This year the club celebrates 125 years and the stadium is inescapably adorned with reminders of our former glories and fantastic players. It is so bittersweet... The players in the current team are potentially as good as we've had, however i beleive they are being unfairly restrained and shoehorned into illfitting holes. This system is doomed to failure as it is so easy to defend against and counter. Wenger is the best thing that ever happened to arsenal but I wish he would go over the tapes of his past seasons. The pace of the attacks in the past was phenomenal whereas now it's not so much an attack as a meandering canter to the edge of the opponents box where it gets too congested and dies. The team needs to revert to 442, sit deeper, allow the opposition onto us more and then hit them hard an fast. The high line we play is a defenders nightmare so it's no wonder we leak so many corners, freekicks and goals. We have the pace, technique and guile to be successful again but I believe it's the system holding us back, not the players. Wenger should watch cool runnings and learn from it. We cannot be Barcelona. We're arsenal. And we should do it our way. We've shown we can... Stop with this failed experiment ffs! Rant done.
I totally agree. 4-4-2 is the system that had always brought us success. Our current team would be brilliant in a 4-4-2, but I feel that too many players get caught in the wrong position in a 4-3-3 and we end up congested around the 18yrd line and too light on counter attacks. My team would be: ...................SZCZESNY SAGNA...VERMAELEN...KOSCIELNEY...GIBBS WALCOTT..FRINGPONG..NASRI..ARSHAVIN ...............RVP...GERVINHO
Piskie - Would you really have Fringpong ahead of Cesc, Ramsey, Song and Wilshere? Arshavin ahead of Nasri? No Cesc at all? Bizarre.
Mr Magic I think one has to assume that Fabregas is on his way out and even if terms were not agreed with Barcelona by Aug 31, in his current state of mind he is hardly beneficial to the team. If anything I would suggest that there is nothing to be gained by the negativity that surrounds Cesc or Nasri. They should both leave so we can put the funds generated from their sale towards beefing up the team, something we badly need to do. RVP called for it at the start of the break and now Willshire has added his voice to calling for new faces. It's high time Arsene took note.
I can see no reason to assume that RVB. Barcelona can't afford him and we won't sell on the cheap. Until they offer the right money, he is an Arsenal player.
I suppose I was planning a team without Cesc. Nasri for me is a better CM and Frimpong a better DM than Song.
Is there any way that we could have a midfield in which Song, Frimpong and Wilshere all started? Maybe with Wilshere moving up into Cesc's position and Frimpong and Song sitting behind him?
In a 4-4-2, I would have a creative CM sitting alongside a DM with two players on the flanks - Hence Frimpong and Nasri
I'd say that wilshire has the qualities of an attacking playmaker and can tackle back and be a terrier. I could see a frimpong-wilshire central midfield partnership doing as well as flamini- fabregas as long as van Persie stays fit to drop back and link the midfield to the main striker, possibly Walcott or a new signing (if only). But the majority of the creativity would have to come from the side men. Nasri could pull this off in a pires-esque role but I worry about the right wing. Arshaven is a shadow of himself and gerviniho and Walcott need to be on the end of plays not creating them. Mata would be perfect then swap Nasri to the right.
That is a better set up - Wilshere Frimpong and Nasri on the right. Let's hope he's still with us to try it out
