EPL | Arsenal vs Chelsea | 23/12/13 | 8:00 PM

[tap-in]

Firstly it is an absolute waste of time thinking you can win the title with Arteta as one of our main options in the middle of the pitch. There is a reason he hasn't got a single cap for Spain. Its because he is good but not great.

Secondly why on gods name do we have to moan about Chelsea being rough. Did we not send out 11 grown men. Are grown men not supposed to be able to mind themselves.

Sagna, Arteta and Özil are all experienced players. Not one of them put in a tackle after they got roughed up. I have more respect for Chelsea after yesterday because there was a game on and they were up for it.

For all the slating of Mikel yesterday I think he would improve us. He was literally always available for a pass and never gave it away. He also got stuck into 50/50's like his life depended on it.

Thats the attitude we need. Bang up for anything you want to throw at us.

Theo was completely ineffective because most average players are when they only have one trick..

Happy Christmas everyone, we are still joint top of the league and have played some of our trickiest fixtures. We need a finisher in January and a couple of men from somewhere. To this end I would be going all out to get Henry and Vieira to Colney.

I agree about Henry, we need someone in the dressing room with passion, now would be a great time to have him in some capacity on a regular basis. As for players who don't mind a bit of roughing up, why wasn't Flamini playing last night? Is he on a ban or injured? He would have been better than Arteta against Chelsea.

Oh and Happy Christmas to all fellow Gooners, and the few non Gooners who frequent this site

 

[General]

Arteta was the least of our problems yesterday and Theo was ineffective because there was no space to run in behind. This was a tactical sparring session and Wenger came second best. In truth Chelsea's squad is a little bit stronger than ours and Mourinho had the right players to execute his tactics. Wenger didn't and I think if you reverse both squads we would've probably come out on top like we did regularly against Chelsea and City until they were bought out by billionaires. This team needs a bit more fine tuning to become genuine championship material and this game reinforced the point.

 

[TakeChillPill]

The weather conditions were atrocious to play crisp quality football. It was always going to be battle in that environment. The fact that we stood up and showed fight was good to see.

I really think Polodski should get a run down the middle again. He might lack the movement, but given half the chances Giroud has had over the last few games, I would expect Pold to stick them away.

Giroud is a slightly better version of Ricky Lambert. at best a back back up player.

 

[Penn_]

Yes Polodski might of stood a better chance at putting some of Giroud's chances away, but I doubt he'd have been in the same position.

 

[coopsollini]

Yes Polodski might of stood a better chance at putting some of Giroud's chances away, but I doubt he'd have been in the same position.

Surely positioning is something you can work on. If we are to win the league, based on that it is unlikely that we'll buy a striker we need Podolskis goals.

 

[mo50]

Yes Polodski might of stood a better chance at putting some of Giroud's chances away, but I doubt he'd have been in the same position.

At least he wouldn't look like a donkey whenever he gets the ball out on the wing. What Giroud thinks he's doing out there in the first place is a mystery, then the guy has the audacity to try and dribble. He should just stick to the basics before trying anything fancy.

 

[Penn_]

Yes Polodski might of stood a better chance at putting some of Giroud's chances away, but I doubt he'd have been in the same position.

Surely positioning is something you can work on. If we are to win the league, based on that it is unlikely that we'll buy a striker we need Podolskis goals.

You can teach it to an extent, but I can't seem him ever being anywhere near as good as Giroud with his movement. It's something that comes naturally, you either know when and where to run or you don't.

 

[eye4goal]

Podolski has the finishing, but lacks movement. Walcott is useless when space is limited. Giroud knows what the game needs, but he lacks the pace and agility to execute it. We're going round in circles with this attack.

I'd like to see Gnabry and Chamberlain(when fit) given more opportunities. You see an arrogance in them that's lacking in our other attackers.

 

[outlaw_member]

I've said it once, I've said it twice, I've said it a million ****ing times, we won't succeed with our short passing game until we employ pace, width and penetration in the wide areas, as any strong team can stop us in the center. It works against the fodder, but any team worth their salt will continue to stop us. As for Wenger, he's clearly clueless when it comes to games against teams that are par or superior.

 

[SA Gunner]

Game 17, joint top but second thanks to Suarez and people think its the end of the world.

General, we not going to beat the top sides as they apply the tactic against us, as seen last night, but here is the good news, we dont play them every week. Yes, its not great to know that we cant get past this but its a secondary disappointment for me.

We resume our performances against the rest on Thursday, these are the games which we will continue to use to build our momentum and reinforce our confidence at the end of the day.

Im confident at game 19 we will be leading the line with a little space yet again, testament to us being able to run the distance successfully. In time we will overcome that final (current and almost only thing the pundits have) hurdle we are faced with.

Keep calm all, we stand a good chance this year.

 

[SA Gunner]

My comment on Giroud, I dont want to go into tactical play, is that he isnt the front line striker we require to truly make us a force in all situations. Great back up player to bring on but we need more.

The Suarez miss is looking more and more as I see that man play. He is easily worth 80 million now.

 

[a_fourteen]

Mourinho may be the better tactician but he's also the bigger coward. It's like in boxing -- we come to knock them out but they run around the ring for ten rounds and snag it on points. Sorry Chelsea won a point but no respect.
Mourinho has four strikers at the start of the season. He still has three and foolishly loaned out the best one. He has some of the best creative talent in Europe at his disposal in Mata, Hazard and Oscar. Despite all these resources he still sets up his team to defend and run away with a point.
If I were Roman, I would not be paying for champagne football but being served wine out of a box.

 

[Loken]

I was watching the Arsenal season review 11/12 with a mate yesterday after the game and honestly, Giroud is nothing compared to Van Persie. That much has always been obvious, but the consistancy of quality goals scored by RVP in that season is just out of Giroud's ability- compare it to Suarez, Rooney, Aguero- any top striker, Giroud is just not good enough for a title challenging side for anything except depth.

Always been clear, anyone saying otherwise is overstating his only real abilities to hold up the ball, win headers and get lucky with a few flick ons every so often.

In 9 games against Chelsea, Man United and Man City, he's scored 0 goals. He's not good enough. But he's all we have unfortunately right now, must support him and not get on his back, but Wenger's and get him to bring in another striker.

 

[Giroud]

I've said it once, I've said it twice, I've said it a million ******* times, we won't succeed with our short passing game until we employ pace, width and penetration in the wide areas, as any strong team can stop us in the center. It works against the fodder, but any team worth their salt will continue to stop us. As for Wenger, he's clearly clueless when it comes to games against teams that are par or superior.

Agreed, Barcelona were a good example. They were clearly more effective with Pedro and Villa out wide even if they had to leave out the arguably more talented Fabregas.

However we did alright setting up this way against Liverpool, Dortmund and Napoli earlier in the season and against City it was some pretty horrible defending and unforced errors which let us down. The narrow set up with playmakers out wide has clearly produced some great results this season but do we have the right players out wide to kick us up another gear? I'm not so sure, like eye4goal said Giroud, Podolski and Walcott all have major flaws. We still struggled to score goals at times last season with Walcott, Podolski and Ox all playing at the same time. I can see the introduction of Walcott, Podolski and Ox making us more effective, adding another dimension to our attack especially when our current system is looking stale compared to earlier in the year but I doubt it will make a massive difference. We need a real top quality attacker in our ranks if we want to move up another gear, not just pace, penetration and width up front.

 

[VAVAVOOM 14]

He's lost to Stoke, dropped a point to WBA at home and countless other stupid slip ups. Don't make him out to be some sort of footballing God.

At the end of the day, where the points come from don't matter. We're tied at the top of the table on Christmas and with a few matches involving the teams around us coming up, we have a great chance of remaining 1st after half the season has gone. All this while Olivier Giroud is leading the line. If Wenger plays his cards right we have the best chance at a title in a decade.

Well, he won 2 league titles in Portugal, Won back to back PL titles upon arriving to Chelsea (including their 1st in 50 years), won 2 Serie A's with Inter, and dethroned the mighty Barcelona to win a La Liga with Real Madrid.

He's also won a combined 11 cups in his tenure with those teams.

Oh, and he's also won a Champions League with Inter and ****ing Porto!

All this in just over 10 years, with all due respect Wenger's only won 3 PL's in 17 years and a few FA Cups.

Mourinho is undoubtedly one of the greatest managers of all time, so, yes, he is a footballing God as far as managers go.

 

[VAVAVOOM 14]

Giroud is not Arsenal starting quality full stop period. He is and should always be a bench warming plan B.

Wright, Anelka, Bergkamp, Kanu, Henry, Van Persie, Adebayor.

That it Arsenal quality striking!

If we're talking about a striker is meant to score goals, What makes Kanu better than Giroud?

Yes he is technically superior but the most he ever scored in a league season was 12 goals. In his other 5 seasons he scored 6 in 12 games, 3 in 27, 3 in 23, 5 in 16, and 1 in 10. Abysmal record really.

What makes it worse is he only ever hit double figures in all competitions once. Thats quite ****. 5 goals in 42 matches? I'll take Giroud any day.

 

[infineon]

Theo is such a frustrating player to have, when it works he's amazing, when it doesn't he's pretty much useless. Sagna was basically a RB and RW for a lot of the game yesterday.

Still don't understand where our players don't drill crosses more, one of Giroud's best qualities is turning in those sort of chances.

I think Theo's ineffectiveness was promoted by Mourinho playing hazard on the left. Pace vs Pace. In the end, he and Theo just kind of cancelled each other out.

 

[General]

There was obviously more to Kanu's game than goals and this would've been immediately obvious to anyone who saw him play. You'd probably say the same thing about Robin as his stats weren't all that until his last season here. If Giroud had half of Kanu's qualities, half of his critics will get off his back. Funny we are talking about Chelsea and out inability to score and then dismiss a player who scored a hattrick against them, one of which was squeezed in from an angle which Giroud would've struggled to spot let alone hit the target. Kanu was unique just like the generation of strikers we had at the club in that period and you couldn't say the same thing about Giroud.

 

[VAVAVOOM 14]

There was obviously more to Kanu's game than goals and this would've been immediately obvious to anyone who saw him play. You'd probably say the same thing about Robin as his stats weren't all that until his last season here. If Giroud had half of Kanu's qualities, half of his critics will get off his back. Funny we are talking about Chelsea and out inability to score and then dismiss a player who scored a hattrick against them, one of which was squeezed in from an angle which Giroud would've struggled to spot let alone hit the target. Kanu was unique just like the generation of strikers we had at the club in that period and you couldn't say the same thing about Giroud.

My point is if Kanu was in Giroud's shoes now - the lone striker at Arsenal leading the line every match - he would probably score even less than Giroud given his record. Obviously he had other attributes that he utilized but I'm talking from a pure goalscoring perspective, he was poor in this dimension and the stats speak for themselves.

I don't see the significance of him scoring one hat trick, again, his goalscoring record speaks for itself. Plus, that Chelsea can hardly compare to the one we see today pumped with hundreds of millions of pounds.

 

[Anzac]

The D line was that high as we had an attacking corner that started the movement.

The key to the passing movement is that we went from one side to the other and then back to half way before going forward again, and Walcott's lateral movement ahead of the play to draw the cover defence and open the centre for the final assist ball and shot.

The other point of note is that we kept the ball in motion just close enough to keep the defenders interested without letting them get a challenge in.

No, the key to passing movement is :
a. precise passing
b. movement off the ball
c. ball control

Unless you forgot, we clearly have lost one of those factor to play intrigue passing play. We have switched from possession based attacking game to more conservative approach or we wouldn't use Giroud as post player.

1. I fail to see your point - I was describing the play and you've put it into general points;

2. I don't get your meaning. I disagree we have gone more conservative other than as a reaction to injuries and the change to the midfield for the run home last season. For mind our primary style is trying to be more open and direct on the counter, however atm we are mired in the default possession style & more so when the opposition invites us to do so.

Recent times the norm seems to be that we tend to set up camp in the final 3rd and then bail out to the FBs to put in a blind cross.

well.. a better finisher would have won us the game at OT cause of those blind crosses...

IMO we remember the opportunities / goals scored as they can probably be counted on one hand. The reality is that our crossing is generally poor and occasionally decent, but is very inconsistent.

The team in the video included the likes of Gallas, Sylvestre, Denilson, Diaby and Bendtner. I rate the current squad as being more capable yet we seldom see the team going backwards to create depth for attack.
Far too often our norm is to push bodies into the final 3rd and flatten against 2 narrow banks of 4, and then bail out to the flanks for the FBs to put in a cross from level with the top of the area - probably the most pointless and low percentage ball you can deliver from wide.

The Walcott goal was from a direct attack which is all very good when it comes off, whereas I wanted an example of an alternative option to being stifled in the final 3rd without either a cross being put in or forcing the play resulting in a turn over and us being countered as a result.

there is no such thing is a 100% no-counter attacking method if both teams are about equal quality.

It is far easier to create an opportunity if you respect space rather than push up as far as the opposition allow you to and then end up playing back to goal.

Either way there are more ways to skin a cat than to just pour bodies into the final 3rd and take off midfielders for attacking players.

well... there's always set play and penalty..
Oh wait the ref was Mike Dean, Chelscum could get away with murder (oh they did it seems)

Really?
That's your alternatives?