It's the changing mentality of our players that fail to understand the gravity of the game. You wouldn't expect Wengers earlier teams to be switched off defensively at the start of a big game against Man u. Defence is the first thing that is maintained but I find our current team failing to prepare mentally for these kind of events. We made it easy for Man u. Yes we battled back but going 2-0 down to a big rival to poor errors, effectively gifted them the game. We have ourselves to blame and until these players realise their mistakes, they won't be able to advance.
It's been said before, but there have been some games this season where our players have gifted the ball to the opposition in dangerous areas (e.g. Huddersfield...). Luckily in those games, the opposition didn't have enough quality to punish our sluggishness. In a game against United, where you have the quality and experience of Lukaku, Valencia, Young, Pogba, Martial et al, there is no way they will let you off the hook. And fair play, they made us pay for some amateur defending. Players make mistakes in every game. But it's the scale of these mistakes that concern me. Whether it be a miscued clearance, an aimless pass or dilly-dallying on the ball. These things happen far too often for a team that proclaims they want to compete for the title. There are, of course, other things we need to address as well, but the cold hard facts are we will never challenge for top honours until we go back to basics and stop these poor errors every game.
I still think there is a naivety or perhaps arrogance about Wenger in games v the top sides. He has such faith in the ability of his own players, he doesn't focus enough on the threat the opposition pose and doesn't plan to nullify it. Yesterday's win was reminiscent of previous Utd wins under SAF - soak up pressure, draw Arsenal forward, pounce on any mistakes and hit you on the break with pace and movement. Mourinho might worry too much about the opposition threat at times, but he got the tactics right yesterday.
You see, this is where I have slightly differing views. Because I don't think there was much tactical naivety compared to previous games against you lot. In the opening 10 minutes, two experienced and international-class defenders made rookie mistakes. You can't legislate for that. Yes, you can say those mistakes were a result of United's forced pressure, but as a manager, you simply can't expect two senior, first-team defenders to be so lackadaisical with the ball in their own half. Is it a "big game" mindset issue? Perhaps, but that's a different matter entirely. After that 10-15 minute period, we were in control of the game. Whatever tactics you wish to implement, there is no way in hell a game plan allows the opposition to have 33 shots on goal, 15 on target, the lion's share of the ball and the goalkeeper to relentlessly be on their toes following wave after wave of attack. There were occasions in this game where Mourinho cut a very animated figure on the touchline because he was unhappy that the ball kept coming back to us when we were on the frontfoot trying to push for another goal. And whilst you looked menacing on the counter attack (mainly in the first half), the reality is we had to commit men forward because we were 0-2 down. It was a situation where we were damned if we did and damned if we didn't. Mourinho's a very good tactician, but yesterday was not an example of his tactical wizardry. The relief on his face when Lingard got the third after we overcommitted men forward (and Koscielny having an absolute stinker) said it all. He did not want us to create as many chances or have as many shots as we had done. Your goalkeeper having a world-class display, mixed with our inability to finish our chances, and some amazing last-ditch defending was essentially what you won the game.
Koscielny is good defender - but IMO he is terrible in the air and lacks a bit of upper body strength. Mustafi - For Germany and Schalke was played as a CB/RB/LB never settled into a position. Again at 6'0 he's a very small CB and as a fullback he lacks pace. Monreal - He is technically very good, he gives 100% - Super likeable player but c'mon he's not a CB - he is WAY too small. Then the fact we dont have a DM. Our team is like Japan in Rugby Union. Great going forward but really cant compete physically or defensively.
We can cope without Wanyama (as we showed after he was out from the 2nd game of the season) and we can cope with either Alderweireld or Vertongen out (as we did last season)... but we can not cope with both out. That's cos Dier can cover in both positions but, unfortunately for us, not at the same time. It is not a surprise that we havd struggled after losing Toby A in the Real Madrid match. We have have only kept 1 clean sheet since then (8 matches) whereas we were sold defensively before his injury. We played you after his injury and think that played a role in our poor performance against you.
Maybe...but they are defensive players. I'm confused as to how our defence can stifle your more than useful attack but bollox it up as they did vs United.
For all the good attacking play Arsenal had going forward, Utd looked dangerous every time they broke. This sums up Arsenal in the last few years and is why you struggle against top sides in England and Europe. They can just sit and soak up the pressure and kill you on the break. The question you should be asking is: If the roles were reversed and you were at Old Trafford, with Utd on good attacking form would you come away with the 3-1 win. IMO the answer is a profound no, It would result in a through beating. You haven't had enough steel/resilience without the ball or a tactically aware enough coach to challenge seriously for the PL or CL for years.
What game plan? you went all attack like kamikazes sending long balls one after another and shooting from long distance, all your big chances come from long ball and crosses or long shots, except may be that double save of GEA, and possibly another chance. you end the match with 2 Defenders against 10 men and still couldn't score, actually against 10 men I hardly remember a chance you created you had no game plan it was just pure desperate chaos attack.. and with 2 goals cushions UTD played it safely in 2nd gear, but once you scored we gained the control back so easily, we hit the post in one to one chance then scored the third shortly after without you having an chance in between. UTD had a plan and we executed it very well , you didn't had a plan and it was desperate attack which could had happened with or without manager sending those long balls over and over and taking long shots.
Toby starts a lot of attacks off and Wanyama breaks play up and sets us up with quick counter attacks.
I suppose I should watch them a bit more to understand the set up. Can't think why I'm not doing that already.....
Saw a stat that is based on chances that are 100% chances and should generally lead to goals. It said against Utd we had the highest difference between goals that should have been scored and actual goals scored in any games this season. Think it had us at 5 goals we should have scored in the game. It's a new stat being kept, I think by Opta but not sure, it's a stat the BBC uses in articles now. De Gea played a blinder and we were all over them. They just took there chances and managed to soak up the pressure. On another day we would have put away more goals. Overall I thought the performance was of a level (minus the poor individual errors) that will serve us well throughout the season if we keep playing how we have recently.
