And Emery was still positive in his post match press conference - what a clueless idiot. we will lose at Norwich and he will be gone
Reports from Spain are suggesting Arsenal are currently (as in this morning) talking to potential replacements and Emery is awaire of this. I would expect that means he'll still be in charge on the weekend but we will see.
We have no athletic power or speed in our team. We get bypassed so easily. If you're going to press high and play a high line, you need those attributes - we are lacking them in a big way. I don't understand why we give opposition teams so much space and time on the ball when they're in the final third - there's no desire to close down or put bodies on the line to block. Very infuriating at how many wusses we have in this team.
There is a lack of pace in our midfield and defence and we seem to have a lot of players which are what we called in my day the "Second Defender", not the guy chasing the ball. This is why I thought Mustafi got such a raw deal. He is a ball chaser and when you are the only one going to the ball, that is a very hard job. Torreira is a ball chaser too but I think he presses too high. We shouldn't be pressing so high up the pitch all the time. Then we drop back and we seem to stop putting pressure on the ball. Wen we drop back into 2 banks of 4, the front 4 need to be aggressive and the second 4 need to move up with them. Too often the other team bypass our high press and then we drop back and go ultra passive, without any pressure on the ball. Someone has always got to "Take the ball" and not allow the opposition time to start something. Mertesacker is old school, perhaps he will be able to sort it out.
2-2. FT. A poor result and the defending is absolutely deplorable, considering Norwich should have won. Had it not been for the heroics of Leno, we'd have been battered. Him and Aubameyang are quite literally the reason we're not fighting relegation right now. That's how bad we've been. People are getting on Ljungberg's back when he's only had a couple of days to rectify this ****show after the energy has been sapped from us. With that mind, the positives: - Motivation seemed better - Played better attacking football - Our heads didn't drop when Norwich led (both times) Negatives: - Chambers had a horrific game - Midfield combination is too cumbersome and we were getting outrun too easily - Defending was horrible - Substitutions were equally as bad 7 points off top 4 and 7 points off relegation. Not an ideal position to be in at all. It's looking increasingly likely we will have to throw all our eggs in the Europa League basket.
Your keeper was fantastic today. Good to see you took up your allocation of seats, you made some noise, it’s great for the atmosphere in the stadium! You’ve got some fantastic players, I hope the new manager will be able to get them playing as a team, the league needs Arsenal in the top six!
Think we'll struggle to get to 60 points this season. This has been absolutely dire. I'm genuinely worried as there seems to be no sign of improvement anywhere.
Yep, we're in a big old mess at the moment. We just need to try and steady the ship this season and go back to basics. Try not to to lose games as a priority and then build from there. Realistically I think we're looking at a mid table finish this season.
This season is a write off. We have to just suck it up, basically. Try to, once again, rebuild in the summer. Expect a raft of changes defensively and in midfield. We HAVE to improve but its going to be tough without European money (never thought I'd be saying that). There are massive issues that have to be addressed and it's hugely troubling at the moment.
I simply don't believe that individually our defence and midfield is worse than Leicester... who are looking good for top 4 and have only conceded 9 goals. Schmeichel vs Leno? Evens Bellerin vs Pereira? Evens Soyuncu vs Holding? Maybe Soyuncu, but he's not that great and Holding is good when on form. Evans vs Luiz? Evens Tierney vs Chilwell? if Tierney ever gets fit, evens. Leicester's look good because they're playing in a motivated team, with an actual sense of purpose. There's no way panic buying individuals will work when it's quite clear training, tactics and man-management will achieve the same thing. We've got one of the most expensive attacks in the world but we don't score that many when they're not used properly and we use naff tactics. Similarly - we could buy Koulibaly, Skriniar and Kante and we'd still conceded shed loads unless someone comes in who knows how to drill a midfield and defence.
Agreed, however I think our midfield is equally as dire... It offers little or no protection to the defence. Do we even have a holding midfielder currently? What puzzles me is that we do not have anyone in the youth set up to come in defensively? Jules I hear has been promoted to the first team, that unfortunately not where we are lacking! We keep getting suckered in and caught on the counter, pretty basic stuffs!
We have both Torriera and Xhaka who can play as holding midfielders, but neither have been disciplined enough to stay in their positions. It's woeful that we have been getting cut open through the middle for 3-4 seasons now and nothing has been done about it on a coaching level .
Is it a coaching issue or a tactical one. Both holding midfielders are established internationals, Torriera plied his trade in Italy, (to be honest never saw him play then), however, I am sure he joined Arsenal as a holding midfielder, and would have been disciplined both for Uruguay and his previous club. So there would have been no need to coach him on how to stay in his position or if he goes wandering, someone back fills for him... Maybe, we are missing something here, surely cannot be that simple?
I just don't think the players are being coached in a disciplined way enough. We had years of Wenger philosophy which was all about expressive attacking football and then in came Emery who never really put any sort of stamp on his style. I think the result is that the players just lack any real direction about what type of football they should be playing. They aren't bad players, and in fact we have a better squad than most. What I think is needed is for a coach to come in who can really organise them and get them doing the basics in a disciplined way. Then build a style from there. But until this team learn to function as a unit, defend from the front, press the ball etc, then it doesn't matter who we play, they will just flounder in a team that at the moment is extremely disorganised.
To be fair Ljungeberg has had one day with the team in training. How did anyone expect to see a big improvement on Sunday? Hang on but.. Torreira has been played as a CM under Emery this Season. Not as a DM. You need to know what you are looking at Torreira has not been ill disciplined he's been played out of position.
One of the issues we have at the moment is Xhaka, Guendouzi and Torreira all prefer being played as the deepest midfielder. However Torreira is just a pure holding player so it makes virtually no sense at all for him to be played higher up the pitch the way he has been.