I think Wenger has learnt. There's no doubt he is stubborn but when he really needs to he has adapted, much to my surprise. At the end of last season and the beginning of this season his side's played fast, more direct football, which is an easier style to play, and it quickly got them results. On top of that he showed an uncharacteristic desire to see games out. How many times have we seen Arsenal end a game with 6/7 defenders on the pitch when they're winning? It happens everytime but it's not something he used to do, it used to be all about getting more goals up until the last minute. The trouble is that he's still trying to revert back to his preferred style when things start going better. Lots of coaches do this in all sports. I was reading the new Malcolm Gladwell book recently and in it he wrote about a college basketball team that was getting beaten every year due to having a poorer quality team. One time he set his team up to play a full court press all game and it worked getting them the win but instead of building on it the coach went back to playing a normal game and the team went back to getting beat all time. It makes no sense logically but there's always a tendency to want to play the game the sameway as the best do.
Yesterday was the most one sided game I've ever seen in the premiership. At lease in the Spurs 9 Wigan 1, Wigan had a half decent first half. Arsenal are lucky it wasn't double figures yesterday. The writing was on the wall last week, we played like a bunch of clowns but despite losing, were easily the better side.
Benteke scored his 11th goal of the season, thats 5 in 6 games so we can put to bed him being a one season wonder as since hes recovered from his injury problems hes been in fine form and started the season in outstanding form.
The team that still has some kind of chance of breaking into the top four is Everton (four points ahead of us if they win their games in hand; five back of Arsenal, with a game against Arsenal coming up at home), which creates a dilemma: pull for Everton even though they'd pass us, in the hopes they catch Arsenal?
Everton to do damage to the Goons by the time of that "six pointer" . Hope Spurs are within reach at that point (given the fixture lists for both of them after that) .
There's rumours going round that wenger has told the arsenal players that he's standing down at the end of the season. Apparently he announced it in the changing rooms at Stamford Bridge.
I was going to talk about that here but I thought about this match on the "rivals" thread was pushing it a bit! I'd love barca to get a late winner though!
Watching that game for the first time ever. Not too impressed. Could you see Southampton giving the Barca MF the time that Madrid are ??
Madrid seem content to yield possession to Barca in MF. And I have seen Barca press and pass miles faster than they are. The Ronaldo foul appeared to be outside the box too.
Great match though and if this score stays the same then what a great end to the season it will be in la liga. How cool was Messi with those 2 penalties?!
Where's NSIS, still think Ramos isn't a liability!? There have been various articles on Messi V Ronaldo, who's better but Messi is just superior, an artist, magical player with a natural game. Ronaldo is more of a machine, better physically and more refined but lacks the natural movement that Messi has.
You think it would work better not to press in midfield and give Iniesta, Fabregas and Xavi time and space on the ball? The high-line is a consequence of the pressing game not a tactic in its own right. The chances the 'high-line' gives away are obvious to all when it fails but we can't see all those that it prevents!
"You think it would work better not to press in midfield and give Iniesta, Fabregas and Xavi time and space on the ball?" If you can organise your defence quickly enough. I watched the game yesterday, and Madrid were content to cede possession to Barca. Because they always seemed to have sufficient numbers back. If anyway I was surprised how slow Barca passed in MF much of the game (they usually move it far faster than that) .
