Watching the Chelsea game yesterday I was struck at how similar the approach that Manchester United and Chelsea took against the Gunners.
They both crowded the midfield area and neutralized Fabregas. United used five in midfield and Chelsea four, but the approach was the same. Crowd the middle of the park and dare Arsenal to go wide.
To help with crowding the middle of the pitch, both teams pulled their fullbacks in and compacted their defence. They both know that Arsenal like to play through the middle with quick one-twos and they dared Wenger to attack them on the wings.
Lastly, they both used an approach that United used in the Champions League semi-final and that was to counter attack Arsenal with speed. Arsenal throw players forward, but Arsenal players have a habit of not getting back and cover quickly and that leaves the Gunners exposed to fast breaking teams.
If I can figure this out I am sure that Liverpool and Porto can. Arsenal beat teams because they have more skilled players in midfield who can pass around most players. When they step up in class against the bests teams in England (and Europe) there is no longer a difference in skill level and suddenly Arsenal find out that their preferred attacking style no longer works and there is no plan B.
That is why I have been saying that Arsenal need a big center forward. They have pace on the wings and a big target man will allow the wingers to attack teams and knock the ball into the box, knowing that an Arsenal player has a chance of winning the ball in the air. It will make teams defend the whole width of the pitch instead of penalty box to penalty box, which in turn will open up the middle of the park for Arsenal’s passing game.
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dis arsenal team is ok.but we just need a prolific striker 2 d team.And Mr wenger hav refuse 2 a single striker.so we are on our own.God bless fab&vermìlator.keep d faith.
Well said – that analysis makes a lot of success. Thats why we miss RVP so much – he can play that very technical role down the middle as well as being able to get on the end of crosses/put himself about. When we get a new striker in the summer – it has to be someone who has these 2 qualities – I know he is big but I dont think Bendtner has sufficient technical skill to qualify – so it has to be someone new – does Chamakh tick the box on these 2 fronts?
Stating the obvious I also think we need to develop a real strategy on how to defend when we are taking corners – at the moment the award of a corner is of more benefit to the opposition than to ourselves!! Again, someone with a big physical presence up front will help us to take more advantage of corners.
You are absolutely spot on. You should be the coach if Arsene do not see these tactics.
I also think our full backs are not good at dribbling, so they are unable to capitalize the spaces they find infront of them. So many times, Sagna find spaces infront of him and instead of attacking that space, he crosses the ball far away from the opponents goal which is of no benefit to these short forwards that we have. Attacking close to the opponents goal at the wings allows one to centre the ball dangerously behind the defenders that results in own goals and tap -ins or pulling the back to onrushing players to score easier goals. Clichy and Sagna should learn how to dribble and attack these spaces on the wings to open up defences
Defense is a major concern at the moment Almunia is not a good keeper I dont care what anyone else says. I am sick of hearing Wenger saying keep the faith in him hes under pressure…. Yes Wenger that’s his F**cking job. That isn’t the only problem i know we all love what Verms Done for us this season but against the big sides NO!
Just watch him and what he is doing against United the Rooney goal and tell me hes good and can read the game.
Also the own Goal against Chelsea i don’t mean to get on his back its not just his fault Clichy hasn’t played well either. We are meant to be a big team with a nice new stadium and a world class Manager so why do we have these problems? I mean you wouldnt see Van Der sar or Cech F**ck up like Almunia or John Terry F**ck up Almost every game we cant even keep a clean sheet. Why should we have second class players when we have money but Wenger wont spend it? If Wenger doesn’t buy in the summer and i don’t want to see 16yr olds i mean World class players i would like to see the club take a gamble on another manager. Otherwise we will keep seeing the same old i mean this is a man that trys to excite the fans by saying we have 2 or 3 players coming back from injury they are like new signings coz hes to tight with Money…..Yeah great Wenger! Van Pesie out how much longer can we carry this guy he reminds me of Saha great player always injured. I love him when he plays hes Awesome but how often do we see him play? Bendy i think will be good but only time will tell hes only 20 and hes 1 for the future so a world class striker is a must.
all this talk about a big center foward makes me sick cuz i can c dat sort of player in bendtner and we hav our fox in d box (eduardo) so lets hope 4 their fitness 2 b prolonged keep d faith or go and join another club and stop complainin
observations about the game…..
Diaby is not a defensive midfielder. HE is tall, and his size is what was needed against Chelski and their midfield…Diaby played well I thought.
IT does not matter how much attacking play we had, we did not score. In fact, we have some MAJOR issues with attack I feel. Crossing the ball to a 5′6 make shift striker against the likes of the Chelsea defense is comical. Not going to work.
If we wanted to play this way, Bendtner should have started. He has his limitations as well…. not being match fit is one of them.
Plan B was to drive the ball literally right thru the middle…. threading the needle through 2-3 chelsea players. Not going to work…. how many times did you see us literally trying to force the issue here to have the ball intercepted? IT is so pathetic to see Arsenal pass the ball around the box over and over. No penetration and no ideas. Its almost comical.
The problem is that we do not have a tall out and out striker. Our whole team supports the attack with the small midfield and forward we have. We push up too far and get beaten on the counter over and over. How many times were TV and WG up front? More than our midfielders!
Arsene is an ass for not buying an out and out striker. This team will never win and needs someone like TH again to keep the defense honest and also to be physical and fast.
Arsenal is too small. Litreally nasri, cesc, rosicky, denilson, arshavin, walcott sagna and clichy are under 5′9.
That is ridiculous. We need a new striker… world class. We need a new attitude with players willing to do anything on the pitch. There are a few that come to mind… Gallas, Vermalen, Song and for the most part Cesc.
We need AW to give a real ass whipping to his players. He coddles them, protects them and is way too loyal to them. what does this all mean? It means, I can stink it up in a game and know that my manager will not do a darn thing… he may not even talk to me!
I have been heartbroken like most of you all for a long time. each year its the same thing.. over and over again. All talk by AW….
We have the $$$… we need to use it. What the board and AW ass face do not get is that the fans are becoming very alienated and that is not a good thing for the club whatsoever.
I beleive that the flaw in wengers side is the coaching methods (or seemiingly lack of) in terms of set pieces both offensive and defensive, lack of finish in the final third and ability of any striker to hold the ball up and bring others into play together with our inability to defend at crucial time mainly wen teams break against us. We seem to have some players who fall asleep at key moments and if you look out the apparent statistics of shots on goal, we seem to concede 90% of shots on goal either through poor defensive errors or poor judgement by our keeper (s). We need a defensive coach to tighten the back and some steel in the midfield to win the ball. Song has impressed me this season but we seem to lack the bite that other teams have above us and the difference in quality shows when you compare the subs bench and ability of those players to change the course of a game. Wenger is a great manager but i feel he needs a proper defensive coach to help. Chamkah has said on another website that his weakness is that he looks for a pass rather than going for goal. If quoted correctly I cant see that he will be any different from out existing forwards. We need a selfish goalscorer but they goes against Mr wengers policy of having jack of all trades and masters of none in many respects. We need to pick up three points tomorrow night…..come on u reds
i agree arsenal does not have a plan B… it seems to me that chlsea and manu have figured out how to counter arsenal’s tactics and that is to saturate the midfield…
in this 4-3-3 formation arsenal attacks mostly “through the middle”…
and when teams would make their defndrs and one or two mid fielders stand as a wall on top of the box.. arsnl wont have anythng else to do othr then keep passing the ball and eventually go out on wings i-e useless in present formation …
i find a simple solution to this problm .. when teams play with such tactics as chlsea and manu did… chnge to 4-4-2 formation…
lesser players in middle .. 2 strikers who would keep opponent’s defndrs engaged.. more space btwn opponent’s defndrs and midfielders … therefore more options for arsnl’s attackers and mid fielders ..
So…. let’s get this straight. We need
* A change of tactics to something more like Big Sam would see the team play
* A BIG MAN up top to – you know – challenge for all the crosses and “Hope-for” balls
* Fewer players that resemble in style and ability the Fifa world player of the year – Messi and his accompany band of merry men – Xavi and Iniesta and Eto (last year). Because – you know – those types of players can’t compete with the Man Utd’s in the EPL (oh wait, didn’t they play each other last May????)
* We should spend gobs of money after EVERY LOSS, because – you know – whenever the team lose there is an obvious “hole” in the squad that should be filled right away by finding a VERY EXPENSIVE player and slotting him right into our newly minted “big ball” system; probably right next to the BIG MAN who wins all the crosses
I could go on but many of you are what we call “armchair quarterbacks” in the states.
Look. We have been poor in goal and have “switched off” in defending at times and have rightly been punished for it. Without RVP and Bendtner (so compare Man U and Chelsea without BOTH Rooney / Berbatov and Drogba / Anelka) and we are controlling matches but not controlling the big moments. Let’s leave aside Man U game for a moment as it exposed Clichy and Denilson for their – as Le boss said – naivete (in spades).
Does Arshavin have to score on Cesc’s brilliant diagonal chip over the back of Chelsea’s defense to go 1-1? – Yes. EPL Champions score that goal. Does Almunia need to match Cech’s save of Fabregas free kick with a body block of Drogba’s second goal – Yes. EPL Champions come out of those two events on level terms someway. Did we carve open the “pack the middle” Chelsea defense on more than one occasion – including a ball to Nasri in the second half that should have produced a goal or given Arshavin a sitter – Yes. EPL Champions convert that full chance. So it is not the style of play that is our problem right now. Where we were on pace to set a record for goals scored, the front 7 players have gone 3 matches without a goal from anyone. Form is temporary (and our goal scorers are in poor form at the moment), Class is permanent and will win out. Goals change games and we have not scored any in the last 3 matches so the games have not changed for the better. Add that to some pub league defending from Clichy, Denilson, and a switch off or two and the results are predictable at the top of the EPL table clashes. A good result against Liverpool and we will see what we will see as there is still a lot of Football left to play.
I am not saying that Arsenal turn into Bolton south. But lets look at Barcelona, who you bring up. Yes they have the creative genius of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta. But they also have a big target man in the shape of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Last year they used Eto’o in that position. Arsenal need a similar striker. RVP can fit the role, but he is too injury prone which is why I have been advocating that Wenger needs to buy a center forward.
David,
Sorry for the delayed response. If you’re saying RVP is too injury prone to play the “target” player, then what you’re really saying is ‘sell RVP and buy someone else to replace him’. You can’t be saying RVP is good enough to keep and – because he is injury prone – we should have double the fun and own 2 of him / them (or 3 of them if you count Bendtner there at all), because that implies that the financial problems we are seeing with many of the Euro clubs really do not exist. Injuries to key players impair their ability to get a result. Additional world-class players in the squad to be “insured” against that eventuality are expensive insurance indeed.
Everyone knew that RVP would not last a full season. What I would have preferred that Arsenal do is have a back-up plan. Eduardo is too small to be a #9. Bendtner is not god enough yet (in my opinion).
Last season Arsenal had Emmanuel Adebayor. They sold him over, but never replaced him, which I think was a huge mistake. All Wenger had to do is take the Adebayor money (or even some of it) and replace the center forward that he had just sold. That doesn’t put the club into any financial peril. It just replaces a player that got sold.
You make a good point. Obviously Vermie was picked up right away when toure was sold, but my guess is that the “bet” by Le Boss was that RVP, NB, Eduardo – complimented by Arshavin and Theo – were 5 strong players for 3 spots, with some additional “cover” provided by Rosicky and Nasri as needed in small measure. Was that “enough” ? – only after the injuries came in (your point about “Everyone knew RVP would not last”, being one to debate only as to duration) was that question answered in hindsight – No, not enough cover for the “target” role.
As for the “duration debate” – I think you could get a fair argument that many people saw RVP not playing 38 EPL games but also not being injured for 25 of them – more like 10, which if agreed upon, brings up the “buy more insurance” plot. That is a plot that I think will be seen to be financial suicide in the near future across that part of Europe that do not have a russian oil baron using his “disposable income” to tweak his currently favorite hobby.
If it wasn’t obvious from earlier participation – great posts, great site!
can Wenger still remember the invisible 11
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