Wenger pinpoints a BIG Arsenal problem

Arsenal have got to start turning our dominance into the wins that our play deserves. Too many draws have seen us slip to six points behind the Premier League leaders Chelsea, although the Gunners do have a chance to cut that lead when we travel to Stamford Bridge on Sunday.

Arsenal have been playing pretty well, to be fair, and were the better side against the Spuds again, but one stat has made Arsene Wenger pinpoint one particular area in which we could do better and that is the set pieces. The Gunners took an astonishing FIFTEEN corners in the north London derby – but not only did we fail to score from them, only one of them created a chance.

And it gets worse, Gooners, if you consider that we have not scored from a corner all season, despite having nine against Crystal Palace, ten against Leicester, three at Everton and five against both Man City and Southampton. So it is hardly a surprise to hear Wenger bemoaning this in an Arsenal.com report.

The Prof said, “It’s a concern. We have lots of room for improvement and we need to do that quickly.

“If you go anywhere in the world and have 15 corners against you, you will concede because they should be so difficult to defend.

“I have a lot of talent at my disposal but Tottenham are a very tall side. Players like Jan Vertongen and Younes Kaboul are very tall and they defended well.”

It is not just corners either, but free kicks from wide positions and crosses from open play. Maybe losing Olivier Giroud, perhaps our best player in the air, has something to do with our lack of success, but with great technical players like Ozil and Cazorla to put balls in, we should still do better. No doubt this will be worked on during the training sessions and could give Arsenal a significant weapon.

With the amount of possession and corners that Arsenal get, just the occasional goal from them would make a big difference at the end of the season. But can we make them count?

Tags Cazorla Giroud Ozil

26 Comments

    1. Wtf? It’s one thing to talk about sacking a manager but to wish he died? That’s a horrible thing to say in the first place, not to mention he’s had a storied career at Arsenal and has brought success at the highest level… just not as much recently. Still the greatest manager in Arsenal history no matter how is final years go.

  1. “Arsenal have been playing pretty well, to be fair”

    Arsenal have been playing pretty well? I didn’t see that incidence.

        1. Why do people think that Chelsea will hammer us? After the 6-0 last year there is no way that that’s happening again. Do you think that after embarrassing your manager on his 1,000th game, the team will just bend over and take it? Players will be fired up for this clash to prove that they are the best in the country and to Avenge the last defeat. After the 6-3 we avenged them 3-0 in the community shield. They then came back at the Emirates to avoid embarrassment. After losing 3-0 at Everton last year, we could have given up at 2-0 down and even though we didn’t win, we came back. Chelsea are weak at the back anyway and with plenty of attacking options at our disposal, we can win COYG.

    1. Totally agree with you twig,an those people thumbing you down are idiots who don’t know football,we’ve been disjointed an uncoordinated so far this eason the only game we played well in was against city.Once again Wenger’s laziness in preseason means the team has no chance of winning any major trophies.Wenger out.

  2. The real reason is Wenger prefrence of wilshere (and playing him central position to make him look good) and in turn destroying the whole structure of team. Ozil, the best No. 10 has been relegated to wings, cazrola and Rosicky are non starters and proper left winger like podolski and campbell never plays.

    1. Ozil is not and has never been a n.10,i don’t kniw how this myth started at Madrid he was mainly on the wing,for Germany the same.No.10’s score alot of goals Ozil doesn’t,so theres no way he’s a number 10.Our best no.10 an player is Sanchez,please stop these myths about Ozil

  3. The problem is our defence and cdm
    Flamini: always help the other side
    Arteta: never was the player than we expect him ,he injured most of the time , and lost the ball in dangerous situation
    Per: he is good just in corners but he is lazy and slow
    Our good defender is just kosc and chambers
    And also debuchy but we must play with out him aleast 1 month
    Gibbs and monreal are good players but they are not good defence
    So we are very delicate in big and important games

  4. You will never compete with the big boys as long as this guy is still around. Why is so hard for some of you to realize that. Giroud has just signed a new contract meaning he will retire alongside him. No world class striker coming.
    Most of you are having hopes in Diaby!!!! where has he been for 8 years?. He will play maximum 4 games , get injured for a whole year. Wenger will wait for another decade for diaby to become a new viera. Giroud to become new van p#ssy and the cycle goes. Meanwhile he earns a fat check to give us mediocre results. Highest earner and you still cant provide results

  5. Giroud has reportedly signed a new deal with Arsenal until 2018, whilst Arteta has been offered extension until 2016

    in wenger we trust

  6. Mourinho confirms Drogba is out of the game with Arsenal on Sunday, whilst Costa is at “risk of injury”. surely costa will play

    Olivier Giroud has signed a new 4 year £80,000 a week

  7. Chelsea could play without a striker and they’d be fierce. Certainly be great if costa was out though. 80k for giroud, sbout right I’d say. Certainly puts poldis 100k in perspective, sorry but in Jan he needs to go home to Germany.

  8. Used to like Wenger, but sadly I don’t anymore. Like a relationship that had run it’s cause you know that it’s time to leave. I’m a Gunner for life managers come and go but a suporter is for life. But really, wishing he would die? Come on that’s just low and sick.
    Having said that. My opinion concerning scoring from set pieces , is typical of Wenger. He just does not know how to get the balance in the team right. Next will be we concede to many early goals or we are not scoring from open play etc.
    If he gets the balance right it should be much easier for the team to exploit the opposition’s weakness.
    If the opposition is defending set pieces well and not giving anything away. He should have picked that up during the game not bemoan afterwards.
    This is where tactics plays a big role. Now when it comes to tactics we all know he does not plan he prefers to stick to his way of playing. And he will play the same way everytime.
    Premier league does not get easier from here. He said himself that after ten games you can tell how a team will perform for the season. We got six down four more to go. Next up is Chelsea. I can’t help thinking that they will come out and play with a lot of skill speed and passion. Last time we could not cope with their speed and how quick they turn defence into attack.
    Plus the fact we have no DM. I can only hope Chelsea don’t show up on the day. Once again we will not apply any tactics to disrupt them , but we will continue doing what we did against all the teams we played before.

    1. What tactics should we use. Park the bus after a goal lead like Chelsea?”no thanks”. We play the Arsenal way. If the opposition is defending set pieces well what tactics should we use? Have our biggest strongest headers attack the net? I think we do that.
      Personally I would set picks off the play with players like Koz who are tightly man marked on corners and have them loop around. That is my tactic of the day.
      I love that we play one way. It is one of the big reasons supporters love the team.

  9. What dominance? Did we dominate that third rate outfit Bestikas? No, we barely squeaked by. Aside from Spurs, what team have we dominated? 3 minutes of dominance against a plague-ridden Villa team. That’s it.

    Possession is a misleading indicator of dominance, especially when all we do is pass the ball around the middle of the pitch and the perimeter of the box. Rarely do we get the ball into the box and there are far too few good scoring opportunities generated. For all our “dominance”, Spurs actually had the better scoring chances (all of them on the break) and a clinical side would put 3 or 4 in the back of the net.

  10. You put together a collection of technically gifted dwarfs in Carzola,Wilshire,Sanchez and then the likes of Flamini,Podolski,Gibbs etc and u expect to score from corner kicks.As u lay your bed,so u must lie on it old man!

  11. @SackWenger

    What you stated previously could put you behind bars… You are just an oxygen thief if anything…

    @Admin, please can you do something about this and exclude him from this site, thanks.

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