Wenger picked the right team against Olympiakos – They didn’t perform.. by LP9
I simply don’t understand when some Arsenal fans mention that Wenger clearly underestimated or “gambled” against the Olympiakos team… because he was giving more importance in mind the Man United match at Sunday.
Didn’t he put the best centre back partnership (as declared by most of the fans) Gabriel and Koscielny?? Didn’t he put Ozil, Cazorla and Coquelin which was considered the best trio following from last season’s second half until now?? Fair enough, he placed Walcott because Giroud was not available, but didn’t he put Chamberlain also in the lineup… to form a pacy lineup to cause problems to Olympiakos defense?? Weren’t the fans demanding for such a lineup?? Also, most of us expected Debuchy to be lined up for providing rest to Bellerin… Surprise surprise
Only one position was debatable in that lineup….
Ospina.. Being that an important game, it was necessary to put Cech in the lineup. And if Wenger is almost lining up his best team… why not Cech also?? But he gave Ospina the responsibilty, because of two reasons possibly….
1. He mentioned that Cech had a slight fitness alert before Leicester game and he didn’t wanted to gamble with his situation.(If that had gone worse, everyone will be again calling for Wenger’s head because he risked Cech when he was not fit).
2. He also believed that Ospina would do his job which was keeping his team in the game by saving goals… (which can be considered because he showed us all last season that he is a quality backup if not first team player). Funny thing, most of the fans expected the same.
When this lineup was put up, most of the fans echoed the fact that this is a very strong team, and everyone EXPECTED that this should be enough to beat Olympiakos…. But that didn’t happen (sadly). It would have been fair if Olympiakos defeated us fair and square by playing better football than us…. But it was not them, it was us committing silly defensive mistakes…
Most of the fans aren’t sad because we didn’t show up even the slightest for the game (that would have been the situation if we wouldn’t have scored any goals), but they are more sad of the fact that we never expected that our best defense (except Gibbs) and a considerably quality backup GK, Ospina, will commit some of the most silliest mistakes.
Did anyone of us think that Koscielny and Gabriel would concede an avoidable corner (eventually leading to first goal) because they can’t communicate at the right time?? Same for Ospina. Did anyone of us expect that Ospina would commit such a mistake at that point where he was needed to keep his team in the game?? Would anyone of us expected that we would concede a quick goal just after we scored one??
That’s the point. All of us, including Wenger, expected that they would not commit these type of mistakes. Even we all can see Wenger’s disappointed face when we conceded the third goal. Why?? Because he never expected that we will concede that type of goals….
But lets all blame Wenger, why because eventually he is responsible for all that is going on the pitch for 90 minutes. Because he NEVER tries to MOTIVATE our players whenever we are down… Because he is getting 8 million a year and the players not…
Some players debated that Wenger didn’t try to bring in an outfield player, specifically a DM and a ST. But seriously, ask this question to yourself, could that outfield player have prevented us from conceding those type of goals??
The point is that not every manager (including Wenger) should be blamed every time when the team doesn’t performs. But every player should stand up to the faith given to them by their manager. They should prove that they deserve their chance when lined up – at least by showing some fight.
Summing up, the team can’t revert back what happened against Olympiakos. What they can possibly do, is to practice more on defence, taking care of the fact that we don’t concede those type of goals again, specifically against Manchester United in the coming game, which will be the most crucial part.
Hoping for a fighting performance from the team.
Lethal Prince 9