Arsenal v Man United – The team, Arsene’s mental block, and a Wenger poll

Arsenal face big troubles against Man United‏ by KM

Hi guys. So the Champions League week two of the group stages is gone and the clubs from Manchester rescued some of England’s pride at the competition after London failed miserably. Yesterday I watched the United game, because they are up next this Sunday at the Emirates and things do not look good for us.

I was happy to see them win, for two major reasons. One is that English clubs are so bad in the competition of late we are in real danger of losing our 4th spot, which Arsene so much loves. Second because it puts them favorites for the meeting we’ll have.

Similar to Arsenal, United conceded first, but there end all similarities between our performance and theirs. They showed spirit, went back to the roots of their success under Ferguson and eventually turned the game. At the end they survived a late surge from the German vice-champions but the results brings them back on track for escaping the group.

Things to note are their defence is still a bit shaky. Valencia was terrible at right back and was the worst player on the pitch with Wayne Rooney. What a drop of form for Shrek, but he really looks out of the game compared to his team mates. Up front Mata was again provider and scorer.

The little Spaniard who almost joined Arsenal back in the day, before Chelsea swept him up, doesn’t look like he’ll trouble you much, but his control on the ball and vision were great and he continues to contribute on a weekly basis.

Another player worth a mention is Martial. LVG got mocked for spending 30+ million on a 19 year old, but the guy has took United by storm and he looks a real bargain. He has physical presence, pace and he’s not afraid to run at the defence. He’s definitely one to watch out for.

Our leaky defense will be our main weakness. At home we’ve recorded just one win in all competitions and that’s a major concern. Although Walcott is scoring right now, I would go with Giroud up front. We lack presence without him, because our midfielders are all short. I’d ship Walcott on the right and move Ramsey next to Le Coq instead of Cazorla, with Alexis on the left and Ozil in the middle.

Until Chamberlain learns to help in defense and stop having the ball in our net off his foot, he’s a bench player for me. We don’t have a lot of options up front. In defense Mertesacker and Koscielny should start for me with Monreal and Bellerin on the sides. Do I need to mention Cech?

The biggest issue for the game is Arsene Wenger. He has a mental problem against the big clubs, United and Chelsea in particular. We’ve not beaten United in the league for a while and we missed some pretty good chances to do it when they were terrible. Now they’ll be confident, because they are first in the league and nowadays everyone has Wenger’s number, because he is so predictable.

Wengers godlike status at the club is a disease we cannot cure. The owner cares only about money in the bank and the board is in Wenger’s pocket. How about a director of football? Maybe a guy responsible for transfers that actually does his job? The fact that Wenger is everything means that every mistake he makes will reflect on the entire club, which is why we repeat mistakes on a regular basis.

To make a general step forward we need a change of approach. United for example are based on success. They can afford to spend 30+ million on Martial and not care if he fails or not. They did it with Di Maria and Falcao and not a single United fan will care, if they win the league. The same goes for Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Barcelona.

Barcelona have presidential elections. Because if you stand still you sooner or later fall behind. When was the last time we introduced a new member to our board? Someone young with new ideas? What job does Ivan Gazidis exactly have?

I’d like to see the ambitions of the club. A piece of paper hanging in the dressing room with the targets for this season. What are they? A top 4 finish and passing the group stage? Or the second is already scratched. Do we have such a list at all?

It’s a deadlock in the club with the manager, but I believe we as the fans can do something about it. The fans of Newcastle wanted Alan Pardew out and although he was doing a magic job in their situation they still got their wish and he was sacked. Arsenal fans can do it too. We can put the pressure on.

I’ve created a simple group in facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/100488083642338/ which i invite you to check out. It only has a simple poll of when do you want Arsene Wenger out. A global research of 2011 says that Arsenal have over a 100 million fans worldwide. It’s time to make our voices heard.

We all know that 11 years are enough chances. Let’s ignore the short term sightseeing of 3 points from the top and look at the bigger picture. Wenger has lost it and if we want to move forward, we’re the only people that can ignite the change.

Fear of failure? You cannot fear failure when no matter how many times you fail, nothing changes. But i believe the Arsenal fans have seen enough over the years. The examples of West Ham, Olympiacos, Chelsea and so on seem to happen more often than the signs of change.

People seem to forget and ignore the fact that we slept through the summer but back then was the time to do our homework. Analyse why we finished 12 points off the top? Why we failed to beat Monaco? Where the squad needed improvements? And we did nothing of that.

What we (as the fans) can do now is make sure that this does not happen again next summer. Because everyone knows that there is only man who’s responsible for all this.

I rest my case.

Konstantin

Tags Giroud martial Mata

35 Comments

  1. Arsenal last beat Man United in 2011 in that time Messi and Ronaldo have scored 461 goals between them!

    1. And?…. So what? ??
      They are the best players in the world,
      Who play for the best teams in world!
      We can afford to buy everyone else,
      apart from them 2 ?…. So they say! ?

    2. Last time we beat them in EPL at old Trafford i believe was 2011.

      – We beat them like 6 months ago in the FA cup (at old trafford). short memory much?

  2. Sanchez and Walcott starting to play up top well together atm creating and scoring for each other! Agree with the ox situation though, Ramsey has to play there imo! Ozil is creating loads of chances now with these 2 up top getting the goals and assists it could be great.

    As always agree with the Wenger situation and also Stan the conman OUT of Arsenal.

    Il go for a 2-2 score line at the Emirates vs Manure still think Rooney will caus us problems always does vs the gooners! Did Martial not give us abit of a run around when we played Monaco? He might just be feeling confident against us!

      1. I don’t feel good about the upcoming game against MUFC. Truth be told, I’d say it was pure bad luck against Olympiakos, but the squad could have been improved, we could have bought better players.

    1. If I’m not mistaken, the largest number of Arsenal Facebook fans and Twitter followers are from Indonesia? I’m from Indonesia, and I don’t think Arsenal fans from Indonesia will support this idea.
      I predict, 2-0 for Arsenal win.

    2. Did he play against us? I remember Berbatov and yannick. I don’t remember Martial. I worry about the midfield Carrick and scneiderlin holding us up and feeding Memphis and company. Tough game. Thank god we have Alexis!

  3. God it’s annoying to have these whining articles after every loss. We can’t win the CL. Period. It’s a good thing then that we fall into Europa after getting third in the group. Atleast we can win that and get rid of some of that European hoodoo like Atletico did.
    Get over the Arsene bashing already. He will stay, we know it. So how about trying to learn from our mistakes and not whine about what won’t change

    1. Couldnt win that either, might not even make it there… our famous 4th spot will be ours in the CL group!

    2. Sounds good, right? But with our consistent approach? No. it means playing Thursday!!!!!! That alone makes things hard especially having to push both the league and Europa!

  4. Preach!………… But the mentaL barrier is still there!……….and wenger won’t change…….Change wenger and u change(for good) somany things about Arsenal !

  5. how dare you criticize wenger?? don’t you know that the champions league defeat was a deliberate ploy by our esteemed coach to get out of the worthless competition so that we can concentrate on our fourth place trophy and the mighty fa cup…..
    first you guys crave for goals and now when our champion players are allowing even mediocre teams like zagreb and west ham to score loads of goal you guys seem to be upset…. its so difficult to please some of you guys

  6. Do i want Mr wenger to be sacked? NO
    Do you want him to retire? YES

    we also need a director of football—–i will Ian Wright or Thierry Henry

  7. Off the ball, Arsenal need to have a mean streak, like a pack of hungry wolves. A few have it… Gabriel, Koscielny, Sanchez, and Coquelin are our hardest working players. Other players I’ve seen it from time to time include Cazrola, and Ramsey. Ramsey looks disinterested to me. Not the same player from 2 years ago that was banging in goals… He’s become passive.

    In 2 games against big clubs, we’ve gotten 1 point so far this season. Sunday we can silence the critics by winning. Koscielny is a big loss in the back. Wegner invested 16M into Chambers so let’s see if he can step up. If the boss doesn’t believe he’s ready to start, my question is why did we buy him and why is he on the bench (loan him out to a team so he can develop). More importantly, why aren’t we going after top talents like John Stones. Now that guy a player! A lot of the talent Wegner has bought has not developed.. We have had Ox for how many seasons. Guy has a good toolkit but looks ordinary out there.

    A big positive entering the season was our depth but so far our depth has hurt us because they haven’t been able to step up! To be a gunner!

    1. Why we don’t spend much this season and, why we have Petr Cech?
      I suspect Wenger will buy Lewandowski for next season, at any cost …. hopefully :-).

  8. we are not going to beat manure.They will win by 3-1.
    they have money and we dont
    they have confidence we dont
    they have a good manager and we dont
    we are just good at bullying smaller teams and winning the 4th place trophy plus a mickeu mouse cup

    1. @tatgooner
      You really do have faith in the club you support. You sound more like a MU supporter…

      1. why on earth should i support manure.with fools and morons and overrated players like scholes neville and owen.
        I am just a fan who hopes for the best and prepares for the worst .I spend 24 hrs on my phone searching for arsenal news.After all we spend all our time on this site criticising the manager the board and the players.I have decided to join the party

  9. I really appreciate ur effort,mentality nd thnkng ability.As it has been called ‘charity begins at home’,why not arsenal fans natively living in north london shld start showing their frustrations about wenger’s attitudes nd stobborness,to be sincere i was previously the fan of arsene nd arsenal,the second is still there bt the first has gone since.And even watchng arsenal playing is just for the sake of supportng,bt i hate to see wenger’s face as an arsenal coach.To make a mistake is nt a mistake bt to repeat a mistake.How many times nd often ar we to forgive wenger??,ar we nt human beings or ar we nt feeling the pains dt wenger poured upon our hearts nd minds??.All arsenal fans ar under stress both psychological nd physical.We ol know that we spends money to watch arsenal playing just to satisfy our mind,lifting trophies will(individually) benefit us wd nothng bt wl help create comfort nd increase our level of confidence among the supporters of various clubs.Arsenal fans lost all these,we ar only losing our money nd belongings for the club dt do not care upon our needs,we neither have trophies no rest,peace nd comfort of mind.
    We need a little change arsenal wl be okey nd equal to any pouring task,bt wenger wl nt care.Let us do whatever we could to make wenger divorce arsenal,we need total nd irreversible separation,in wenger we trust is no more nd no longer efficient nd effective.WE NEED HIM OUT.Let us protest until the board consider our excuses,one out of two:either wenger shld change his irresoanable attitude,principal or whatever so called,OR he shld go,arsenal is never his parents house.Arsene prove to be an intentional stobborn nd cantankerous individual nd his attitude provide so many pains nd discomforts upon the minds of arsenal fans.
    I am really afraid of when our quality players will be tired of ths helpless man!,e.g sanchez wil do hs best to score bt due to the incompetence of our defence they wl allow d goal to be equalized,kos wl try hs best to defend well bt no good DM dat wl defined hs role one day he will ofcourse break-up,ozil wil create so many chances for scoring bt due to stobborness of wenger to not sign wc attacker the chances wl nt be utilized,one day ozil wl get tired.These ar some of the examples we ought to reasoned on,ol these people ar human beings,they need to make use of their provision as productive as it suppose to be,bt failure to do so wl get them discouraged.
    I am still an arsenal fan nd in arsenal i trust,bt no more in arsene bcz arsene is nt a human being.!!
    SALIS DALHAT KWANKWASO.UP UP UP UP UP GUNNERS,Bt let wenger change or out.

  10. @ Konstantin

    You should know that Koscielny is injured and how can you put losing to the champions Chelsea in the same category as losing to west ham and Olympiakos?

    The pressure is finally getting to Wenger now!
    and with the latest stories coming from the training ground,
    He is either going to crack and step down from his managerial duties at the club or he will start being more ruthless and aggressive with the team,
    Hopefully the rollicking he gave them demanding more passion and desire will have hit home and it will inspire our players to respond in a positive way,
    Wenger is not known for showing his anger at the players,
    So if this rollicking doesn’t work!
    Than that will be sign that tells Mr Wenger that his days as Arsenal manager are finally coming to an end.

    I’m expecting to see a big improvement from our boys against Utd on Sunday and 3pts.

  11. Wenger is too sure.
    If i have a thing that is sure i have to calculate at least a margin of 20% errors.
    That IS the WORLD.
    and he should know its like thatin economics as well.
    He plays his cards to the limit. yeah if we dont get injuries if refs are fair if costa isnt a cheater…
    BUT THAT WILL HAPPEN ARSENE, and you have to PLAN ACCORDINGLY

  12. KM is at again… Actually, I couldn’t have agreed with you more about the upcoming United game, and the team selection. But… I have never seen such hate, and what’s most important ignorance towards our manager. You do realize that it’s players who are on the pitch, and NOT the manager himself, right? What I’m trying to say is that sometimes the guys themselves have to take the responsibility and admit that they are in the wrong, whether it’s playing badly, or whatever. Thank you for reminding us about Newcastle and Alan Pardew, by the way. How did that go for them? I’ll tell you how… Pardew and his Crystal Palace are conquering new heights, while Newcastle are at their all time low, and are battling relegation. And if you fail to see what’s happening here, you’re either a moron (pardon my French), or simply an ignorant person (most likely the case). Pardew wasn’t the problem, just like Wenger is not. So stop with the hate, and start looking and (hopefully) understanding a bigger picture.

    1. For gods sake when are the blinkers going to come off? Wenger is to blame, the pathetic comments of fans like you are keeping him in a position where he is, and will continue to do, maximum long term damage to our wonderful club. Get real.

  13. Have you people any idea of all games from the past 10 years against manure how many of them we have lost and won? If you dont want to be shocked, then dont google it up.

    Stay Akb, stay Stupid. ( . y . ).

  14. I think we can beat united but for that we need some huge luck like we got in FA CUP. For us beating them, they have to present us with chances. Otherwise they are favourites, and sad and scary thing is 9 out of 10 times, van gaal fares better against top clubs. He always finds to win against other top clubs. If people think this united team is same like that of last year or from moyes time, then they are sadly mistaken.

    All I hope is they dont bring their A game and we dont concede in first 30 mins. If we hold them and frustrate them then we can get something but thing is can we play that kind of football. Straight away attacking may also be risky as United of now likes team playing football as that gives them more room to play their brand of football.

    As for the team, I will start ramsey. He brings his best game against United so better start him. Key will be to control the midfield. Hope all our boys are ready for this game, a loss would be a big blow for all of us.

  15. Konstantin, as ever you present what is mostly your opinion, as fact. You’re perfectly entitled to those views, but try to write an article that is balanced (or substantiated by something we haven’t seen soooo many times before) and perhaps it won’t be viewed as negative propaganda, which is exactly what this article is. All the preamble leading to your only real objective, lets get Wenger out and come join your oh so simple Facebook group. Tedious.

  16. Looserpool fans on Twitter were desperate for Liverpool to lose to FC Sion so that Brendan Rodgers would be sacked.

    Liverpool endured an appalling night during their 1-1 home draw against FC Sion.

    The Reds put in a laboured performance and left fans on Twitter going absolutely berserk.

    The majority of supporters have had enough of the Liverpool manager and are desperate for him to lose his job.

    But some fans have taken it to new extremes by saying they want their own club to lose to speed up the process.

    Liverpool endured an appalling night during their 1-1 home draw against FC Sion.

    The Reds put in a laboured performance and left fans on Twitter going absolutely berserk.

    The majority of supporters have had enough of the Liverpool manager and are desperate for him to lose his job.

    But some fans have taken it to new extremes by saying they want their own club to lose to speed up the process.

    Here are the best reactions from Liverpool fans:
    -As a Liverpool fan, is it awful to hope they keep losing till Rodgers is sacked? Sick of the team’s poor results & his cop out excuses!
    -hope we lose and Rodgers is sacked
    -Come on, if we somehow lose this then Rodgers HAS to be sacked immediately. Provoke a reaction ahead of the derby. Dreadful
    -what does #Rodgers have to do to get sacked?

    I wonder what the WOBs think about manure match wish?

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