sloppy errors in his last couple of away games, today Stoke's scrappy opener was down to his failure to adequately mark Kenwyne Jones and we paid the price. The second was a fortunate deflection. 2-0 down at half time and a mountain to climb. The problem was that goals change games and by conceding such a sloppy opener it played right into Stoke's hands, they could then keep men behind the ball and play exactly as they wanted. If we could have defender better then given our domination of the game, this was just the kind of game we could turn from a defeat into a comfortable win.
We controlled the second half and were again by far the better footballing side, RVP even got us back into it with his goal in the final third. Sadly our hopes of a recovery were short lived, Djourou's poor clearance broke for Walters in the box, he was given far too much space and gave Szczesny no chance at all. All the possession, domination and superior technique counts for nothing if you are going to surrender cheap cheap goals in this suicidal fashion.
This has been the story of our season, cheap goals conceded that have cost us point after point in games which we have frequently been by far the better footballing side. Our casual and negligent defending has cost us big time this season. Whatever happens in United Chelsea later only postpones the inevitable crowning of the most average Premier League title winners for quite some time, it is sad that we haven't even been able to push them to the wire.
Our defense and our defensive play as a team need sorting, this much is obvious. The formation doesn't seem to help us much, the lack of defensive structure of the 4-3-3 is a hindrance. There are problems with some individuals in the squad. There is a lack of depth in terms of defensive midfielders and centre backs, maybe this is why we are seeing the likes of Song and Djourou burnt out at this stage of the year. No matter how good a team is offensively, if you keep going behind to cheap goals then you are going to throw a lot of points away in a season.
10 comments:
You call it right. We know Wenger will do nothing about this though. Why is a mystery. I guess the idea is possession is defence, but you don't work on defending when not in possession that is going to undermine the very possession game you want to play. Again, it's mystifying why Wenger clearly refuses to work on this, year after year.
Please don't tickle me. The gunners were nevre going to win the epl. It died with the draw against Sunderland and not the Bolton defeat.
Parlour should balst Wenger and not Arsenal for the Stoke loss. The fm lays down the tactics. Frankly his sterotype style aint going tow in any trophy. There is no variation.
Believe or not the red faced is now a mountain ahead of the fm in management.Untile Wenger starts to reinevnt himself,I dont see how the gunners can end the trophy drought.
Wenger is a stubborn old egomaniac.He would rather kill himself then admit he is wrong with his vanity project.The man havnt got a clue on tactics he have got less knowledge on how to create a decent defense then a three legged blind dog.He got lucked in inheriting a decent defense but have been shown for what he really is when they retired.A complete washed up egomanaic with second or third rate ideas on how to win football games,he have created a team of siucide monkies completely bereft of any redeaming attributes.George Graham would have won us the Cl if he had been given the support and finacial backing Wenger have received.Enough is enough WENGER OUT NOW !
its hard to believe this but one or two brain-dead bloggers will try to convince us that arsene is the only man to lead us and also that we don't need new signings
expect this from some who know absolutely nothing about football and usually blog to themselves with different aliases
its not just the defense. What about the tactics. We didn't trouble the keeper, created very little and Stoke's defense had no problem, and we lacked commitment. Once again when we had a chance to secured 3rd and they blew it.
Nothing surprised me anymore about this squad and manager. Not expecting anything special Summer (hope I'm wrong). Wenger has dug himself a big hole with his 'experiment' and I'm not sure if even he can sort this mess out. He's basically the equivalent of the 'rouge trader'
I get frustrated with Wenger too, but Danish Gooner, you are completely wrong. Wenger inherited a 12th-place team, and the first full season without any of the back 4 he inherited from Graham, he won the FA Cup; the next, he went an entire League season unbeaten; the next, he won another FA Cup; the next, he damn near won the Champions League.
Check out this blog, and learn something about Arsenal before Wenger, including how the English media gave up on that back 4:
http://www.blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk/2011/05/06/when-bruce-rioch-managed-arsenal-the-man-the-myth/
watching yesterday was embarrassing. having to listen to those jibes from the stoke fans was really rubbing our noses in it. And the thing is, the realist amongst us knew it was coming and it was like living through a nightmare. This was the culmination of wengers ideology laid out bare for all to see. The refusal to see the blinding obvious,the lack of tactical awareness, no leadership,lack of fight,no backbone,reliance on youth hopelessly wrong,buying on the cheap,refusal to strengthen when the team is crying out for it. I could go on and on. Now the general consensus is that we need to make 2 or 3 high class signings (which we wont) but I believe the malaise goes deeper than that. We ned a clean sweep,a massive clear out starting with the manager. There is an atmosphere of failure that is ingrained throughout the team and this stems from the manager. Contrast this with manure where an ordinary squad has been turned into winners purely on the personality of the manager and his winning mentality that permeates throughout the club. The situation at arsenal is the exact opposite. It a cancer that needs to be cut out. Inevitably such actions may result in a temporary dip in the fortunes of the team (maybe a season spent rebuilding) but I believe that is a price worth paying. We will win nothing significant under wenger (maybe a Carling) . He will not make the signings, he will never change. To do so would be an admission that he was wrong. His ego would not permit this.
wengers defensive buys include Stepenovs,Cygan,remi garde,senderos, and the woeful silvestre,and nut job gallas who he made captain!
he successfully turned laurent into a good right back,kolo was ok,and the best was sol who we got on a free..
goalie's like richard wright and almunia hardly inspiring...
Arsenal are leading the way for the most nipple goals in league it is getting hard to watch
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