As we all know Arsenal are making a habit of taking some some games for granted and thinking they just have to turn up to win the game. They did that against Bournemouth and had to go three goals down before they decided to take the game seriously. But they obviously didn’t learn from that as they did exactly the same thing against the mid-table Championship side Preston North End yesterday.
They allowed Preston to completely dominate the first half, and Aaron Ramsey, who finally got the opening goal for Arsenal early in the second half, says that the Gunners were “surprised” by Preston’s play. “I’ve played in the Championship and I know how difficult every game is.” the Welsman said. “They proved that in the first half and it took us by surprise. The level of commitment and effort, we didn’t match that. Second half we needed to have a different attitude out there and I think we showed that. Obviously it was nice to score, to get on the scoresheet finally. That gave us a bit of momentum to go forward and win the game from then on.”
So I have to ask why they were surprised by Preston; why didn’t we put in the effort; why did we need to change our attitude in the second half? Did they just expect Preston to roll over and let Arsenal score as many as they wanted? This is what annoys me about watching Arsenal!
In his summary, Ramsey pointed out the obvious, which is what we seem to hear after every single game lately. He said: “We definitely need to start the games better to give ourselves a bit of an easier job to do. We’ve shown good character to come back from losing positions but it’d be nice now if we could turn that around and start off by leading the game.”
Aaron, it does NOT show good character when you don’t start playing until half-time. It is quite the opposite! It shows complacency, overconfidence, no respect for your opponents, and a bad attitude from the team.
Is it the players fault for being too cocky, or does Arsene Wenger not drill the players enough to make them start playing from the opening whistle? Can they not play with passion and intensity for the full 90 minutes? This needs fixing, and quickly.
Darren N
Giroud’s scorpion kick was unbelievable, especially as he used his hind leg, but I think the title of scorpion king goes ..to ..Motaz Salhani, my word what a beautiful finish.
@Break-on-through
I agree…His was on the trot and long distance.
No question we have started the last two games poorly but I think you’re jumping to conclusion to say we always start games with the wrong attitude. The fact is that Arsenal is the only team in the PL who havent conceded a goal in the first 15 minutes of a game (although Bournemouth scored in the 16 minute). Interesting to me is that our worst 15 minutes is the start of the second half and we are very impressive in the last 15.
Liverpool just drew to a League 2 side at home. I wonder if their fans are having a temper tantrum and throwing all the players under the bus like most people on here did yesterday.
And this is NOT to say I think we played well or that the team shouldn’t be criticised when they don’t show up for 45 minutes. Criticise PERFORMANCES, not players.
And it’s pathetic how many people on here praise our opponents so much and elevate them to godly levels because they see some scorelines showing them winning matches. That right there is loser mentality.
But it is the PLAYERS who give the PERFORMANCE.
There is a difference between “Ramsey needs to be benched until he understands that ignoring his defensive duties and bombarding forward in an attempt to regain his scoring form at the expense of the team is not acceptable” and “Ramsey is shit.”
Some people would have us sell 50% of our players just because they can’t see past a bad performance.
I cannot even believe this STILL needs to be explained, but Arsenal fans have had years of these types of performances. It’s not been a few games, a bad month here or there, or even a disappointing season…it’s been YEARS!
If we were getting the exact same performances, but from a new Arsenal manager, you wouldn’t get the same the reaction. Fans would give the manager time. We keep seeing the reaction because it’s history repeating yourself with Wenger, and he seems to make no effort
whatsoever to rectify the problems. Wenger never tries anything different, despite the fact, that what he has been doing for years, doesn’t work! If Wenger actually tried something different for once, e.g. a 442, then I’m sure he wouldn’t get as much flak.
It’s one thing constantly failing, but it’s another when you don’t even try and make a change.
I think your wrong to say that there is no effort or he never tries anything different.
Against city he totally ignored his usual passing philosophy by bypassing defenders and midfield completely, he kept going long trying to unsettle that suspect defence.
Alexis having moved centrally has looked the business, everyone said we tried it and it doesn’t work, he stuck to it and everyone seems to think it’s our best option now.
He used to always get attacking midfield players when everyone said we needed defensive ones. He brought in Elneny and Xhaka, that is an effort, it’s wrong to say it isn’t.
He improved on Mert at CB, again, it’s an effort to improve us.
Against Bourn he made changes early for the second half, which has been a criticism often that he doesn’t do, another manager would have been credited with that comeback for doing similar.
It’s just wrong to say he hasn’t tried anything differently for this season, there was an effort. Maybe some of us just expected our signings to all make an instant impact, but how many on average do. I’m still hopeful that Xhaka and Mustafi are going to be huge signings.
i just hope we end this season well getting the tittle will be awesome, cant bet on us tho, i pray wenger quits and we get a new manager
@Tidan2 liverpool had only four first team players in that match,I guess you didn’t notice before making a pointless sentence. Stop looking for excuses and tell yourselves the truth we have been very poor lately,Wenger definitely doesn’t drill or motivate the players well. To crown it all,he sits,watch and moan instead of standing up and shouting at his players. He said he was angry at half time,why not show your anger towards those players on the field of play,during the first time. If we play like this against bayern for the first 30 mins,we would be turn apart. It seems like we haven’t learnt anything since Manchester City game.
I watched the match; so, yes, I know they didn’t start their first team.
Karius, Origi, Can, Moreno, Lucas, Sturridge, Lallana, Firmino all took part and all have started Liverpool games. Again, this was versus League 2 opposition at home.
I didn’t talk about Wenger at all; so your point is moot.