Alan Shearer has slammed Arsene Wenger for allowing his Arsenal squad to become full of ‘flaky’ players.
The Gunners succumbed to a disappointing 3-1 loss at the hands of Premier League leaders Chelsea this weekend, in a game that could well have been a more devastating defeat.
There was many disappointing moments during the match, such as watching Hazard beat Coquelin, Koscielny, Mustafi and Cech to put our side two goals behind, before the goalkeeper passed the ball to Cesc Fabregas to score into an open goal also.
Wenger has now been blamed by Shearer for allowing himself to be surrounded by such weak-minded players.
“The question is how he has been able to surround himself with so many flaky players?,” Shearer said.
“Saturday’s 3-1 defeat was a classic example as they were outfought and outplayed in all areas.
“Wenger was clutching at straws when he called for a foul on Hector Bellerin by Marcos Alonso for the first goal. Not at all.
“Theo Walcott’s inactivity in tracking back was highlighted on TV. As was the way Francis Coquelin was out-muscled by Eden Hazard in his great solo goal.
“But what was most stark for me in that Arsenal display was Alexis Sanchez’s lack of activity. Not one touch in Chelsea’s box.”
We appear to have fallen out of the race for the Premier league title, but losing away to the destructive force that is Chelsea is hardly a surprise. I know the manner in which we lost is obviously a bitter pill to swallow.
We must now muster the will to get behind our team while we can still mathematically catch the runaway leaders, and we also need to assure ourselves of our place in the top four.
Are our players really weak and ‘flaky’? Do we have the mentality to get ourselves back on track in the coming weeks?
Pat J
Now we’re out of title race, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Arsenal play some good football, and go on a winning run. It’s always the same…when the pressures on, Arsenal crumble, then start performing well once a trophy is out of sight. I am sure it will be the same story against Bayern. Horror show in the first leg, we’ll beat them in the second leg, but just fall short.
Looking back at the Chelsea game, it occurred to me that apart from Santi missing, that was arguably our best starting XI. Xhaka and Ramsey haven’t performed well enough to deserve a start, so it would have been Coquelin with Santi. Possibly Welbeck for either Walcott or Iwobi, would be the other change, but overall, we were almost at full strength. So embarrassing!
Until Coquelin went off and we were left with a midfield three of Iwobi Ox Ozil. Away at Chelsea, no we were not almost at full strength. I get why you said that, but you’re papering over. Coquelin carrying an injury, the other two unavailable, and then Santi was missing.
Obviously our bench was weaker than it should have been, but starting XI was arguably only one short, you cannot deny that. It was still a tactical horror show though from Wenger, but if we were as weak as you’re making out in terms of personnel, then why did Wenger play such open attacking football? Chelsea could have easily got 7/8 goals on the counter, the space they were given. We should have sat deep, stay compact, and hit them on the counter, as we have so much pace in our side. Unfortunately, Wenger has an unhealthy obsession with attacking, possession based football…even though it consistently doesn’t work. Tactically inept!
We were full strength in attack, full strength in defence, both GKs, so yeah just the midfield we were lacking in both quality and numbers. I don’t know what he was thinking, someone mentioned how they’d have liked to see Holding start def mid, I think that would have been better than how it looked in the end. And then Niles was there also, he loaned out Wilshere (I’d hardly think he could’ve saved us though, but still seems unwise). For me another head scratcher is playing someone like Ozil when you are severely undermanned in midfield, Walcott too is hardly known for his never say die attitude. Even Iwobi, in the middle his strength can be used to good effect, but out wide he just doesn’t show enough care. Wenger made allot of bad calls for this game, some enforced, but still had tactics along with a couple different choices.
Valid points. Ozil is a luxury player, he is great if you have a dominating midfield and back 4, he turns into a liability when we play a stronger team who dominate midfield.
Walcott started the season well including helping out with defending, I don’t understand why this team don’t seem to care or put at least an effort in. As fans we can live with losing, not trying is a different matter.
Even if we had Santi most of this season, would we be title challengers? I really don’t think so. Cazorla has been at the club for a long time and we’ve never been close to a title with him in the team either. It just comes down to the mentality of this football club, and the right mentality is not there, no matter who the players end up being.
How did Coquelin get shoved off by Hazard like that? Amazing!
Wenger has told his players not to go to ground tackling. He has told Coq to be less a destroyer he was and more of a p***y like Wenger himself. And it has worked!
The 3-1 was more embarrassing than the 6-0. 11 v 11 the whole match and Chelsea players were pulling whatever tricks they wanted to on the entire team. One of the worst performances I’ve ever seen from an Arsenal team, and we’ve had some really horrible games in recent years.
alan is right arsenal is just filled with babies who are scared to tackle, ive seen walcott and ozil so many ties run away from a fight, and dont tell me it aint wengers fault cause it certainly is, instead of cautioning xhaka on his tackles he told him to stop all together that goes probabaly to the whole team, coqueline should have taken hazard out and get a yellow Top DM’S do it all the time
When deep down inside the club finishing top 4 is like winning a trophy no wonder the side becomes weaker and weaker every season. If you look at every title squad they have a designated 1st XI…we don’t and it is killing us (injuries, tactical set up, subs).
We are less than the sum of the parts. Conte said himself he has no clue why this team can’t properly challenge for the title. Deep squad, 2 world class players. Good young players with talent, power and ability. But unable to hold up over the course of the season with recurring problems mentioned even by the manager himself but not fixed for the past 10 years or so.
Not to take anything away from finishing in the top 4, above Spurs for good measure and having champions league football every year . But is it worth it when every trophy push is short lived? When we are made laughing stock for believing as early as 1st game of the season that this could be a different year?
Sure we could have spent more $$$ over the past 10 years when we look at all the players we could have had & integrated into the squad (Kanté gone to Chelsea this season). But the quality is there, the depth is there. But what is lacking is the leadership, mental toughness and more importantly hunger to WIN. Every time we seem to have a good run something happens and we bottle it.
If Conte saw that this team is good enough to win the title, then he could’ve taken us there unless someone who spent 20 years with the team and has no clue how to take advantage of others slipping and how to go beyond the last 16 in the UCL
I wrote last year and I still believe the writing is on the wall, this season we will not finish in the top 4 but perhaps this is what it takes for the club to break with Wenger although I doubt that.
I don’t see this team get to many points of our remaining games against top 6 opponents and we might struggle against Everton as well. Add to this one or two more Watford type losses or draws against mid to bottom table teams and finishing 4th is unlikely. We have to hope Liverpool will not get it together and that Man U will be too distracted with their European games.
I have mixed feelings about whether I want to finish in the top 4 or not. If a 5th or 6th place finish would guarantee a new manager I would take it. If Wenger stays in charge no matter what, which is very likely we might as well hope for a top 4 finish.
Either way it has been hard for the last few seasons to be passionate about Arsenal. They make you feel foolish every time you get your hope up after one or good two games only two falter again.
Do we honestly have a reason to believe next season would be different if Wenger remains? If so why?
wenger has systematically bred the passion out of arsenal.our players are not passionate about our club. kissing the club badge on the jersey when you have just scored is not passion, passion is getting stuck in and fighting like dogs to win the ball .passion is getting muddy and not worrying about your hair do , or if your hair is out of place !. we have too many players who think they are pretty boys first , then footballers second.wenger breeds pretty boys in his tea, he likes his players to look the certain look.seems to me that until wenger decides to leave , because believe me , the board are not going to act ,we are stuck in the same old rut . almost pretty football with cross field passes . as if we are afraid to enter the box it seems to me .bring back the tony adams and martin keown temperament to our team. those battlers were never too fussed about how their hair was looking on the pitch. we are a team of wannabe male models.
It is a delicate matter but there comes a time a manager has to blame his team or himself. Wenger always comes up with excuses, a foul on this goal, an soft penalty on that goal, an unfair schedule on this draw, bad luck on the next one.
It seems like this mentality leaves his players of the hook for bad performances. How many games have we started poorly? Then comes Watford and we start poorly again. I have no evidence but this team has not been playing like they are ready to put in a shift for quite some time. The most eager team performance I have seen was when we played some youngsters against Southampton. other than that we have seen many games were we did not play for 90 minutes. Either we had a solid first half and folded in the second half or we fell behind and only started to play in the second half.
If there was one game this season were we should have left everything on the pitch it was against Chelsea. Yet they looked more eager then we did. That suggests to me there is something wrong somewhere, either the manager is not communicating well or the players are not listening.
Arsenal players display this laissez faire attitude (anything goes), which obviously we can not win a league with, there is no leader in the squad and this is a major problem, no player seems to know their function on the field. This can only be the fault of the manager who has allowed players to dictate to him and not the other way around.
A manager must be able to adjust to circumstances in a match earlier and realise the tactical error which need adjusting, which Wenger does not seem to have in mind.