stiiphunn said: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.