EPL: Southampton vs Arsenal | Sat 26th Dec | 19.45

[General]

We had to change our approach after the first goal came out of no where and Southampton sat deep. The high line is only a disaster when there is no pressure from midfield and this is exactly what happened. Long was allowed to time his runs to perfection because both Ramsey and Flamini were playing like clowns. Southampton are average are are rightly fighting for survival but they will never face a physically weaker midfield in the league.

 

[WurzlSepp]

We had to change our approach after the first goal came out of no where and Southampton sat deep. The high line is only a disaster when there is no pressure from midfield and this is exactly what happened. Long was allowed to time his runs to perfection because both Ramsey and Flamini were playing like clowns. Southampton are average are are rightly fighting for survival but they will never face a physically weaker midfield in the league.

What are you talking about? I think about 9 clowns were playing for Arsenal, why you looking for details? If 9 don't give a **** of 11 you can find 10000 details which just sum up to: they did not give a ****.

 

[Batman]

Someone like Jack would have made a huge difference yesterday. Rosicky as well. The trouble is that our options in midfield while on paper offering some versatility are too frequently limited by consistent injury. With a fully fit squad the best XI we could have played against Southampton would have been something like this:

Walcott
Sanchez Özil Wilshere
Rosicky Coq
Monreal Kos Gabriel Bellerin
Cech
​

That team would have destroyed Southampton. Proper squad investment would provide the sort of cover that would allow us the depth to have those sorts of options available to us all the time rather than relying on chronically injured players. Obviously we know Wilshere and Rosicky are always hurt but you inject players with similar qualities to them instead of Ramsey and Campbell and all of a sudden pressing us is a whole lot tougher. You can't do that with a paper thin squad though. The options that we generally have fit in midfield are fine but only really conducive to playing one way and you've to to have versatility in every 3rd of the pitch to be successful over the course of a season and across all competitions.

 

[marc-in]

That feeling when you wake up and for a brief few seconds you forget what happened last night, then reality hits you and you remember Southampton turned you over 4-0..

I'm going back to sleep. **** this.

funny you should mention that, i felt like i woke up from a terrible nightmare, then i remembered with Arsène those nightmares are bound to happen.

keeping faith in injury prone players to keep fit throughout the season is naive at best, so the january transfer window will show us where our ambitions lie...

another two months without coquelin would be disastorous, we all knew this type of result was waiting to happen, all it took was tactically astute manager, and koeman has proved on many occasions he has wenger figured out...

 

[General]

What are you talking about? I think about 9 clowns were playing for Arsenal, why you looking for details? If 9 don't give a **** of 11 you can find 10000 details which just sum up to: they did not give a ****.

Because you can get away with it in other areas of the pitch but not in the engine room. As I said earlier in the thread, the fact that Flamini was taken off for a novice like Chambers when the game was pretty much over summed up the hopelessness of our midfield. Southampton looked like they could score more every time they drove through midfield and the score line could've been worse.

 

[blrgooner]

We had to change our approach after the first goal came out of no where and Southampton sat deep. The high line is only a disaster when there is no pressure from midfield and this is exactly what happened. Long was allowed to time his runs to perfection because both Ramsey and Flamini were playing like clowns. Southampton are average are are rightly fighting for survival but they will never face a physically weaker midfield in the league.

Well Southampton could just let Flamini have the ball and tell him do whatever he wanted. They knew that he was a DM who didn`t really have any kind of passing range for him to be dangerous. All they had to do was press Ramsey and cover Özil. Campbell and Walcott are occupying wide positions from where they are hardly effective anyway. Campbell will make himself available more often but will always pass backwards and Walcott is very bad at keeping the ball under pressure.
Also, in games like yesterday, we need the striker to be less predictable than Giroud.

 

[WurzlSepp]

Because you can get away with it in other areas of the pitch but not in the engine room. As I said earlier in the thread, the fact that Flamini was taken off for a novice like Chambers when the game was pretty much over summed up the hopelessness of our midfield. Southampton looked like they could score more every time they drove through midfield and the score line could've been worse.

I can't agree here. Our CBs played the balls to the enemy numerous times, bellerin's crosses went out of the field, Özils corner straight at the keeper, simple 10 yard passes to into no mans land.
It was all of them!

 

[General]

I'm not absolving others of blame here. I'm just saying Ramsey and Flamini's contribution (or the lack of it) was more detrimental because of their role. To me the reason why we get such wild variations in performance and results can be traced back to our instability in midfield. The gap in quality between Coquelin and our other alternatives is simply too big to sustain a title challenge. If reports of Arteta being offered a coaching role are true, then Wenger must move swiftly in Jan and bring in a better defensive minded midfielder to give us a chance. No amount of creativity can mask our weaknesses in this area and we've witnessed this almost every season.

 

[WurzlSepp]

I'm not absolving others of blame here. I'm just saying Ramsey and Flamini's contribution (or the lack of it) was more detrimental because of their role. To me the reason why we get such wild variations in performance and results can be traced back to our instability in midfield. The gap in quality between Coquelin and our other alternatives is simply too big to sustain a title challenge. If reports of Arteta being offered a coaching role are true, then Wenger must move swiftly in Jan and bring in a better defensive minded midfielder to give us a chance. No amount of creativity can mask our weaknesses in this area and we've witnessed this almost every season.

Falmini's role? Where else could he have played..!? He is a DM..!
Our midfield players are not good enough, i can agree on that, but you can not say cause we did not sign ONE more player our complete team is falling apart every 5th game!
We had those crap games where we were just not there mentally for years now! No matter which lineup!

 

[General]

Falmini's role? Where else could he have played..!? He is a DM..!
Our midfield players are not good enough, i can agree on that, but you can not say cause we did not sign ONE more player our complete team is falling apart every 5th game!
We had those crap games where we were just not there mentally for years now! No matter which lineup!

I don't think you understand the point I'm trying to make and it looks like you agree anyway but somehow appear to be reading what you want to read. Flamini is definitely a grossly inadequate DM for a title chasing side. Him and Ramsey put up a very indisciplined performance and created chaos for our back four. Of course we had other underperforming players on the pitch but the CM/DM positions are arguably the most important positions on the pitch hence the reason they are labelled the engine room. Once it falls apart like it did against Southampton the opposition would have to be extremely profligate for you to get anything out of the game. This is a long standing issue and Coquelin's emergence has helped to stabilise things a bit. The mentality thing is nothing more than a red herring when the players you are fielding are simply not good enough for this level.

 

[WurzlSepp]

I don't think you understand the point I'm trying to make and it looks like you agree anyway but somehow appear to be reading what you want to read. Flamini is definitely a grossly inadequate DM for a title chasing side. Him and Ramsey put up a very indisciplined performance and created chaos for our back four. Of course we had other underperforming players on the pitch but the CM/DM positions are arguably the most important positions on the pitch hence the reason they are labelled the engine room. Once it falls apart like it did against Southampton the opposition would have to be extremely profligate for you to get anything out of the game. This is a long standing issue and Coquelin's emergence has helped to stabilise things a bit. The mentality thing is nothing more than a red herring when the players you are fielding are simply not good enough for this level.

I don't agree at all. It is the complete opposite.

 

[Bashii]

This is ridiculous!

I am from Germany, not many Arsenal fans around me, but lots of Bayern or Dortmund ones. 4 Watched the game yesterday and 3 of them said we looked like we did not give a **** at all and a good mate added that we got no one on the pitch who would go nuts, foul, tackle, scream at our players to wake em up.
Everyone could see that we just were not up for it mentally, such arrogance!
My Bayern mate said if that happened with their team the players would be in trouble.

Why are you guys looking for excuses?
Tired? Kidding me? Coaches see them every day and could give em like 3 days off to recover.
Even with like 75% of your energy you should manage to get at least a draw against the likes of this crap teams.

Now look back this season, who did we lose against - yeah, the "crap" teams, cause our squad is arrogant as **** and we got no real leaders in it.

Shameful and unacceptable.

We had an off day, and yes we lacked passion and drive. It happens, it always happens at Arsenal and probably always will under Wenger, I guess it is his managerial style, who knows?!

Our best players got harassed and could not get a foothold in the game. We got outplayed.

We shouldn't just expect to beat anyone in this league and we certainly shouldn't expect to beat any team at 75%.. and Southampton are not crap, they are a decent team on a bad run of form.

Our team has been overplayed due to injury, if mental and physical fatigue didn't happen we wouldn't need 25 man squads and rotation and squad depth would be non issues.

We certainly shouldn't be losing our sh*t over one result when we are bang in the title race and we've kept up good form with some of our best players out injured. If this kind of result happens regularly we have a problem but at this moment it is not. This is a very competitive league and you simply can't win every game.

 

[redanddread]

Can we lock this abomination of a thread & send it to the archives never to be seen again?

 

[WurzlSepp]

Can we lock this abomination of a thread & send it to the archives never to be seen again?

Tbh it has its purpose...

 

[redanddread]

Tbh it has its purpose...

Catharsis and what else.....

 

[Revolution]

Martina's goal was special, but 'hit and hope' effort. Southampton gained confidence after that strike and Arsenal couldn't chase.

Groundhog day all over again.

 

[TorontoGooner76]

If we even had another capable midfielder I would suggest a 3 man midfield until we get some help back. Flamini and Ramsey worry me in the middle of the park together.