What can Arsenal learn from this weekend’s games? by KM
International break time people. I personally don’t like those breaks. Arsenal are known to get a lot of injuries in them, people travel a lot to distant countries. The players play in awkward days and then you never know how you are gonna shape up afterwards.
And we have a massive game against Liverpool coming up. Beat them at home and we’re 9 clear of them, pretty much putting them out of the top 4 race. Those direct battles coming up till the end will be decisive.
I guess team talks given by the players is the new thing in English football. Liverpool made one team talk that put em on a run, we made one (initiated by the players after Southampton) and we went on a run. United did one after we beat them for the FA cup and their last 2 performances against top 4 rivals were marginally better.
We cannot allow any slip ups any more. After watching Man United v Liverpool and the Classico, you can clearly see why the giants of Spain are much better than the top English clubs. United or Liverpool might represent England in the CL next season and they are nowhere near Real or Barca’s level.
Two things we lack compared to them. Discipline and Pressing. Arsenal should be seeing off a 2:0 win at Newcastle no problem instead of scrapping it and wasting time. Chelsea conceded 2 simple goals having a 2 goal lead at a relegation side. Real Madrid were the better team in the first half, they conceded a goal, but their formation didn’t change.
Real didn’t go on to put 10 people forward and get killed on a counter like we did against Monaco after trailing 1:0. And Real equalized later on. Barcelona remained calm throughout the game and won 2:1 through a moment of sheer quality from Suarez.
The quality of the players those two teams put on was immense and I don’t think that any two Premier League clubs can put on anything close to that. When Arsenal put 2 or 3 fast passes in a row and make good attack we are like “oh, ah!”, but at Barcelona and Real that’s the standard.
And the pressing. How many BPL clubs press throughout the whole game? Not Arsenal for sure. Sanchez looks like a madman, when you see how he’s the only player chasing the ball all the time. This is something you must do at Barcelona or you won’t feature in the team (unless you are Messi).
Pressure causes mistakes. If we can adapt that to our game, we will improve. Defensive discipline so we don’t throw away a game, just because we concede one goal. And a little bit more quality, especially with our finishing. When you win, you don’t count the missed chances, but against Newcastle it could’ve been 3 or 4 and game over (or not, that 4:4 will always haunt me).
Anyway the race for the top 4 places is tight and although we have a bit of a breather, we must keep our focus after the break and keep on the good run.
Konstantin