The fans are going to get frustrated when all their team do is pass it around on the half way line for 90 minutes. We are not playing free flowing attacking football anymore, we are playing airy-fairy possession football. Wenger used to have the excuse that we play the best football in the league. I think a few people are realising that isn't the case anymore. I keep remembering that Stoke game towards the end of last season where we'd get the ball on the edge of the box, run out of ideas and pass it backwards or sideways and end up back passing it around on the half way line. The Stoke fans started shouting 'boring' and booing. Well on the Sunday of the Emirates Cup our fans started saying similar things.
I'm a big supporter of Arsene Wenger and recognize all that he has done for our club but, all this hanging around and speculating on who we're going to buy is demoralizing. Every year we're told that we have money to spend, and every year we wait til the last week in August to buy. Some years we are too late and end up with nobody. We know where we need players for, so these players should be already known and scouted and offers should have been made. Stop farting around and buy what we need before it's too late and we end up with nobody, or worse, some useless unknown.
I agree that there seems to be a marked lack of commitment to ......... winning the game if you like. I can't think of how else to put it. There are times the players appear scared to take a hold of the destiny of the game and shoot.
Is this the same airy-fairy possession football that resulted in scoring more goals than every team in the league bar United, as you pointed out before?
Also, I can understand that fans get frustrated but my point still stands that it's illogical to expect players to play better when the fans are ready to ride their arses for the slightest mistake. Or in the case of Squillaci, the mere mention of his name on the tannoy.
We do score goals but seem to find it nigh impossible when the opposition read our game. Thus the players are left to passing up and down and around the midfield. How often have we heard commentary suggesting that we lack a Plan B. Too often last season not only were we leaky at the back, we also loss the focus at the front. I suppose we ought to be grateful to have scored that many goals last season but I think you'll perhaps agree too that when the guys needed to do so, they were on those occasions strangely mute. We need a Plan B and also to instil a belief in the players that we can beat any team. Arsene often spoke about a belief last year but there were times this was sadly absent. He has much to do for the coming season. It's not impossible but it needs to be done.
Sorry I ignored you last time around. Against teams that play football against us and allow us time on the ball we do score goals. But against teams that set out to frustrate us (more and more teams are figuring this out), we get pegged back on the hald way line. Against those teams we DO struggle to score. We only have one way of playing, we don't have a plan B. We don't use wingers, we don't use long/direct balls it is pass it through the middle or nothing. So although we do score a lot of goals, they are not evenly spread over every game. Six goals against Blackpool, four goals against Villa and four goals against Newcastle will make our goals for tally look good. But then you look at some of the other results. The 1-0 home defeat to Newcastle, the 2-0 defeat to Braga, the 0-0 against City who played ten men in defence, the 1-0 Carling Cup defeat to Ipswich and the 0-0 draws with Sunderland and Blackburn. There are other games where we managed to score one goal but that it wasn't enough to win the game. So yes, the defence should be the priority. But no, despite our abundance of attacking players, our attack is not as organised as it should be.
The difference between SAF and Arsene is that the former is adaptable and thus able to change tactics to suit a game, generally speaking. As Plymouth Gooner said above, we seem only to pass it through the middle or nothing. Teams soon figure this out and as importantly figure out too that they can come back at us and we need not necessarily have the ability to respond..... I wonder if this has been effectively sorted over the close season
There are two reasons for this: 1. The home fans are no longer happy with the way things are going. Its not like things are slowly getting better. It's a continuous cycle due to our lack of investment/selling of top players. 2. Wenger has picked a team based purely on technical ability.
