Recurring mistakes in big games

[14Henry]

You say that, but when we do win games ugly without playing attractive football people get their tits up ready to shoot. It’s how it is.

Not me. I want substance first style second. And I think most fans at the moment want the same. This club needs results. The Arsenal of the 2000s is dead gone and buried.

We need to get that idea out that we play expansive beautiful football. We dont it's horrible. Under Wenger poor at the end. Under Emery brutal and under Arteta more of the same. People say oh we are a different team now under Arteta.

Brighton lost
Soton won
Sheffield won
Wolves won
Leicester draw
Sp**s lost.

Those results could have been under any manager. In fact if you didnt know who was playing and you seen those results you could have guessed it was Arsenal.

 

[Ashybashy86]

Voted for all of them. 'Other reason' being half of the team is sh*t.

 

[Manberg]

Not me. I want substance first style second. And I think most fans at the moment want the same. This club needs results. The Arsenal of the 2000s is dead gone and buried.

We need to get that idea out that we play expansive beautiful football. We dont it's horrible. Under Wenger poor at the end. Under Emery brutal and under Arteta more of the same. People say oh we are a different team now under Arteta.

Brighton lost
Soton won
Sheffield won
Wolves won
Leicester draw
Sp**s lost.

Those results could have been under any manager. In fact if you didnt know who was playing and you seen those results you could have guessed it was Arsenal.

We played very beautiful football in the first half against Leicester. If we can maintain that style of play over 90 minutes the majority of fans will be very happy.
Personally, I’d be ashamed to win the Jose way by parking the bus. This doesn’t excuse not buying top defenders since we can buy top defenders and still play beautiful football, but we have a limited budget, so it’s a chicken and egg situation. If you spend lots of money on a defender, that’s money no longer available to spend on an attacker. We do need attacking signings too.

 

[Trilly]

I feel like the biggest issue is actually focus. It seems we switch off at certain times and then make rash decisions.

Again...this comes with being a good player.

Your reasons are valid but all of this is part of being a good player. David Luiz is a technically good player who seems to lack focus at times, Kolasinac is absolutely rubbish technically and Mustafi is a nervous wreck. All bad players at the end of the day.

Luiz is the only one you could possibly carry.

 

[2Smokeyy]

I've seen Kola do worse than what he did the other day, it just didn't get punished by someone with the pace and finishing ability of Son HM.

This.

Our defenders make a lot of mistakes each game but the opposition we’re playing usually don’t capitalise on our errors. However when we play teams like Sp**s or even Leicester, those small errors make a big difference when separating the two sides.

It’s nothing new tbf. David Luiz, Kolasinac and Mustafi are all ticking time bombs, it’s nailed on that one of them will make a mistake every game.


We all knew it was going happen sooner or later, remember against Wolves when Kolasinac switched off and Adama Traore was in 1 vs 1. Similarly, Mustafi did the exact same thing against Leicester, he switched off and didn’t track the basic run of Jamie Vardy who slotted in the equaliser.

 

[14Henry]

We played very beautiful football in the first half against Leicester. If we can maintain that style of play over 90 minutes the majority of fans will be very happy.
Personally, I’d be ashamed to win the Jose way by parking the bus. This doesn’t excuse not buying top defenders since we can buy top defenders and still play beautiful football, but we have a limited budget, so it’s a chicken and egg situation. If you spend lots of money on a defender, that’s money no longer available to spend on an attacker. We do need attacking signings too.

Yeah but you have to strike the balance right.

Liverpools big signings. Goalkeeper and defender. Man united dropped 130m of 2 defenders last summer. City were buying fullbacks for 50m every other week not that long ago. We neglect defenders. It's been a recurring them for 15 years.

The one defender we finally spend big on was a deal that we delayed and tried to penny pince over that cost us a fortune. This club refuses to spend big on defence because they are afraid they will get it wrong. Or they are too arrogant to admit the tried to do it on the cheap and had to do it twice.

Wenger was the same everybody screaming out we need a holding midfielder and he kept buying Cazorla/Rosicky/Denilson type players hoping we would be so good we wouldnt need a DCM.

That summer we only bought Cech I will never forget it. Was arrogance and stupidity at the highest level.

 

[Trilly]

Yeah but you have to strike the balance right.

Liverpools big signings. Goalkeeper and defender. Man united dropped 130m of 2 defenders last summer. City were buying fullbacks for 50m every other week not that long ago. We neglect defenders. It's been a recurring them for 15 years.

The one defender we finally spend big on was a deal that we delayed and tried to penny pince over that cost us a fortune. This club refuses to spend big on defence because they are afraid they will get it wrong. Or they are too arrogant to admit the tried to do it on the cheap and had to do it twice.

Wenger was the same everybody screaming out we need a holding midfielder and he kept buying Cazorla/Rosicky/Denilson type players hoping we would be so good we wouldnt need a DCM.

That summer we only bought Cech I will never forget it. Was arrogance and stupidity at the highest level.

It would be a bit boring but I'd happily accept us spending all of our budget on our defence. A transfer window like that is long overdue. I want someone who isn't slow/weak/undersized, has a good track record and has no noticeable weaknesses to come into our defence and if that is all of our budget then so be it. Enough is enough.

 

[14Henry]

It would be a bit boring but I'd happily accept us spending all of our budget on our defence. A transfer window like that is long overdue. I want someone who isn't slow/weak/undersized, has a good track record and has no noticeable weaknesses to come into our defence and if that is all of our budget then so be it. Enough is enough.

Yeah United did it last summer. 2 defenders for 130m and a young up and coming winger for 12m or something.

 

[Oxeki]

If we want to improve our defense, we need to spend money on top defenders. Coaching can only do much.

In three seasons, city spent 300m on a new defense FFS.

Not saying we should do the same, because clearly we can't match their spending, but you can't keep buying **** players and expect the players to improve them.

 

[squallman]

For the exact same reason, they make mistakes in the small games.

They're not very good.

Let's not kid ourselves and pretend that this lot, or any of our teams in the past decade steamroll teams like they're the 1970 Brazil team and somehow contrive to muck up the big ones. A mistake is never far off with us.

 

[Jury]

We've just purchased a lot of players who have always made mistakes. They've not learned to be feckless at Arsenal--they always were. And they were never good defenders. And we signed them

 

[Tir Na Nog]

It's absolutely incredible how people just aren't willing to accept our defenders, midfielders, etc just aren't very good. We've either spent horrendously or not spent enough to improve those areas. It's as simple as that. All this leadership stuff is nonsense. With Liverpool yes Van Dijk is a good leader but first and foremost he's a top class defender, a brilliant reader of the game. Luiz is supposedly a leader but he's error prone, has been his entire career.

 

[Rex Stone]

Squad fitness and depth for me. It’s well known we’ve dropped points from winning positions, when it gets late on in games you can see energy levels aren’t there.

I had a look at some numbers and it’s pretty bad. In terms of goals conceded and scored in the last 20 minutes we’ve conceded 15 and scored 11.

That’s not terrible at first glance but look a little deeper and it gets pretty bad. In terms of points won or lost in the last 20 minutes (eg if you’re winning 1-0 concede in the 80th minute and draw that’s -2 points) we’re stood at -13 points.

We need a deeper squad rather than just teenagers on the bench. First XI has glaring holes but unless Arteta can improve the fitness levels of this squad either by addition or training we’re in trouble.

 

[GeorgiaGunner]

Where is “lack of quality?”

 

[GeorgiaGunner]

Lack of talent is a cop-out statement I feel.

No it’s not. Are there other reasons? Sure, but in a footballing sense “talent” is essentially analogous to “doesn’t make mistakes / causes opponents to make mistakes.” If you’re a talented striker, you don’t make the mistake of skying the ball when you’re through on goal. If you’re a talented defender, you don’t mistakenly put opposing forwards through on backpasses, constantly lose your man, regularly give up penalties and/or get sent off, etc.

 

[lomekian]

As the old saying goes "You can't polish a turd(s)".

But you can roll it in glitter.

Which is exactly what we need to do with 3 or 4 to generate funds for a squad rebuild.

 

[lomekian]

Lack of quality. Lack of fitness. Some lack concentration (Kola, Luiz, Xhaka). Others lack mental strength (Mustafi, Laca). Others we are working out (Pepe).

 

[GDeep™]

They love Luiz for his personality or hair or something, give Mari a chance, Saliba is coming. So, get rid of everyone else and sign two new guys who are experienced and can come in straight away and perform.

That’s a fresh defence going into next season - 2 new experienced guys, young kid in Saliba, Mari as back up and Luiz can be the old warhorse.

Anything less, then we ain’t finishing top 5.

 

[Ash10]

The number one reason being lack of ability. Which in return leads to lack of self confidence resulting in lapse in judgement.
Also the better player you are the more chance you have to correct your mistake. That's why almost all of our defensive mistakes get punished as the players aren't good enough to correct their mistake

 

[asukru]

Poor players is what it comes down to, we all know that the players we have are capable of losing concentration at any given time. Although, at times these players look decent or look to have turned a corner - we never learn with them because they just give us fals hope. We need a new defence PERIOD!