UCL: Arsenal v Anderlecht - 4/11/14, 19:45 - SS5

[The_Playmaker]

Good post The_Playmaker. I don't agree with everything but most of what you say is spot on.

That was a terrible performance from us - almost as bad as some of The Jury's posts after the game. As of the very first minute, you could see that the team wasn't defending well. We were extremely open and the balance in the team was wrong - too many bodies committed forward which left us vulnerable. Yet we managed to score 3 goals without conceding any for a while... Until that goal to make it 3-1 which completely turned the game around.

I'm not entirely sure what it comes down to but some of our players need to take a look at themselves. Only a few of them performed at the required level last time and this just should not happen against Anderlecht.

I'm not going through all the individual performances, but one that I find really annoying is Podolski. What the hell is wrong with him? He comes on for a mere 15 minutes towards the end, and yet simply jogs around as if it were a match with his buddies. What makes it worse is that you have Sanchez next to him still running around like a madman. Podolski should be doing exactly that - he has fresh legs, sees that his team is struggling to keep the win, and yet he just strolls around, putting a little bit of pressure here and there. That was frankly embarrassing. And the third goal is partially down to him. Had he done his duty, the ball would have never made it to our box. The cross should have been blocked by Podolski. What a ******* joke. Instead of playing with his twitter, he should take a good look at his performance last night.

Other individuals were also very poor - the obvious one being Ramsey. He was ****. Not only was he poor on the ball, but he also ****** up our overall shape by bombing forward like an idiot. If he can't restrain himself from doing that, then he should be benched.

Per was also again guilty on the 3rd goal - too slow and beaten yet again for a header. I can't say I'm surprised to be honest.

There were a few positives of course - like Sanchez or Arteta - but I can't be bothered to go into those. Last night's draw was embarrassing but not at all surprising. We've been **** this season - save for a few games - and conceding 3 goals to Anderlecht is not that much of a surprise, unfortunately.

I agree that the cross should have been blocked. However, at 3-2 up with 2 minutes to go, shouldn't we be asking ourselves why our centre forward was covering the left flank? Where was the left sided midfielder? Who was the left sided midfielder? Where was the central midfielder to come across? Our defensive shape is non existent.

Also you point to fresh legs. They have no meaning in our team. Wenger explains our inability to make challenges and close down players with the word 'fatigue'. Yet those same players have no problem busting a gut to get forward with 4 minutes to go at 3-2 in order to get their name on the score sheet.

When your central midfield player doesn't understand his position you have an upward battle to gain any order defensively. I can forgive a winger for committing forward and getting caught out of positon, however, when that player gets caught out of position, you look to your central midfielder to cover and win the ball. Yet in our set up, that same central midfielder is further forward than the winger. Leaving our right back 2v1 and our other central midfielder who actually stayed in his position 3v1 as our left sided midfielder is playing centre forward.

People on here are so quick to condemn Gibbs for his lacking of crossing ability. Yet defensively he is 2v1 an entire match and manages to hold his own as well as get forward. Not only that, when he does play well, which is more often than not, it goes unnoticed.

Gibbs, Chambers, Arteta, Welbeck and Sanchez were the only players that we had who were switched on defensively and even then Chambers was in 2v1 situations for an entire match as was Gibbs. Ramsey, Cazorla, Chamberlain, Mertesacker and Monreal were awful. Especially Chamberlain and Ramsey.

 

[Jasard]

No team is going to be confident with a manager that sitting on the bench looking like he's going to **** himself with nerves.

We don't need a 3rd choice CB - we need a Mert replacement. He's brutal these days.

 

[stiiphunn]

I agree that the cross should have been blocked. However, at 3-2 up with 2 minutes to go, shouldn't we be asking ourselves why our centre forward was covering the left flank? Where was the left sided midfielder? Who was the left sided midfielder? Where was the central midfielder to come across? Our defensive shape is non existent.

When your central midfield player doesn't understand his position you have an upward battle to gain any order defensively. I can forgive a winger for committing forward and getting caught out of positon, however, when that player gets caught out of position, you look to your central midfielder to cover and win the ball. Yet in our set up, that same central midfielder is further forward than the winger. Leaving our right back 2v1 and our other central midfielder who actually stayed in his position 3v1 as our left sided midfielder is playing centre forward.

At this point, Podolski was on the left and Alexis was upfront. Had Alexis been on the left, this cross would have been blocked because he actually gives a **** about defending. What I don't understand is how someone like Podolski, who desperately wants some game time, cannot be bothered to do the basic things like defending properly. Had he actually given a ****, he would have blocked that cross - instead he jogged back and jumped like a ****ing idiot in a desperate attempt to make it look like he was actually defending. Embarrassing.

Agreed about the central midfield. It was shocking and it messed up our overall shape. When you have Flamini and Arteta in our current formation, it actually works, because they're both mindful of their defensive duties and they don't bomb forward past their wingers and strikers every single time. Ramsey on the other hand tries to be superman which actually ends up hurting the team by screwing up the team's balance.

Last, I also agree about Gibbs - he's done well last night.

 

[BobP]

See the top team around Europe you'll see something in common among their back four + midfield setup

There's a defensive fullback behind a very attacking minded midfielder. Ivanovic, Kolarov, Lahm/Boateng,

Okay fair enough, but you're not addressing my point.

You can have the best defense in the world but if the rest of the squad isn't competent in some way defensively then it doesn't really matter does it?

Watch Sacchi's Milan,
You can even look at Barcelona for a recent example,
This is what Sacchi had to say:

Success in football is determined by whether or not a group of individuals are capable of becoming one organism on the pitch.

Its true, everyone share the defensive burden.

However, it is not fair to point at a forward (or attacking midfielder) to always be in position to press/track back defensively.

the few best teams can press effectively but NOT every team can. Look around, lesser teams can defend better than us with more static forward.
Why not look at our team and figuring how to defend effectively with our current setup instead of looking for the perfect image of pressing?

I'm not sure what you're arguing. Lesser teams have no incentive to press because if they were up against a team which was more technically gifted than themselves, that team would simply play around that press and damage them. A case in point was the game away against Hull City in the league last season where Hull tried to be aggressive in their defending and we ripped through them with ease.

I'm not saying you need to press, what I'm saying is that each player needs to take responsibility defensively as they each have a role to play. By this I mean rushing back to take up defensive positions in a well organized defensive structure and being an obstruction for your opponent to play through, that's all it takes, look at Chelsea for an example.

Defending is a team effort.

 

[bingobob]

We were awful all night. Offensively we threatened but defensively we were posted missing we could have been down before we took the lead. Welbeck is meant to be a hard worker he barely chased anything in contrast to the Ox, Sanchez has rubbed of on him and he got his deserved goal.

As poor as we were defensively we still shouldn't ship three goals. The turning point was the Arteta injury we lost an offside goal while he was injured. Lack of investment there is killing us Flamini truly is awful.

Our subs where bizarre they weren't even reactionary to what was happening. This one is on Wenger's head, lack of investment and subs not connected to the game, in contrast to the offensive side executed its game properly.

 

[BobP]

See the top team around Europe you'll see something in common among their back four + midfield setup

There's a defensive fullback behind a very attacking minded midfielder. Ivanovic, Kolarov, Lahm/Boateng,

Okay fair enough, but you're not addressing my point.

You can have the best defense in the world but if the rest of the squad isn't competent in some way defensively then it doesn't really matter does it?

Watch Sacchi's Milan, arguably one the greatest club teams of all time and watch how they defended. They defended as a team, every player starting had a role defensively which they were expected to fulfill. They created three lines of defense, attackers, midfielders and defenders and they were so successful partly because teams were very rarely able to simultaneously bypass all three lines because they were so compact. Though they arguably had one oft he greatest back 4s of all times I highly doubt that they would have achieved the success that they did if defending wasn't a team affair.

You can even look at Barcelona for a recent example, all the players were incredibly hard workers off of the ball and if they shirked their responsibilities the opposition would be able to get at their defense with disastrous consequences.

This is what Sacchi had to say:

"No. It is not a question of 4-4-2 or 4-2-1-3, it is a question of having a team which is ordered, in which the players are connected to one another, which moves together, as if it was a single player," he interjects even as the question is being asked. "Today few teams know how to do this. Few teams work as a unit – few, really few teams. They are all made up of little groups. There is no great connection, nor a good distribution of players around the pitch.

"Barcelona has this. You saw it against Manchester United [in this year's Champions League final], this was the big difference between the teams. One was very much a unit, all 11 players were moving as if they were one. The other was moving as individuals who happened to be in proximity to one another. That Milan team was a team who moved well, with the players very closely linked to each other. It would have been a great game against Barcelona, between two great teams."

Success in football is determined by whether or not a group of individuals are capable of becoming one organism on the pitch.

Didn't Low say something similar recently regarding balance and shape so that every player knows their roles and expectations?

I think I posted that article, I'm not sure if he was referring to defensive positioning (probably was). I posted it in reference to our shambling positioning when attacking against Sunderland.

 

[trunks206]

We were awful all night. Offensively we threatened but defensively we were posted missing we could have been down before we took the lead. Welbeck is meant to be a hard worker he barely chased anything in contrast to the Ox, Sanchez has rubbed of on him and he got his deserved goal.

As poor as we were defensively we still shouldn't ship three goals. The turning point was the Arteta injury we lost an offside goal while he was injured. Lack of investment there is killing us Flamini truly is awful.

Our subs where bizarre they weren't even reactionary to what was happening. This one is on Wenger's head, lack of investment and subs not connected to the game, in contrast to the offensive side executed its game properly.

Yeah man the subs were really puzzling. I could not understand what the point of bringing Podolski at that point in the game with us being under pressure and looking to see things out. We basically chose to play with 10 men by bringing him on. Such a lazy player.

Plus that fool had the nerve to complain to Santi after he shanked the **** out of a perfect set up on his left foot. I cant wait to ship him out and upgrade him with Reus in the summer (*touches wood*)

 

[redwhiteAustrian]

What a complete and utter catastrophic last half an hour of football.

The moment Arteta went off for Flamini, our midfield setup went down the drain. What was Flamini doing yesterday, except for shouting "instructions" at others? Same with Cazorla - it's unbelievable how often Chambers was left on his own, against at least two Anderlecht players.
Don't get me started on Ramsey....what was he doing all evening? He played a hybrid supporting-striker/atttacking midfielder/central midfielder role, or at least tried to, but left so many holes in midfield that Anderlecht could walk through midfield. He needs some advice because he enjoys far too much freedom on the pitch, while having so little discipline.

Why didn't Wenger change the system/setup after their first goal? We didn't play offensive nor defensive after that, it was a complete clusterfuck I'd be ashamed to even label "setup". It seemed the players were unde shock for thirty minutes and the manager didn't know what to do, instead of man-for-man replacing.

Whatever "balance" we had before the game, I couldn't see anything of that throughout it. Let's be honest, Anderlecht could've scored more goals than just three, and they could've scored way earlier as well. There were enough warning signs in the first half already, but we relied far too much on the scoreline, and not on the way the game went.

All in all the result is no surprise, although I was hoping we've put the days of throwing big leads away behind us. The "balance" is all wrong, and the tactical setup, if there even was one, is a shambles.

/rant

 

[Jury]

That was a terrible performance from us - almost as bad as some of The Jury's posts after the game.

You know what makes it funny? You write that and then go and regurgitate just about every post that has been made since the game ended, like everyone missed what happened, adding the square route of **** all to anything.

Most of my posts, admittedly, were born of frustration. Most of it was 'Wenger needs to go' for various reasons, and expressing the fear of losing the best player we've had since Henry, due to said wotless manager.

But having watched the game and having seen what happened along with everyoine else, I had nothing else to write! I certainly wasn't prepared to write a wall of text, blow by blow account of the game, glued together by endless tired observations like you've done. Because that's all you've done!

 

[Penn_]

Alexis and Ox were the only good that came out of last night. Scz should of done better on the third. Won't blame Monreal as his not a CB, that's on Wenger.

Surprised we didn't see Walcott, surely would of added something just by his prescene. We were never qualifying top but still frustrating.

 

[Jury]

What will be interesting to see is the reaction. What will happen the next time we go 2-0 up in a league game. Will we see a difference?

Could this be a turning point in our season--discipline wise, at least--like when we lost 2-1 in the NLD at WHL to go 11 points behind Sp**s, only to reel them in by seemingly going back to basics?

Sometimes it takes an almighty fvck up for some to realise something's fundamentally wrong. FFS, let this be it!

 

[Crooner]

Ox is not a defender and Podolski is a forward, expecting them both to defend is preposterous.

Look at the best teams in Europe, the entire team contributes when defending whether it be by pressing or rushing to get back into position.

It comes down to this, our fullbacks have always been let down by our wingers. We shouldn't have to play a Sagna style fullback because other top European teams generally don't. We have always had a problem with work ethic in the last seven years.

Ramsey is really shocking, I don't think he realises that his best form comes when he has his Roy Keane tackling mojo. Didn't he have 5 tackles per game when he had that Arteta partnership?

I also feel sorry for Arteta, got so much stick in the last 12 months but he is exactly what we need: a cool head in midfield. You can't blame Arteta for Wenger not signing cover for him and for Ramsey playing like a headless chicken.

EDIT: And regarding asymmetric systems with a defensive and attacking fullback look at Barca, Dortmund and Roma. It's not so much needing to play a defensive fullback as needing to defend deeper when the corresponding winger pushes on.

 

[BobP]

What will be interesting to see is the reaction. What will happen the next time we go 2-0 up in a league game. Will we see a difference?

Could this be a turning point in our season--discipline wise, at least--like when we lost 2-1 in the NLD at WHL to go 11 points behind Sp**s, only to reel them in by seemingly going back to basics?

Sometimes it takes an almighty fvck up for some to realise something's fundamentally wrong. FFS, let this be it!

No chance, not with Wenger at the helm.

 

[error_prone]

From my point of view we should take that 3rd Uefa cup place and try to win it. We have no business playing with the big boys at this time.
I see some of you atack @The Jury but at the same time you write your posts and criticize tactics, subs., preparations, mentality and everything that is connected with the manager and we are doing it for 5 years.
We were 3-0 up, why can't we bring in young guns like Bellerin and Cambell, they will give everything they have to impress, instead we brought in Podolski who just doesn't give a f*ck and Rosicky who brings what?

 

[Jury]

What will be interesting to see is the reaction. What will happen the next time we go 2-0 up in a league game. Will we see a difference?

Could this be a turning point in our season--discipline wise, at least--like when we lost 2-1 in the NLD at WHL to go 11 points behind Sp**s, only to reel them in by seemingly going back to basics?

Sometimes it takes an almighty fvck up for some to realise something's fundamentally wrong. FFS, let this be it!

No chance, not with Wenger at the helm.

I remember the days when player power would see it didn't happen again. The personalities would stand up, probably have a massive fight, and get it sorted. Wenger would probably walk out of the dressing room and leave them to it, knowing they'd iron it out themselves.

To that extent I think he's been a very lucky manager. Look at his results as soon as the big personalities left. We'd be better off with a player/manager, becasue there doesn't seem any link to the pitch from the touchline.

 

[Rain Dance]

I'm not sure what you're arguing. Lesser teams have no incentive to press because if they were up against a team which was more technically gifted than themselves, that team would simply play around that press and damage them. A case in point was the game away against Hull City in the league last season where Hull tried to be aggressive in their defending and we ripped through them with ease.

I am simply saying, there are more than one way to defend as a team.
Barcelona/Milan was the peak of the zone press performance, we can't emulate that.
Use other defensive tactics, lesser teams can adapt to their opponents and situation but we only have zone-press?
Sam Allardyce got more variation in defense tactic than us.

I'm not saying you need to press, what I'm saying is that each player needs to take responsibility defensively as they each have a role to play. By this I mean rushing back to take up defensive positions in a well organized defensive structure and being an obstruction for your opponent to play through, that's all it takes, look at Chelsea for an example.

Defending is a team effort.

Defending is a team effort. Which is a problem for me that each time our team defense is caught out, ONE player is single out.
This is not about Podolski mind you, this has been irritating me from the days of Arshavin. Each time Cilchy/Gibbs get caught, somehow somewhere the responsibility falls on his winger and his winger alone.
Its always like that.

Chelsea isn't always in defensive shape, but their defense don't crumble just because one of Cesc/Oscar/Hazard/Willian/Costa doesn't track back.

Just saw the replay again.. Podolski was in position ahead of the Anderlech player, his block is not sufficient though

 

[RUS arsenal]

I said in the Burnley match thread that we should be nursing Chambers by using him at CB and Bellerin at RB. Oh, and he also happens to be a better CB than Monreal, who really isn't one at all. Win win.

I said it again before tonights game. Wenger doesn't see it.

Completely agree. Also baffles me as to why AW gave Bellerin his debut away to Dortmund of all games and then doesn't give him a chance in a game like tonight.

Did you guys not see Bellerin being furthest forward playing like a winger when we were protecting a lead in the dying minutes the last time he came on?

He is not ready yet. This keyboard GMing is laughable...

 

[Jury]

What about the lack of consistency in Wengers logic that Rorz pointed out, RUS? If Wenger backed Bellerin in Dortmund, he can back him at home against Anderlecht. Don't ignore that. That would be laughable! Can you explain that?

And you're talking about one incident where Bellerin was out of position, in one game. Is that enough to condemn him to the 'not ready' heap? Is Chambers really that much a better RB?

 

[Rain Dance]

Ox is not a defender and Podolski is a forward, expecting them both to defend is preposterous.

Look at the best teams in Europe, the entire team contributes when defending whether it be by pressing or rushing to get back into position.

It comes down to this, our fullbacks have always been let down by our wingers. We shouldn't have to play a Sagna style fullback because other top European teams generally don't. We have always had a problem with work ethic in the last seven years.

please.... I just gave several examples of defensive minded fullbacks. Have a look at Ivanovic. Kolarov, and some other RB.

EDIT: And regarding asymmetric systems with a defensive and attacking fullback look at Barca, Dortmund and Roma. It's not so much needing to play a defensive fullback as needing to defend deeper when the corresponding winger pushes on.

Those three teams relies on their attacking prowess to provide.
Barcelona got away cause of Messi, but the other two crumbles when they meet stronger teams with good defense.

 

[Iceman10]

What about the lack of consistency in Wengers logic that Rorz pointed out, RUS? If Wenger backed Bellerin in Dortmund, he can back him at home against Anderlecht. Don't ignore that. That would be laughable! Can you explain that?

And you're talking about one incident where Bellerin was out of position, in one game. Is that enough to condemn him to the 'not ready' heap? Is Chambers really that much a better RB?

Has already been answered. Bellerin was only emergency stand in after Chambers fell ill (with Debuchy out as well of course).