That's true. He's become more and more stubborn and predictable. Also this is how you beat a Wenger post 2010 side... ---------------GK--------------- RB ----CB------CB------- LB ----------DM----DM----------- WF---------SS------------WF ---------------CF---------------- Sit back absorb play on the break. Pace on the wings! IF you get to 30 mins into the game without us scoring we will push higher and higher up the pitch. Easy to catch us on the counter. Ferguson did this all the time in his last few years against us. BiIlic and Ponchettino adopt this set-up against us too. As did Swansea and Dynamo Zagreb.
What's become worst is our spirit, many times season back we would play tight teams, we would go down, but we would fight and usually get something back, this year every time we go down our heads drop and they just mope around.
I agree, we've become too predictable to play against. It's fine when we've got our flow, but this side look nervous when they get near the oppo penalty box and nobody seems to want to shoot. We keep getting caught out on the counter and our midfield is as soft as **** at letting teams play through us, so the back four are under pressure, coupled with the CBs making mistakes and it's the perfect recipe for how we lost the game today.
Given we've done nothing for over a decade... Is it fine? Is winning a few games a season with scintillating football justification for having a style of play like this when it doesn't pay dividends with consistency or trophies?
Specifically, I mean our football is fine when we have got confidence and incisiveness. But when it doesn't come off, we lack a plan B and then we lose confidence.
We don't have those things though, which means our football ISNT fine. Because it will never work consistently. The last 12 years prove that.
The reason it doesn't work is that we have no tactical flexibility. If the team we play against, plays into our hands, we generally do well against them. If they don't, we don't do well. Most teams will set up to nullify us, so no surprise we aren't doing well.
Yep this. It's been a problem for a while now. All fine when we have got our flow, but no plan B when it doesn't come off.
It's not nothing, but when you look at Arsenal, the players, the state of the league at the moment, they are definitely under-achieving. So the "winning a few games" comment I can understand.
1- i will be happy if you can list those managers with around 6-10 years record managing a club just to compare 2- Keown and adams were still heart of that team during early 2000s.. then once Keown stepped down, AW had another leader with Vieira .. but how many seasons that lasted? just one season in 2003/2004, and in all fairness PL was not as competitive as now with alike of big spenders and all tv money strengthening all PL teams.. and in 2003/2004 who were your real competitor? UTD ? they were not same after selling Beckham and Rio got banned .. so you had an easy run to the title .. you think am wrong? ok then why same squad never managed to win any title since 2003/2004 once other teams strengthen their sides? explain that if they were best side in PL history?
Not one of you have commented on how well we played. Deluded supporters of a bottling team with a misplaced sense of entitlement
I have just (yawn) read all 172 messages. Not on, not even one (except for a reference to Ighalo being better than Giroud , which is a no brainer anyway) gives any credit to Watford for achieving what they did. Outhought and outfought, (but not outplayed) Arsenal. Perhaps that is a reflection of the attitude at the 'big clubs', where success is expected, rather than celebrated. Perhaps it is a reflection of Wenger, who gives grudging praise if he ever gives any to an opposition. And hardly anyone acknowledged that a) Gabriel should have been sent off and b) Deeney made no fuss at all. A stark change from when anyone at Arsenal perceives that an injustice has occurred. Thank goodness for surprises in football.
Yawn, yawn, yawn. Football was better in the 60s. Crunching tackles are what we need. Foreigners ruin the game. Blah, blah, blah.
Nobody gives a **** about Watford, so get over it. Nobody gives a **** about you, comprende? You're just an afterthought. We are the story, it is all about us, not you, and with a better manager we would have been beating your asses quite comprehensively. This is also an ARSENAL board, so obviously we will talk about ARSENAL and aspects of our game, not Watford.
Probably sums up everything that's wrong with Arsenal at the moment. Funnily enough, Mrs H-F is an Arsenal season ticket holder (at last I've got the bragging rights at home ) and she thought that Watford deserved it and Giroud is a preening prima-donna. Okay, a bit obvious perhaps, but she did at least put credit where it was due. Three teams make a football match, by the way, and only one of them ought to remain anonymous... as a clue for you it's not the opposition. Otherwise we come along and nick it whilst you're worrying about yourselves. A bit of added spice for your next home league match, what?
Now this thread is winding down a bit I think its fair to say that at any other of the top clubs in this country or for that matter in Europe the manager would have gone by now. The lack of real activity in the transfer market in covering the positions where we really need it and the blind loyalty to players that are clearly not on form is the mark of a manager living in hope and clearly that is not what we need to succeed.
You obviously care, it's biting you to distraction. You have just spent a sleepless night thinking about the game and how your season has been frittered away.
