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Saturday, February 07, 2015

Wenger's wrong starting 11 and midfield let the team down

By 1970's Gooner

Yes we did get the goal albeit against the run of play. But we never kicked on. We carried playing defensive football but without having the men up front to go on the counter attack and thus relieve and give a breather to the rest of the team.

This was a mistake by Wenger in his selection for the starting 11 by leaving Walcott and Rosicky out. Both had the legs and the nous to help the rest of the team to manage the game.

Walcott would have been the perfect outlet for running at speed with the ball but more importantly Rosicky, as he amply proved when he belatedly came on, would have been ideal to keep the ball and play the simple pass to a colleague.

Something that Cazorla and Ramsey failed miserably!

Not once did they make a simple pass.

Not once did they hold onto the ball long enough.

Not once did they come out winners in the 50 50 balls.

As a result we lost the midfield battle and kept giving the ball away like imbecile novices.

As a result we were outrun and outfought.

As a result we eventually caved in. How much pressure can you take after all?

We were under pressure against Man City but at least we kept the ball and utilised Alexis for the counter attacks. Today we had nothing. Nothing.

And I blame Mr Wenger.

For not starting the brilliant Rosicky.

For not starting Walcott.

And for not substituting Cazorla and Ramsey much much earlier.

Noe we have a battle on our hands to finish 4th and we have given a leg up the Spuds.


15 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree about walcott not starting, i'm not a fan of Welbeck. The only reason i can think of why he started Welbeck because of his bigger impact on the defensive end, but that was very poor today,he often let Bellerin deal with 2 sp*rs attackers as he didn't track back. I disagree with your thoughts on the midfield however, Santi and Ramsey played below their capabilities. That midfield is good enough to dominate Sp*rs' at best mediocre midfield. Ramsey needs to keep it simple, and Santi should have took more control of proceedings as we have seen him do so often recently. An overall increase in commitment would have made a huge difference as well. Some say we were too defensive, but i disagree.We were unable to hold the ball, that's why we defended so much. And the main difference between our defensive display today compared to at City, was that when we lost the ball in the final third against City we pressed to win it back every time , and then dropped deep when they crossed the half way line, we also fought for the second ball as a team, both these factors were missing today.

Anonymous said...

Relax, man. We let you have this one.. Spurs are what they have always been - flies on sh*t

Anonymous said...

Arsenal always have a problem when they are denied time and space.In fact Arsenal playing on the counter were easily brushed aside by the Spurs defence.Ramsey was running into a cul de sac and lost the ball on numerous occasions.
The next 6 games look easy on paper.Teams fighting the drop can be guaranteed to fight tenaciously
and I wont be surprised the gunners lose one or two games what with the cl games coming .
It's up to Wenger to rotate the squad and drop those not performing even if they are household names.

Anonymous said...

Spurs fans are the biggest wankers in the EPL- so they beat us by one goal at home with the help of a shocking homer ref- big deal-they carry on as if they have won the world cup- pathetic.
A couple of weeks ago Bradford beat Chelsea in the cup- does that make Bradford a better team than Chelsea? No and this win doesn't make Spurs a better team than arsenal.
Let us see Spurs repeat this performance week in week out-they won't be able to repeat it even next week.

PANTHER said...

You're saying Cazorla should of did this and Ramsey could of done that, the reality is the had poor games. The author of this article is right Ramsey and Cazorla were not up to scratch today and Wenger failed to change things earlier. Cazorla's been fantastic and Ramsey's been avarage at best recently but against Spurs both were under par. Wenger said Arsenal lost it in the midfield but he sat there and did nothing to change it.
I like the new attitude of collective defending from all of the team however against Spurs I don't think they needed that defensive mindset. Arsenal's conservative attitude allowed Spurs to boss the game, which is the most disappointing thing of all.

PANTHER said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
PANTHER said...

No team likes to be denied time and space on the ball not just Arsenal. If teams press Man City, Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool or Arsenal, they have a chance of beating them.

double v said...

Has arsenal ever won a game when playing a combination of ramsey, ozil, giroud and welbeck? Wenger got his tactics wrong.

Anonymous said...

Calm as always Spurs will be in tears at the end of season when they look above them. Enjoy the honeymoon.

Anonymous said...

1995 to date they hsve always finished below us.

such stats prooves not to argue with them or discuss our position.

ARSENE made mistakes that I think will be sorted next match. We will be on top of Spurs after Wednesday.

Do you think Liverpool will make the mistakes we did?

Anonymous said...

We lost. So that makes you more knowledgable than Wenger does it. I suppose it's just a matter of time before the Board offer you the job then.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

giroud was equally pathetic today..wenger should have replaced cazorla with rosiscky and bellerin with chambers at half-time..and walcott should have come on by 65th minute..we wouldn't have lost the game then..wenger did nothing of course..and the fight for 4th place becomes harder.. if we don't get 4th place this season, then i don't think we'll be able to get top quality players in the next summer window..

Anonymous said...

Where does your site stand on racists comments?the idiot Panther uses the derogatary word yid not once but twice a complete insult to jewish people if I used the n word or the p word it would not be tolerated so why is is this insult accepted by this blog

Unknown said...

Certainly Wenger needed Roscisky. My opinion is that Ramsey is a disaster; for as long as he ventures miles after the half way line. How and why he does not allow Ramsey play more defensively when he has better options remains a Wenger magic. I am satisfied Wenger is now a specialist at deploying great talent in wrong areas. This now appears to be his middle name just like his fourth position project. Expecting Wenger to deliver more than 4th position is in the realms of genetic engineering. We should accept to love Wenger for what he calls big achievements.I can not figure out what will form Arsenal's next "success" under Wenger. Europa?? What a curse!!