Bigbludfire
Established Member
No, but they would wake up the team from their arrogance.
Mistakes happen, but if Arsenal fail to score against Westham it tells you a lot.
Tells me more about the personel rather than "arrogance".
No, but they would wake up the team from their arrogance.
Mistakes happen, but if Arsenal fail to score against Westham it tells you a lot.
That sums it up for me. There are actually threads dedicated to some sort of explanation for the defeat. Tactical reasons and blame on personnel seem to be the main ones, but personally they are all moot. Plain and simple, we were at home, we have the better players regardless of the positions they were playing in and we should have been fully capable of winning the match especially with the confidence and squad stability there currently is.
However for me it just comes down to the mental side if the game and season after season it just seems that this team doesn't have it to win a league competetion. They can win cups but they just aren't focused enough to learn from their lessons and maintain ruthless consistency. How many players came out before the start of the season talking about the need to start strong. They clearly know they need to, so why the lackluster performance? The lack of energy and effort. It's the first game of the season. Have they not been looking forward to actually playing a competitive match for the past month?
We will see the same thing this season. We will bounce back, probably win 10 on the bounce before we see another dip in performance and the same pattern reoccurring. Hopefully I am wrong, but they just don't seem to have that will to win consistently. Too quick to self destruct and incapable of solving problems. The only thing this team has above everyone else is cohesion. When it clicks, when the players are all on the same wavelength we are devastating. However when that isn't the case, it's like watching a completely different group of players. It's only one game, but if you can't get up for the first game of the season at home that doesn't really bode well.
Good post.There is
That post just explains it all perfectly. I was saying this to a colleague this morning. The problem yesterday wasn't talent on the pitch, regardless of how average Giroud or this or that player is. Man for man we have a far better team than West Ham. We had more than enough talent on that pitch to win that game comfortably yesterday. All the talk is how great the mood is in the camp and how much fun they all have, but there I think lies the problem. There's some very comfortable young men at Arsenal, that have no idea how to deal with pressure or expectation.
There is a general complacency, and ignorance that rears it's head regularly with this team. How many times do you watch Arsenal and in the first half they look tired and uninspired, go in for half time and come out with a bit more effort. That wasn't a one off, it's not like we haven't seen a very similar performance from us with a very similar outcome to yesterday's game.
Unfortunately, yesterday showed that regardless of whether there is enough talent in this squad and I think there is just enough to make a challenge for the title this year, mentally we are still a long long way off. We just aren't professional enough, and there's always an excuse.
Wenger saying yesterday that West Ham were fitter and more ready than us because they have had a couple of competitive matches. If it had been us that had played a couple of European games and we had still turned in that performance yesterday he would be blaming it on tired players. Last year our slow start was because our players were suffering from a World Cup hang over, it's just f**king ridiculous. I just don't like this excuse culture for everything. They are paid vast sums of money to do a very privileged job. They should have been absolutely raring to go yesterday, they came out literally like it was a kick about in the park.
It's only one game of course, but it's still a massive blow. To lose a home game against West Ham. With every loss we have that much less margin for error as the season progresses if we do want to genuinely challenge. From the evidence yesterday, I just don't think we've learnt any lessons from where we've gone wrong the last few years.
Spot on. That sums it up for me. I don't think our players have the right mentality to perform week in, week out on a consistent basis. I thought we had learned our lessons given how we performed between Jan and May but this is just a reminder that this team tends to implode once in a while.That sums it up for me. There are actually threads dedicated to some sort of explanation for the defeat. Tactical reasons and blame on personnel seem to be the main ones, but personally they are all moot. Plain and simple, we were at home, we have the better players regardless of the positions they were playing in and we should have been fully capable of winning the match especially with the confidence and squad stability there currently is.
However for me it just comes down to the mental side if the game and season after season it just seems that this team doesn't have it to win a league competetion. They can win cups but they just aren't focused enough to learn from their lessons and maintain ruthless consistency. How many players came out before the start of the season talking about the need to start strong. They clearly know they need to, so why the lackluster performance? The lack of energy and effort. It's the first game of the season. Have they not been looking forward to actually playing a competitive match for the past month?
We will see the same thing this season. We will bounce back, probably win 10 on the bounce before we see another dip in performance and the same pattern reoccurring. Hopefully I am wrong, but they just don't seem to have that will to win consistently. Too quick to self destruct and incapable of solving problems. The only thing this team has above everyone else is cohesion. When it clicks, when the players are all on the same wavelength we are devastating. However when that isn't the case, it's like watching a completely different group of players. It's only one game, but if you can't get up for the first game of the season at home that doesn't really bode well.
it's like he is stuck in two minds all game. "I'm a wing. I'm a mid. I'm a wing. I'm a mid. I'm a wing. I'm a... Oh look my fullback is unprotected"That's the thing with Ox - he spends a lot of time jogging around in central positions - I wish we could just play with classical wing play sometimes.
That's the thing with Ox - he spends a lot of time jogging around in central positions - I wish we could just play with classical wing play sometimes.
You can see the look on Wenger's face, the frustration with this performance.
The question is... does he have what it takes, to rectify it, to give us a real chance this year?
He was making pained expressions even before we conceded the first goal if my memory doesn't fail me.
It's so weird because we know Wenger is one of the smartest managers there is, but still these mistakes come about, I don't understand what's going on behind the scenes at all.