PL: Arsenal vs Middlesbrough | 09/09/06

[Forza Gooners]

anybody else worried bout sunday??

rooney and scholes return aswell, ffs.

 

[hujja]

Where's the players ratings thread for this match?

 

[kel varnsen]

Sometimes I feel as though there's a little bit of naivity in our play. We try and penetrate the defence far too soon through the middle instead of using all the width of the pitch, keeping the ball in our defensive third, being patient and calmly pulling the opposition out of position.

honestly, this is an exaggeration and almost a bit tabloid. blaming our performance on a lack of 'width' in our attack, is knee jerk and a bit off the mark. we were able to get behind the full backs and cross the ball into the box at least 13-14 times on saturday. most of them were actually good crosses; well delivered. however, we hardly created a single goal chance from them.

the problem is not a lack of width. sure, we can become even better at taking advantage of the added pitch size, but it's not the biggest problem. what i find much more worrying, is the lack of movement around and inside the box by our forwards, central midfielders and the 'opposite winger'(i.e. ball is crossed in from the right, the left winger needs to drift inwards and vice versa). the players do not 'attack' the ball when it is crossed into the box. they just stand around, almost waiting for the ball to hit them. i was watching man u last night and the difference is massive, even though man u didn't play very well. when the ball is crossed into the box, players run full speed into the box; some towards the near post, some towards the far post. they try to not only get to the ball, but lose their defender as well.

this problem becomes even more obvious and visible when key players such as henry and cesc have an off day. our 'plan a', simply outplaying and outpassing the other team, relies on them playing well and doing their job. we couldn't get enough pace on the ball and, as such, m'boro was able to shut us out. their defenders were hardly ever caught out of position. rosicky was able to get a bit of directness and pace on the ball, but it wasn't enough. unbelieveable that he didn't start the match...

 

[The Tin God]

RVP needs to be put on the right wing and THeo on the left.

drop cesc and left rosicky and gilberto play in th midfield.

for me Cesc has been very poor so far in the prem.

rosicky will work his magic if he is in the centre

 

[Lehmann1]

I would play Walcott and Rosicky on the wings against United and Baptista in for RVP. And I'm not worried about sunday. United will be beaten sooner or later and we will beat someone. If we beat United our season is up and running in great fashion. I'm trying to remain positive. Our players are quality players and we can beat United. It's just about finding the right system

 

[celestis]

COMPLETELY off-topic, but I've only just seen the goal Theo scored for the Under-21s in midweek. f**k ME!!!! That was some Roberto Baggio s**t!

Now I'm even more angry he was left out the squad! :evil:

You know why Theo was left out. Wenger feels his career is worth more than 3 points to Arsenal. He is determined that Theo should not have a serious injury in his teens . Personally I am glad , I can't imagine what type of hell Owen goes through.

 

[patrick42uk]

width wasnt the issue yesterday. just think of how much of the ball freddie, gallas, henry and eboue got in wide areas. the problem was a combination lack of pace in the passes and lack of movement when players were wide as kel said. boro filled thaier box so why are we afraid to commit players in to the area?

man city was about poor finishing. but yesrday, like villa, was about poor quality of chances created.

 

[asajoseph]

width wasnt the issue yesterday. just think of how much of the ball freddie, gallas, henry and eboue got in wide areas. the problem was a combination lack of pace in the passes and lack of movement when players were wide as kel said. boro filled thaier box so why are we afraid to commit players in to the area?

man city was about poor finishing. but yesrday, like villa, was about poor quality of chances created.

Exactly.

Spot on. I was beginning to feel lonely there for a moment.

 

[Big Poppa]

width wasnt the issue yesterday. just think of how much of the ball freddie, gallas, henry and eboue got in wide areas. the problem was a combination lack of pace in the passes and lack of movement when players were wide as kel said. boro filled thaier box so why are we afraid to commit players in to the area?

man city was about poor finishing. but yesrday, like villa, was about poor quality of chances created.

It's a bit of a domino effect really. Lack of movement arises because of a lack space. You create space by effectively using width (this is different from just moving into in wide areas) and stretching the opposition to create gaps for players to move into.

When I say using width effectively, I mean as I said before in terms of the approach. Whenever a player such as Eboue, Gallas or Henry got into a wide area, the ball was almost always into feet rather than an angled pass to split the full-back and centre back (remember Henry's first goal against Liverpool at Highbury last season). Either that, or Hleb and Ljungberg could not carry the ball beyond the full-back.

This is obviously more difficult to do when the opposition defence sits so deep, so you need to use some intelligence in how you move the ball quickly (like you've said) and entice them out. It also depends on players being able to make angled runs off the back of the shoulder of the last defender. This is where directness comes in, and why we again, I'm surprised Walcott wasn't in the squad.

 

[Big Poppa]

COMPLETELY off-topic, but I've only just seen the goal Theo scored for the Under-21s in midweek. f**k ME!!!! That was some Roberto Baggio s**t!

Now I'm even more angry he was left out the squad! :evil:

You know why Theo was left out. Wenger feels his career is worth more than 3 points to Arsenal. He is determined that Theo should not have a serious injury in his teens . Personally I am glad , I can't imagine what type of hell Owen goes through.

With respect, that's a bit of a lousy logic to use. Why play anybody in that case if they have a chance of being injured? Cesc played far more first team football at Theo's age so it sort of contradicts what you're saying.

Nobody's saying Theo should be starting games, just a bit odd that he's not even on the bench at times when he might be able to come on and make a difference with his pace and directness.

 

[asajoseph]

It's difficult really - who would you leave off that bench for Theo yesterday?

Personally, and I've said this for a while, I'd like to see 7-man benches, as in Europe.

 

[qs]

Djourou needs to be dropped. Get Flamini in at LB and Gallas in the centre.

van Persie just isnt doing it for us. Drop him for the Beast.

Id like to see Hleb dropped for a game or 2 as well.

 

[Big Poppa]

honestly, this is an exaggeration and almost a bit tabloid. blaming our performance on a lack of 'width' in our attack, is knee jerk and a bit off the mark. we were able to get behind the full backs and cross the ball into the box at least 13-14 times on saturday. most of them were actually good crosses; well delivered. however, we hardly created a single goal chance from them.

Very amusing Kel, but this is far from knee-jerk as you say. Blindingly obvious would be closer to the truth. I didn't see many good quality crosses yesterday, more a few hopeful balls tossed (or blasted in Eboue's case) into the box. We've never created many chances from crosses anyway, everybody waits on the edge of the box for a pull-back so this isn't the problem that's preventing us getting 3 points. The issue is more systematic.

the problem is not a lack of width. sure, we can become even better at taking advantage of the added pitch size, but it's not the biggest problem. what i find much more worrying, is the lack of movement around and inside the box by our forwards, central midfielders and the 'opposite winger'(i.e. ball is crossed in from the right, the left winger needs to drift inwards and vice versa). the players do not 'attack' the ball when it is crossed into the box. they just stand around, almost waiting for the ball to hit them. i was watching man u last night and the difference is massive, even though man u didn't play very well. when the ball is crossed into the box, players run full speed into the box; some towards the near post, some towards the far post. they try to not only get to the ball, but lose their defender as well.

Like I said, crossing has never been a major part of our game. We attack in a similar manner to Barcelona who also very rarely put in crosses. They commit players, engage the opposing full-backs, draw the opposition out slowly. I would never describe it as rocket science, in fact it's blingly simple - we go through the centre too early and don't keep enough possesion our play with enough penetration where it hurts the most - between the full-back and the centre-back. hence out wide. Barca do this by using 3 forwards, we've always done it using adventurous full-backs. Either way, it IS an issue.

this problem becomes even more obvious and visible when key players such as henry and cesc have an off day. our 'plan a', simply outplaying and outpassing the other team, relies on them playing well and doing their job. we couldn't get enough pace on the ball and, as such, m'boro was able to shut us out. their defenders were hardly ever caught out of position. rosicky was able to get a bit of directness and pace on the ball, but it wasn't enough. unbelieveable that he didn't start the match...

I don't think it's about individuals having bad games, invariably a player like Cesc requires his team mates to be constantly moving and finding space to be able to pull off meaningful passes and create chances. Any forward in the world could have looked bad in that team yesterday, so we must address the issue of how best to get the max out of the likes of v.Persie and co. Part of the problem is the players' relative newness to each other, not on the same wavelength. We're used to having seen Bergkamp, Pires, Cole, Henry & co being in tune with one another but forget that they were together a good 5 years.

This is a young team and it will take time, we've had a lot of ins and outs in the last 2 seasons which inevitably takes its toll on a side that plays like ours. We can replace like for like technical ability/athleticism almost immedistely, but replacing the understating and communication that came with it takes a while longer.

 

[qs]

anybody else worried bout sunday??

rooney and scholes return aswell, ffs.

Extremely worried. Compare the form of both teams and it looks like theres only gpoing to be one out come. I just hope we play Flamini because Rooney and Saha will destroy Djourou

 

[Henry IV]

There we go again, failing to take our chances and giving the opposition exactly what they came for - a point. I'm worried about the Man Utd game because we've had a pretty dismal record against them recently and they're flying high. We could be in the relegation zone next weekend.

 

[Viper]

anybody else worried bout sunday??

rooney and scholes return aswell, ffs.

Extremely worried. Compare the form of both teams and it looks like theres only gpoing to be one out come. I just hope we play Flamini because Rooney and Saha will destroy Djourou

Saha was utterly poor against Sp**s. His finishing was awful.

I'm very worried by Rooney though. He always scores against us.

 

[gunner321]

tough on sunday rly.

if we stick gallas against ronaldo in the DL position, we will have djourou facing rooney with toure.

but the way we are creating chances and have outstanding saves made against us and the fact we will have more space against the mancs gives me reason to be a little optimistic atleast.

we cant go on with being so unlucky and coming up against defenders and keepers giving MOM performances against us for much longer, the mancs would be a wonderful way to launch our season.

 

[gunnerama911]

Im praying we beat Man United, who knows they may pick up a few injuries in mid-week and we have much more depth and quality in our squad now unlike them and they played **** against tottenham...

Against Hamburg we could play...

--------------------Lehmann----------------------
Eboue-----Toure-------Djourou-----Gallas
-------------------Gilberto-------------------------
--Hleb---------Fabregas-----------Rosicky--
--------------Baptista-----------------------------
------------------------Henry----------------------

and against Man U we could play...

-----------------Lehmann-----------------------
Eboue-----Toure-------Gallas-----Flamini
------------------------------------------------------
Ljungberg-------Rosicky--------Walcott--
-------------------------------------------------------
Van Persie-----------------------Adebayor--
-------------------Henry----------------------------

strength and depth

 

[USArsenal]

and against Man U we could play...

-----------------Lehmann-----------------------
Eboue-----Toure-------Gallas-----Flamini
------------------------------------------------------
Ljungberg-------Rosicky--------Walcott--
-------------------------------------------------------
Van Persie-----------------------Adebayor--
-------------------Henry----------------------------

strength and depth

are you nuts? ManUre would rip that team to ****ing shreds...no defensive cover in Bert... no strength in midfield or in attack... that is the least defensive minded team we could possibly put out.... we arent going to beat ManUre with speed... if anything, i would use your Hamburg formation over your ManUre lineup... we cant play a 4-3-3 against ManU....

 

[nnaife]

Maybe a 4-3-3 formation with RVP staying far out on the right, Henry in the middle and walcott on the left.
Rosicky in left midfield Gilberto in the centre and Cesc on the right.
Gallas, Djourou, Toure and Eboue from left to right.

I think this formation will allow us to open up teams that defend with two banks of four.

Anyway our problem isn't really formation its more to do with the poor movement and sharpness of the strikers and the lack of killer passes from midfield.
I think Rosicky will solve the killer pass problem once he's settled.
You're also forgetting we have a first eleven that has a lot of new faces and they're still learning to read each other's game which could seen by how the goal for Boro' was conceded due to an indecisive lapse between Gallas and Djourou; in time they will communicate more effectively.
Baptista is an unknown quantity, i suspect he's more effective as an attacking midfielder or as a second striker.
Hleb is probably the hardest working player on the pitch and he does create chances and if the strikers had been sharper he would have at least 4 or 5 assists this season. His weakness is that he's on a slightly different wavelength to the strikers, i.e. he tends to pass the ball a second too early or a second too late. Also the lack of movement by the strikers make reduces his effectivenss. I feel Rosicky is probably more in tune with our strikers mentality.
Another problem is a lack of runs being made into the box.
One thing that Pires used to do was follow up shots by the strikers so he could knock in the rebound or capitalise on a defensive error.
Cesc, Hleb should be doing this a lot more hence the absence on goals from the midfield.
Set pieces are major weakness for us particularly offensive set pieces.
Wenger absolutely must empoly more effective trainning methods to make set pieces especially corners an effective weapon for the team.
Overall we have an amazing squad but its currently missing a little bit of character, confiedence and innovation.