Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal

Southgate has picked him.

 

Why? If consistently fit he'd be at arsenal and in our match day squad.

 

But he's never been consistently fit.

 

This is meandering .

 

We're quite similar when Dembele doesn't play, he's the orchestrator of our forward movement and helps immensely on the back foot too, for me he's a perfect example of a box-to-box midfielder and there aren't many better out there.

Our season has just been a nightmare though in terms of injuries, it's amazing and a credit to the staff and team that we've been able to remain competitive in the league so far.

Today alone we were without our best CB and two of our most creative players (albeit the latter two not in the best of form), Kane only just returned and Dembele has struggled for match fitness, think he's only played 90 minutes about three times this season. Davies was also injured although he wouldn't have played over Rose.

 

He is not available cos Wenger deemed him not good enough.

It's like me moaning that Bale was unavailable

 

Out of interest, as I have never been able to fully work it out, but how exactly would you line up if theoretically at full strength? Your midfield has always struck me as being a collection of decent attacking players who all like playing centrally.

 

I'm so sorry for doing this, but it really is a pet hate of mine when I see the name spelt incorrectly.

It's spelt 'Wilshere'.

Not 'Wiltshire'
Or 'Wilshire'
Or 'Wilsher'
Or 'Willshere'

 

No worries mate...but it's closer than my usual effort of "**** face"

 

To be honest we just prefer calling him '****'.

 

Wheelchair.

 

From an outside perspective I'd say their best is:

Cazorla, Xhaka
Walcott, Ozil, Sanchez

Begrudgingly have to say that's a very talented bunch of lads if/ when all on form.

 

We all thought it was spelt Wheelchair!!

 

Cazorla, Ozil and any of our three generic ball winning ball playing defensively minded midfielders would be our first choice midfield. Up front, who knows. None of them are perfect. On the wings, Walcott and then who knows. Should very Sanchez but he's also possibly our best forward too.

If I was manager then:

Cech
Bellerin
Koscielny
Mustafi
Monreal
Cazorla
Xhaka
Walcott
Ozil
Welbeck
Sanchez

Ospina
Gabriel
Holding
Coquelin
Ramsay
Iwobi
Giroud

Wenger has an obsession with Iwobi at the moment. He's got real potential but hasn't been great this season so far and seems unfairly picked at the moment.

Sanchez, Walcott and Welbeck should be able to all interchange .

But our problem has rarely been personnel, more often whether our team are motivated and set up right.

 

It's a good question.

My view on it is that it depends who we're facing. If teams are looking to play out from the back and play a high defensive line, it would be:

Cech, Bellerin, Koscielny, Mustafi, Monreal; Coquelin, Cazorla; Walcott, Ozil, Iwobi; Sanchez

A couple of those players have been off the boil recently, but that's arguably because their influence has been diminished as opposition teams drop deep, Sanchez gets isolated, Ozil is well-marsheled and the midfield has no outlet to feed the ball into, which means we end up passing it backwards and sideways without any real purpose. Another issue has been Iwobi not tracking back - he's spoken about needing to improve the defensive part of his game, yet he doesn't really do it often, constantly leaving Monreal to fend for himself, rather than offer support. So even in games where we could theoretically field a full-strength side, some of these key issues still remain because all the players need to be working hard in all aspects of their game for the system to flourish.

If we're up against teams that sit deep and play with two banks of four most of the game, it would be (in my opinion):

Cech, Bellerin, Koscielny, Mustafi, Monreal; Xhaka, Cazorla; Sanchez, Ozil, Walcott; Giroud

Not too many different changes, but at least this way, we have an outlet to hold the ball, play with his back to goal, bring others into play and win aerial battles. Plus, I feel like Sanchez is more effective on the flanks and Xhaka is better at spreading play than Coquelin is.

 

"We also lacked Perez, Mertesacker and Welbeck all who would probably be in our squad."

You do realise that you are claiming that your performance was impeded by having 2 players out injured but you don't rate them highly enough for them to make the bench in your best team when fit?

 

Definitely. Going into this this match was the least confident I've felt about a NLD in quite a while, and I was very pleased with the performance in the end. Could even have nicked it, but a draw was probably fair.

The 3 at the back worked well and was a brave move by Poch with Toby being out. Nice to see Big Kev back in the side again and I thought he had a good game barring the unfortunate own goal. As did all the defence, Vertonghen in particular. Less so the attacking players. Son was pretty much anonymous again, Eriksen a bit better but still nowhere near his best, and Harry obviously needs matches to regain his fitness and sharpness.

Yep. I normally hate international breaks, the last one which came just after we beat ManC was exactly at the wrong time and we've haven't been nearly as good since. This one is much better timing. Free games that I don't care about for Harry to regain some match fitness, and since one of them is a friendly I'd think even Southgate isn't going to be stupid enough to run Rose into the ground this time. Hope we pull Walker out too.

With any luck this break will have the opposite effect of the last one.

 

I said our performance was impeded by Cazorla and Cazorla only.

 

Tbf, it was impeded by the 11 goons you put out there today as well.

 

No Gibbs?