The Arsenal manager spoke to the press today ahead of the trip north to face Sunderland in the Premier League tomorrow, as reported by The Mirror. And I don’t think that Arsene Wenger needed to stretch his tactical acumen too far to realise that the home side may well concentrate on their defending after being huniliated by conceding eight goals at Southampton last weekend.
Wenger said, “I think the result (losing 8-0 at Southampton last weekend) will have strengthened their resolve to put on a better performance.
“The danger is that they now focus very hard on defending and that we get very few openings.”
And the Frenchman also suggested that Theo Walcott was not quite ready yet, at least not to start the game. So what the Gunners need, with Danny Welbeck’s pace and Alexis Sanchez’ dribbling and energy, is a striker who is likely to finish any chance that comes his way. Can you think of anyone in the Arsenal squad that fits the bill?
Lukas Podolski’s last minute winner against Anderlecht as well as the poor performance by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain against Hull City make Wenger’s decision much easier as well. And the absence of Jack Wilshere because of suspension means that Santi Cazorla should play in the number 10 role.
And the manager suggested the other day that the reason the German striker had not been playing more was because he was working on his fitness, which is now match ready.
So does anyone doubt that Podolski should start at the Stadium of Light?
LUKAS PODOLSKI!!!!!!
He scored when he wants, he scores when he waaaants
LUKAS PODOLSKI
He scores when he wants
He got lucky with his goal and I will be surprised if he starts, Campbell should be given a start for once, on the left, with Alexis on the right.
I hope Aaron can put in his first decent performance of the season, he’s been a huge disappointment so far, especially as he had the summer off.
Wenger’s meddling with the team formation and moving Ramsey higher up the pitch has affected his game no end.
I am sick and tired of this old fool of a manager who can’t compete at the top level.
Podolski doesn’t track back etc, he is a striker first and last, let him do that, instruct the players to change tactics (I can feel Wenger cringe at the thought) to get as many balls into the box as possible if Podolski is on and allow Welbeck to run and play his best game and stop with the chuckle brothers football.
Is it not common sense that if they will defend strongly after such a heavy defeat and that we should have a lot of attacking options up front to try to find a way through and stretch their defense.
Southampton’s manager had the ability to read the game last week and his players were hungry for goals until the final whistle, if Wenger can’t replicate that he needs to go, hardly news.
I just want to see 11 players take the pitch in their natural positions. For once.
true, deau!
@Lol!
Am confident we’ll win the game and that Arsenal will perform brilliantly well. Every player will play in his natural position because Wilshere is not playing.
I see Arsenal winning 4 : 1
@Trudeau
Honestly. I could care less if they’re in their natural positions or not, as long as those 11 guys”show up” to take 3 points…
@ NY_Gunner a player who is not played in his best natural position is of course less effective.
You, me and that little dog in the Russian spaceship know it, only person who doesn’t in Wenger.
Podolski should play. We need something different right now. Also Coquelin should start instead of Flamini. Again we need to change things up, the current formula is not working. Players should be playing based on if they deserve it and not their name. Therefore flamini should be dropped, and so should jack. Lets face it when he plays a deep lying role as we saw for england he got consecutive man of the match awards. When he plays more attacking for us he runs into walls and falls over. Doesnt score or assist. He needs to step it up significantly. We all back the boys so lets hope he regains the barca match form soon.
Ha! You are the fist one I hear about Coquelin startig o this site. I am saying this for months. My thumb for the month goes for you. That means no more thumbs on November as I already gave one this month. Use it wise.
Totally agree, Jack has had a couple of decent games so far but more often than not attacks from him breakdown in dangerous positions leaving the already weak defence and DM exposed. When Jack and Aaron both start we look vulnerable to breaks. I think Jack’s problem is maturity, or rather a lack of it. He just doesn’t seem to be learning from his mistakes. Le Coq would be worth a go at DM but I just can’t see Arsene doing that, he seems reluctant to try anything new. At the back Chambers has to start alongside BFG, Nacho is just not up to it.
We also need Ramsey and/or Carzola to have a decent game, neither have started the season well.
Thank (insert deity) for Alexis.
If Podolski turns up he’s great. If not, he’s awful.
off topic
i stumbled upon what mertesacker said after the champions league game against anderlecht.. “We are not at our best. Football-wise we lack a few things. We have to be honest to ourselves and train harder. “Everyone knows that it is a difficult start to the season for us and confidence is not how we want it. “I think we have to do better with our own possession, to put more pressure on them [opponents], not to lose so many balls in the middle of the park, to play more in wide areas. “I think it is better to expose them there, instead of playing one-twos through the middle. It doesn’t work as much as last season, so we have to work on that. The passing game is not efficient as last year. But all of a sudden we lose players week-by-week.” See how wenger responds..
“I don’t know what he meant by that. But you have to be careful with statements after the game. I think we train very hard, the attitude is right and the spirit is there. “Until now we have been relatively consistent in our attitude but not efficient enough offensively or defensively. “We lost only two games but we have not made enough points.”
I know mertesacker has been very poor and is not probably not the right person to be talking about our form but what he said is right, it’s like our players are starting to see some of the flaws in the way we play, our tactics and our formations. He even talked about how we play one-twos through the middle all the time instead of using the wide areas more and how we lose
the ball the middle. From wenger’s reaction it’s like he is trying to shoot him down for saying the truth. The fans have been been talking about this flaws for a long time but when it’s coming from a player, you know something is wrong. What do you guys think because i think mertesacker is right and to me, it just seems like wenger thinks he is always right even when everybody thinks he is wrong.
I felt the same when I read the BFG’s comments. Not sure how to take Arsene’s comments but he does seem increasingly defensive to any criticism. At times I wonder if he picks players just to try to prove a point when he should be dropping players that constantly under perform. I think too many players seem a bit too comfortable. BFG’s not the first to question our play, Carzola similarly questioned our tactics late last season.
For me you can’t have both Wilshire and Ramsey in the middle together, they both tend to lose the ball far too much and with both our number 10’s being pretty useless at defending it leaves us wide open time and again. I can’t wait to see Theo back to give us some attacking impetus but unless some of our 4 main central midfielders (Jack, Aaron, Santi and Metsut when fit) start playing to their full ability were are going to struggle to create. None have convinced this season and I guess I could add the very erratic Ox to the list too.
My starting 11 would be:
Scezzer
Bellerin, Chambers, BFG, Gibbs
Le Coq
Ramsey
Alexis, Rosicky (or Santi), Campbell
Danny Boy.
Prediction: One Nil to the Arsenal, Alexis saves us again.
Players have been seeing this for years, they could all see his slide and the frankly stupid tactics or lack of them.
It is no secret that RVP left because Wenger refused to strengthen positions that every player and fan have been screaming for.
He could see that he would probably never win any silverware with Wenger and left.
If any one of us were an aging player with an empty silverware cabinet we would probably have done the same.
Now the current players are in the same position, they can see the farcical way Wenger is destroying the club, how long do you think it will be before Alexis is wanting away from this old fool.
Anyone see his face after some of our games? Not a happy bunny.
Wilshere is suspended tomorrow… Look how we cruise and win the game easy 😉
Even if we win 9-0 tomorrow (my hope), Wilshere is nailed on to start after his suspension 😉
Yes play Podolski 🙂
Fun Facts: Did you know that Gibbs and Sanchez are age mates? 😀
Podolski and Gibbs work well together – Fact
Sanchez and Welbeck work well together – Fact
The Prince has a point (goal) to prove to Wenger. He will score…
Yaaaawwwwwn!! Does it matter, we are still going to finish 5th this season.
Might as well play Per SNAIL-sersacker as our striker tomorrow. At least it will be interesting to watch.
Even though strikers do not score every time out and everyone knows this …….
Poldi will again be attacked as a useless tool if he does not score and win the game for Arsenal in any given game.
And if Poldi scores – KJ will give him a rating of 6. If not, he will get a 2.
Last game Poldi scored the game winner (yeah, he was just at the right place at the right time as some claimed), KJ gave him 5.5, and said scoring the goal was what he did only.
If Poldi does not score tomorrow, KJ will give him a N/A and say he is invisible and not doing anything.
Arsenal’s best CB is out. The new starting RB is out. There is no reliable DM. And Wenger is forced to start a defense using Monreal at CB.
We should not blame Monreal or Mert or anyone if the defense gives up goals. There is only one person who failed to acquire a DM or any CB backup – Wenger. I will never blame these players who do their best.
Everyone on the planet know Arsenal needed a DM and def. backups. Not Wenger. Wenger has failed the team with his acquisition apathy.
@mohawk
You guys need a new f**kn script…
no wilshere tomorrow so nobody should be played out of position just to accommodate for him. Who knows, maybe we’ll switch back to the 4-2-3-1 that made us league leaders for most of last season…. That would be a treat.
@gunnert. Wow you sound negative and down:-( but playing Per up front could be a plan, it’s certainly safer to have him at that end of the pitch 🙂 welbeck swap to cb?-:) per could get us a goal with his aerial threat and with his slow long legs he could leave one in and get us a penalty 🙂
Anyway feeling negative and not full of expectation for tmws game, but hoping a few of our players at least click tomorrow and we get a hard fought win. 2-1 to arsenal coyg!!! I just want to see 1 or 2 players rise to alexis level!
If we don’t get three points tomorrow I will be devastated, I think we will win comfortably because our line-up may actually be balanced – the sad thing is that this can only happen through injuries and suspensions. A part of me empathises with Arsene in the sense that he feels he should play all of his best players, it would be hard to bench your most gifted players. On the flip side no player is bigger than the club and if a couple players are dropped for the benefit of the team then they need to work harder in training to earn their spot. It seems to easy for a lot of players to just turn up and give 80/90% which is frankly not good enough, everyone seems too comfortable even when we’re not picking up points and our rivals are running away.
Our problems seem to run in cycles of a few seasons, we can challenge against the big teams but struggle against mid-table sides, or we can beat the mid/lower-table teams and get d*cked by the big guns. We need to have more runners in behind, fair enough last season playing 5 central midfielders and Giroud your not going to get that but this season we have an abundance of fast attacking players that need to be utilised. We need more intelligent creativity and calmness on the ball, lets go back to the beautiful game and play it around but also have a killer instinct and an eye for goal.