Obviously I want us to win every game, but we need to be performing better. We struggle to break teams down, struggle to shoot on target properly, struggle to finish our chances and struggle to impose ourselves in matches. We have had more shots than any other side by a country mile and have only scored one goal. In four matches. It just seems like déjà vu all over again. Same problems despite the personnel and the one common denominator in all of this is the man who, as you say, created this team.
Yup. But those issue comes down almost entirely to our lack of a World Class finisher. The rest of the team have performed pretty damn well since January. Ok so we've started the Season a little poorly (which is infuriating given last Seasons start) but lets be reasonable here. A win is a win. The other thing is.. there really arnt that many TOP CFs available at the moment. I truly hope we sign one in the next few days but it certainly won't be easy. Wenger DID try and sign Benzema .. which is really all he can do.
"When I watch Arsenal in the last 10 years, it is nearly perfect football, but we all know they didn't win a title. In Britain they say that they like Arsenal but they have to win something. Who wins the title? Chelsea, but with different football, I would say. This is the philosophy of Arsene Wenger. I love this. - Jurgen Klopp. “We all like Arsenal’s football. They give everyone a lot of joy.” - Carlo Ancelotti I think Arsenal still play the best football in England," - Andreas Iniesta. "Arsenal play the best football in England. Chelsea and Manchester City will never have that class and style." - Marco Van Bastan. Perhaps we have been watching two different teams over the last 20 years. For me under Wenger we have played beautiful football... and we still do. I thought It was a widely accepted thing but I guess you most be right.
No one is saying we haven't played good football in the past or that we aren't capable of playing good, expansive football. But in the last two seasons, I feel that the fluency and technical aspects of our game, generally speaking, has declined. Quotes like the one Bear quoted above are superfluous. First of all, they are hardly going to openly criticise Wenger who is one of the most respected managers in the game. Second of all, how many of them made those comments before we played their team? It's not unusual for opposition managers and players to be complimentary pre-match. Thirdly, those people are basing their comments on Wenger's philosophy and the way we used to play - in other words, our reputation. It doesn't necessarily mean we play like that now. Which we do not.
And no this was not a 'much better performance', ****es sake, it was even against 10 men, so assume it was good, it wasn't even 11 vs 11. BUT having said that, no it was not good, we could only muster 1 goal vs 10 men.
If we'd lost 1-0 you'd still be championing Wenger as the best man for the job and that we play the best football in the land. See... I can make up stuff too.
Though it's a slight indictment of the whole league that OG is the top scorer for two of the top five teams after the fourth weekend.
Jesus Christ how dirty were our lads today? I was actually embarrassed and fair play to arsenal for not letting it get to them.
In the last two seasons our fluency and technical aspects have declined? The last two years are far better than the two before. We have clearly improved the technical aspect and moved back towards a more attractive style of football after having a couple of years of really struggling, having lost a string of star players. The last couple of years have also seen us get closer to the title and win our first trophies in years. I really don't know how anyone looks at our last two years and think they aren't an improvement on the previous two years. Don't remember the abuse aimed at Ramsey? The constant calls for wengers head? Over reliance on RVP? Having to secure our CL spot on the last day of the season with spurs breathing down our necks? We have clearly improved, the club are clearly in a better position and the squad has more quality. While I can understand some of the frustrations with Arsenal, I do think it is often over exaggerated by our fans.
Two seasons back was the 2013/14 season which, at the start of, we played some mesmering stuff. If you genuinely think that the way we play now is better to then, you're deluded, in my opinion. If you are referring to the 2012/13 season then in some respects, I do agree with you, especially when it comes to winning silverware. But in terms of style of play, there is an argument to be made that we are worse or play identical. And this is after forking out a ****load on attacking players. I would argue we certainly were not as careless/profilgate in possession as we are nowadays nor were we this bad in front of goal relative to the chances we create (and baring in mind we struggled to create chances a few years back). We still play predictable, fairly one-dimensional football and we congest the centre of the park too much. We are still erratic defensively and are certainly not as easy on the eye. There's not really been much progression in that respect. Not consistently at least. Everyone views the game differently but I think we play more efficient, functional football. I honestly find us dull to watch at times. And today was no exception. Abuse at Ramsey? That still happens now. People still feel he is underperforming. Calls for Wenger out? Guess what? People still want him out! The club is in a better position and we certainly do have more quality. I however feel we have not translated that onto the pitch and I don't feel we are maximising the best out of what we have. For the last two seasons (this one and the 2014/15 one) even in spite of our flaws, I have felt we have a squad capable of competing for the title. But we weren't even close last season and this season we don't look much better, although I do accept it is still early days. There's still too many square pegs in round holes.
Only just home so I'll have to wait for MOTD to watch the game. Haven't read the comments on here, but my two penneth is that whilst I'm glad we got the 3 points and at the end of the day that's what counts, we badly need a top quality striker if we're going to compete with City. Walcott is a RWF and not a CF, he needs room to play that CF role and it's too easy to shut him out of the game. Giroud is the type of player we need at CF and he's a decent option, but not good enough to do it all on his own. I ****ing hope Wenger is negotiating for Benzema or Lewandowski as we speak, because signing one of those players could really make the difference.
The improvements your finding are insignificant if there at all. Whatever improvements there may be are not transforming us into title challenges or CL challenges. It's like a 100m finding an extra 0.01s in his sprinting when he can only run it in 10.05. He's still nowhere near the top. All four of our games this season have been dour. We haven't played good football this season... Yet. We were also dour for quite a few matches at the end of last season which cost us second spot, bar the cup final. No doubt we'll have prolonged periods of brilliance this season because we always do. But our problem is maintaining that over a whole season. We've never done that. And our start shows we're likely not to be doing it this season either unless there are some significant changes in either personnel, tactics or management. Already chasing 5 points off the top.
Hardly. You wanted to drop him for Ramsey..who scored in the previous game. You also wanted Theo to start, who was utter sh*te. What an awful game that was though.
