Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 , SS1

[redanddread]

Re: Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 ,

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.justarsenal.com/detailed-game-review-shows-arsenal-criticism-as-crazy/37591" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.justarsenal.com/detailed-gam ... razy/37591</a>?

A reasonably well written article and an interesting view point on the result at Anfield. Some good points. The article is quite long though.

 

[Toast]

Re: Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 ,

^ There are some interesting views there, but quite frankly it's mostly just a pile of ****. The article's underlying presumption is that Wenger is flawless and those criticising him based on what happened during the game simply have an agenda against him.

This is the dilemma which Arsenal fans here find themselves in. They are obsessed with Wenger out, board out, and majority shareholder out mentality such that they do not miss the slightest of opportunities to demonize the manager, club and the majority shareholder. That is why most of the criticisms levelled against the team following the Liverpool game were contradictory. For them the objective is to find something to blame the manager for.

That's called bulverism. It's a logical fallacy.


It further claims to deal only in 'facts' but makes claims like 'we defended well'. Yet it ignores that Liverpool tore through us time and time again and we in turn conceded more shots (27) than we've ever done before in the PL. (According to Opta). Not conceding does not equal defending well. There are many other holes and fallacies in the story that I won't point out here.

 

[Taylor Gang Gunners]

Re: Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 ,

Awful display from our boys. Made a terrible Liverpool team look quality, unacceptable. Debuchy, Santi, Giroud, Szczesny- only lads worthy of the shirt yesterday. Sanchez had his worst game in an Arsenal shirt, but tbh he can have a few more and we could have no complaints, he's more or less dragged us to where we are now.

The worst thing about it is on the balance of play we should be delighted with a point, we've drawn away at a ground we got battered at last season, whilst playing dreadfully. But we're still not rising to the occasion, no leaders, pitiful football, just all round frustration.

Welbeck, Gibbs, Mertesacker and Sanchez disappointed me most. Bar Sanchez obviously, none of those players are starting quality.

 

[a_fourteen]

Re: Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 ,

Notice how slow we are in bringing the ball out of our own half. We pick up speed in the opposition half but literally amble on the ball in our own half. Liverpool exploited that with their wing backs yesterday.

 

[Bigbludfire]

Re: Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 ,

Is it worth analysing this performance?

Same mistakes, same confort zone, and same garbage on Arsenal Fan Tv. Our "Who am I" buddy calls this a positive result.

<a class="postlink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZdwv_i8ay0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZdwv_i8ay0</a>" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



I will call out those who asked us to grow a pair, "we will blitz them", "we will have too much for them" "Silly paranoia gripping the forum. We usually dominate Liverpool".

Arsenal Fan Tv are really laughable the likes of Claude and this guy "who i'm I" becoming famous because of it they know nothing about football with all respect of them if we win they will cheer the team and Wenger know best etc.. ignoring the performance, when we draw or lose they will start the Wenger out rubbish. i want to find some one talk sense in Arsenal Fan Tv i just can't find one maybe this guy Robbie is interviewing people who are very emotional.

That's how he's getting the views though, by interviewing the emotional ones. But I agree a lot of them talk a load of **** on the show, I love Claude but when he goes into details he destroys most of his original points. There are some good regulars though, Mo talks sense when he's not asked about Chelsea, Van Gaal's love child talks sense and a few others.

 

[Bigbludfire]

Re: Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 ,

Everyone's talking about not bringing Walcott on, or another attacker with experience but why the **** did we take Giroud off. Our biggest aerial presence in the whole ****ing team. Even better, why the **** was Chambers on the back post when he's the 2nd tallest outfield player and why do we have two 5'10 fullbacks being asked to come central for corners. Any other top team would have them on the posts or out wide.

The whole thing is ****ing amateur.

 

[eye4goal]

Re: Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 ,

They completely nullified us but it was still embarrassing how we couldn't retain the ball after going ahead. We had too many forwards in the game and not enough control. You also feel that mentally we're maybe damaged beyond repair when it comes to seeing out games.

 

[celestis]

Re: Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 ,

We'll have to stay compact and defensive, give the opposition the ball. We have no capacity whatsoever at the moment to dominate games especially away from home.

Yup I agree there , which is what we tried to do .

 

[bingobob]

Re: Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 ,

We tried and failed because we don't have the leadership required at the moment.

The Monreal Chambers situation for instance who is the senior player there who doesn't ask but tells and takes control. Monreal is essentially a fringe player Chambers I'm not sure where he figures because we haven't had the opportunity to nail down who is the automatic first choice defence. Playing Chambers at RB only serves to add to the confusion because I think we played the guy who is first choice at CB so by default Chambers is the senior starter and he he didn't take control. And this leads to another problem we breed inexperienced players by making them a apart of the senior side and expect them to perform at the highest level, which they don't and expect them to make experienced decisions, which they don't.

This is another Wengerism he gets credit, and rightly so, when the player blossoms yet he does so at the expense and progression of the team. When they blossom they then leave fortunately though Wenger breeds the next generation with the current generation the the cycle repeats highlights his genius but hides his flaws in achieving what should be the ultimate goal, winning at all costs.

 

[Rex Stone]

Re: Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 ,

@Celestis We only went compact once we went 2-1 up and stuck everyone in our own half which is fair enough. Still neglected the counter attack then though.

In the first half we were far too open, if we were coming up against SAS it would probably have been 4-0 after 20 minutes again. Everytime they got the ball they were overloading us. It was down to Szczesny and luck that we went in at HT on terms.

 

[celestis]

Re: Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 ,

@Celestis We only went compact once we went 2-1 up and stuck everyone in our own half which is fair enough. Still neglected the counter attack then though.

In the first half we were far too open, if we were coming up against SAS it would probably have been 4-0 after 20 minutes again. Everytime they got the ball they were overloading us. It was down to Szczesny and luck that we went in at HT on terms.

Got to disagree with you Rex , we pressed and pressed them well in the first half , it was our school boy errors in posession that let us down . We worked very hard without the ball and I commend them on that , for instance in the last few weeks have never seen Santi do so much work off the ball .

 

[Rex Stone]

Re: Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 ,

@Celestis We only went compact once we went 2-1 up and stuck everyone in our own half which is fair enough. Still neglected the counter attack then though.

In the first half we were far too open, if we were coming up against SAS it would probably have been 4-0 after 20 minutes again. Everytime they got the ball they were overloading us. It was down to Szczesny and luck that we went in at HT on terms.

Got to disagree with you Rex , we pressed and pressed them well in the first half , it was our school boy errors in posession that let us down . We worked very hard without the ball and I commend them on that , for instance in the last few weeks have never seen Santi do so much work off the ball .

I'm not faulting the work rate at all, every player out there put in a real shift except possibly Per. The problem was while we were playing defensively (which I'm fine with) it wasn't disciplined defending, Liverpool were almost constantly in dangerous positions.

Someone in another thread nailed Flamini saying he was like a windscreen wiper going side to side trying to mark Lallana and Coutinho. Once they got past our press they could just run at him, it was worryingly open. There weren't any clear chances but that was down to their inept attacking rather than our defending.

 

[celestis]

Re: Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 ,

We weren't very efficient or composed without the ball but that comes with practice anyway you get past ANY press it's a highway . At the same time there was minmal clear cut chances for Liverpool and they had 80 percent posession in the first half .

It was nothing like last year . There wasn't a midfield player in sight last year for 2-3 of the goals .

 

[Big Poppa]

Re: Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 ,

We weren't very efficient or composed without the ball but that comes with practice anyway you get past ANY press it's a highway . At the same time there was minmal clear cut chances for Liverpool and they had 80 percent posession in the first half .

It was nothing like last year . There wasn't a midfield player in sight last year for 2-3 of the goals .

It was an entirely different game you're right. Last year we were 4-0 down after 20 minutes because Liverpool drew us in and hit us on the break. This year they tried to smother us in midfield and overload the full back areas but it worked also.

The difference being finishing, but thats hardly a surprise when you look at Liverpool's record in front of goal this season. They played with Raheem Sterling up front on his own. If we were up against proper forwards we'd have been torn to shreds and we will be if we play like that again.

 

[celestis]

Re: Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 ,

Honestly again didn't think there were many clear cut chances, there were a couple in the 2nd half which pissed me off . However at times I saw we pressed really well . A couple of times even though we were **** with the ball we kept them in their half till they lost the ball .

Lets see where it goes , because it does seem that they are actually attempting something in training .

 

[ArsenesNO1Fan]

Re: Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 ,

The key is passing accuracy

Mertesacker 95percent
Cazorla 92 percent
Chamberlain 82 percent
Gibbs 75 percent
Flamini 73 percent
Welbeck 71 percent
Debuchy 70 percent
Chambers 70percent
Sanchez 69 percent
Giroud 63percent

Only Cazorla and Mertesacker were acceptable, the rest are shocking. It's partly Liverpool's pressing and our lack of off the ball movement

On another note Rodgers remarked how bad Anfield's pitch was, maybe the ruined it on purpose to throw us off our game?

 

[Tir Na Nog]

Re: Premier League: Liverpool v Arsenal - 21/12/14, 16:00 ,

The key is passing accuracy

Mertesacker 95percent
Cazorla 92 percent
Chamberlain 82 percent
Gibbs 75 percent
Flamini 73 percent
Welbeck 71 percent
Debuchy 70 percent
Chambers 70percent
Sanchez 69 percent
Giroud 63percent

Only Cazorla and Mertesacker were acceptable, the rest are shocking. It's partly Liverpool's pressing and our lack of off the ball movement

On another note Rodgers remarked how bad Anfield's pitch was, maybe the ruined it on purpose to throw us off our game?

I wouldn't say 82 is shocking when you consider the type of player Ox is, and Alexis rarely ever has impressive passing accuracy statistics. Other than that I agree we couldn't keep hold of the ball when we had. One of the key features of last season, especially the first half of last season, was the way Giroud, Cazorla, Özil and Ramsey comfortably kept the ball in the final third and gave us rest bite, or allowed us to fashion up chances or make us reasonably effective in counter attacking situations. Keeping the ball high up the pitch whilst under pressure is key in transitioning and we just couldn't do it.

Also the thing about Welbeck out wide is that he doesn't naturally look for the ball like Ox, Cazorla or someone like that would playing in that position.