UCL - Arsenal Vs Schalke - 24/10/12 19:45PM SS4

[HollandGooner]

Cazorla went missing second half, he's not playing too well atm. But then who is.

I wanted Cazorla to sit this one out after the Norwich game. Fella looks knackered and will be done for the season in December if he doesn't get a bit of rest soon. Unfortunately he's one of few players in the squad who's capable of playing football and thus he's being run into the ground.

Indeed, tonight was a night when we could have put Arshavin in the CAM role. We need to use the squad more effectively, rather than run our best players into the ground.

I agreed, but Cazorla has players around him who arent as intelligent as him only Arteta.

 

[Hunta]

We can't afford to rest Cazorla and/or Arteta, their replacements are either injured or ****.

We all know we have a big squad, but most of them either can't play 2 games in a row without getting an injury or just aren't good enough.

I mean, you take Cazorla out yesterday and you have ****ing Arshavin starting, are people forgetting how BAD he was last season?!

You take Arteta out and you have Ramsey and Coquelin as the two in midfield, that's abysmal.

 

[Glovegun]

It's time to revert back to 4-4-2. This current formation with our phantom striker isn't working at all. It just ends up with our midfield becoming stagnant followed by backwards and lateral passes.

I agree.

This all started with Fabregas. We had someone who was so talented he just had to play but who didn't have the legs to play as part of a midfield two. We saw how that worked out with Denilson in 2008/09.

I would suggest that a pairing of Wilshere and Arteta is more than capable of holding their own in the middle. I've always preferred some physicality in the middle but few teams have a real hard man in there any more, and I reckon they can cope.

The only issue would be how to accomodate Cazorla, which I suppose would be 'out wide' (probably on the right). It might restrict him a bit but Bobby wasn't a touchline-hugging winger. If you've got two strikers up top with one pulling wide (Theo?) it leaves space for someone like Santi to come inside.

 

[Wouterus]

Changing the formation is not suddenly going to make us title challengers again. We have not enough players who can win a game for us when things are not going our way.

When we were playing 4-4-2 years ago, we won trophies primarily because we had about 5 players who could decide a game for us. At the moment we only have Cazorla, another formation doesn't change that.

 

[dreamLord]

No, but it'll at least ensure we don't **** up at home to QPR this weekend.

@Glovegun : I think Cazorla would be great at LW. Chelsea and City both play with opposite foot AMs on the flanks, and they do pretty well/

 

[outlaw_member]

My lesson learnt from yesterday is to never gloat again about an impressive home CL record. I remember all the way back in 2002 on the eve of our tie against Deportivo at home, where I was gloating about our unbeaten record at Highbury in the CL. I did exactly the same ****ing thing 10 years later yesterday about our record against foreign opposition at the Emirates. So much for records!

 

[evoh_1]

Another thing about prepearation is that Schalke battered dortmund down the right of the pitch domestically and then jsut essentially did the saem to us, we had no plan for it and looked like clowns. Just shows how littel respect we give to how our opponents are going to come out and play against us.

 

[arsmile]

may have been close to our worst 2 consecutive performances in decades


it was the substitution thing i found most baffling....i know Arsène is a relutant subber...but when he is not on the bench...after over an hour of abhorrent play...to wait and see the 70th minute coem and go before doing anything is categorically the exact opposite of good proactive in-game management

 

[dysphoria]

may have been close to our worst 2 consecutive performances in decades


it was the substitution thing i found most baffling....i know Arsène is a relutant subber...but when he is not on the bench...after over an hour of abhorrent play...to wait and see the 70th minute coem and go before doing anything is categorically the exact opposite of good proactive in-game management

i remember reading that Arsène believes in this idea that the stamina levels of players tend to drop drastically around the 70-75th min mark, as far as i can make out, this used to be true back when the fitness levels of our players were far superior to most of our opponents about 10 years ago but these days, almost everyone opposition we face in the league and in europe have players who are just as fit if not fitter then some of our lot.

Its also very silly because with our crop of poorer quality players(as compared to the ones we had back then), bringing in a sub with 15-20 mins to go is loads less useful because poorer players take longer to get used to the rhythm of the game, bar the rare game(against west ham, we took the lead through walcott who was brought on for gervais), most of the time, our subs don't really have that big an impact.

 

[Floating]

may have been close to our worst 2 consecutive performances in decades

it was the substitution thing i found most baffling....i know Arsène is a relutant subber...but when he is not on the bench...after over an hour of abhorrent play...to wait and see the 70th minute coem and go before doing anything is categorically the exact opposite of good proactive in-game management

Bould was the manager last night, not Wenger. His subs came way too late in Marseille as well.

 

[eye4goal]

Schalke had better attackers and that made the difference. The team lacks quality but the biggest dissapointment for me was that we looked all at sea defensively again. At times Schalke had a 3 against 1 situation on our left flank. Podolski didn't do his job defensively for me(wasn't great going forward either). Mertesacker was our best player but I still think we drop too deep when he plays and also try to play off-side abit too much as in when they scored(Germany were conceding that way too vs Sweden recently)

We were a top-4 club in Europe until maybe a couple of years ago. Right now I'd say we are a top-16 club. On par with the likes of Schalke and Benfica, so it wasn't really a surprise for me to see us lose. I'd hate to see us come against a club like Shakhtar if we qualify let alone Barcelona

 

[arsmile]

may have been close to our worst 2 consecutive performances in decades

it was the substitution thing i found most baffling....i know Arsène is a relutant subber...but when he is not on the bench...after over an hour of abhorrent play...to wait and see the 70th minute coem and go before doing anything is categorically the exact opposite of good proactive in-game management

Bould was the manager last night, not Wenger. His subs came way too late in Marseille as well.

yeah i said that- that was the point i was making- that this seems like club policy beyond wenger- bewildering

 

[Taylor Gang Gunners]

may have been close to our worst 2 consecutive performances in decades

it was the substitution thing i found most baffling....i know Arsène is a relutant subber...but when he is not on the bench...after over an hour of abhorrent play...to wait and see the 70th minute coem and go before doing anything is categorically the exact opposite of good proactive in-game management

Bould was the manager last night, not Wenger. His subs came way too late in Marseille as well.

Are Wenger and Bould not allowed any communication at all?!

Couldn't he ping him or something

 

[VAVAVOOM 14]

may have been close to our worst 2 consecutive performances in decades

it was the substitution thing i found most baffling....i know Arsène is a relutant subber...but when he is not on the bench...after over an hour of abhorrent play...to wait and see the 70th minute coem and go before doing anything is categorically the exact opposite of good proactive in-game management

Bould was the manager last night, not Wenger. His subs came way too late in Marseille as well.

In situations like last night where the manager is banished to the stands, I'm fairly certain he would have provided Bould with instructions to follow.

 

[11211goon]

meanwhile in Brazil


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IngipdAEfyw

 

[kooldawg]

meanwhile in Brazil


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IngipdAEfyw

He always had a decent long shot on him. Pity he couldn't raise the rest of his game to the level that the club needed.

 

[evoh_1]

may have been close to our worst 2 consecutive performances in decades

it was the substitution thing i found most baffling....i know Arsène is a relutant subber...but when he is not on the bench...after over an hour of abhorrent play...to wait and see the 70th minute coem and go before doing anything is categorically the exact opposite of good proactive in-game management

Bould was the manager last night, not Wenger. His subs came way too late in Marseille as well.

Are Wenger and Bould not allowed any communication at all?!

Couldn't he ping him or something

Mourninho got around a ban by getting in a laundry basket, you telling me wenger can't send a text while taking a ****? UEFA follow him into the toilet confiscate his phone and watch him get his **** out?

both the norwich game and the schalke game needed changingafter half time but our philosophy is so stubborn it involves never changin aparrt from pre arranged times, madness in the modern game.

 

[DiamondGooner]

If we don't show something tomorrow we better have one almighty cheque come January.

 

[jones]

Don't care if we show anything tomorrow, we should be spending either way. We shouldn't need to rely on the likes of Oxlade-Chamberlain and Gnabry, we shouldn't need to rely on Theo signing the damn contract, and neither on Gervinho finding his feet again. I don't think we are that far from our rivals this season, no need to go on a shopping spree spending more than 100m.

Look at Juventus in summer 2011, they couldn't even make Europa League and finished 7th, after one summer and about 60m, money that we should deinitely be able to bring up, they managed not only to win the league undefeated but have all of ONE loss since then, in more than 50 games in all competitions.

 

[Hunta]

We're playing today...