Arsenal slipping back to bad old habits? by DN
I do not want to be too hard on Arsene Wenger and the Arsenal players, because they dug in to win a crucial match against a determined and dangerous Everton team – after giving absolutely everything to chase the German champions Bayern Munich down on Tuesday night.
It may well be some of the mental and physical after effects of that Champions League game that caused it, but two of the players most culpable for making bad decisions and showing poor game management were Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Mathieu Flamini and they did not start against Bayern.
I am talking about the old Arsenal failing of focusing too much on attacking and scoring goals when the Gunners are actually leading the game. It was not just the Ox, who made a poor decision not to play the ball out wide to Bellerin, but the whole team that had no business pushing for a third goal just before halftime.
After conceding Arsenal should have been even more careful but we kept going for that goal and giving Everton chances at the other end. What Flamini was doing trying to be a centre forward I will never know but I also blame Wenger as the boss should have brought him on early and left the midfielder in absolutely no doubt what his job was.
Hopefully this was a one-off and the Gunners will be back to managing a game well again, but it did give me horrible reminders of how we have been punished for this in the past, such as when we drew with Anderlecht last season or after getting a goal back against Monaco.
Do you think we are slipping back into old habits?
Flamini’s job was to get us a 3rd goal, he replaced Ramsey. But yes we do tend to get too cocky like the Monaco game, West Ham gam, Zagreb game and Olympiakos game. Hopefully they squad has change their attitude, and Chambo has to step his game up because this is the 4th time he loses the ball that leads to a goal.
I think that the players that have come through the ranks,have not matured as we all thought would apart from Ramsey.The likes of Gibbs,Oxy are just ordinary players now and have reached there limit and will just be back up to the squad. The likes of Bellerin are far from the norm, may be they need to be loaned out to see if they get better as just being a sub and training will not make them play with a personal belief, wow that’s Wengers saying and it’s true. Play them in First Div they are a strong lge because at 22/23 you should be at you best in terms of ability. Oxy is well liked by the fans but it’s not enough to just have speed,personally I would play him for a while in Reserves at Right back and Gibbs up front on left to get there weekness parts better. Shame for Ozy that you only get remembered for the mistakes that leads to a goal, will he learn not from playing bits of games then starting. He should have used his day like Coquelin and played it simple and not to be cocky to try and score the right decision as he saw Belerin run was to release it,but his ego took over like other times have . I hope he can get it right And I like Varney of Liecster now that is speed and finisher that Walcott should be doing and that’s playing in the lower Div for you CB
I agree with what you’re saying but personally I don’t think Chamberlain should go on loan, he’s already played well against the big teams in England and Europe since he’s arrived, and he’s still 21 so he’s got another 2 years to develop. I think all he needs is confidence which he’s currently lacking, the talent is there but he needs to seriously improve his decision making skills, normally it should come back after he gets a run of games.
Agreed on the more games to get better my view is get them on loan he is not getting game time only as sub. He will never get better just as Sub
Flamini should know his job, it is common sense.
What he did is just stupid and he should leave in summer.
Can’t blame Wenger for that.
Flamini will leave in the summer.we will sign a new backup DM for coqeulin
Jeez Sack-Wenger, don’t you know when you have become obselete?
If you had watched the game, you would know that Flamini came on to replace The Ox. The Ox was part of our striker set up. I actually saw Flamini check with Wenger whether he wanted him to stay upfront, and Wenger said YES.
I think Flamini was much, much, much better playing in Oxlade-Chamberlain’s position, and was MUCH more effective than the player he replaced.
If you don’t watch the game and don’t understand what’s going on then don’t say anything.
I agree so you shouldn’t comment.
Haha that was very incisive! Okay I bet you that next week (not League Cup) Flamini will start in The Ox’s place. UP FRONT. He was 100 times more effective than the Ox.
If you agree, does that mean you didn’t watch the game? Coz Wenger saw what Flamini did up front against Spurs and he has decided to give him another chance to work as a striker. And it looked to be a bloody good decision.
ok, but even flam’s “failure to defend” aside: when we got to min 80, we should just have closed up shop. the game was WAAAAY TOO OPEN after min 80. that was reckless and on another day we would have paid the price.
What I saw was Flamini was told to take Ozils spot in front of their defence as we pushed Ozil wide right. I got the impression the idea was to try to break up their play a bit further up the field, but it just didn’t look effective what ever Arsene had in mind. I am not at all sure if Flamini did either to be fair to him.
Personally I’d like to see Gnabry brought back from West Brom where he’s not getting a game and try him on the right rather than Ox as Gnabry can tackle. Obviously that can’t happen but I do think Gnabry is a better all round player.
ox looked so lost & shorn of confidence. sad to see. really hope wenger can figure out a path for him. he was defending more and tracked back more so he has taken a few steps. but he badly needs a goal.
Remember who sank the Spuds? We did not complain then Right. He thought he could do it again but we were winning.
I don’t think so. When your a goal up you always have to look for the second.I think Everton were all fired up and played well. It was a good performance from us and we were unlucky not to get the third goal
PS @Admin, where the hell do I find all these Russian girls lol
They all look a bit scarey to me!
i second that admin. please dedicate some part of justarsenal just so we can get in touch with these russian girls.
thank you very much.
Listen Baby Please
I got nervous the whole second half when we were still 2-1. Anything could have happened: defensive error, gk error (even by WC goalie), fluke goal, supergoal. We need to convert more of our chances, especially in second half.
But the fact Everton didn’t score in second half Shows How important CECH, our defense and Coquelin are.
Our defense is excellent, our CM is excellent with Ozil and Cazorla. Alexis is fabulous. We just need to score a few more goals
as is to be expected, there was a noticeable drop in concentration levels compared to tuesday. koz and monreal made a few mistakes ; even bellerin and sanchez gave away the ball once or twice. we need a bit of a deeper squad so we can rest koz with someone better than chambers. also PLEASE GET A BACKUP FOR COQ. i’m serious: if he goes, our title hopes go with him.
please lets stop for once and give these guys credits.
Liciester ad not lost at home but Arsenal came.
Watford ad not conceived from open play until Arsenal came.
Man U …..
Bayern came with 100% record, best Striker… until they faced Arsenal.
Everton had not lost away this term until they faced Arsenal.
My point = none of us fans believed we could pull tru all these fixtures.
LONG MAY THIS CONTINUE .
But lets appreciate them even the OX we know can perform beta than he is doing at the moment and he will. So lets support them no matter what.
thank you mide . i really hope sanchez gets a mental break over the next week.
I think we were tired and not at our best but we got the win. Thing that bothers me is AW not bringing in the subs until so late so late. I think TW should have had a run after 70 min and I would have taken the OX off at 70 and just closed the game out. But this is a problem for me AW never Changing things. A good lets say hard win and Peter did his job so well. Play the kids in the week and if we go out of the cup so what but let the first team rest. We have BM next week and I think we need to play a very different game and I think MF to play with FQ and just stay solid and push SC up a little
Loving the Manchester draw!
Top of the league!
ArseOverTit: dont understand: because manc drew, we’re no longer top.
but no big deal. we’ll get #1 again. just want players to have a good rest. we need subs that are closer in quality to our first teamers otherwise, after olympiakos, wenger will be loathed to sub in the subs because he fears drop in quality.
What of if Flamini had scored the insurance goal the Gunners were looking for? Wouldn’t we have praised him? The Gunners wanted to put the game beyond Everton, hence they were attacking to score their goal. And attack is said to be best form of defence. Infact the Ox has caused too many goals to be scored by the opponent teams against Arsenal this season.
i couldnt believe how much more energy the team had as a whole when flam was on. he has more courage & belief than ox; i cant wrap my head around the fact how he can do that but ox cannot.
I just cannot believe that you guys are real Arsenal supporters. I have been reading this post and the comments for the last year or so and altough some of the articles are interesting most of the comments are dross. Because of work I no longer have the chance to go and see the Gunners live and have to follow the games via Arsenal Player and other media sources and these are opinions:
Alexis looked knackered against Everton, he needs a rest but because of his personality he will never admit it and will moan if he is not played. No one can play at his pace for so many games and not feel a little jaded.
The Ox played like cr…. yesterday but did no one else notice that he hardly lifted his head up. The guy has made a few mistakes in his last few games and his cocky happy attitude has gone. Get behind him and start shouting his name out, get off his back and gee him up, do not treat him like most people did Arshavin. He needs his confidence back and only the fans can really help with that.
Our Strike force is as good as any in the world if used correctly, Wenger hinted at it yesterday, but as of yet has not used it, Theo and Oliver together. Could you imagine Oliver holding the ball up for Theo and Alexis to come running in, it would tear any defense apart.
And last but by no means least out french connection, La Choq and Kosch, if the French people do not want them get them British passports. Kosch is quite possible the best CD in the game right now and La Choq, for someone of his size is fastly becoming the real deal in DM.
So there you have it, stop crying about how the Gunners did not waste a ton of cash on a new unproven outfield player the transfer window and start booming out your support of our lads.
Hey Mark. Thanks for your comment but I would like to assure you that justarsenal is clamping down on fake keyboard warriors (wa****) and we are aiming to improve our discussions for real Arsenal fans. Check out our most recent posts to see the difference….
Some arsenal fans just love to find a scape goat and ride on his back. Get behinde the ox. He has turned up in big games(bayern, man u 2seasons ago),played most of The second part of last season were we had a gOod run of games. 2ndly flamini came to sit beside le coq to sure up the mid field, cazola played 10, ozil shifted to the left flang. Flamini found space as he has always done before;if u had actually watched flamini in 2006,2007 seasons u may actually know what am talking about