Expert says Arsenal need defensive training – How astute is he?

Every single Arsenal fan and their dogs know that the Gunners defence is rubbish. Arsene Wenger blames all of our away defeats on avoidable defensive errors, and even Petr Cech admitted this week that we have made mistakes in nearly all our away games. Admittedly we still need to score more, but the big keeper said: “…I think the second goal kind of sums up our away season. We collectively made a number of mistakes at the same time which led to their goal, and we devalued our work during the game with a situation like that. I think that it’s happened more frequently than normal over the course of the season, and it’s obviously cost us our position in the league table.”

But when an “expert” tells us we need more defensive training then it is suddenly news. Mark Vidic said: “I think for me, Arsenal, when they get to pre-season they think about scoring goals.

“They have to go and say ‘we’re going to have a clean sheet’ in pre-season because that’s what they have to learn.

“To defend – and that’s the key if they want to challenge for the title.

“I think in the end they will score 70 goals a season, but they will concede 40.

“The last two seasons they’ve conceded 44 and today 45.

“For a team that is in the top seven, to concede that many goals, I think they are playing well to be in that position.”

A team in the Top Seven? Is that our level now? But apart from that, why do experts think they are telling us anything we don’t already know, and what we ourselves have been saying for quite a few years. We all know it, but it seems Wenger prefers to spend money on midfielders and attackers and very rarely on defenders….

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29 Comments

  1. Pretty much sums Arsenal up when we are now considered to be a Top 7 team.The issue is he is right.You finish where you belong in this league.You finish where you deserve to be.Last season we finished FIFTH.We Are now fighting Burnley to finish SIXTH.We all saw this coming.Nobody is surprised.And nobody expected anything different.That says it all.So by my reckoning Wenger will be awarded a Two year extension at the end of this season if the Owner plays to form.Then where do we go?

    1. I agree with everything you said except for the top seven thing. In EPL we like branding, there shouldn’t be nothing like top 2 or top 4 or anything like that. What matter most is the first and any other position is irrelevant. we finished 5th last season but earned more than spurs and Liverpool and will surely do this season even if we finish 7th

      1. I was told by someone on these pages whist training that Wenger awards a goal if any of his teams string fifteen passes together. I think that sums up why we lose games when having a minimum of 70% possesion.

    2. Eve, Mon, PSG, BvB, AC M, Atl M, Real. I think there is a good chance he could end up with any of them. Esp the first four. Atletico, if Simeone leaves I think they would try for him, he’d be inheriting hard working defenders and he’d have Costa. Real believe in star players, that’s their motto, sign stand out players, and play aggressively quick attacking football with the chairman then taking most of the credit.

    3. when we look at our current defence not ine of them would have even been on the bench in the Good old days of Seamem,Dixon,Keown,Adams, Bould and Winterbottom. But There is none of the steel in these guys who wear the shirt now no fight or desire to win in so many of their performances win,loose or draw they still get their obscene pay packets I think pay should be performance linked the more games you win the more you earn.
      As for our manager well what can I say if his pay was performance and result linked then he would OWE us.!!!

  2. Yea well will you blame them on that front ?
    It’s shameful that our defence is that bad, and you’re surprised as if we ain’t a top 7 team.
    It hurts but sadly it’s the truth.
    A change of Manager, Defenders and goalkeepers with a solid DM is what we need.
    If we stick with this same defense next season, bro expect us to concede unimaginable amount of goals

  3. It has been obvious for years.
    We need to be much better organized, when we loose the ball.
    But in spite of it being so obvious Wenger has stubbornly refused to recognize it , and before he leaves, we can’t compete. It is very simple, really.

    1. And yet he has completely changed his philosophy from when he first arrived.We always set up in a 442.Always.We always had at least One CDM.FFS I can remember him playing Lauren next to Vieira against the Dustbin Lids at Old Trafford in the 2001 FA Cup Semi-Final.And then in the Final he played Grimaldi in there against Liverpool in Cardiff.I suppose his thinking now is that we don’t need a CDM because we have Iwobi so no matter how many they score we will always score more.The SENILE OLD FOOL

  4. Admin yes your right but we are always short somewhere every season and lets not forget we have bought a few defenders but all not up to scratch ( Mustafi, Chambers, Holding, Gabriel, Debuchy, Mertesacker ect…) but at least after RVP left we never had such good strikers as we have now late but its a good thing, i believe we have great creative attacking midfield but we have never replaced Viera, Adams, Campbell or Seaman, i wanted arsenal to buy VVD when he was at Celtic why i can see that and our top professionals at the club cannot? our main priority we need a WC keeper ASAP

    1. If you think any keeper except maybe De gea and Neuer gonna save our asses if our defence play this crap you muset watch more games. Cech is not top class anymore and need to be replaced, but i believe that he can do his job just fine. If we have better defense.

    2. Chambers/Holding and Mert should be coming in when the first two are out, but we are not seeing that we are seeing different combinations too often. They need to know who the second pair are, then in training they can try and build up an understanding. Mert can’t or wont play, CC has either a different position or a different partner any time he looked like he was quietly improving. Id much prefer to see Mert alongside a young CB than Mustafi with a youngster.

  5. We have a goalkeeper way passed his best who should be nowhere near Arsenal’s first team.
    We have a training system that doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of much less the practical demonstration of premier league defending.
    We have a group of players who simply are not good enough for us to defend against any of the Premiership teams.
    We have a clueless manager who, heaven forbid if he did stay would do nothing about the omni-shambles that is the Arsenal defence – in fact, he would go out and spend 90 million on a pointless winger who he will play out of position and destroy the confidence of.
    So yeah.
    Arsenal need A LOT of things including defensive training…

    1. Yes I totally agree and there is NO argument with this.But remember the FA Cup final last season?BFG had played only 37 minutes the week before all season.No Kos(suspended)No Gabriel(injured)A young kid in Holding.No Mustafi(injured).Monreal as Left sided CB.Ox as a LWB.And they produced an inspired performance that day.They must have been drilled all week to produce the defensive display that afternoon.So How is it that we now produce a weekly defensive performance that relates more to the Keystone Kops than a Premier League defence?

      1. I think Mer that game was super motivated and also he is decent leader on pitch, but his age already catch up many season ago, but still leader i bealive. I still remember Holding showing Costa who is the boss.

        Mustafi simply is not leader. Kos is also past his prime and not leader sadly.

  6. Our defence is a shambles, and this isn’t a new problem, it’s just a problem that has deteriorated over time because the manager has refused to address it.

    It’s embarrassing looking at the league table!

    There are 7 teams with a better defence than us, including Newcastle!
    Swansea, and Brighton, have only conceded 1 more goal than us!
    West Brom, who have been awful, and are rock bottom with only 4 wins all season, have only conceded 7 more than us!
    We’ve lost 11 times in the league, that’s exactly a 3rd of our games!

    We have Utd away soon, and I know they are going to hammer us! I will not be surprised to see us concede double figures in a single match before Wenger leaves. It nearly happened before when we conceded 8 against Utd (not to mention all the other thrashings we’ve had), so it’s not unrealistic to think we could be looking at a rugby score sometime in the near future.

  7. It is nothing new esp in a Wenger team. Wenger prefers to outscore and keep a team so busy that they get few chances. It’s not like that now but he has always been a bit like that since Vieira left. Some fans love it, they don’t mind once we play attacking football and are one of deadliest build up teams, but even that is not enough when we face real quality and also our confidence can be fragile because well it’s shambolic defending at times. But the way we are this season, I have no words to describe it because am not sure what is going on or who is in charge on the field or even if our players care enough about it seeing as the errors should be avoidable for most part. If we are not careful here we could descend even further, I used to laugh when fans talked about relegation because of the players we have, but if we can’t play as a team then things can go against us and even now we see how difficult it can be to swim against the current. Arsene is putting the club in jeopardy, never thought I’d say that because he was mister safe bet but things look like they are not far off from snowballing.

  8. The reason why Arsenal are useless defensively is because we don’t have any top quality defenders on our books and we no longer have a top quality Manager.Simple.

    1. Really agree with you man! you could have been in good shape this past january with Jon Evans to partner Kosy and kept Debuchy also Wlacott, Chamberlain, Giroud i am happy they are gone (all one dimensional) players and Mert, keeping him was a waste of space and those are kind of love/loyalty our manager has with average players for long time he wait till its too late

  9. I wish someone at the club would make visible / transparent the defensive training at the club.

    Seriously, what do they do? Just fitness drills? They certainly don’t work on shooting..

    1. You cant teach any player how to play football (defending) either you are good or not simple.
      in Mustafi case, how can you teach him? with the hammer may be – repeated mistakes dont even know how to explain – our manager relied too much on cheap and quick fix or even free players if he can get, you cant run Arsenal football club in methodology

  10. Arsenal need a new manager and atlest half of the squad gone this coming summer to start next season afresh – some players we have are not good enough to play for arsenal compare to Barcelona/mandrid, city and liverpool now position by position we are very inferior only our manager dont see that for the last ten years of failure and he keeps get wage increase any way year in/out

  11. Wenger does not do defence. Many past players, including Tony Adams have stated that they learnt nothing about defending from Wenger.
    Henri and Viera for example have both stated that when they first started playing at Arsenal, they could not believe how team mates like Adams, Keown and Bould would tackle them hard at training, to the point where they believed that they could handle anything thrown at them in an actual game.
    That doesn’t happen anymore. Feeble manager, feeble players and no coaching in the discipline, tactics and techniques of team defending.

  12. I watched only two of our away matches this year (CSKA & Newcastle). I nearly develop HBP last Thursday. Wenger have to leave at the end of this season.

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