EPL: Stoke City FC vs Arsenal FC - Sun. Jan 17th, 4:15pm - SS1

[Enfield]

Am I the only one a little surprised with the make-up of our bench these days. Yesterday we had a GK, RB, CB, LB and 2xDM. Which meant if we were looking to change things up or looking to make a break through late in the game we only had an untested 19yo to turn to. Even if that person was say Theo or The Ox when Sanchez comes back. For example is one of Chambers and Gabriel not enough. Especially with both Arteta and Elneny on the bench. IT would be nice to have say one out and out attacker and maybe one other attack minded option. Someone like Ramsey, Wilshere, The Ox can play wide and central along with Sanchez/Theo/Campbell.

Secondly the Kos was rank yesterday. I think a lot of games in a small period will lead of course to fatigue and hence the slopiness. Personally I would have dropped Gabriel in yesterday and allow the Kos a few days off and have him ready for Chelsea next week. As it is we are going into another tough game with a fatigued CB in the team and a rusty one on the bench.

Finally what is up with the Ox. The guy has all the attributes to be a top footballer but seems so inconsistent. I wonder if he is someone who could do with a wake up call. Small things like him stepping on to the pitch with a sequence of steps/hops tells me the guy has his head in the clouds.

 

[redanddread]

He didn't trust the midfield to play the right balls so he took on difficult passes himself. Defensively, he was fine.

BS, he didn't trust the midfield - he just made bad decisions about 4 or 5 of them - one almost cost us a goal. Defensively he was excellent but his distribution was putrid.

 

[Wilshere's Right]

People are complaining about the performance but I actually think the formation was completely off and that's what really hurt us. The amount of times that there was a huge gaping whole in the middle just behind the striker was shocking.

Wenger should of identified that and told Ox or Ramsey to play central and further forward.

 

[redanddread]

Am I the only one a little surprised with the make-up of our bench these days. Yesterday we had a GK, RB, CB, LB and 2xDM. Which meant if we were looking to change things up or looking to make a break through late in the game we only had an untested 19yo to turn to. Even if that person was say Theo or The Ox when Sanchez comes back. For example is one of Chambers and Gabriel not enough. Especially with both Arteta and Elneny on the bench. IT would be nice to have say one out and out attacker and maybe one other attack minded option. Someone like Ramsey, Wilshere, The Ox can play wide and central along with Sanchez/Theo/Campbell.

Secondly the Kos was rank yesterday. I think a lot of games in a small period will lead of course to fatigue and hence the slopiness. Personally I would have dropped Gabriel in yesterday and allow the Kos a few days off and have him ready for Chelsea next week. As it is we are going into another tough game with a fatigued CB in the team and a rusty one on the bench.

Finally what is up with the Ox. The guy has all the attributes to be a top footballer but seems so inconsistent. I wonder if he is someone who could do with a wake up call. Small things like him stepping on to the pitch with a sequence of steps/hops tells me the guy has his head in the clouds.

1. Injuries might have something to do with our lack of firepower in the bench

2. :confused:

 

[redanddread]

People are complaining about the performance but I actually think the formation was completely off and that's what really hurt us. The amount of times that there was a huge gaping whole in the middle just behind the striker was shocking.

Wenger should of identified that and told Ox or Ramsey to play central and further forward.

H e wanted to make sure we were defensively more sound - which we were. We'd conceded 7 goals in our last 2 away trips.

 

[Sweggeh]

People are complaining about the performance but I actually think the formation was completely off and that's what really hurt us. The amount of times that there was a huge gaping whole in the middle just behind the striker was shocking.

Wenger should of identified that and told Ox or Ramsey to play central and further forward.

Formation was okay for me to be honest, especially considering the game. I actually preferred it to our normal 4-4-2. Özil being out was a double edged sword. Without him we had no one to give the final ball and make the right decision in the final third, but we were also a lot more defensively solid with 3 CM sitting deeper, rather than just 2.

 

[Rain Dance]

^

H e wanted to make sure we were defensively more sound - which we were. We'd conceded 7 goals in our last 2 away trips.

Well... clean sheet

 

[celestis]

It's strange because Kos' passing is actually one of his biggest strengths. I mean, only against Man City less than a month ago he was actually bring it out of defence regularly, pinging passes accurately about.

He did yesterday too .

 

[Taylor Gang Gunners]

I'm pissed off, mate. I avoid MOTD when we don't win because I know Shearer would say something that winds me up. Carragher is also another idiot who is beginning to annoy me with his predictable and transparent agenda against us.

I used to love Carragher but now he's jarring. Like you said before, it's funny how he's always one to weigh in on what it takes to win a league title having never won one himself. He's still the best pundit Sky have though, the likes of Dwight Yorke, Jamie Redknapp and even Titi are awful.

I quite like Souness, he has a soft spot for us. Carragher needs to stop trying to be controversial for the sake of it and accept defeat in his Özil views. It's hilarious how he always compares the numbers in the PL between Silva and Özil conveniently forgetting how much longer Silva has been in the PL.

 

[Gooner Zig]

Does anyone feel that w/o Özil we were more secure in midfield for a long time? I've been advocating a 3 man midfield in games like this for awhile.

 

[celestis]

Does anyone feel that w/o Özil we were more secure in midfield for a long time? I've been advocating a 3 man midfield in games like this for awhile.

Thought we looked like a lower quality version of United .

 

[Sweggeh]

Does anyone feel that w/o Özil we were more secure in midfield for a long time? I've been advocating a 3 man midfield in games like this for awhile.

Yep, I think so too. Maybe next time we are going away to a really difficult team we can play Özil at RW to play the role Campbell played yesterday. And have a 3 man midfield of Elneny, Coq and Cazorla.

 

[SuperGoon]

Stoke were poor yesterday. We weren't secure at all.

 

[Rimaal]

Yep, I think so too. Maybe next time we are going away to a really difficult team we can play Özil at RW to play the role Campbell played yesterday. And have a 3 man midfield of Elneny, Coq and Cazorla.

Do that and we'll end up not scoring at all, and probably conceding. Özil has to play centre, so you play 2 fast wingers along side him to score the goals, so Giroud stays out of the squad. In other words, you play a straight 4-3-3 with no striker.

A better formation , imo, to solidify the midfield would be a 4-4-2 (4-3-1-2)

 

[Gooner Zig]

Stoke were poor yesterday. We weren't secure at all.

We didn't get overrun in midfield. Huge difference in our last few away games IMO.

 

[General]

Midfield is still a mess and Wenger missed on the subs. Flamini should retire tomorrow.

People complained about the subs costing us the game against Liverpool but I think the main issue was the timing of the subs rather than the subs themselves. They just didn't have enough time to bed in and influence the game and the same thing happened again yesterday. We had just played a very intensive game against Liverpool and Wenger decides to sit on his hands until the 72nd minute before making changes when it was clear we were losing momentum to Stoke who had made their first sub 8minutes prior. It's one of Wenger's long standing bad habits and it nearly cost us again yesterday. Finally when it looked like the game was running away from us he decided to react but it came after two great chances for Stoke. If we are going to win this league Wenger would need to be a bit more proactive in this area. Often the explanation is that he doesn't want to disrupt the rhythm but you can't keep doing the same thing and expect a different result.

 

[Penn_]

Schmeichel's post game comments were a little weird.

Praised the keepers and then essentially said the game was boring because of the lack of goals.

 

[Aevi]

Something about the game that was highly glossed over was the effectiveness of the offside trap by Koscielny and Mert.

They caught Arnautovic and Co. offside a total of 9 times, they have clearly put in a lot of effort in perfecting it after a couple of obvious blunders two months ago. Was a very underrated and overlooked way in which the team kept Stoke at bay to keep a clean sheet.

 

[eye4goal]

Whole team performance was very average. Giroud back of a great match against LFC reverted into typical Giroud performance. Midfield is still a mess and Wenger missed on the subs. Flamini should retire tomorrow.

This is what happens when your 3 best technically gifted CMs after Santi are Arteta, Rosicky and Wilshere. It was sad to see that their midfield was of a higher technical level. I'd look to bring Arteta into the midfield for the Chelsea game, or we'll have to play on the counter at home as we did against City.