Okay Arsenal let two goals in and that has left us with a mountain to climb ahead of the second leg of the Champions League tie with Barcelona. But it could and would have been so much different if only our attacking players had some sort of clue about how to put the ball in the back of the net.
The plan for Arsenal was always going to be about defending and hitting the La Liga champions on the break but in order to do that you have to take a few of the chances that come your way and once again we failed, miserably. Barca were good as you would expect but they were there for the taking tonight and if only we had took the lead it could have gone very badly for them.
Instead we let them off the hook and now they have a two goal lead to protect at the Nou Camp. I don’t blame our strikers completely but I cannot help but wonder what would have happened if Wenger had signed a decent striker in the transfer window. How about you?
I believe a fully fit Leicester side could have won this game. I’m serious. Barca were no where near their best and actually had shaky moments we could have taken advantage of. What’s up with our passing though???
Our shooting is far worse than our passing!
Talking of whats ups!… Whats up with Bob’s Writing? ?
Too many beers? Or Too many Tears?
we didnt play too badly. its always going to be tough after min70 when you get tired of all the defending. but 2 things:
1. if we cant take the 1-2 chances we’re going to get , sooner or later we’ll be behind,
2: we forgot our plan and got too exuberant. this has happened before. wenger is unable to stop it.
3: flam for coq: what can i say?
4: mert: wish gabriel had been fit.
wenger’s refusal to pay what it takes to get a clinical striker is the ROOT problem: the BIGGER problem .
he’s putting player development of careers of giroud/welbeck/walcott before what should be his primary goal: winning for AFC.
wenger calling his players naive: pot calling kettle black: dude, you were the one who put in flam for coq. u’re naive . and deluded if you think players like flam can get it done versus barca.
Can you people stop talking sh** about Mert he was excellent he was clearing and tackling anything that came his way. He made 1 giant mistake that cost us but he was faultless the rest of the night stop basing your opinions off fifa
It’s unusual for us not to score goals. I can’t understand what’s going on!
Apart of our collective goal crisis, for me, we have a definite class in European competition: ROUND OF 16. The calmness, the nerves, the awareness, the maturity, the intensity and the execution of plan, aren’t seem to hit the right level. I’m not talking about Barca, we lost all home game in the last four years, but relatively better at away game. Next, at Camp Nou, even that “better” performance have chance to wreck. I’ll be glad if we escape without humiliation there.
One opinion made here yesterday was right. Anything else than PL trophy is just bonuses (I still fancy triple FA Cup). COYG!!!
There are fundamental rules in the central midfield position for young players who are in the early stages of their career .the rules:
1 Your level of awareness must be such that in at most 2 touches , you must have passed the ball . The fiirst touch is to control the ball , the second touch is to pass the ball .That rule can only be broken if you have no options .
2 The second rule is about the kind of pass.
If there is an opportunity for through ball pass , that must be your first choice all the time .
3 The third rule is ball distribution and picking the right pass
Always look for the teammates with the biggest space even if it requires a long pass across the field .
4 The fourth rule
Look for pockets . Alway drop into pocket . Never position yourself in a in ine with your teammates .be in a triangle.
The fifth rule
Never run ahead of the ball. The best CMs feed from scraps . They never try to force goals . They score from stuffs like rebounds , late arrival in the box like Messi today .
Honestly speaking , Wenger is always the last to see a problem . We have a problem in CM.
Ramsey does not cutting it for me .
Way too many moves die at his feet with his overwhelming lack of awareness, poor positioning ,wayward pass and slow distribution of the ball.
Unless injury forces Wenger’s hands , he is going to persist with a midfield that is so bad , that we have had to bypass to get thing going .
My opinion is that Ozil should be moved to CM , in front of a combination of el nieny and coquelin. He had his best game in that position last season .Our right wing is dead anyway sacrifice the right . Move alexis just behind the striker( Campbell, Walcott or welbeck )
They were no where near there best because of US and our game plan. Monreal was all over messi, Bellerin was stride for stride with Neymar, Kosc didn’t let Suarez breath and Mert organized us. And the rest of the team worked there ass*s off. Stop belittling our team it gets old real quick every pundit and “expert” are complimenting us on how we played.
Everyone loves to hate on wenger but how about giving him credit for his excellent tactics and gameplan ?
People like u are d reason we are mediocre. Which experts?, wenger made lotta blunders. 1)why he didn’t start welbeck?.
2) why flamini instead elneny?
3) lack of discipline?
4) favouritism of sum british but poor players
5) why girud wasn’t removed earlier?
We need a new manager(Tactical)
Arsenal has only one problem alone.
Usually, when a team dries up of goals it means that the manager is or has lost the confidence dressing room.
or the strikers suck
So who should have remedied that? Players or coaching/managerial staff. The problem for Arsenal is coaching staff not players. We have lost the leadership given to us by our former players like Vieira DB10 etc. They where our coaches for the others in our hayday not AW. He quietly reflected then Adam, Vieira would knock heads in te middle of the pitch
Hard to take it on the chin tonight ? Gutted!!
They deserved it but a bit of composure in
front of goal could’ve changed our night !!
What about Girouds pass to the corner flag
when Theo broke through ??
Like stated before Theo broke to the center when his position is right wing.
Jim
Please don’t comment anymore theo is now not allowed to move into space into goal scoring position cause his position is RW. My god I’ve heard it all now
After watching Juventus game my opinion is that Bayern is a better team than Barca.Barca is formidable upfront,but Bayern is formidable as a whole,a great oiled machine.I go with Bayern in a confruntation with Barca.
I believe now is the time to give Welbeck a run of games up top starting at his old stomping grounds this weekend. Giroud and Walcott have had their fair shot of chances this season and we’re now finding it hard just to score a single goal way too often. Time for a change up top for starters.
walcott, giroud and welbeck need to understand: produce, or you wont be arsenal CF.
Giroud has had too many chances .
I concur , welbeck and Joel Campbell deserve to be given their chances upfront .
Not scoring isn’t the biggest problem. To be honest it really annoys me too. Every transfer window it’s the same thing ‘sign a world class striker’ everyone says, citing unrealistic targets.
Just because we can’t find a better striker doesn’t mean we can’t improve our team. We have weak links in our team still. Two of them were exposed tonight and were at fault for the two goals.
Goal 1: Mertesacker dives in to a challenge and doesn’t win the ball, leaving him out of position without the pace to get back.
Goal 2: Do I really need to explain? Both at fault.
Now I didn’t expect us to beat Barcelona, but I would at least hope for us to give them a good game, only to be beaten by a stroke of brilliance by their attacking talents. We managed the good game part, sadly the goals we conceded were really poor for us.
First time we overloaded in attack other than set pieces, we paid the price.
The time has come for us deluded fan’s to accept that we are not as good as we used to be,
We couldn’t even score against a reserve Hull team ffs!
So we shouldn’t really be surprised that we couldn’t score against Barcelona.
Even though the majority of the fan’s thought that we played very well for 70 minutes, Wenger claims that we were average and nieve and Mertesacker said that “we didn’t deserve anything from this game “?
So What does that tell us?
All I know is that if things (staff) remain the same,
we will drift away like Liverpool did, many years ago!
Ignoring a problem will never solve it and I noticed that wenger was having problems with his zipper again tonight,
He has a 50% strike rate with a zipper ffs! ? ?
Come ooooon! ? there comes a time when you have to accept that age gets the better of you and you have to call it a day! ?
The truth is that Wenger has cost us by not buying a quality striker during the summer transfer window and the recent results have once again backed that up,
His decision making has been absolutely diabolical to the point where it has cost us points and games!
He gets one or two right with more luck than judgement and all is forgotten ?
Once an old dog forgets how to do his old tricks,
You can’t expect it to do any new ones!
And peeople thumbed me down for saying we had no chance against the best team in the world. It’s a fact that we’re not good enough to even think of reaching the CL finals let alone quarter finals. The record speaks for itself and so does the fact Tottenham and Leicester are both above us with a higher GD. The manager believes loyalty will help players improve when it’s a fact that it doesn’t. Fergie and Guardiola don’t show loyalty to their players unless they’ve proven that they’re absolute world class, Wenger doesn’t do that and today proved why we will never win the CL under his reign. Even our record in the PL is embarrassing, we should be running aways with the league now but instead we’re trailing behind because the manager couldn’t find a decent striker and a replacement for Coquelin and Cazorla during their injuries. Top managers in modern football don’t gamble and rely on other teams mistakes, they make sure they have every chance of reaching their goal by building an unstoppable squad even if it costs an extra 60m.
The man with 3 premier league titles, 6 FA cup trophies who also revolutionized the english game was based all on “luck” I can’t believe the stuff I read it’s just disrespectful
ffs…give it up will ya ….that was an ok argument a decade ago …but 10 years is a long time and a load of trophies ago … liverpool were great in the 70s ..notts forest in the 80s…arsenal in the late 90s…so what …stop living in the past and get to grips with the world in which football is played today
Well said…
we all knew this result were coming a draw last night and a 3-0 loss at barca would have been worse
this barca team puts 4 past Real M and 3 past Bayern ….
lets forget it and beat manu
Did anyone notice the big,idiot Wenger’s smile at the end of the game?What he was smilling(almost laughing) about?What was so funny?Is this disrespect or what?He was very “affected” by Ox attitude few weeks ago(giggling in the tunnel)-what about him?Your attitude say it all-how can the players be different?Just go Wenger,you keep us prisoners of the past,just go…
The problem remains the same the depth in the squad is not as good as it seems…sure Cazorla & Wilshere were not fit but we’re talking about attacking midfielders an area where we’re staked! Also Gabriel who is a no nonsense guys would’ve come in handy.
But we simply don’t have the same quality all over the pitch or at least in 2 areas that could’ve made the difference:
1) The strikers: I like all 3 of our player but Giroud for all his build up play, physical presence & occasional wonder goal but he is not a 30 goals/season striker a ruthless guy that will bury that one occasion. Walcott has speed but he also will never be that. Welbeck there’s still hope that he gets close & becomes clinical specially when taking into account he has both players attribute but we need that one guy.
2) Defensive midfield: Flamini doesn’t cut period. It wasn’t entirely his fault as BFG should’ve flat out kick the ball as far as he could but Flamini should’ve reacted!! If you sub Le Coq at least try to bring someone that will not commit fouls like he does!! Need an upgrade. Elneny has been good since coming to AFC but we all agree that a Granit Xhaka would’ve been great!
Ox hasn’t progress, Campbell is good & can be great but at this level you need players who can deliver…consistently
The game could’ve been different had we score our chances early as always…gutted!
This was not a game for a target man, certainly not Giroud, this was a game for a quick striker.
we have quick striker in theo. but he’s not cold blooded enough. if he’s one-on-one with GK, many times the GK comes out ahead.
still, i agree w you. may have played walcott at CF.
but then who on RW? ox is in a rut. maybe just keep playing him until he works out of it?
We’re all wasting ou r breath. Be like big clubs,change the manager.
I agree with you completely. He could have started Sanchez thru the middle as well. He is the closest we have to Aguero. Giroud should have come on as a sub. Elneny and Coq thru the middle. That first goal would not have been possible if we had runners in the middle.
Game management is key.
We need a younger manager who will take risk, who is creative, who can spend the money, who will do everything possible to win.
Wenger should go at the end of the season.
Replace him with the West ham Manager.
He should have used thus formation instead and to have brought in Giroud for Ramsey as the later on. Wenger is a 66 year old man whobis past it. Who is no longer relevant.
Coq Elneny
Welbeck Ozil Ramsey
Sanchez.
Failure to score has been a big problem this season and is our biggest problem at the moment. But 0-0 would have been a good result last night. Failure to maintain tactical discipline and not understanding the bigger picuture cost us last night. The moment Barca scored our chances of scoring diminished considerably. As long as it was 0-0, there was a chance Barca might expose themselves to a counter attack.
I`m no expert but it seems to me Wenger has a mid field mind. (if there is such a thing?)
His attitude to defence puzzled me for a while (and still does), why Mert is there at all is a mystery,and he seems all at sea with his offence force. He`s had some very fine attacking players but they don`t last long, a season at most, and then they look jaded. I`ve supported Arsenal since just after the war 1946/47 but in the last few seasons my interest has dwindled. I find Wenger a boring man.
We will never have a world class striker under Wenger. The chances are going down by the season. Aubameyaung? Lewendowski? If they come to the PL at all they will go to the 3 top teams with new managers and big budgets, Wenger will not compete with them for top strikers.
Man U, Chelsea and City will all have new managers who all will look to add a world class striker IMO, whats the chance Wenger will out bid these clubs for Aubameyaung or Lewendoski?
I’m glad some of us can express their true feelings about our beloved team faith.It is nothing to do with the loss against BARCA but we ( the objective ones ) know long ago that a change is needed in our team. Yes, thanks to AW for what we achieved but it is time to get someone like SIMEONE or BIELSA OR SAMPAOLI..pressing and one touch passing mentality and most specially will get rid of the under developed british core plus deadwood and bring the 3 players we have been beging for years now WC ST, WC DM AND WC CB ( 100 millions spend max ) to added to the other 3 WC we have who I’m dreading 2 of those will want to move to a team with ambition ( i will not call them traitors ). we should have throw the 35 millions for AUBA.. 25 for carvalho and like klopp is doing got howdes or someone of that caliber then our SPINE would be perfect to compete with the likes of BARCA, BAYER AND MADRID..we do not need a bunch of galacticos just 5-6 then keep the good ones we have to a balance team..next year i fear the demons..with KLOPP..PEP..MOU..CONTE..POCHETINO..and middle table teams getting stronger..even if we win this year EPL ( being there for the taking )I STILL INSIST IN CHANGES…we are not in the elite any more..it sadness me..it hurst us because we got the finances.
In a game like that you should select your fastest and energetic players from defense to attack. A from a midfield 3 of el neny, coquelin and Sanchez as number 10 would have fought the battle better in midfield. A front 3 of welbeck on the left, Giroud and walcot or chamberlain on the right would have caused more problems for the Barca team. Wenger is a Coward and very naïve to think that first 11 would do any damage.
Why is Flamini above Elneny in the pecking order. I keep asking myself this question