PL | Arsenal vs Swansea | Mon 11th May | 20.00

[celestis]

I think most of the players out there played well, and Swansea were very well disciplined. Gary Monk is a top coach.

Our weaknesses today were the same as always. Ospina should have made that save, and despite how good his reflexes are, he just isn't getting any taller. Szczesny would have gotten a hand to that and pushed it our for a corner kick. He's made much harder saves than that for us.

Giroud did look a little tired, but this type of game is supposed to be perfect for him. He is the striker in our squad who is supposed to excel in this match. Swansea sat deep and Giroud should have used his physicality to create space down the middle. He didn't really do any of that all game, and that is a big concern. I think Giroud has had a really good season, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. Too often I think he plays like a small player in a big player's body. He tries to make space through creative runs, and that is good, but sometimes you make space by being physical. Today's game was the type of game to use that skill set.

Last season, we would have subbed of Giroud and brought in Sanogo, and even though he is a less skilled player, the fact that he would rough up defenses created space and scoring opportunities.

Giroud is taylor made to play this way, yet he still wants to act like he is a faster and more technical player than he is.

Apart from that I think pretty much everyone else played well, and were just a bit unlucky. Alexis and Theo should have had goals, but they shot it a bit too close to Fabianski. Sometimes that just happens, and you're unlucky. Theo looks a bit rusty and we clearly aren't going to see the best of him until next season.

No service for the big man BP simple as that .

 

[Penn_]

Silver lining is that is shows fans what work remains. Ospina will always have moments like yesterday. Cazorla really should be doing more from CM and make his shooting look less obvious, must have the most blocked shots in the league. Still big room for improvement in Giroud.

RW? If Ramsey had a tiny bit more pace he'd nail that position down. Some of the runs he was making show what difference good wingers make. To bad we were blind to them.

 

[WurzlSepp]

Imo there is not much to talk about, just one thing: Bad finishing!

We had so many chances were we got free shots at the goal and none of them was placed.
We need someone with Poldis qualities!

 

[albakos]

Walcott as a central striker is never going to work.
How many times there were low crosses from our left by Monreal, Wilshere and Sanchez.

A typical central striker (even Giroud) would see this situation and quickly go to the near post. Instead Walcott was camped between two giants (Williams and Fernandez) and that was never going to work.

Also Wenger needs to really quit with this Ramsey at RW nonsense. He was nowhere in his position, in fact was all over the place and he's often goes for individual attempts rather than feeding others who were in better positions.
I was expecting Ramsey and Coquelin to come off for Wilshere and Walcott but all in all, it was one of those frustrating nights, when nothing was going in and we lost from a sucker punch.

Ospina certainly has a strange habit of trying to save with both hands.
By doing so he's doing himself no favors, as you'll never be able to stretch your body to fullest as you would by trying to reach only with one hand.

This loss had sooo many similarities with our other PL home loss to Manure. We dominated them, their keeper had it easy because we always shot straight at him and they scored twice with a single shot on goal

 

[Anzac]

Pissed with the laboured performance.
It was Swansea not CFC.

23 shots at goal with only 9 on target, 5 of those straight down the middle to the GK.
Cazorla had as many shots as Giroud & Sanchez combined (7), with only 2 on target. Rambo was next with 5 shots & 1 on target.

IMO our attack patterns are wrong when the CMs have more shots than the forwards combined, and the is an issue with shooting when those same CMs have 15 shots for only 3 on target.

 

[Anzac]

Imo there is not much to talk about, just one thing: Bad finishing!

We had so many chances were we got free shots at the goal and none of them was placed.
We need someone with Poldis qualities!

However I'm told that scoring goals is not an issue.

 

[Yousif Arsenal]

Watching the highlights again some of players were too selfish at 2nd half and tried to rush things.

 

[Hunta]

Definitely mate, Ramsey and Alexis should have both squared it when they were both in on goal, both were greedy.

 

[Yousif Arsenal]

Definitely mate, Ramsey and Alexis should have both squared it when they were both in on goal, both were greedy.

Agree these kind of loses piss me off 9 shots on target and we fail to score while Swans had 1 shot and they scored by Ospina f''k up.

 

[Big Poppa]

During our run of form we've kept on scoring the first goal which changes the mentality of the opposition and allows us to play on the counter attack a bit more. Naturally its much more difficult to do that against teams in the top 8 that are well organised like Swansea were.

 

[tap-in]

Our biggest crime last night was shooting straight at the keeper, if half of them had been elsewhere we would probably have won comfortably!

 

[bingobob]

I think in truth we should swallow some of our own bitterness we have toward what we deem negative tactics.

Objectively is it more negative to starve the opposition of the ball to frustrate them or to sit back and defend. Both are negative depending on your view point. As a fan I don't pay to watch a dull one sided contest nor do I pay to watch my team sit back and absorb attacks but sometimes the opposition force you into taking that step, either hogging the ball or defending deep.

I don't think complaining about it is right as Wenger with all his experience should figure out a way to make the game more open, encourage the opposition out and at the same time the opposition should be more forceful in turning over the ball.

No doubt the second half was better but that's because the game changed. We didn't pass the ball in our half we passed it in theirs meaning when they turned it over they had more players closer to the ball and were able to break Making a more open game.

 

[stiiphunn]

Watching the highlights again some of players were too selfish at 2nd half and tried to rush things.

Yep. On another day, we would have scored 2 or 3. The two mains chances came from the same action where both Sanchez and Walcott shot straight at the keeper. Walcott especially should have done better - the ball rolled up to him, Fabianski was still on the floor, he had enough time to pick a spot, etc. but instead he shot straight at Fabianski. Anyway, it's frustrating because it's the sort of games that we shouldn't be losing. If we can't win it, at least we shouldn't lose it. It's that sort of things that separates us from the top (Chelsea).

 

[DanDare]

Honestly, I can take it if every once ina while a really well drilled team comes works their socks off and manages to stop us scoring

What I cant take is these goals we concede like yesterday and against the same team earlier in the season. Its pathetic and points towards are inadequacies as title challengers.

 

[Taylor Gang Gunners]

Fact of the matter is, a top keeper in goal, we at least draw that. As the saying goes, if you can't win, don't lose. We deserved at least a point but we were done by traditional tactics to stifle teams who play the way we do.

Gary Monk for England btw, he's been impressive since taking the reigns at Swansea.

 

[baccy_man]

I felt that we were playing too slow in the first half of the game we were taking too long to get the ball out from defence and then we were passing the ball around too much and not getting it forward enough.
We just did not seem to have enough urgency in our play we seem to get these games every now and then where we pass the ball around a lot and don't get the passes that split the defence of the other team,
Hopefully we get this game out of our system and win our remaining games so we don't have to play any qualifying games for the C/L next season.

 

[Penn_]

Sort of game where a younger Arteta type would of been a lot more useful than Coq. Think we that and Ramsey in the centre we would of started a lot quicker and created more.

 

[onetowatch]

Looking back at it, although it was poor finishing that cost us the game, an equally important factor was the complacency that was clearly present in the first half. We didn't have our first shot on target until the 59th minute. That's a dangerous game to play and we got burnt.

We always have these kind of performances in us under Wenger, even the Invincibles did.

It's a shame we didn't get a point. Now second is out of our hands and I agree with Neville that second place would be a big deal for Arsenal this season. Frustrating.

 

[Big Poppa]

I think in truth we should swallow some of our own bitterness we have toward what we deem negative tactics.

Objectively is it more negative to starve the opposition of the ball to frustrate them or to sit back and defend. Both are negative depending on your view point. As a fan I don't pay to watch a dull one sided contest nor do I pay to watch my team sit back and absorb attacks but sometimes the opposition force you into taking that step, either hogging the ball or defending deep.

I don't think complaining about it is right as Wenger with all his experience should figure out a way to make the game more open, encourage the opposition out and at the same time the opposition should be more forceful in turning over the ball.

No doubt the second half was better but that's because the game changed. We didn't pass the ball in our half we passed it in theirs meaning when they turned it over they had more players closer to the ball and were able to break Making a more open game.

I think Wenger was just trying to deflect attention from criticism towards his team

 

[Big Poppa]

Sort of game where a younger Arteta type would of been a lot more useful than Coq. Think we that and Ramsey in the centre we would of started a lot quicker and created more.

I can't agree I'm afraid. We had more than enough technicians on the pitch and so many of our attacks from deep have started with Coquelin winning the ball. He was needed to snuff out their counter attacks. What we lacked was appropriate width. The only space was in the area behind their full backs and with Sanchez cutting inside on his right + Ramsey roaming everywhere, we were far too narrow. Honestly it was so obvious. You can't increase tempo if all your players are static, even if you have Pirlo or Iniesta on the pitch. Better movement in wide areas to enable fast switch of play is required.