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CL: Chelsea vs Arsenal | 24/03/04

JazzG

Established Member
Like I said earlier Henry was isolated upfront, if those 3 couldn't deal with him when he is on his own they never will be able to!
 

patrick42uk

Established Member
Adam said:
The only one handling Henry was his himself, and his own mentality.

if henry was ineffective due to his mentality rather than good defending, surely thats more worrying? for a game of that magnitude, surely he had to be mentally right? i believe he was frustrated by the chelsea defence, and not least down to the efforts of gallas.
 

JazzG

Established Member
He was frustrated by the lack of support, patrick I know you love to have a go at him any chance you get but surely you don't expect him to take on their defense on his own?
 

patrick42uk

Established Member
JazzG said:
He was frustrated by the lack of support, patrick I know you love to have a go at him any chance you get but surely you don't expect him to take on their defense on his own?

lol, i'm not having a go. its that i'd expect more of him in a game of that importance. But i did say yesterday that any striker would find it hard the way chelsea defended yesterday
 

Adam

Established Member
Yes, it was a combination. Henry is very good one on one Vs Gallas as we have seen down the years (outstrength and outpace). Gallas relies on pace, so when up against a player who is quicker - he has no plan B, no outstanding strength to outmuscle Thierry with. Terry has that body strength.

Henry's mentality in these games is worrying at times. He can break out of it, but he can go whole games anonymous. I think he gets affected by occasions at times - mentally blocks himself from humiliating the best. We know he can humiliate Ferdinand, Terry, Chivu and Ayala - but their names merely means he plays within himself at times. I think he loses focus because of that, and cannot play with his usual flair. There is something in it.

His talent is such that it is always him playing within himself. His bad, and not others good. You can say the same for Zizou. Last night i think his mentality played a part with the good defending -whether it was the bigger part is debateable.
 

va_va_voom

Active Member
Adam said:
I think he gets affected by occasions at times - mentally blocks himself from humiliating the best. We know he can humiliate Ferdinand, Terry, Chivu and Ayala - but their names merely means he plays within himself at times.
He did pretty well humiliating Inter.
 

Adam

Established Member
That's why i've mentioned at times. I do feel there is a psychology that Thierry adopts when facing big name defenders. I think the psychology is more important to how he plays, rather than the defenders ability on the day.

Thierry can do alot of things when he puts his mind to it.
 

n_henry

Well-Known Member
I finally saw the whole game, and I don't think we played as badly as I first thought we did, so that's promising. :)

Certainly though, Titi's anonymity was quite troubling - Chelsea did a great job of keeping him quiet, that's for sure - but he also never really looked like he extended himself too much... just didn't look like he was 'feeling it'.. That said, he did get back and defend for us on a couple of occasions, so he was trying...
 

Sammer

Established Member
We must admit, that Chelsea did a good job in taking Henry out.

Whenever he had the ball, well most of the times, he had to face one defender, with two other defenders waiting for him, if he´d get through.

With better understanding between him an Bergy, that might have created a lot of space for our other offensive players.

But it´s an interesting point of Adam - his set of mind can really shut him down completely. But at the same time, he will pull off a killer performance in the next games - and we all know it.

He looked quite worn out at times yesterday, too - that might have been another factor.
 

lewdikris

Established Member
Adam - i'd suggest that in games where he's getting quadruple marked like this (which the biggest and best teams always try), he takes a selfless approach, and tries to draw as many men to him as possible to make space for others. Mostly last night the impact of that was minimal - the final pass wasn't good enough - but it was part of what led to the goal.

Any great centre forward has to deal with the fact sometimes his job is being like the Pied Piper and taking defenders away, without ever using the ball. Thierry seemed to be doing that last night.
 

patrick42uk

Established Member
i dont think we should worry about tiredness with thierry. wenger specifically said he looked fresh in training. hopefully we wiull see him at his productive best on saturday.

The mentality point is interesting. I dont think thierry was specifically asked this, but in a post match interview he emphasised the point that arsenal are not a one man team. Some people here understand thierry's on pitch character, and wont be surprised by me saying that the performance last night by him was done on purpose to prove that point, to allow someone else to take the limelight. That fits in with lewdikris' 'pied piper' argument.
 

Adam

Established Member
I'd question whether its his belief that he cannot take them on - he came inside alot instead of taking the man on and couldn't thread a pass effectively.

I always felt there was another gear, and why the hell would Wenger work to supress that when he asks his players to play naturally and with freedom.

Lewdikris - "Play like kids" :wink:

I do think it is some food for thought. We see his best when he derives confidence from humiliation and the audacious. This is usually witnessed against lesser defences and in open games - not the big, big tight games. Going into team work mentality is all very nice, but not what is his primary job. We need his flair and variety. Especially if we want to be remembered as a team who won the Champions League in style - and a team which is truly great.

Let's see him have fun with Maldini and Nesta at some point.
 

marco

Well-Known Member
for me lehman was a bit unlucky. sol should have cut it out in the first place though. the deflection could have gone anywhere though.
thought bergakmp and henry were marked very tightly chelsea were playing for the 1-0 and we got a 0ne all this is our best chance of getting to the semi finals. as for henry being worried about big defenders names i dont agree with that but last nite gallas and terry were doubling up on thierry everytime so he didnt have the chance to exploit defences in the way we know he can. thought edu and vieira battled well though but one all was a fair enough result.
 

kajej

Active Member
Henry's absence from the game yesterday was a bit worrying. Lewdikris I think your point makes a lot of sense, what worries me is if teams play a decent CB at RB, would they be able to shut Henry down like Gallas did yesterday.

I never question Wenger's tactics but maybe Henry should have switched to the Right where Bridge was attacking more. Since Henry wasn't doing anything in the game, bringing on Reyes for him would have maybe confused Chelsea since Reyes doesn't drift to the left as Henry does.
Gallas would have been pretty much useless then.

Another thing is that I didn't like how we didn't search for a winner when we were a man up. The lads always say theyre playing for a win but in the last 10 minutes it sure looked like they didn't want to take any chances up front.

I don't think Gilberto should have come on yesterday either. He didn't improve our deffensive play and neither did he add dimension to our attack. I think Wenger might have noticed that later on.

Vieira and Edu were good yesterday, but in patches. We needed them to take controll and boss the centre and they never really did that. Funny thing is that people say that after Lehman's mistake it was a wake-up call for us but it was obvious that for the next 5 or so minutes after they scored Chelsea were dominating us and we looked totally lost. Our goal came against the run of play.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
galas is a very good player. has pace and can defence. remember 99% of you guys in the forum wanted Arsenal to buy him.

Saying that, he did not mark Henry out of the game. Henry marked himself out. This is a lazy player and picks his games. Just too much praise is put on his shoulders and it shows.

Each time the press say he is amazing , it goes to his head and stinks in the next game. this is why Zindane is the best. he has everything

Don't get me wrong, i like Henry, but i feel he is lazy. He does not compete with balls a yard away from him.

Also Bergkamp needs to go. The quicker Wiltord and Ali come back the better

Wiltord is so underrated and unappreciated
 

Sammer

Established Member
kajej said:
Another thing is that I didn't like how we didn't search for a winner when we were a man up. The lads always say theyre playing for a win but in the last 10 minutes it sure looked like they didn't want to take any chances up front.

.

Good point. It did not only seem that we did not want to take any chances, but when Desailly was sent off, we fell into a worringly lethargic state. Might sound a bit dramatic, but I could not understand, why our players acted so statically.

That was THE chance to knock Chelsea down.

I might be one of the few, but I truely believe that we were playing with fire last night. After (and before) Chelseas goal, their momentum was intense, they clearly outclassed us. I cannot remember one real chance we created in the first half.

People who believe, that it will all change in the 2nd leg, might be a bit too optimistic. Roman will put massive money on the table, and Chelsea is a good away-team. They figured out how to stop Titi and they played better most of the time. It´s not over yet.
 

Kyla

Active Member
To be fair to Thierry, none of our front players performed as desired. But, and this a big but, Thierry's best performances are usually when the pressue is off (bar Roma and Inter), so yes I concur with everybody's fears that he never fully gives it when the massive occassion arises (therock will love this) Yet maybe we are reading too much into one game. I don't think Thierry subsconsciously goes within himself when he sees who he is up against. It just wasn't working out for him last nite, and I would save my biggest concerns with the performance of our whole attack, which was non-existent.
 

Kyla

Active Member
Sammer- stop worrying me. I can't handle it. I can only survive in these forums when everybody else remains calm.
 

Adam

Established Member
Unusually, i am agreeing with therock - Wiltord thing is spot on. He has shown his worth in such important games when Thierry hasn't been firing. He can score goals and create, and it seems a long time since Freddie has had the same impact in a big, big match. (01/02 was a great year for him in that respect).

These are Wiltord and Kanu games sometimes. Players who will not greatly perform throughout the year, but can guarantee an impact in a big match. Remember, it was Kanu who started at Inter and held the ball up admirably. It was also Wiltord who has scored goals against Chelsea and Man Utd recently.
 
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