M+D
Established Member
If van Persie's first name was Emmanuel I'd hate to see the stick he'd get.....
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Arsenal v Fulham : 28/02/09 : 15:00
- Thread starter hesham
- Start date
- Replies 987
- Views 27,444
Mbaki Mutahaba
Established Member
It was a poor game overall. When you have a midfield of Denilson/Vela/Nasri/Diaby, and arshavin/Rvp upfront you will struggle to dominate the middle. Its soo easy to fk*in blame Denilson. With all that attacking options we had today people are still on the witch hunt on blaming Denilson for lack of creativity upfont when in fact he is the closest defensive minded player we had on the field. Lets just accept it was a bad game from all players bar one or two. Arshavin also was out of the game for long stretches he is fresh to the club so i know u will ignore the disappearance act.
We created enough chances to win the games, RVP should have put at least one of them away. But u would rather scroll down..to our CM in the middle. Bad as Diaby was in dominating the area he is still not to blame either for lack of goals upfront. That is shared..
We created enough chances to win the games, RVP should have put at least one of them away. But u would rather scroll down..to our CM in the middle. Bad as Diaby was in dominating the area he is still not to blame either for lack of goals upfront. That is shared..
MDGoonah41
Established Member
I think we need a new "Squad Analysis" thread. And list players who are good enough for Arsenal and those who have to go.
vantoure
Well-Known Member
This is just sad! Will we score anoda prem goal this season?
progman07
Established Member
The problem with crossing is that we can't, except Arshavin, who is great crosser to be honest, but he is more of a passer so he won't do it many times.
Sagna and Clichy are hopeless, they just can't cross. Why are they crossing so much?
Sagna and Clichy are hopeless, they just can't cross. Why are they crossing so much?
McIntyre
Established Member
Merida+Denilson said:
That's because the day after the game we'd have quotes from him in the papers saying, "We must take our chances". Even though he'd blown all the best ones.
(Cue RVP quote tomorrow, "We must take our chances"
ops: 
)
McIntyre
Established Member
progman07 said:
Well, they obviously don't get any practice in training, so they probably use the match as a chance to have a go at it. :roll:
bertlb2
Well-Known Member
There were days not so long ago when we would ask ourselves if we would score 3 or 4 that night against the likes of Newcastle, 'Boro, Everton, home or away; days we were feared arriving at the Valley, Craven Cottage or Ewood Park. Days where, when looking behind our shoulder, we would see Chelsea and Manchester United. Days you just knew that someone will do something special on the pitch, and that special stuff became an habit. Days where the lads, rather then making you hold your breath in hoping for a breakthrouth that will never come, would instead take your breath away every Saturday.
I miss those days.
I miss those days.
nazo
Established Member
MDGoonah41 said:
going by today's match there wouldn't be a list
btw we played 3 games at home and were only capable of winning and scoring once. wow, and here's me thinking we could gain some points in these games.
Gunner4life09
Well-Known Member
They weren't showing it live where I am so, I deliberately didn't watch any of the other matches so I wouldn't hear the score so I could watch the delay version "live"
After watching the game I am almost depressed... The last 10 minutes drove me bad. The way the fulham players strung 30 odd passes together and we had absolutely no answer.
After watching the game I am almost depressed... The last 10 minutes drove me bad. The way the fulham players strung 30 odd passes together and we had absolutely no answer.
Unforgiven
Established Member
Gunner4life09 said:
Our players didn't even close them down. They were not passing around the back 4, they brought it into our half and were passing it around. Denilson didn't even bother to try and retrieve it. We wasted about 3 minutes of the last 5 just letting them pass it around.
baccy_man
Established Member
Gunner4life09 said:
didn't we used to do that to other teams passing the ball for 30 - 40 passes and everyone was cheering and laughing,
well now the boot is on the other foot and suddenly we don't like it because a team won't let us have the ball,
its about time that our team started getting stuck in and pass the ball less and take shots more, we have been passing the ball around far to much without any aim as to what we are doing the ball goes sideways then backwards then forward a bit then back and in all this time the opposing team have got all their players back to defend,
we need a lot more pace and purpose in what we are doing instead of going round in circles.
progman07
Established Member
We lacked a bit of sharpness. That's the main headline on Arsenal.com
That's the main headline on Arsenal.comNormally I would say you can't really place blame on the players because the likes of Denilson, Diaby, Song don't ask to be played, it's the managers decision.
But when those players are not even jogging around the pitch with their heads down while a team like Fulham passes us off the pitch I really have nothing to say. It almost seems like a lot of our players are completely satisfied just playing regularly for the club regardless of our position in the league. I won't take "they were tired" as an excuse because Fulham still seemed very much alive and they seemed to be doing alot more running than most of our players. Only player I would say is excused is Arshavin because he is in a new league and is not fully fit because he seemed absolutely knackered near the end of the game.
If you're in a must win game I don't see why you can't put in that extra effort for five more minutes instead of just standing around being absolutely embarrassed at your own game. I never considered our opposition parking the bus as any sort of an excuse for a poor result, but the people who do use that as an excuse can't even say that now. Fact is we were beaten at our own game by Fulham, and there's no way you can sugarcoat that to make it seem any better.
Blame Van Persie all you want, I agree at least one of those chances should have been converted, but once again he's the only one consistently getting himself into scoring positions even when we are crossing the ball into him for headers. We have no Bendtner or Adebayor on the pitch and we're crossing the ball into Van Persie, who despite what he showed today, is really not what I would consider an aerial threat. We've all known from what we've always seen from a healthy Van Persie he is not a consistent finisher and we're going to have to live with it, regardless of that he's still the only one we can count on to consistently get into good scoring positions.
As it has been mentioned in this thread earlier, our players look very reluctant to shoot the ball when given the chance. Nasri, Denilson, and Vela were most guilty of this, I really hope it's not being hammered into their heads that they can only shoot when they are 5 yards from the goal. We need our players to find a balance between when to shoot and when to pass, if your on the edge of the box and the area is crowded you are not going to pass your way through, just shoot, the worst that can happen is a miss or a deflection.
I'm also worried that we are going to start relying on Arshavin to much to create and score that we're going to run him into the ground. Today clearly showed he still needs to be subbed off at around the hour mark. He did however play very well up until he seemed he couldn't run anymore.
As much as most of you all despise Eboue I love how direct he is. He makes some fantastic runs with and without the ball, even though his final decision is usually a poor one he has shown more in terms of running at the opposition than Nasri, who still seems scared to do too much with the ball at times.
We all wanted Vela to start a game and play more and he finally did, and all it really ever shows is that at the time he shouldn't a winger in the Premier League, he always seems to run into trouble with the ball and ends up losing it on the wing.
So we're basically at a point where we've tried as many possible starting line-ups as we could with who's available and we still can't score from open play. We have to realize that regardless of who we play in the CM positions we're going to be lacking real quality there even when Fabregas returns. I really don't think there is much else we can do except hope our players find that finishing touch soon.
At the moment we need to support the team, I don't care how frustrated we all are the the 0-0 draws, I never have and never will condone boo'ing your own team of the pitch. Some of you think it will send a message to the players that we're not impressed and it might help them to up their game. Or what it could do is completely ruin their confidence and these draws turn into losses to West Brom. It's clear there is frustration with these 0-0 draws, you can see it in our managers body language, we don't need to make this situation even worse by not supporting our team when they need it most.
But when those players are not even jogging around the pitch with their heads down while a team like Fulham passes us off the pitch I really have nothing to say. It almost seems like a lot of our players are completely satisfied just playing regularly for the club regardless of our position in the league. I won't take "they were tired" as an excuse because Fulham still seemed very much alive and they seemed to be doing alot more running than most of our players. Only player I would say is excused is Arshavin because he is in a new league and is not fully fit because he seemed absolutely knackered near the end of the game.
If you're in a must win game I don't see why you can't put in that extra effort for five more minutes instead of just standing around being absolutely embarrassed at your own game. I never considered our opposition parking the bus as any sort of an excuse for a poor result, but the people who do use that as an excuse can't even say that now. Fact is we were beaten at our own game by Fulham, and there's no way you can sugarcoat that to make it seem any better.
Blame Van Persie all you want, I agree at least one of those chances should have been converted, but once again he's the only one consistently getting himself into scoring positions even when we are crossing the ball into him for headers. We have no Bendtner or Adebayor on the pitch and we're crossing the ball into Van Persie, who despite what he showed today, is really not what I would consider an aerial threat. We've all known from what we've always seen from a healthy Van Persie he is not a consistent finisher and we're going to have to live with it, regardless of that he's still the only one we can count on to consistently get into good scoring positions.
As it has been mentioned in this thread earlier, our players look very reluctant to shoot the ball when given the chance. Nasri, Denilson, and Vela were most guilty of this, I really hope it's not being hammered into their heads that they can only shoot when they are 5 yards from the goal. We need our players to find a balance between when to shoot and when to pass, if your on the edge of the box and the area is crowded you are not going to pass your way through, just shoot, the worst that can happen is a miss or a deflection.
I'm also worried that we are going to start relying on Arshavin to much to create and score that we're going to run him into the ground. Today clearly showed he still needs to be subbed off at around the hour mark. He did however play very well up until he seemed he couldn't run anymore.
As much as most of you all despise Eboue I love how direct he is. He makes some fantastic runs with and without the ball, even though his final decision is usually a poor one he has shown more in terms of running at the opposition than Nasri, who still seems scared to do too much with the ball at times.
We all wanted Vela to start a game and play more and he finally did, and all it really ever shows is that at the time he shouldn't a winger in the Premier League, he always seems to run into trouble with the ball and ends up losing it on the wing.
So we're basically at a point where we've tried as many possible starting line-ups as we could with who's available and we still can't score from open play. We have to realize that regardless of who we play in the CM positions we're going to be lacking real quality there even when Fabregas returns. I really don't think there is much else we can do except hope our players find that finishing touch soon.
At the moment we need to support the team, I don't care how frustrated we all are the the 0-0 draws, I never have and never will condone boo'ing your own team of the pitch. Some of you think it will send a message to the players that we're not impressed and it might help them to up their game. Or what it could do is completely ruin their confidence and these draws turn into losses to West Brom. It's clear there is frustration with these 0-0 draws, you can see it in our managers body language, we don't need to make this situation even worse by not supporting our team when they need it most.
Proof
Established Member
Classicprogman07 said:We lacked a bit of sharpness.
xcdude24
Established Member
I can genuinely say i'm in not in a fickle mood at all, and here's what I have to say about what happened today.
I actually thought Diaby was pretty good today. He's definitely inserting more of an influence in the game and I think that if he gets a healthy run of games he'll make a decent partner to Cesc- at least until we can sign another CM.
Arshavin is too good for Arsenal RIGHT NOW. There's so little off the ball movement that his passes don't mean anything. They're useless because nobody can play to his level. I think he'll be good once Cesc, Ade and ESPECIALLY Eddie come back. Eddie-Arshavin could be really a really dangerous duo.
Clichy's definitely lost his mojo right now. He's really fallen off this year, and it's almost 100% mental.
Aside from his finishing, I didn't think Nasri had all that bad of a game. I think that he worked harder than pretty much anyone and if he scored people would be saying he was our MOTM.
Like I said, I think we're terrible off the ball. Absolutely pitiful. NOBODY makes run. I also think that we're equally pitiful on the counter. We're as slow as i've ever seen Arsenal. Our lack of directness and dynamism is killing us too. Fulham knew what we were doing almost every time.
Right now this team has a losing mentality. They have absolutely no confidence in themselves. I think things will change when Cesc & Company come back, but I fear it'll be too little, too late.
I actually thought Diaby was pretty good today. He's definitely inserting more of an influence in the game and I think that if he gets a healthy run of games he'll make a decent partner to Cesc- at least until we can sign another CM.
Arshavin is too good for Arsenal RIGHT NOW. There's so little off the ball movement that his passes don't mean anything. They're useless because nobody can play to his level. I think he'll be good once Cesc, Ade and ESPECIALLY Eddie come back. Eddie-Arshavin could be really a really dangerous duo.
Clichy's definitely lost his mojo right now. He's really fallen off this year, and it's almost 100% mental.
Aside from his finishing, I didn't think Nasri had all that bad of a game. I think that he worked harder than pretty much anyone and if he scored people would be saying he was our MOTM.
Like I said, I think we're terrible off the ball. Absolutely pitiful. NOBODY makes run. I also think that we're equally pitiful on the counter. We're as slow as i've ever seen Arsenal. Our lack of directness and dynamism is killing us too. Fulham knew what we were doing almost every time.
Right now this team has a losing mentality. They have absolutely no confidence in themselves. I think things will change when Cesc & Company come back, but I fear it'll be too little, too late.
Shredder
Well-Known Member
It's become the catch phrase of the 2008/09 season...progman07 said:We lacked a bit of sharpness.
