Please explain to me the following. We are fully aware of how manchester united play, Rooney drops deep and plays as a deep lying forward, sprays balls to the wings and picks out the striker infront of him. Why was he given all the space and time in the world to cause us damage. We knew that manchester united, when playing against arsenal, like to sit deep and then hit us through the counter using quick wingers. Why didn't we change our set up to make it hard for their wingers. Why were ramsey and podolski played out of position, Ramsey has played better in the centre of the pitch, and podolski even though he plays as a left winger for germany is not a natural left winger, one who dribbles past players with pace and puts decent crosses into the box. Why were we careless in regards to pressing the opponent, even rooney was closing down arteta making him twist and turn to try and get the ball out of his feet. Why were arteta and cazorla not closing down enough, especially when manchester united were talking short corners to which one of them led to a goal Most of what i mentioned above have been occuring repeatedly for many seasons...why are we not correcting these issues. What do we change...do we change the formation to bring the best out of our current players...do we buy new players to get the best out of our current formation. Let's hopefully have a positive discussion. Thank you for spending time reading this.
The explanation is simple, Wenger doesnt alter his tactics to match the opposition, he never has done
But wenger uses koscielny instead of mertesacker if the the opposing team have pacey strikers, im not sure thats a change in tactic more like a change in personnel. If we fall into the same traps over and over again...the tactics need to change
Just posted this, but it's very applicable here: Wenger NEVER adapts his tactics to the opposition. WHAT was he thinking playing Santos against Man Utd!? The guy was a liability for a couple of games, and there was absolutely no way he was going to perform well against a good winger. That's awful management. Arsenal last season were fairly easy to beat - remove the threats of RvP & Theo & Arsenal were pretty useless. This season, it seems even easier. Theo isn't being played, RvP isn't there any more. Nullify Cazorla & the team are pretty useless. Is a formation change the solution? No. The solution is better tactics. Santos should not have been played against Man Utd. Arsenal should set up to have creative flair but to take out the most creative player(s) of the opposition to prevent them scoring. Man Utd and most top teams do this VERY effectively (usually), Arsenal's philosophy has always been "play the Arsenal way, and make them beat us." That works for the first few games in any season, then teams work you out, and you stop being as effective. Tactical variation has always been, in my opinino, Wengers greatest failing, and it looks like continuing for as long as he is at the club.
My Team for that game would have been. Vito Jenk Mert TV Sagna Arteta Coq (wilshere is off the pace and it was a mistake playing him at OT) Cazorla Theo Pod Arshavin. Let the front four attack while Coq and Arteta sit deep and wideish to cover the opposition full backs and wingers when we attack. Also would have told our fullbacks to go up one at a time. So often you see one run down the wing (unfortunately) mess up the cross and on the opposing wing is the other FB WTF? Especially as we don't have an out and out DM. If you want the FBS to go charging down all the time buy a proper DM/CB who can drop back and make it a three across the back or one FB goes forward with 3 left back and Arteta lying deep. You have to do this less against the smaller teams but away from home with teams as good as UTD bloody change it up.
I agree entirely. Play Pod up front. The ONLY tactical variation we've seen this season has been Giroud / Gervinho to start. Now that Gerv is injured, everyone knew Giroud would be up front. Any fan can pick the team to start before the match, with perhaps one exception each game - absolute max of 2. This makes Arsenal SO predictable, and SO easy to set up against.
Changing the LB would have made no difference on this occasion, we basically had 10 players on the pitch that lacked motivation, belief and desire. It looked to me that most of the players had already accepted the result before a ball was kicked. TBH the only player that looked like he cared was jack, the rest looked like they couldn't wait to get back down the road to their WAG and mansion in Herefordshire (or where ever they all stay).
I don't think we were very good at Utd, but it's unfair to say that we didn't care. I think your assessment is quite insulting.
Sorry piskie, I agree with most of your comments, but there are times in football, and life for that matter when players need to be told that there performance was simply not acceptable, and in my opinion this was one of these times. The attitude of the players was poor IMO, swapping shirts at half time just typified that attitude, and its wenger that's taking the flak for their poor performances, it just seems the club is going round in circles, I never thought I would see as poor a performance as I did at OT last year but the honest truth is Man U could have had 6 or 7 on Saturday.
It wasn't good - and I wasn't impressed with Santos asking for RVP's shirt at HT either. I think you're right that the performance wasn't acceptable, we need to see much more as our players are capable of a lot better. I just think your comments about them not caring and wanting to get home to their WAGS and mansions was a bit out of order. I think the players were committed, but they just didn't perform as well as they could. To say they didn't care is wide of the mark.
