EPL: Arsenal v Liverpool- 24/08/15, 20:00. [SS1]

[Rex Stone]

Another thing that pisses me off is the striker situation, we've got two round pegs in square holes with Theo and Giroud. One is too small and lacks the subtle close control you need to be a great striker, the other is too slow and isn't at his best with the one touch passing we play.

I'd actually take PEA right now, I don't rate him much higher than Theo but he's a natural striker and he'd paper over pretty much all the cracks we have right now.

 

[blaze_of_glory]

I see Cazorla is getting stick now, laughable really.

He didn't have a great game, to be fair. But people acting like this is normal are pretty funny. Guy regularly contends for MOTM. He does seem to go through a poor spell each season though, maybe he's just getting it out early.

I think we all see the need for a new midfielder though. Too risky relying on Coq not to get hurt, as Arteta will likely be hurt as well when that happens.

 

[FinnGooner]

Well we scored a goal.

No need to act like a victim. That's for scousers. We sucked the first half so badly that we deserved nothing more form this game than a draw. Anybody can make up excuses, it's one of the easiest things in the world. Cech gave us the chance to win but too many of our players had sub-par performances. Sadly, nothing new or surprising. If you don't shown up for the entire 90 minutes, there's a good chance you won't win. Pro footballers ought to know that.

 

[Bigbludfire]

This is the thing with Coquelin and Cazorla, we've got two players doing the job of one in midfield. Coquelin isn't trusted to build play so Santi is played next to him, he adds NOTHING defensively, one game against Man City when we parked the bus and Cazorla has turned into some sort of God.

You're not winning the league with Per Mertesacker at the back, Santi Cazorla in midfield and Oliver Giroud up front.

That's the ****ing truth.

Agreed.

I can't trust Coquelin even when he does everything right defensively. He's crap on the ball.

 

[Batman]

I see Cazorla is getting stick now, laughable really.

Have you actually been watching him play? He's been pretty poor. But for Chambers he would have been the worst player on the pitch for us today.

 

[RandyMarsh]

Well I gotta say I completely disagree with you guys. While Just like most people I'd like to see Ramsey center and wide players out wide. Against top teams the formation clearly works. And it worked today.

You can't say we were poor when we have 3 certain goal scoring opportunities, one of which was taken and wrongly called offside. You can't also use Ramsey wandering to the left for his goal against him, that's how he is instructed to play when he is wide. We basically play 4-2-2-2. It works, we used a similar formation towards the tail end of 12-13 when we went on our run. it's the most defensively solid formation for us.

100% Convinced that if that was any other top team, those two other opportunities would have been taken as well. They were too good to miss, but alas Giroud is Giroud and Alexis beside not being 100% also has no left peg.

It's no surprise that since we switched to having Ramsey on the wing, Giroud has scored 1 goal in 9 games. The guy lives on service from out wide.

We're sacrificing the balance of the team to fit Ramsey/Cazorla in. And that's it.

I could write 1000 words explaining my argument but i'm probably not going to convince you anyway lol So we'll just stick with our own opinions!

 

[YaGunnersYa]

As abysmal as that first half was, I was pleased with the energy they showed today, ran all game instead of this half-assed ****e they produce at times.

Özil was the best player on the pitch in the 2nd half, he has started to allay my fears about him settling for a comfortable role within the team, outwith the limelight. Took it to Liverpool.

Monreal, another great performance. Guy is miles ahead of Gibbs now and is looking very assured.

Then theres Gabriel. This guy is and will become a beast for us. Really impressed with his pace and unexpected intelligence in certain situations. Top performance considering how awful Chambers was.

 

[Nyctophobia]

Come on mate you can't honestly believe that. It's not about individual performances its about how our TEAM performs when we have a front 3 of Alexis-Giroud-Ramsey, all our players clogging the centre of the pitch, right hand side non existent, no pace in attack, no counter attacking threat, not enough service to Giroud from out wide..i could go on.. The team balance is all wrong. So wrong.

Ramsey needs to be given another shot in the centre and a genuine winger like Ox needs to be back at RW.

The problem with Ramsey in the center is that Wenger wants him to attack and obviously we can't do that with him in the middle because there'd be a massive hole in our midfield all the time, so we put him on the right so he doesn't have to worry as much about defensive duties and he'll drift over into Alexis territory because he wants to create goals, but that is Alexis's job at LW and the rest follows, the only way Ramsey would fit in like this was if he played a role at AMC, which is Özil's place and it's a never ending circle of Ramsey being the puzzle piece trying to be fitted into the wrong puzzle.

I don't blame him anymore, he's doing what he's told to do.

 

[The_Roadrunner]

I'd actually take PEA right now, I don't rate him much higher than Theo but he's a natural striker and he'd paper over pretty much all the cracks we have right now.

I would be afraid that would be another Welbeck like signing though ya know?

 

[blaze_of_glory]

No need to act like a victim. That's for scousers. We sucked the first half so badly that we deserved nothing more form this game than a draw. Anybody can make up excuses, it's one of the easiest things in the world. Cech gave us the chance to win but too many of our players had sub-par performances. Sadly, nothing new or surprising. If you don't shown up for the entire 90 minutes, there's a good chance you won't win. Pro footballers ought to know that.

What? All I said is we scored a goal, didn't say we were any good or make any excuses for that first half.

 

[Artisan]

We haven't even scored a goal at home in how long. Something is fundamentally wrong, I mean would it really hurt to play Ramsey in his position ffs

No I completely agree with you that something is wrong. And again like I said I'd rather see Ramsey back in his natural position.
But against the top teams the formation is right. It's the personnel that are the problem, specifically Giroud. You can't miss those chances he got at the top level. It will more often that not cost us, specially when we are playing against team that are playing defensively.

 

[Maxim]

I see Cazorla is getting stick now, laughable really.

Eh? As much as we all love him Santi was absolute garbage in that first half. Created almost as many chances for Liverpool as Chambers did.

 

[Rex Stone]

He didn't have a great game, to be fair. But people acting like this is normal are pretty funny. Guy regularly contends for MOTM. He does seem to go through a poor spell each season though, maybe he's just getting it out early.

I think we all see the need for a new midfielder though. Too risky relying on Coq not to get hurt, as Arteta will likely be hurt as well when that happens.

You're right he does put in a steady stream of MOTM performances but I've always been a fan of balance and team over player. To me it's obvious playing Özil and Santi together gives up a lot more than it should. I think if we dropped him we'd see Özil and Ramsey picking up the slack and probably more goals for Theo and Alexis.

 

[Santi's Left Foot]

If you drop one you have to sell one. It's an area we are too strong and one which will give us better returns. Imagine we had an extra 20 to 40m to drop on a player. It would be exactly what the "super clubs" do.fs Barcelona knew Fabregas and Alexis would sit on the bench sold them bought Suarez and won the Champions League. Their outgoing wages plus fees brought in I'd Hazard a safe bet on more or less funded that one transfer.

Genuinely, if we have forty million to spend, had sold Cazorla and Wilshere, bought Cech, Vidal and dropped the 55m or whatever it is for Benzema do you not think we would be sitting much happier right now.

Yeah, but we're not playing football manager unfortunately.

If we want Vidal and Benz we can get them regardless, one of the last players you want to get rid of is Santi because there isn't a lot better out there.

 

[Dennis_Bergkamp_10]

Sometimes when I watch Arsenal I feel like I'm watching a handball game. Özil with the ball looking up and everyone standing still around the box with a defender in their back. Which results in a boring pass-game around the box.

And then Wenger puts Walcott on. There's no space, so why?

 

[Rex Stone]

I would be afraid that would be another Welbeck like signing though ya know?

You know what I genuinely forgot about Welbz there.

Actually maybe if we can give him more opportunities up front that's some way to solving the problem. He's pacey and if he can put just a few more chances away we're cooking.

 

[Artisan]

It's no surprise that since we switched to having Ramsey on the wing, Giroud has scored 1 goal in 9 games. The guy lives on service from out wide.

We're sacrificing the balance of the team to fit Ramsey/Cazorla in. And that's it.

I could write 1000 words explaining my argument but i'm probably not going to convince you anyway lol So we'll just stick with our own opinions!

Giroud has scored 1 goal in 9 games because that's his real quality. Lets not make excuses for the guy. He got the easiest chance to score a goal today and he fluffed it. Lets not pretend he's been bereft of service. During his purple patch lot of his goals were from set pieces, we just haven't been as successful at those, hence the drying up his goals.

More worrying is Alexis having similar goal scoring record, 1 goal in his last 10 PL game now, isn't it? Now that's worrying.

 

[Santi's Left Foot]

Eh? As much as we all love him Santi was absolute garbage in that first half. Created almost as many chances for Liverpool as Chambers did.

It's more to with the set up than him, it's affecting every player on the park.

 

[BaZZe]

No need to act like a victim. That's for scousers. We sucked the first half so badly that we deserved nothing more form this game than a draw. Anybody can make up excuses, it's one of the easiest things in the world. Cech gave us the chance to win but too many of our players had sub-par performances. Sadly, nothing new or surprising. If you don't shown up for the entire 90 minutes, there's a good chance you won't win. Pro footballers ought to know that.

But it's true, we scored a legit goal but we were robbed. 2nd game in a row Liverpool gets an important offside call in their favor.

 

[BobP]

There's something fundamentally wrong about this team, there's this inherent instability about it.

Can't elaborate as I'm not quite yet able to put my finger on the problem.