Arsenal vs Man City Player Ratings

[HollandGooner]

What is happening to Arshavin really?

 

[CandysRoom]

I'd just like to point out how bad i thought Arshavin played when he came on. He really is a very bad passer of the ball, which is suicidal in this Arsenal team.

 

[russkiegooner]

I'd just like to point out how bad i thought Arshavin played when he came on. He really is a very bad passer of the ball

He could actually be a great passer of the ball, particularly in the final third... When on form.

 

[AnthonyG]

Song-8 MOTM. Playing well again

Yes, I've been impressed (much happier) with him in the last few games. And he's not bombing forward as much or hanging around up front as needlessly as he was. I'm going to put some of this down to Wenger telling him to rein it in a bit, since most everyone dumps on him for things that go wrong without a thought to the possibility that he actually makes adjustments to how his players play. Stick. Pipe. Smoke.

 

[outlaw_member]

That's no longer the case, though. Fabregas is playing the same role as Bergkamp, i.e. the role of the creator. van Persie is playing as a striker now, and should be judged as one.

I was passed this information by DaG, you want to judge Robin as a striker, so lets judge him as a striker:

08/09
20 GOALS 15 assists.

09/10
10 goals 8 assists 19 games. Missed 5 months but contributed in every game.

Van Persie last 3 seasons from 08/09 to now 57 games, 30 goals 23 assists Before his injury this season.


Van Persie has nearly scored or assisted in every single apperance in the last 3 seasons. Now thats stats.

Van Persie from all the Arsenal players since 95/96 is 11th on the list. Not only that but in 143 starts he was involved heavily in 131 goals including goals, assists and pre assists. The man has litrally contributed everytime hes played. Without pre-assists its 114 goals and assists in 143 games. Van Persie has the least starts too compared to everyone there.

57 games in the last 3 seasons, 30 goals and 23 assists - as I said previously, his only problem is his ability to stay free of injury. There's absolutely nothing wrong with his ability to score goals or win football matches. It will be interesting to see if you and Robin's other critics still feel the same when he's banging in goals left, right and centre a little while from now.

What I find head scratching is in his spectacular, albeit brief, run of goal scoring last season, he showed he could score every kind of goal. There were headers from crosses and set-pieces, goals where he made runs off the shoulder of the last defender, spectacular goals from great shots, poachers goals from scraps in the box, or getting himself on the end of crosses to finish brilliantly. I think what he has shown he can give us in this striking role he's playing, is a bit of everything. He's not limited to one kind of goal or playing one kind of way - he can hurt teams with a great pass, a great piece of skill or dribble, you keep talking about a striker that can threaten in behind, but look at Robin's movement against Ivanovich and Terry the other night against Chelsea - it was top class, the space was there and he exploited it, repeatedly.

If he has stayed fit and played 40 games in each of the last 3 seasons, he'd have better stats than virtually every other striker out there. The only thing that worries me about Robin or Robin's game is whether he can go until the end of the season without breaking down again. Fingers crossed he gets some luck.

I had already been sent that information last night. :wink:

Assists are a bonus for a striker, but they don't really mean that much. It's a more relevant statistic for a creative player, but for a CF, it only supplements what he already offers. In van Persie's case, it's a large part of his game and it's completely unnecessary in my view, because we've got one of the best creative players in the world behind him. How many strikers and wide forwards assists are ever noted in other circles? Rarely, because there is only one currency expected from an attacker and that is goals. Football isn't black and white, but for strikers, goals is their most important and overriding requisite. Now if we were talking about creative players, or midfielders, than assists would take a greater significance. Pre-assists on the other hand is a subject that I'm not even remotely interested in discussing.

How many times does he make those runs, though? They're great the few times he does, because he compensates for his lack of physicality by displaying great intelligence. But it's no where near as persistent and as constant as it needs to be.

I don't doubt that van Persie can go on a run of form. He's a good striker, and good strikers invariably score goals. The problem for me is that he will never be a great striker. It seems to me that many here are more than happy with that, but I'm not. I'm accustomed to seeing great strikers at Arsenal, and I expect nothing less. I was discontent with Adebayor for that very same reason, and I'm similarly discontent with van Persie.

No, he wouldn't. Even when he does play, his strike ratio is hardly that impressive. Like I said, if average strikers have a better ratio than he does, what makes you suggest that he'll somehow find a great goalscoring touch. The guy is 27 for pete's sake. He's never scored more than 20 goals in a season. He's the most unreliable player we've ever had, and people are happy with him?

As for Robin being near enough the best there is, or of the last decade. You are having a laugh, mate. van Persie could have been a great player, but he hasn't. Players like Aguero, Forlan, Ibrahimovic and Tevez offer the best of van Persie, but they are also great scorers. People need to let go. He might even manage an excellent run of form, and I personally wouldn't be surprised at that. But he'll break down again, like his brother Robben who produced a great campaign last year but typically got injured this season.

 

[outlaw_member]

It's funny. I was making the complete opposite argument when Adebayor was around. He scored goals, but he didn't have the link up play or technical ability to be a permanent starting striker for us, in my opinion. van Persie on the other hand has all the technical requisites, but doesn't score as many as I would like. If only they could have been merged together, somehow.

 

[mo50]

I'd just like to point out how bad i thought Arshavin played when he came on. He really is a very bad passer of the ball

He could actually be a great passer of the ball, particularly in the final third... When on form.

Those flick on were ****ing ridiculous.

 

[Iloveyouarsenewenger]

What if that player could neither score goals nor have any technical ability?

 

[Kain]

I'm not disregarding them, as I am taking into account what he offers to the team. He's a good striker for the very strengths he offers to the team. I just believe that it doesn't amount to as much as suggested when he doesn't offer enough goals on top of it. Strikers like Forlan, Aguero and Tevez offer creativity like Robin does, but the biggest difference is that they are also top goalscorers. It's always the same lines that I've been hearing for years regarding van Persie. He just needs games. He just needs fitness. It was the same type of retorts that many were feeding me regarding Arshavin, about how he just needs to get match fit.

You are disregarding them your saying you want a striker who is more adapt at finishing who finds the back of the net regularly and offers more penetration around the opposition area, despite DaG’s stat list that Ricky posted if accurate blowing the goal view clear out of the water it doesn’t get much better than 1 in 2 at top flight Premier League level and that we have players already in the squad namely Nasri and Theo who have been consistently penetrating the opposition defences time and again all season but unless RVP does so it’s a stick to beat him with?

Forlan, Aguero & Tevez have one major factor over RVP it’s not their finishing, not their goal record simply the fact that they are able to stay injury free. RVP has a horrible injury record, he is injury prone but that’s ultimately not where the criticism is stemming from you like in the above paragraph. Nobody can argue that having to go for such long periods without our best striker doesn’t have a negative impact on our club just like it would for any of the clubs if these other 30+ goals a season strikers were to suffer similar injury dilemmas, yet to mark him down for being lacking compared to other top strikers in ability is dead wrong and I couldn’t disagree more.

Cliche formula? What's wrong with having Wilshere-Cesc-Nasri as the creative hub of the side, with Walcott and the CF being the primary goalscorers. It's hardly the same setup as Liverpool's.

What’s wrong with the system as it is if we are consistently one of the highest scoring teams around in top flight football?

You want the striker to score more goals despite our team’s ability to already get goals prolifically from wide areas, make them turn their game on their heads to support the striker instead i.e. glorified water carriers with Cesc as the creative hub and the prolific striker as the main man. What do we have to gain from nullifying our wide areas that way it’s deconstructive to say the least.

Missing a glut of chances is hardly a new problem. It's something that has plagued us for years. It's not just pace, it's also top goalscoring ability that we lack. In a game where we missed chance after chance, incidentally we were also wasteful against Birmingham, how could a great finisher NOT have helped our cause? Theo had alot of joy last night, in the sense that he was in many dangerous areas. The problem as always is Theo is still quite unreliable.

I agree, that it is the best the attacking lineup in the league. It doesn't change the fact that in my opinion we'd be even better with a proper goalscorer on the end of our infinite chances.

We don’t lack goal scoring ability, how can we possibly score as many goals as we do and lack goal scoring ability we’re 1 goal behind Utd in the league this season top scorers in the CL group stages. Out of 30 games we’ve played this season we’ve failed to score in just 5 games. We’ve racked up 70 goals in them fixtures that’s over 2 goals a game despite having one of the more difficult league starts in terms of fixtures of all the teams we’ll be competing with, again just how is that struggling for goals?

How do we lack pace whenever a team actually stops playing a 10-0-0 formation Nasri has been devastating, whenever he gets running at the opposition goal some of the Arshavin to Nasri cross field combo breaks have been superb, Theo’s been blistering, that goal in the CL he ran half the pitch and shot from 25 yards away bamboozling the keeper, that’s pace, why do we need more from some external striker?

We have great finishers here at Arsenal now, In Chelsea-Brum-City we arguably played three of the toughest defensive teams the Premier League has to offer including two of our bogey teams in a matter of days, yet walked away with 7 points and scored 6 goals.

 

[outlaw_member]

Could you point me in the direction of these strikers scoring 30-40 goals a season at the highest level?

The stats state quite clearly that if Robin plays games, then he scores goals. More than enough goals. A better than 1 in 2 record in the last few seasons, and that is without playing most of those games once he's really hit his stride in the middle of the season. When you add 23 assists in 50-odd games into the reckoning you realise just how good this guy is.

Not only does he score plenty of goals in this system, but he enables others to score goals too - either directly or indirectly.

From the top 3 leagues in Europe over the last 3 seasons.

Antonio Di Natale = 74 games - 55 goals 1 : 1.3
David Villa = 104 games - 71 goals 1 : 1.46
Gonzalo Higuain = 101 games - 63 goals 1 : 1.60
Diego Milito = 96 games - 59 goals 1 : 1.62
Samuel Eto'o = 117 games - 71 goals 1 : 1.64
Diego Forlan = 118 games - 70 goals 1 : 1.685
Zlatan Ibrahimovic = 108 games - 64 goals 1 : 1.687
Giampaolo Pazzini = 78 games - 45 goals 1 : 1.7
Didier Drogba = 109 games - 60 goals 1 : 1.81
Wayne Rooney = 107 games - 57 goals 1 : 1.87
Francesco Totti = 83 games - 44 goals 1 : 1.88
Marco Di Vaio = 87 games - 46 goals 1 : 1.89
Alvaro Negredo = 82 games - 43 goals 1 : 1.9
Roberto Soldado = 83 games - 43 goals 1 : 1.93
Darren Bent = 103 games - 52 goals 1 : 1.98
Fernando Torres = 90 games - 45 goals 1 : 2
Carlos Tevez = 112 games - 56 goals 1 : 2
Luis Fabiano = 88 games - 44 goals 1 : 2
Jermaine Defoe = 63 games - 31 goals 1 : 2.032
Marco Boriello = 53 games - 26 goals 1 : 2.038
Edinson Cavani = 98 games - 47 goals 1 : 2.08
Frederic Kanoute = 90 games - 43 goals 1 : 2.09
Fabrizio Miccoli = 87 games - 41 goals 1 : 2.12
Fernando Llorente 113 games - 53 goals 1 : 2.13
Alberto Gilardino = 97 games - 45 goals 1 : 2.15
Sergio Aguero = 122 games - 54 goals 1 : 2.2
Emmanuel Adebayor = 81 games - 35 goals 1 : 2.31
Alessandro Del Piero = 88 games - 38 goals 1 : 2.31
Nicolas Anelka = 117 games - 50 goals 1 : 2.34
Robin van Persie = 76 games - 32 goals 1 : 2.37
Mirko Vucinic = 93 games - 39 goals 1 : 2.38
Giuseppe Rossi = 110 games - 46 goals 1 : 2.39
Fabio Quagliarella = 98 games - 40 goals 1 : 2.45
Aritz Aduriz = 89 games - 35 goals 1 : 2.54
Raul = 109 games - 42 goals 1 : 2.59
Dimitar Berbatov = 108 games - 41 goals 1 : 2.6
Gabriel Agbonlahor = 103 games - 31 goals 1 : 3.3

 

[sabret00the]

Assists in the same time?

 

[ricky1985]

Pretty meaningless stats, mate, when you consider how many of those games Robin has started from the bench when returning from serious injury.

Now take away the substitute appearances from the same time period, and look at the starts, what's his ratio then? Now add in his assists, the goals he has directly created (which you dismiss for no real reason), now how does his ratio look?

And that's the point. He may not be the exact type of striker you personally want, but his figures still stack up very well when compared with other top strikers.

You also have to remember that whenever he's just hitting his stride he has tended to get injured, which means we definitely haven't seen the best of him during that time period.

 

[outlaw_member]

It's just goals, Sabre.

Ricky. Many player's stats on that list could be better if it was only accounting starts. Players like Torres and Rooney have similarly watered down goal ratios because of injuries and poor bouts of form.

My argument of him not becoming a great scorer is based on everything van Persie has shown in his career at Arsenal, whilst yours and many others is based on what he could display if he were fit for a prolonged period of time. I'm unconvinced by that argument for the simple fact that the one season he did remain fit, he wasn't really that great, even if his position was slightly different.

Kain. I'll reply to you in a while. I've got to revise for my theory test, which is farcical might I add. :x

 

[ricky1985]

With respect, you know that's rubbish. Account only for starts and in the same list of players, for the same period of time, van Persie jumps massively up the list.

Anyway, good luck on your theory test. Glad I've been there and done that whole driving test thing. Not much fun.

 

[outlaw_member]

I doubt it. van Persie has made 14 sub appearances in the last 3 years. Torres has made 11 sub appearances, whilst Aguero has made 16 sub appearances and they're the only players I've checked.

Thanks. I'l fail, though. Hazard Perception is the most * test ever.

 

[Yaya]

Fabianski-7
Sagna-7
Djourou-7
Kos-7
Clichy-7
Song-8
Cesc-8
Wilshere-7
Nasri-6
RVP-8
Walcott-6.5

 

[Danni]

I think the positive out-weigh the negatives for me. It's obviously disappointing that we didn't get the three points after dominating a woeful City side, but there are plenty of positives to take from a display producing high intensity. It was always going to be a struggle to play at a high pace for 90 minutes, but I thought we did our best to achieve that.

I thought there were some real top performers last night. Clichy has looked like a better player in the last month or so, and maybe that is due to a player like Nasri playing in front of him of whom has the willingness to track back. But his attacking and positional sense is getting better quite rapidly. Alex Song had an immaculate game last night, and I really can't remember any faults he had either. He did what he was supposed to do - be disciplined and break up play - but his distribution of the ball was to a high pedigree last night, it really was.

We look like a far better team technically and movement wise with Robin spearheading the attack, however, I'd like him to stay further up top without coming deep in search of the ball. Excluding that, I was delighted with his performance.

These type of displays should be held as a confidence booster, and nothing less (even if we didn't pick up the three points).

 

[General]

What's all this Van Persie hating and needless micro analysis. He's injury free, playing and linking well and we look potent with him leading the line. The goals will come eventually. On another day he walks away with a brace yesterday. He is obviously not perfect but doubts if any should not be about his qualities but whether he can stay injury free for an extended period.

 

[truth_hurts]

We played well to be fair. Nasri was a little quieter than usual and RVP only looks dangerous from set pieces so they get lower scores tonight.

What on earth are you talking about?

Can't see him scoring from open play but every time he gets on a set piece I feel something may happen.

 

[Iloveyouarsenewenger]

I was a bit disappointed with Van Persie's play in the penalty area but he was quality when he got shooting opportunity outside.

His one-footedness is something that really affects his ability to twist and turn and create chances in a crowded situations on a number of occasion.

On that note, how one-footed is Wilshere! He doesn't even go for simple passes with his right.