We spent a combined amount of over 17 million pounds for Gervinho, Santos, and Park last summer (not including wages, forehead's on 70k a week). Now just imagine instead of buying 3 cheap options, we used that entire money on 1 quality player. Chelsea got Mata Liverpool got Suarez Arsenal got Gervinho
Look at united . They had a good solid squad to start with . Rooney who was , what the second highest scorer in the league. But thats not good enough for Fergie , for him finishing second is failure. (but 4th is a trophy ????) He sets out to strengthen (lol )that position with signing the TOP scorer in the league just to be on the safe side.. Compared to our transfer dealings , we look like the least ambitious club ever. Judas vindicated.
Yeah but Piskie was saying that you have scored more goals this season without Van Persie, so Wenger was right surely?
As someone has said , against some shocking teams we have scored a LOT of goals , against ANY well set up defense we need 50 chances to get one goal. Take away the freak results , i. e 7 against reading , 6 against Southampton etc and a different picture would emerge.
13 of our PL goals came in just TWO games so it gives a false impression of our efficiency overall. almost HALF of our goals were scored in just FOUR games . West Ham , Newcastle , Spurs and Southampton games .
This squad should be achieving fourth comfortably. Mertesacker and Podolski have nearly 200 international caps between them. Vermaelen has captained his country in major international matches. Cazorla and Monreal would be Spain regulars if they were born outside the golden generation. Sagna (I know he was out) is widely considered one of the best players in his position in the world (maybe not now) Jack is a future England captain in the making and an absolute world beater. Everyone else is solid or has 'potential' that is being ruined. There aren't many players in our team who are genuinely terrible, they've just been badly managed or misused. I blame the coaching, the tactics and the men who are supposed to be motivating these players.
Its a fact that we have some great players and they should be achieving more than 4th. That we have had great players for years and have achieved very little with them . They have come and gone . I would cite players like Fabregas , Arshavin who was fantastic , Even players that we deride routinely like Chamakh was putting is some great performances BEFORE he came to us. Some pennypinching in the striker department has been evidenced but even that doesnt excuse some of the truly awful results we have had. With the players we had we couldnt beat Birmingham .? With the players we have we couldnt beat Blackburn or Bradford or Norwich .? Something is definitely wrong , very wrong . The only common denominator is the coaching ,the system of play ,the motivation, the tactics. What else can it be ?
Last season, we were not great either, but we certainly faired a lot better in the bigger games compared to this season. We beat Chelsea,Spurs,Man City and also AC Milan and Borussia Dortmund in the CL last season. The main difference was clearly RVP and with him in the team, we always had that player who could change the game on his own. Also, something we have missed from last season is a player like Yossi Benayoun. A neat and tidy player, who kept moving the ball at a good pace, also he worked his socks off and always helped his full back. Wenger has tried to use Ramsey in this role, but he is too slow both off and on the ball, compared to Yossi. Giroud's performances in the bigger games have been very disappointing and proves why we need to invest serious money on a serious CF in the summer.
I agree with the sentiment on here. Having a top quality striker does definitely take the pressure off your defence. The thing is, in the big games scoring first is crucial. More often than not in those games, if you score first, you win. Against City, Arsenal conceded first. Against Chelsea, Arsenal conceded first (in both games) Against United, Arsenal conceded first Against Spurs, Arsenal conceded first And if you want to include them, against Liverpool, Arsenal conceded first. Now with the exception of United, Arsenal had key chances in all of those games to take a lead and didn't. You also have two very poor CB's IMO. I agree with A87 in that its largely a coaching problem, when professional defenders can't hold a line that is definitely coaching and that's Wenger's fault. The big difference is the best teams will brutally punish the slightest mistakes, as Spurs did yesterday. At this level I've never seen a team concede so many one on one chances. Spurs had about 3 yesterday, Chelsea had 3, United had around the same. It's just far two easy to get one on one with the Arsenal GK. I've always said when teams don't have to play well to beat you, that's when you should start to worry. United, City, Chelsea and Spurs haven't had to play well in any of their games to beat Arsenal, nor did Bayern, they barely touched 2nd gear. You need to win 8/10 to be sure of top 4. If you fail to beat Everton at home I think it's over because with WBA and Swansea away down the line, plus United at home, somewhere down the line you'll drop points. Chelsea and Spurs will too but they can afford to, Arsenal are running out of games.
Bobby, why should you be achieving fourth comfortably? Seeing as second, third, fourth and fifth are all very close, what would you deem to be comfortable? I could go through the list of spurs players and do the same as you: Lloris is considered one of the top 5 keepers in the world at the moment and captain of his country We are un-defeated since xmas with Dawson in CB (12games i think) Verthonghan and Dembele are both as good as Vermaelan (as an aside this current Belgian team is very impressive) We have a player who people are putting in the top 3 in the world in terms of current form (or at least top 3 for POTY with VP and Suarez) Defoe is in the top 5 scorers still (i think) despite being out for a month and generally awfull for about 3-4months Scotty parker and Sandro are two of the best dm's in the prem in my opinion and Sandro certainly is as good as many teams have in the prem. I just don't see how you can look at your squad in isolation and say it is good enough when it is so much poorer than i have come to expect of Arsenal, and imo than Spurs' squad at the moment. I also think that if Liverpool can keep suarez and build a bit they will be very competitive next year.
Its nothing new!!! Arsenal have taken 23 points out of 72 against fellow top 4 teams in the previous 4 seasons. When they come against the top teams in England and Europe they aren't good enough and its results that decide trophies not stats and opinions
Well its the big games where your forwards make all the difference. You get less chances and have to be clinical.
Actually, the tactics and systems will vary depending upon who we play. The most common denominators are the players themselves & even they get mixed about a bit. This isn't to say that there isn't something wrong with our tactics at times too.
