CL| Borussia Dortmund v Arsenal (A), 7.45pm 13/9, SS4

[Floating]

I think we'll chug along until January, and then sign someone pretty big to secure 4th place. The team might start really performing around then.

 

[AshburtonGhost]

Like Barcelona, Dortmund's pressing packs showed up the technical quality of our back 6 for how poor it really is. Sagna was constantly going back to Szczesny, or passing to players in dangerous areas, Song was taking far too many touches on the ball and falling under it, Gibbs was just bloody awful, Mertesacker didn't look comfortable, whilst Koscielny tried but was found wanting. Only Arteta was remotely capable of keeping hold of the ball under pressure, and he was hardly flawless. Benayoun came alive in patches, but didn't really contribute to moving the ball. As a result, all of our attackers were isolated, and had little option but to carry the ball by themselves. van Persie, credit to him, delivered with the goods at a very important stage.

It wasn't a bad performance, but it's yet another hammer blow to the 'offensive' and 'attractive' image that we've built up over the years. Furthermore, Dortmund taught us another lesson in pressing the ball in an organised team effort, and it really did seem like they had an extra man at times, though our lack of tempo on the ball helped them. There was only one phase in the game where we moved the ball at one touch culminating in a high shot by Walcott, but that's the only move I can recall in what seems like years, where we manoeuvred it at speed.

Some of the positives were how much more smarter and savvy without the ball. Arteta and Benayoun in particular were taking up defensive positions, and making sly actions, which certainly bolstered our defensive effort. Song was also massive in his defensive contributions. All in all, it's somewhat disappointing that we were two players short of our full strength lineup, and we struggled badly, and were played off the park at times in what was a big European game.

Think you’re spot on with this post, but even Arteta in possession was wasteful, the Dortmund performance was just a joy to watch from a footballing perspective it was near perfectly executed we’re damn lucky they didn’t have their finishing boots on.

Early in the game when we pressed them they pinged accurate long balls forward, Mertesaker was deeper than the rest of the line so we we’re immediately playing with an out of sync back four.

All of our attacks were from fast direct play, one touch or long kicks, none came from build-up possession play.

Walcott had six touches of the ball all game, an assist for the Van Persie goal, a run down the right flank in the second half, and a shot that went miles over the bar from a quick RVP pass.

The Dortmunds team pressurised our men putting our closing down game to utter shame, yes they were the home team but the difference was night and day. In spite of popular opinion on formations they played and defended with a 4-4-1-1 not a 4-5-1/4-2-3-1. Götze filled in on the right flank whilst Kagawa, the best player on the pitch by a million miles, played off the striker. When they defend as such they invite the opposition wingbacks to attack them as the two frontmen stay narrow on the pitch, then they break forward in numbers from width and centrally, they attacked us from the left, the right, on the counter attack from our own corner kicks, longball-direct, from lengthy build-up play, they had a literal arsenal of attacking options and tactics at their disposal even their diagonal cross field passes nearly always reached their target player, whilst we couldn’t string 5 passes together.

In the first half when both teams were trying to attack their striker was never left isolated, not once, he always had support from the two playmaking flair players Götze + Kagawa, a stark contrast to Van Persie and Gervinho left isolated with no options once they gain possession of the ball, at one point Gervinho had the ball running towards their goal Theo, the closest player to him, was standing 40 yards on the other flank and Gerv had 6 Dortmund players surrounding him, that was their dedication to work for the possession back. One of the best moments had to be ’27 minuets into the game Koscielny our main ballplaying centre back was running forward to the halfway line with the ball he then looks for options and there is nobody to pass the ball too, they close him down force a throw in, from which they win possession back and break on our goal Kagawa was in the box but failed with the cross it was just picture perfect football from Dortmund though, there’s nothing you can do about it, was just a big ‘f*** you’ to our style of play, ‘we’re better, we’ll not let you in our half, and we’ll force you back and pick your options off one by one’.

We still make bizarre errors, forced errors, from their aggressive closing down style yet we also made the usual face-palm errors, like the Sagna throw-in early in the game across our defensive zone, Koscielny running forward early in the second half after we had sustained massive defensive pressure, guarding a 1-0 lead, he actually bombed forward what was he thinking? Mertesacker was actually not too bad in the game but even he at one moment hit the ball straight up in the air in our 18 yard box, Gibbs just had a night to forget.

The major difference has to be Kagawa + Götze versus our Walcott + Benayoun, it was so laughable, the gap in quality was just so enormously vast.

If it wasn’t for RVP’s moment of magic this could have been a rout, but it came just at the right moment of the game, before halftime, to mentally kick them back.

That Kagawa is only 22 years old, he’s like the Japanese Bergkamp if he and Götze end up leaving Dortmund for anything less than a combined £70 mil then they’ve been robbed.

Nice post man!

Really wondering what the hell we actually do at training, we've been made to look downright amateurish a few times this season. New players or not, we're devoid of what could be described as even a basic defensive/offensive approach. Not good enough for a supposed top club under a bloke who is apparently one of the best managers in football.

 

[General]

If getting what we didn't deserve on the night makes people happy, then fine, but that performance was utter sheight. I said I'd be happy with a point, but to get it with a performance like that is rubbish. I can see Jack improving us, but he wont turn us into CL contenders by a long way.

We're the walking dead in this competition.

You can talk. I thought you were excited again. Make your mind up FFS :bash

 

[General]

Really wondering what the hell we actually do at training, we've been made to look downright amateurish a few times this season. New players or not, we're devoid of what could be described as even a basic defensive/offensive approach.

Haven't you heard - Wenger doesn't train the defence.

 

[General]

I think we'll chug along until January, and then sign someone pretty big to secure 4th place. The team might start really performing around then.

Don't do this to yourself. Wenger strongly opposes the Jan transfer window and those expecting a big signing will be very disappointed, especially considering how long it took us to do real business in the summer. I think we've made our bed.

 

[Rain Dance]

Really wondering what the hell we actually do at training, we've been made to look downright amateurish a few times this season. New players or not, we're devoid of what could be described as even a basic defensive/offensive approach.

Haven't you heard - Wenger doesn't train the defence.

Do we even train defense?

 

[General]

@ Jury:-
Hold on a minute, all i've said is what's obvious, that if people think we've got the squad to win the CL and have only just realised we haven't after today's game then it's ridiculous.

It's the usual outpouring of grief from people who only see things on a game by game basis. This performance should not surprise those who can see beyond Wenger's superficial attempts to mask the underlying issues. A point away in the CL is normally a good result but it has been clear for a long time while now that there are some serious fundamental issues with the manager's thinking and approach and inevitably this filters into the team. It always will, it doesn't matter who we send out on the pitch.

 

[mccroix]

Can't be bothered to go into detail here, but we are jsut so mediocre it's unreal

 

[celestis]

Just watching the game today , we could have scored two if Gervais had side passed to Walcott for the open net .

Tactically it seems to me we played like that on purpose , I guess because Wenger rightly feels we dont have the midfield cohesion of yesteryear to play a more attacking style . Until that changes guess this is our style of play .

 

[Hunta]

@ Jury:-
Hold on a minute, all i've said is what's obvious, that if people think we've got the squad to win the CL and have only just realised we haven't after today's game then it's ridiculous.

It's the usual outpouring of grief from people who only see things on a game by game basis. This performance should not surprise those who can see beyond Wenger's superficial attempts to mask the underlying issues. A point away in the CL is normally a good result but it has been clear for a long time while now that there are some serious fundamental issues with the manager's thinking and approach and inevitably this filters into the team. It always will, it doesn't matter who we send out on the pitch.

Aye, noticed that.

Anyway, Arteta was the one player who worried me last night, he kept the ball well when he actually got a touch but he seems to fade BADLY in the second half of games. I don't know if he was overwhelmed by the occasion or just doesn't have the engine to keep going a full 90, but Benayoun impressed me more which surprised me.

 

[General]

Conceding late so called fluky goals is nothing new. Recent history is littered with them. To see the root causes - you may just want to look beyond that small window where the guy slams the ball in.

 

[darthwenger]

All in all, a point away in Europe isn't bad but its just the totally lackluster offensive display that has been worrying me.

Its not a one off. Its yet again another poor display on top of another - we struggled against Swansea, got caned against Utd and so on. Our record since the CC final has been awful and imo the run is just continuing.

Our defense seems to have been improved, whether its the inclusion of Mertesacker or Kos is just a season better. But the midfield looks as bad as we've ever seen an Arsenal midfield and there is no supply whatsoever to RvP and the front three look so isolatated and get no support from MF.

I've resigned myself that we aren't the team we used to be. I look at Dortmund and see a young manager with exciting young players who have just won the league totally dominate us and it reminds me how good we used to be.

 

[Hunta]

Our attack hasn't been good enough for ages, Theo and Gervinho can't play at the same time in my opinion, against good/top sides. You need at least one winger who'll keep the ball under pressure and won't run into dead ends - that's why i wanted us to sign Mata so bad, it's ok having a runner like Theo in your side but when you've got two you need a midfield containing the likes of Cesc/Xavi in it - players who can keep the ball and dominate games, which we just don't have.

 

[alboots101]

Cant see us getting out of the group tbh.

 

[patrick42uk]

@ Jury:-
Hold on a minute, all i've said is what's obvious, that if people think we've got the squad to win the CL and have only just realised we haven't after today's game then it's ridiculous.

It's the usual outpouring of grief from people who only see things on a game by game basis. This performance should not surprise those who can see beyond Wenger's superficial attempts to mask the underlying issues. A point away in the CL is normally a good result but it has been clear for a long time while now that there are some serious fundamental issues with the manager's thinking and approach and inevitably this filters into the team. It always will, it doesn't matter who we send out on the pitch.

Aye, noticed that.

Anyway, Arteta was the one player who worried me last night, he kept the ball well when he actually got a touch but he seems to fade BADLY in the second half of games. I don't know if he was overwhelmed by the occasion or just doesn't have the engine to keep going a full 90, but Benayoun impressed me more which surprised me.

Why surprised? Benayoun was our best signing this window.

 

[Hunta]

Cant see us getting out of the group tbh.

I can, i think we'll win all our home games as i can't see Dortmund being as good as they were last night or should i say as dominate. Plus i can't see us being as bad as we were last night either. Marseille away will be a tough game as will Olympiakos, but we've got the hardest fixture out the way and taken a point from it so it's not all doom and gloom!

 

[JazzG]

A bit gutted to lose a goal like that right at the end but would of been daylight robbery had we won that game, they had been all over us for most of that game.

The midfield couldn't hold onto the ball and Walcott and Gervinho kept running down dead ends and really looked a bit clueless. Song had a realy good 2nd half and at the back the amount of times our defenders gave the ball away was just criminal.

I think the last two games have probably done a fair bit for us as we have had to dig in and I don't think a draw here is a bad result but the improvement needs to come sooner rather than later, I don't think we are capable of grinding out results week in week out!

 

[darthwenger]

Cant see us getting out of the group tbh.

Well, unless we can up our game then we don't deserve to.

 

[patrick42uk]

The team still needs to find its identity. We should start by deciding what our first 11 is. Right now, especially offensively, we have no connections, no relationships which is why we were poor. Attitude/work rate was spot on for the most part which is why we gave a good defensive performance.

I wonder if what we saw is Wenger's first 11, given the available players. I think Arsène being consistent with his team will help and he should keep the same players for the next game.

 

[alboots101]

Cant see us getting out of the group tbh.

I can, i think we'll win all our home games as i can't see Dortmund being as good as they were last night or should i say as dominate. Plus i can't see us being as bad as we were last night either. Marseille away will be a tough game as will Olympiakos, but we've got the hardest fixture out the way and taken a point from it so it's not all doom and gloom!

I think teams coming to the Emirates(spits)know how to play us and I can see us dropping points, I just want this team to give me something to sing about.

I suppose I could sing about about Cheeeesneeey.