Has Fate Intervened to Select Arsenal’s Best Possible Squad Despite Wenger? by NO
Against Spuds as usual Wenger had surprises for the fans, he insisted on the 4.1.4.1 setup and left arguably Arsenal’s best player right now (Alexis Sanchez) on the bench. He insisted on a Wilshere-Ramsey partnership in the middle of the pack. I honestly want to believe that Wenger decided it was too risky to allow Spud’s aggression to remove our best player at the moment and understood that Arsenal will be less effective up front for it, but hoped that the Ozil-Welbeck partnership would blossom.
Well the Spud injury-inflicting-machinery did indeed live up to its promise and soon we had two players removed – Arteta and Ramsey. Soon it was Cazorla for Ramsey, Flamini for Arteta and Sanchez for Wilshere. Wenger had to shift things a bit and I believe the final lineup was Sanchez coming from the left, Carzola and Ozil in the center and Ox stayed in the right wing.
Ramsey is out of contention for now. I hope what Ramsey is facing is just a few weeks rest which will help him find his 2013/14 bearings once again while recovering.
The squad now reads (If Wenger goes 4.1.4.1)
Welbeck,
Sanchez, Cazorla, Ozil, OX
Flamini
Gibbs, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Chambers
Szczesny
For me, Cazorla and Ozil are the best pairing for the center; they are a mature, creative and purely super creative when working at optimum, though I know that Wilshere will make appearances because of Wenger’s preferences. Sanchez and Ox are the brightest, fastest pairing for both wings at the moment. I know, people will ask questions like Sanchez on the left? But look at what he did when he came on in the second half, causing sleeplessness for the Spuds left side and probably brought in the confusion that created the goal in the end. Again, for me it may be time to try Diaby in the DM role.
If I was Wenger I would start training with this squad for Chelsea, but for our midweek, I would have a few changes made – Welbeck rests and Akpom comes in to start. Rosicky replaces Ozil and Ospina comes in for Szczesny. That’s just to keep them fresh for Chelsea. I would give Diaby 45 Minutes against Galatasaray and see how it goes. If he does well he starts for Flamini in DM role.
So Galatasaray faces: –
Akpom,
Sanchez, Cazorla, Rosicky, OX
Diaby
Gibbs, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Chambers
Ospina
With Welbeck, Flamini and Ozil in the bench and on call if need be.
For Chelsea, We prepare the following side:
Welbeck,
Sanchez, Cazorla, Ozil, OX
Diaby
Gibbs, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Chambers
Szczesny
I think this line-up could actually be the best XI that Arsenal could put out this season.
what do you think Gooners?
Wilshere is the problem he must be dropped,we don’t win if he’s in the team,he’s the reason Ozil and Ramsey are suffering
Hes like a midfield version of sturridge never wants to make selfless passes he’d rather run through 5 players. That welbeck goal would have never happened if that was wilshere instead of ramsey on the ball, instead of moving it outwide wilshere would have drove at villa and tried to play welbeck in him self, realise its impossible then either run into a CB or give it to ozil too late.
Am I the only one around here who actually thinks Wilshere has actually been pretty good this season? :/
@ jo jo
i am in total agreement with you
as i expected today almost everyone is going on about how bad we are ect
i just watched the highlights again to make sure i wasnt watching another game
we out played the spuds for over 30 mins in the first half
lioris had to make 4 good saves and all were shoots from distance
wilshire was very good as with ramsey
we then dominated again in the second half with more good shoots and saves buy the spud keeper
yes its disapointing but we were much the better team
maybe you all listened to phill neville but you should know by now we have to have an amazing game to be given any credit by pundits
and talk of chelski scoring 8 against us when they beat villa 3 – 0
have some respect for your club lads
we need to do better but i think its coming have a little faith
We had no clear chances in the first half, just shots from distance, spurs chances were much better in the first half .
Thats hardly dominating.
He may have been good but that’s been more detrimental to the team dynamic the results prove it,we are not fluid as last season in the first 10 games Wilshere was the one who started on the bench which gave us a better performing Ramsey and Ozil
why are we having this discussion?
wilshire & ramsey shouldnt be on field at same time.
ozil/ramsey was great last year ;
ozil/wilshire has chance to be good.
let them rotate: then they remain fresh too.
Did you see the one-time pass Wilshere gave Ozil yesterday? It really deserved a goal. Wilshere has been better than Ramsey this season – FACT.
Agreed.
How about i tell you that the main problem is Wenger alone. Who in the world deploys the best 10 in the worl in the wings? Whats so hard to understand that Ramsey and Wilsher dont complete each other?
You can make Ozil+ Wilsher work
You can make Ozil+ Ramsey work.
But you cant f*** make Ramsey and Wilsher workd, bec they both dont complete each other. Both of them want the ball, both of them want to run with it, and either of them is cabable to adabt to one another.
The reason Wilsher seems so bad nowdays is that he keeps the ball to long. Beck then 2 years ago he was at best in doing so bec all the others where poor. Nowdays we have more talented players who can run with the ball and him doing selfish funky things is unnececary. He needs to play more relaxed and adabt his game.
Ramsey with footy talent is inferiour to Wilsher, he likes to run and run and run. But nowdays we have enough runners in the team like Sanzhez so his former attributes in the game are in no need anymore. He needs to change his style and his game dutys in the game or we as a club we continue to screw up. He is being going thrugh a Pi##ss poor form.
This formation change and experimenting with ozil outwide has cost us points which will hurt us at the end of the season, why didnt wenger just stick with the formation and setup that brought us so much success last season.
We are just awful now.
#FACK AW that STUBBORN man dont have a clue what he iz doin any chelsea gonna destroy us especially on the counter attack with snail per in the back
The biggest problem with this team is consistency
On Saturday great performance
On Tuesday poor performance
On Saturday good performance(2nd half)
And if you look at it it’s just not this past few weeks
This inconsistency has been there in the team for a long time
That’s not how you become champions
Look at man city. Last season they struggled for the first few matches and then gave consistent. Performances for the whole season(bare 1-2 matches)
This team needs that heavily. It’s like this team cannot produce 2 back to back great performances
This thing needs to be solved and the first thing we can do to solve this
1) Bring back 4-2-3-1
The biggest problem with this team iz #AW he’s losing his #marbles
quite frankly you guys are both right, which means we have too many problems. More problems than that Jay-Z song.
I think we can come away with a draw atleast
Lost faith in wenger but not in the team
COYG
Flamini, man. Can’t control a ball, can’t pass, can’t track his man, can’t stand in the right place, now he can’t even foul people properly.
Wenger screwing things up since 2008
With both Ozil and Cazorla on the pitch at the same time and Flamini shielding the tortoise aka Per Mertesacker we will be destroyed by Chelsea. The team is unbalanced, with no real steel, while I don’t like Jack hogging the ball he is a physical presence and surely I am not the only one that sees that he is at least playing well enough to start. The EPL needs physical players, Ozil, Flamini, Arteta, Mertesacker and Cazorla all lack that. You like Wenger would play 4 of these 5, with no Ramsey or Wilshere, where’s the tenacity, where’s the tacklers in this bunch? We should have never started another season with the squad so light and technical, you have to have physical players to compete at the highest level in the EPL. Because Wenger knows things we don’t doesn’t make him right, his youth policy has failed, so I would argue for all his success getting 4th season in and season out, he has failed. We need steel and so instead of Cazorla (who is my favorite Gunner based on his attitude and the ability to keep the ball moving) I’d favor Rosisky who doesn’t mind a tackle, but still has imagination going forward and is more physical than either Cazorla or Ozil. A lot of our issues stem from PM4’s lack of mobility (yes he reads the game well) and therefore he stalls build up play which belies the passing team we think we are. The squad has personnel improvements to make before we stand any chance in the EPL, and you can forget the CL.
so… are you saying that all of our players should have a body like Rosicky? You honestly think Mozart can outmuscle Arteta? and don’t like Santi’s size fool you.
there are a lot of problem with our squad and physicality for some is one of them. but i just don’t understand your argument.
It’s quite clear what he was saying, Rosicky has more bite about him, he plays more aggressively and is harder to knock off the ball. Did he even mention Arteta in his comment? A player doesn’t have to be 6ft + to be considered ‘a physical player’, they just need to play with aggression and tackle hard.
I hate this current 4-1-4-1. It fills me with dread and Wenger isn’t even playing the right players in the right positions to make it work.
We play the same away from home and against big teams too and it just doesn’t work.
Trouble is, Wenger has it in his head now, so we are stuck with it. Here’s hoping for 4th place this season.
I don’t know what Wenger will do, or what line up he’ll use. But I doubt if he’ll play the formation that you’ve put up there. Fans and Wenger rarely, if ever, agree on tactics and formations. He just thinks quite differently from the rest of us.
“thinks”
???
I love arsenal like a mother loves her child but I’m honestly sick of our lack of squad completion EVERY WINDOW, EVERY SEASON we plug one hole just to open another one, EVERY SEASON arsenal.fans gotta “wait for the next window” ARSENAL IS THE ONLY TEAM ALWAYS LIVING IN THE FUTURE!!! Always waiting for the next window to be complete it’s embarrassing, WHO STARTS THEIR FKN SEASON WITH NO DM AND ONLY 6 SENIOR DEFENDERS!!! city, Liverpool, chelsea have ALL made efforts tk ckmplete there squads filling in gaps in their squad, arsenal forgot a dm, made a few upgrades and bought sanchez
@malik
If you think that you love AFC like a mother loves her child, then you need to get out more dude…
6 Senior defenders shouldn’t really be an issue – Chelsea only have 5. But for Arsenal, it is an issue. Why? Because our players pick up so many injuries.
This is this biggest single hindrance of Arsenal FC. Until we are able to rid ourselves of our continual injury woes I don’t think we can push on too far. Would we have won the league last season if Walcott and Ramsey weren’t taken out in January? Quite possibly, even probably. Remember we were only 7 points off in the end.
Every club gets injuries, but its a well known fact that Arsenal get far more injuries than most. This needs to be sorted out as soon as possible.
Well Chelsea is a unique situation and no team in the EPL should really compare themselves and here is why. First of all Chelsea have more than 5 defenders, probably 5 defenders that you know about but they have more than that. Cahill Terry, one of the best CB pairings in the league, probably second best behind Kompany and Mangala (when he actually has a good game), Ivanovic who is actually a CB by trade but is the league’s best RB at the moment despite being played out of position, Azpilicueta another defender being played out of position and is the best one on one LB at the moment, Ake, Zouma, Luis and Bertrand who people forget about.
The reason why I say that Chelsea is unique in a certain respect is that while certain teams have specific styles in terms attacking or possession Chelsea starts specifically with a build from the back approach. There entire team defends but not out of necessity but it is a part of the team’s philosophy. I don’t know any coach bar probably Simeone that would have shipped a player like Mata out of the squad because he didn’t defend enough. Mata was Chelsea’s 2 time player of the year at that point. Such is the way of Mourinho and while I might not necessarily like the man because of the lack of class he carries in such things, he like Simeone knows how to get the best out of his players and it is something that seemed to seep into every Chelsea team long after he left his first time. While Arsenal is known for graceful fluid football Chelsea is known for being defensively stingy. When the team attacks the back 4 never stops defending and what happens in the event Ivanovic moves forward is Azpilicueta hangs back and Matic drifts slightly to the right, as a result you get the width to overload the wing and still have the defensive solidity of set of 4 defenders.
Arsenal do not have a CDM really offers much of a defensive presence to block anything on the event there is a counter attack, what is even worse is that a 4 1 4 1 is a system that demands that EVEN more than a 4 2 3 1 because if the front 5 are broken through it leaves the entire back 5 open to swift and merciless counter attack.
I won’t even touch on the injury debate, there is something deeply wrong with SOMETHING at the training ground, what it is I do not know but that is an issue that needs to be tackled as its own entity, such is the plight of a gunner.
causing sleeplessness for
‘the Spuds left side ” r u tokin about sanchez? nooo agaist spuds he wsnt that sharp
justarsenal is becoming an online maternity ward..a little encouragement here and there with unending moaning and wailing 🙁 🙁 🙁
but I get you guys, n am with you.. this current arsenal squad is really frustrating and hard to understand… HUGE potential yet tiny results 🙁 🙁 🙁
so sad
#sad times continue
#these are sad times
@PI
CTFU…
Bang tha f**k on dude.
what language is that you have used?!! I don’t understand anything you have written!!
please learn to use English so that we all read and understand. or if you don’t know English you could write in your native then google-translate to English. the result won’t be thaaaaat legible, but would be better that what you wrote here
he’s american…
But the injuries are kind of a blessing to the fans, no more wilshere ramsey combo and no more arteta.. what you people wanted, right?? anyone happy??
I think arsenal are the hardest team to support! It’s so frustrating.
And Wenger! I love the man, the way he talks and what he has done for arsenal, but again it’s so hard to support him now.
@pythagoras: the squad is not the thing thats frustrating to me; its wenger.
campbell still hasnt played.
roz is getting worse because he never gets to start.
others are played too much (eg wilshire and ramsey in same game)
we have a squad built nicely for 2 competitions but he doesnt trust campbell/roz.
and why does he say “i’m *TEMPTED* to play ozil in the center” ?
WTF is that about?
is there some higher objective , other than winning, that we dont know about??
The only problem that is eating up this beautiful team is Wenger and his supporters aka Arsene knows it all brigade. If you really love the team as you most of you say why dont you unite and do something that is best for the club. Which top team would accept such mediocre results from a top club. Just move Wenger over to the board and allow a competitive manager to take over. I love Wenger and i started watching Arsenal because he brought some exiting football but everything comes to end. What will the akbs do if Wenger retires. Definitely they will stop supporting Arsenal.
Move over from the Wenger syndrome. This team is supposed to compete with top teams not with mid table teams. I still cant bliv Chealse is overtaking us at a fast rate. By the time you realize it you will be moving to extinction like Newcastle. This is a football team not a political organisation. Wenger needs a rest from football