Same old Arsenal

By Boris Mellor
September 13 2009

Arsenal had more chances, shots on target and possession than Manchester City and still contrived to lose. Put another way round they were beaten by a team that had less chances and less possession.

  Wenger said he would address the defence problem; so far it has failed to keep a clean sheet in one single game. You thought last season was bad? At this stage last season the defence had conceded one goal and had three clean sheets. This season eight goals already conceded, that's one third of the total conceded by Man U for the whole of last season. This team is incapable of keeping a clean sheet, it has the concentration span of a goldfish.

If this is improvement we can't afford to improve much more, already we have lost two games where we lost one last season. Arsene said the team lacked sharpness, that's somewhat of an under exaggeration. They also lacked concentration and lacked shape at key moments in the game. They lose it under pressure.

Football is not Strictly Come Dancing, points are not awarded for fancy footwork, as Herbert Chapman famously said, "the team who scores the most goals wins". It might be stating the obvious, but it's an obvious that eludes Wenger at the moment.

Same old song

After the first few games fans were excited by the fact that the midfield was defending at last. Last season Song would wave a despairing foot in the direction of an opposition attacker as they went on to score. This season he got stuck in for the first few games; against City he was back to his old ways, waving an extended limb in mid air, and then spectating as the ball sailed in the net.

He wasn't the only one, very few got stuck in, and Clichy also went back to making errors at key moments. Yes the team didn't play that badly, well as long as you remove the art of defending from the equation.

Now nine points off the pace the team cannot afford to lose another game. Last season the defeat at City led to a long unbeaten run, but not every woman without arms is the Venus de Milo.

Bright spots?

Not that many, but Rosicky scoring a very good goal after such a long layoff must be one. Secondly RvP scored a decent goal in open play at last. thirdly I can use the same preview for next year's game.  Finally the gobby Togolese could be looking down the barrel of a lengthy ban.

No doubt Wenger will work on it, and will fight for a top four place, but win the league? You're having a larf.

Same old song - concentration span of a goldfish

Discussion started by Arsenal Times , 13/09/2009 11:28

Arsenal Times
13/09/2009 11:28

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009:09:15:21:05:34 by Padre Pio.

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karteta16
13/09/2009 11:33

Alan Hanson said it for me on MOTD,

Liverpool play well - they win
Chelsea play well - they win
Man Utd play well - they win
Arsenal play well - Anything can happen

Theodore roosevelt - In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.

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Padre Pio
13/09/2009 11:40

i hate to say it but he is 100% right and wenger has to address it

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Bring back stepanovs!
13/09/2009 12:03

same old same old though isnt it.hes been trying to address it for 5 years

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mapleleafgooner
13/09/2009 13:25

We lost our defensive spine when Wenger had to substitute Song after Song got yellowed and looked in danger of getting a red. That was when Denilson was earlier sub for Rosicky. Without defensive midfield cover, our defence got severely exposed. Plus Clichy was having a mare poor match against SWP - too often charging into tackles and allowing SWP to get away with the ball.

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Padre Pio
13/09/2009 15:27

Song fecked up on one goal whilst he was still on. The left flank was hopeless

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eduardo
13/09/2009 21:46

Totally Wenger's fault in his team selection, during the summer I stated that the one biggest thing Arsenal needed to improve, was for Wenger to stop his picking of senior ranked players regardless of form or of position.

Sadly once again yesterday we see that Wenger still picks square pegs for round holes just cos the square peg is a senior player.
Diaby at left mid just does not work, yes we could not pick Arshavin or Nasri due to injury and even Vela for same reason but then again Vela would not get in ahead of senior player Diaby, Wenger deemed Rosicky not fit enough to start and same applied to Eduardo and Walcott a week away too,
so that may sound like wenger had no other choice but we have natural left sided players in Traore(has a full EPL season behind him), Gibbs was our breakthrough player end of last season but Wenger ignored the two options he and Traore would have given us - help cover for out of sorts Clichy when he charged up field or even put one of them left back and let clichy play left wing,
then we have the outstanding talent that is Jack Wilshere, 99.99% of gooners would gladly pick him left wing if it ment Diaby not left wing. Then final other option Fran Merida, Wenger told him not to go on loan as he was needed here, seems only CC and Reserves is what Wenger ment. I'm sick of Wenger picking players out of position when we clearly have more natural options available even with all these injuries.
Also can someone explain why Sagna is replaced so often by Eboue when we are in a sticky situation

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djarse
13/09/2009 22:00

The Man City result was worse than the Man U game. Wenger says we lacked sharpness, presumably due to the proportion of players involved in mid-week internationals. But the same was true for Chelski, ManU and Liverpool players - all of whom won. Indeed Chelski again managed a last minute of added time winner, when their legs should have been as tired as our players....

At one level, it seems to me legitimate to say that away to ManU and ManCity will be two of the hardest games of the season for every club this year. And in both we dominated and could have won. So, in that sense, I don't think the two results as yet constitute a disaster. But as Padre says, the weakness of the defence and its inability to keep clean sheets is shocking, as is the whole way the team is unable to focus right through the match.

We really have to win every league match now through to the end of November when we play Chelski to have any chance of catching up. More realistic this year is to win the Champions League - the team on their day can still beat anybody.

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eduardo
13/09/2009 22:33

Wenger gave the players an excuse to play poorly before the game when at his press call on friday he moaned about players being tired after internationals and the travelling involved and as we all know give a player an excuse to play poorly or to be more percise an excues not to give 100% they will always take it.

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Merlion96
14/09/2009 14:08

Don't you think that it is Wenegr himself who got teh excuse ready in case....

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litmus
15/09/2009 04:45

Internationals are poor excuse. This team has to show it can win ugly. Perhaps after the equaliser, we should not have thrown everyone forward - we were truly exposed at the back especially on the left side. We should have kept it tight and balance out attack and defense. If we didn't let in the 2nd goal, which AW himself said was a "stupid goal" to give away, I feel that we wouldn't have lost. Hughes was always planning to hit us on the counter eventhough they were playing at home.

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AJ The Gunner
15/09/2009 17:23

conceding 4 goals just sums up the problem. i thought clicy has improved from mister calamity but this game should he had taken 4 steps backwards.the fact that we lost to ade and his bandwagon makes it equally terrible.

for how many season wenger hasn't been able to address these issues you rightly pointed out.frankly i doubt he can.

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BootyDaddy
16/09/2009 09:23

I agree entirely about Song. That waving him leg at a player as they sail past him happens time and time again. @#$%& me off.

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