It may not be Nasty November but Arsenal are not playing well…

Performance in November were poor despite 2 wins and 3 draws. by KM

Hello! So Arsenal managed to beat Bournemouth, despite surviving yet another scare, after they equalised through a dodgy penalty and this concludes November which starts and ends with victories, the only 2 we recorded in this month.

We haven’t lost since the opening day of the season, but there are reasons to be concerned. Yesterday’s game started with a gift from Bournemouth that Alexis converted, but afterwards Eddie Howe’s side produced the better football and got a penalty which was a real gift. It’s a little worrying that we haven’t had a penalty saved in ages.

Regardless though, we did pull together at the end of the half and in the second our good spell resulted in a Walcott goal. Despite that though Theo didn’t really make much use of his time on the pitch. It was a nervy end until Giroud slipped Alexis and the game was put to bed.

A few things I noticed throughout the game was Ozil and Alexis angrily pointing to other team mates to put another shift in. There was nervousness on the faces of the players and I think it’s a reflection of the bad performances of late. It’s really worrying that whenever we concede it “kills us” like Koscielny said about PSGs equalizer after the game. Sunday I thought apart from Alexis, the Ox was lively as well as Elneny, but overall we’ve lost our discipline.

The performances against Chelsea and Basel seem like distant memories. We were sloppy again and better opposition would’ve scored that free header Bournemouth missed and we would’ve been in trouble. The defence has lost its solidity. Is it down to Bellerin missing? Why did we start Debuchy, who got injured after 15 minutes? Jenko got some game time and I thought he was one of the few decent players against United and he wasn’t even in the group?

I agree with the rotations in the squad! We have a huge squad so managing it is important and our subs have come on and changed a game quite a few times, but the late subs. Unless someone is injured we don’t make a change before minute 70 and when the game is clearly not working, we can try to change it up before we concede.

Another worry for me is the formation. We may change the players, but the formation is always the same and we can predict which players would go where and that makes it easy for the opposition. We are beating teams because of our quality (yes we do have top quality, we’ve been missing for years). If we add better tactics and motivation, we’d be real contenders.

Chelsea changed their formation and it works. I think the sheer surprise of the fact we’ve actually introduced a new system will be enough to beat most opponents. Overall we’re fourth and we’ll finish second in our group, when it was all in our hands. I will judge the season in May, but so far I’m worried, because if we don’t put in a challenge this season, Ozil and Alexis will go in the summer.

We have a good enough squad to compete. Regardless of the injuries we still have enough players to have impactful subs. We have money, we have everything needed. There can be no excuses if we are not challenging in May. So far though, my stand remains that with Arsene we’ve gone as far as we could.

Konstantin

15 Comments

  1. Don’t worry, you’re not alone, there are groups you can go to. You’ll just need to stand up, then when you feel a bit silly, you say ..Hey! My name is constant, with a K, and I’m a hypochondriac.

  2. The problem is that we are not dangerous up front. Other teams do have game changers, where we dont to have to many. Or lets say we have only one in Sanchez alone. Giroud, walcott, chamberlain, ramsey are just mediocre in comparesin to Sanchez. We simple need more quality in the team.

    If wenger wishes to compete he will go out there and try to get us some quality. but knowing him and the rest of the fans, we will settle with the same bs like we always do. 4th place trophy.

  3. @konstantin
    You sure know how to nit pick dude…You and a few here need to cop on to the fact that “what if’s don’t count”..And you can’t say for certainty what another team, no matter how good, might have done. Pure speculation, fuelled by bias, doesn’t support an argument.
    Decent article though.

  4. We won, how i don’t care, the bottom line is we picked up all three points. I can sense something big about to happen here this year, we saw a flash of it against Chelsea and with the right mentality we can get the title this year.

  5. Make Sanchez player manager, he is the nearest thing to a manager that we have at present in any case……he actually cares whether we win or lose!

  6. Until I was presented with the stats, I hadn’t realised that there was a pattern of results that had been happening during the month of November. As we entered the month, for me all of the sudden, rather than the game at hand and performance the growing aura of the month became an issue….almost ingrained into the psyche of the fans and the players. For a whole month it appeared that we have become uniformly superstitious, rather than believing in the fruits of hard work that good training brings and hard work during the game.

    We are now approaching the month of December of which there are some seriously tricky encounters to navigate. If the superstitious attitude about November is to be believed, it naturally follows that we could be stung through complacency as we start December. Those that succeed at the end of any seasons are the ones that take every game seriously and prepare accordingly. As the old boys’ scout adage states “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”. That is what is going to lead to success and not believing in superstitions, boogie teams, complexes etc

  7. “A few things I noticed throughout the game was Ozil and Alexis angrily pointing to other team mates to put another shift in.” – What in the world are you talking about, Konstantin? Are you watching different games? Perhaps the ones you and your buddies are playing on PS4 or Xbox? Because what I saw was completely different. Bournemouth gave it their all (especially in the first half), but in the end were totally and completely outclassed and outmanaged. Our guys didn’t panic after conceding PK, and came out guns blazing in the second half. The guys were disciplined; substitutions were timely; formation was working just fine; and the only guy who I thought looked out of place was Ox. Basically, everything opposite of what you said in your once again extremely gloomy article given yesterday’s outcome.

    1. @Vlad
      Konstantin is just telling it like it is. Come next May, Arsenal will not have won the Premiership.

      PS Admin, thanks for the thumbs down to my comments in advance, you’re disagreeing with me is a sign that I am getting something right

      1. What are you talking about? What comments? What a strange thing to say. In this system I only get one vote same as everyone else. And assure you have been paying all night and have not even been on the site til now.. 3.30 am here

  8. I agree with you in saying that you will judge Arsenal season in May. But what you could do now is judge Arsenal transfer activities over last January and summer transfer window because we are through a third of the season. Mr. Wenger spent £99 million on five players to improve his squad but base on the way Arsenal has played this year compared to last season I cannot see any improvement.

    Base on transfer fee, age, wages and style of play, Elneny is Mr Wenger best buy and he should play in place of Coquelin as a defensive midfielder alongside Ramsey. Elneny distribute the ball very well have a strong say in the offensive flow of Arsenal game, can push high up the pitch forcing his front three to also move higher up that in its self prevent teams from playing out freely from the back which is essential in stopping teams from playing well.

    Xhaka is Mr. Wenger worse buy, with a transfer fee of £35 million, this is approximately the most any team will pay for a defensive midfielder and wages as high as £120,000 per week now strongly looks like a complete misjudgment buy from mr Wenger. Most of the tough crucial matches against top teams like Liverpool, Spurs, Manchester United and PSG Mr Wenger hide Xhaka on the bench and against weak teams he played Xhaka alongside an extra defensive midfielder Coquelin or Elneny affecting the entire dynamics and shape of Arsenal play to cover Xhaka sluggish acceleration and inability to stay on his feet and take on the one on one chase back toward his goal. But surprisingly, Arsenal fan don’t see it that way.

    The Xhaka situation is similar to Mr Wenger buying Ozil for £42 million and playing Ramsey ahead of him or buying Sanchez for £35 million and playing Ox ahead of him. Arsenal main task this year is to improve on keeping the ball and stop teams from playing well against them by pressing effectively, goals is not the problem.

    1. Xhaka has 9nly been.hereca few months and hasn’t 0layer against Premier league calibre before but wait a few months and you will see him improve immensely. Remember when Koscielny first arrived. Give the man time to learn. It took Ozil a year to get used to here…

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