Pelligrini showed what mastery of tactics brings you by counter-intuitively taking off Navas and putting Milner on. It's anotgher aspect of yesterday game that should maee people take note of Wenger's outlook. The flip-side is that Wenger's way would have worked if he'd kept all the players he's had to sell in the last few years, and had avoided the injuries. It can be argued that the big flaw in Wenger's plan was he didn't strengthen his squad enough. What counts against Wenger though is his overall record against the heavy hitters over the years, and also the number of heavy defeats ARsenal have had in that time in such games, whilst the few Atsenal victories have tended to be by the odd goal. With regards to Rogers, you don't get your side to top with 4 games left by being a less than excellent manager, and he wouldn't have been working for Mourinho if he wasn't any good. I hope Liverpool do win it now ... if only to show our board why they should've kept the players they've sold.
I think that the main reason that Arsenal get player's injured is because we CAN compete with the Man City's and the Chelsea's and the Barcelona's, but only with our first 11. We have the resources to pay top wages to the first 11, but unlike Chelsea or City we don't have those 5/6/7 players in reserve who can compete at the very top level. Podolski, Vermaelen, Monreal, Jenkinson, etc are not really good enough. What happens, particularly as the fans are desperate for us to play the top side in the cups now, and we get a tough group in the CL, and the usual fixture congestion around Xmas, that first 11 gets tired and start to either produce jaded performances or they start to break down. Young players go down first and then the older ones. Players start to get leg weary and make a mis-step here and a poor decision to go for a ball there, and they get injured. The pressure to win every game, and more importantly to compete for every game causes the injuries. There is no need to search for some mysterious reason. Teams come to Arsenal and they play an up-tempo pressing and physical game that requires the same in reply. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But in the end it all comes down to money and squad depth. Arsenal are closer than they have been for a few years in terms of the quality of their first 11, now they just need to add a bit of depth and they are there.
Walcott and Ramsey were crucial losses, obviously. Especially Theo. he was doing well for club and country. For me he would offer a much bigger threat than Rooney or Sturridge for England on the form he was on. If we had him this season he'd have 20 goals or more. They way we play would be heaven for someone with his pace.
Moronic comment. Yep, Suarez is the only thing stopping us being a 7th placed club like United . Why don't you watch us play sometime, it's clear you never have, be honest.
Not sure how us playing a 4-4-2 diamond would mean we'd get blown away in Europe. Rodgers has shown that he'll change our formation to suit the game; sometimes that's been 4-3-3, a 4-4-2 diamond, 4-5-1 and even bringing back the 5-3-2 which we'd not seen at Liverpool in a long time. He's moved Gerrard deeper which, personally, I thought was a crazy move, but that's worked wonders. He used a front two pairing which had virtually become extinct in recent years, to get the most out of Suarez and Sturridge. He's used central midfielders out wide to give some defensive protection to the fullbacks at times. The diamond might have been a favoured tactic in the 90's, but doesn't mean it's the only system we can play and certainly doesn't mean we'd play it in Europe only to be shat upon. He's proven to be tactically smart and flexible as a manager, something I didn't see in him at the start. Player wise, our squad was wrote off as average (Suarez aside) at the start of the year. Henderson, Lucas, Allen, Sturridge and Sterling were over hyped, or over priced. True, they might not be world beaters, but their collective is more than their individual ability and that's down to Rodgers getting the tactics right for them. On paper, look at City's midfield compare to ours. We made them look ordinary, and not for the first time this season. That's what a good manager giving confidence to a group of players and tactics can do. Wenger surely has to leave, or step aside from, his manager position. You've got the players (except for a striker) and the resources but just aren't the team of old. There's no heart, no swagger (in a good way) and no leadership in the team and the manager doesn't seem able to keep up with modern football. Martinez would be a good choice, but can't see him leaving Everton. Who would you have instead? Simeone maybe from Atletico? Please step it up, gunners! I can't stand seeing oil clubs like City or Chavski in the CL...
Rodgers is an average manager who's lucky to have the league's best player at his disposal. When Suarez ****s off, then we'll see what he's made of.
For a young average manager, Rodgers appears to have performed far better than Wenger in the league. Sure he has had the services of Suarez but he had to manage the situation before the season started and then manage without him for the period of his ban. All in all a highly successful season for a good manager.
I don't think they'd be able to play the way they have been without him, teams dont go at them because they're **** scared of buck gump on the break. Rodgers has the rest of them playing with great spirit though, you don't win the league without the other 10 playing well. I dont think Suarez will be going anywhere for now
It's AVB all over again. Falcao masked AVB's shortcomings, Chelsea showed he was an average manager, then Bale hid some of his issues last year, this year he had nowhere to hide. Rodgers will likely fall into the same boat, without Suarez, they won't be anywhere near where they're at now.
Well no.. Rodgers has never finished above Wenger in the 4-5 years he's been managing in the EPL so that would disprove that theory.
Wouldn't surprise me if PSG or Real made an insane offer in the summer. If PSG make an offer, then surely that means Cavani is available?
Ok then let's add "this season" to what I said. Not my fault that you have to get shirty about the truth.
If only it were just those two... but yes, they've been crucial and I think people are forgetting how comfortably we won at home when we played Liverpool earlier in the season with a full strength squad. People can admire Liverpool and Rodgers and decry Arsene but we looked superb for the first third of the season. I totally agree about our lack of tactics and Wenger's faith in the squad but the truth is when everyone is available it's pretty damn good. But...to be honest it's boring to always blame injuries as we have them every season, usually to a horrific degree. Maybe it would be nice to have a plan B like tactics, clever substitutions or mind games. Mind you, seeing as we're talking about the Liverpool game I thought that as poor as City were they were totally shafted by the officials. My. Word.
I agree Peter. Arsenal on form are fantastic under Wenger, but those days are few and far between. Why do Arsenal get so many injuries? There have been rumours all over that the training regime is to blame, and can it really be anything else?
just as we were in our game on boxing day. [video=youtube_share;nsGeR6Xbf2I]http://youtu.be/nsGeR6Xbf2I[/video]
