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

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Vinci

The Sultan of Unai

Country: Netherlands
Giroud isn't good enough, but if Benzema had been playing, we still would have faced the same problems. Our style of play is too one-dimensional. We need to adapt and alter our game according to what is necessary, we simply try the same thing over and over again even if it isn't working.

Özil is a great player and does things not many in the world can, but it would be nice if he can show more initiative. He is an intelligent player and he sees everyone is just standing still packed together, why isn't he busting a gut trying to drag defenders out of place, I wonder. I don't care if it's not his 'game', he is like everyone else just doing what they're most comfortable doing, rather than for the sake of the team make a run or anything.
 

Bigbludfire

Established Member
sP70Ob3.jpg


Look at this and then wonder why we score so few goals.

Giroud is never going to be able to do anything if he gets the ball, other than try a fancy flick which will come off one in a hundred times. Özil and Alexis just standing still, instead of making runs and offering options. Santi is the only making a run, but he is easily marked, since that is not his strength and he isn't very quick or strong.

All packed together trying to do the impossible with some cute little flicks that rarely, very rarely come off. No one making runs, no one offering width. It's a ****ing travesty and we've seen it for years now.

You'd think Giroud is marking Skrtel ffs.
 

RandyMarsh

Established Member
Not buying this whole Ox gives the ball away too much, did you see our f*cking midfield yesterday?? Couldn't hold onto to s*it.

What extra security in possession and defence did playing a CM give us yesterday?

How can we drop Ox, the guy who scores our first goal against Chelsea in 6 games, the guy who's been a menace all pre-season and offers us something we are severely lacking on our right side?

Absolutely baffling.
 

tap-in

Nothing Wrong With Me
On reflection I think if we had not lost our 2 main CB's (very unfortunate for any team) we would have won comfortably. As it was Cech earned us a point.

Gabriel had a good game and I want to see him play with Kos, he got tackles in that Per could only dream of, he's also good in the air for corners etc.

Ramsey only works on the right when Bellerin is able to get forward. I think Bellerin had to hold back a bit after all the disasters at the back, mainly caused by Chambers. This left us with Ramsey cutting into the middle, sometimes even the left, and our right side was an empty space. I would have brought Ox on earlier and told him to stick to the right. Maybe move Ramsey in to replace Santi, who I thought had a poor game.

So, we need a goalscorer and big DM. Where have I heard that before!
 

Yousif Arsenal

On Vinai's payroll & misses 4th place trophy 🏆
Trusted ⭐
Oh and Neville pundit performance going downhill. calling Arsène "arrogant" will not help.
 

Giroud

Established Member
We have seen it for years. We have attempted to go through the middle to no avail at times. That is how we play. It's our style. It is flawed like every style. For example if you force City wide they can't cross the ball into the box. They play through the middle like us. The problem yesterday was not movement and definitely wasn't creating chances. We created two clear cut opportunities. Not half chances. Clear chances that should be converted from 5 yards through completely dissecting the opposition using perfect interplay and movement. You have no argument. We didn't need width yesterday as we successfully went through the middle. The problem is that Giroud cannot create space for a shot by himself. That is his main limitation even though people cite his pace as the primary one. We play intricate football that requires a forward who is nimble on his feet in the area. Nimble enough to get a shot off with either foot. Skillful enough to perform a drag back. Someone who can beat a man with skill not pace. We need that with the ability to hold the ball up and occupy bother centre halves. We don't have that right now. It also isn't available.

Agreed. We've created plenty of chances this season, enough to have won all 3 games. Giroud seems to only be able to score with a first time shot which is a massive limitation.
 
I just don't see the effect Özil is supposed to have on games, especially this one. He really is not a footballer. No doubt he is brilliant at keep possession games in training, the ones with no goals in grids, and he has great control, but he is a "pass and hide" merchant who really does not want to take players on, drive into the box, and he would rather do anything than be positive and shoot. I have played with players like this who really have no confidence or drive. Contrast to Wilshere and Chamberlain and Sanchez and Koscielny and even Arteta.
He lost the ball so many times last night and avoided any confrontation or challenge.
I thought Coquelin was immense, even without a fraction of others' talent. You need both, but Özil is a drain. He is the handbrake.
At training last night, I had fantastic stats, but had no impact on the games whatsoever physically or in terms of spirit ...
 

progman07

Established Member
Lol you can tell all he is preparing himself for is to pass the ball straight back to Ramsey. That's all he wants to do in those situations. He has 0 ability to run in behind and stretch their CB's around.

He was in Skrtel's back pocket yesterday.

I partly agree, but then, where could he move with such a small space available for him with his team-mates already surrounding the area. Our best ever striker Henry used to have two times more space behind defenders when he was scoring 40 goals a season. Giroud, for all his faults is relatively good with low crosses, especially from the right side. Also he is inconsistent, but capable to provide useful flick-ons inside the penalty area - the Sanchez chance came out of this.

If we aren't going to sign a striker (and I can half understand Wenger, the number of quality of strikers around is baffling), we might as well start to play Giroud's strengths, and start crossing him the ball or play 1-2s with him in the box.
 

infineon

Established Member
If we aren't going to sign a striker (and I can half understand Wenger, the number of quality of strikers around is baffling), we might as well start to play Giroud's strengths, and start crossing him the ball or play 1-2s with him in the box.
Are we not already doing this to some extent with the pinball football?
 

Le Professeur

Established Member
Ramsey only works on the right when Bellerin is able to get forward. I think Bellerin had to hold back a bit after all the disasters at the back, mainly caused by Chambers. This left us with Ramsey cutting into the middle, sometimes even the left, and our right side was an empty space. I would have brought Ox on earlier and told him to stick to the right. Maybe move Ramsey in to replace Santi, who I thought had a poor game.

Makes the decision to start Ramsey RW even more baffling - even more so considering they had a bloody 18-year old at RB. Poor from Wenger imo, Ox or Theo starting or coming on earlier at the very least would've likely won us the game.
 

tap-in

Nothing Wrong With Me
Makes the decision to start Ramsey RW even more baffling - even more so considering they had a bloody 18-year old at RB. Poor from Wenger imo, Ox or Theo starting or coming on earlier at the very least would've likely won us the game.

Yes, but then again its not the first time Wenger has baffled fans with his selections and subs.
 

OSBK

Established Member
We had chances to win the game but we didnt take them. You win games by scoring goals and giroud doesnt do it against the big teams.

he was so static it was unreal, all the clips show our players condensed and at the point of the attack is giroud not moving. If giroud makes different runs and goes down a channel then it leaves the spaces for Özil and sanchez to run into. We cannot win by playing 1-2s off giroud every game.

Against top teams you dont get many chances, we have to have a real predotor to win the league. IMO benzema is not that guy, we want suarez or lewond. As barca wont sell suarez then we have to go all in for lewond. 100mill is peanuts for a league title these days
 

SA Gunner

Hates Tierney And Wants Him Sold Immediately
Moderator

Country: South Africa

Player:Nketiah
Don't swallow all the crap coming out from the media about us needing this and that. Any team would struggle to play cohesive football with the CB pairing. It created uncertainty throughout the team and a patten evolved from here onwards. Link between defence and midfield completely broke down and gave Liverpool confidence. But as someone mentioned above, we legitimately had the ball in the net and these games are decided on fine margins.

Nicely put General.

Yesterday was a great example of structured, assured defending vs desperate defending.

Our finishing is still pretty poor though, whether that also affected by our poor backline is something to consider as well yes, but I feel its also a lot to do with our desire for that extra touch.
 
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Artisan

Not Emery's Old Pal
We have seen it for years. We have attempted to go through the middle to no avail at times. That is how we play. It's our style. It is flawed like every style. For example if you force City wide they can't cross the ball into the box. They play through the middle like us. The problem yesterday was not movement and definitely wasn't creating chances. We created two clear cut opportunities. Not half chances. Clear chances that should be converted from 5 yards through completely dissecting the opposition using perfect interplay and movement. You have no argument. We didn't need width yesterday as we successfully went through the middle. The problem is that Giroud cannot create space for a shot by himself. That is his main limitation even though people cite his pace as the primary one. We play intricate football that requires a forward who is nimble on his feet in the area. Nimble enough to get a shot off with either foot. Skillful enough to perform a drag back. Someone who can beat a man with skill not pace. We need that with the ability to hold the ball up and occupy bother centre halves. We don't have that right now. It also isn't available.
Completely agree, I can see why people would dislike the formation in general, but I genuinely can't see how people can blame our formation or movement for last night.
Excluding Ramsey's legitimate goal we created two certain goal scoring opportunities that any other team would have scored. You can't come away from the game feeling you should have had scored at least three goals, then say our style was the problem. No other team in the league, bar maybe City, would have created as many chances against a solid team like Liverpool who were committed to defending and hitting us on the counter attack.

The problem was the personnel, Alexis on the left is disadvantaged when he gets on the end of the ball in the box, because he is weak with his left foot and has to cut in. Guy missed an open goal. Giroud, well the less said about him the better. Sanogo would have done better with the chances he was afforded last night.

The most negative thing last night other than our shambolic defending in the first half was Wenger's substitutions. He completely ruined our attack when he subbed in Walcott for Giroud. If a hattrick against a team on holiday mode has deluded Wenger in believing Walcott as lone striker works, it really makes me question his competence more than even his performance in the market.
 

blrgooner

Established Member
Nicely put General.

Yesterday was a great example of structured, assured defending vs desperate defending.

Our finishing is still pretty poor though, whether that also affected by our poor backline is something to consider as well yes, but I feel its also a lot to do with our desire for that extra touch.
Agree completely. Our backline was the main problem yesterday and the striker situation. I like Giroud but he is not good enough for a title chase. He is too predictable. We were poor in attack from the right side. But we are a team that prefers to attack from the middle so this was expected.
All that being said, our second half performance was quite decent.Could have easily won it on another day.
 

DJ_Markstar

Based and Artetapilled

Player:Martinelli
See, even on the performance, we had a perfectly good goal disallowed and Liverpool didn't score because of the heroics of Cech.

We should have won a gritty, close game against a decent side 1-0 while playing poorly and we should have been talking about how Cech earned us two points. Analyse the performance all you like, you still can't escape the fact that the linesman cost us 2 points.
 

dka1

100% Dark Chocolate
Trusted ⭐

Country: England
Ox offers nothing bar running for ages till he either gets dispossessed or runs it out of play. No end product whatsoever it's pointless

In the past perhaps. But I think the goal against Chelsea in pre-season and his form coming into the season is indicating that things will change, bear in mind he's never really had a consistent run starting and ending games on the right.

Also he's doing more things like the shot against Mignolet near the end of the game yesterday.

So while the stats back up your claims, I have to disagree with your comment given what the Ox is showing; I think the OX is going to offer us alot this season IF he is given the opportunity to play.

I personally would shift Ramsey next to Coq and start with the Ox on the right (if not then atleast start with Theo there).
 
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