Was every Arsenal fan as surprised as I was to see the name of Nacho Monreal on the Arsenal team sheet ahead of the humiliating defeat to Liverpool at Anfield. The Spaniard has been having a nightmare of late and so even though the return of Laurent Koscielny from his suspension meant that Monreal would no longer be the central defender in the back three, his confidence must be at rock bottom.
It certainly showed as wave after wave of Liverpool attacks turned him inside out and their high pressing game made him completely lose any composure and control. We could have predicted that, to be honest, especially as Monreal’s lack of pace was always likely to be a problem against the pacy Liverpool forwards. Surely the fasdt and aggressive Sead Kolasinac would have been the better option.
Then we have the midfield and the decision to stick with the struggling Granit Xhaka despite the Swiss international costing us the game at Stoke and almost doing the same at home to Leicester. Having faith in your players is one thing but stubbornly playing someone in such poor form is another. To compound the mistake Wenger paired him with Ramsey so we had no really defensive minded player in front of the defence.
And once again the boss played our specialist right back Hector Bellerin on the left for some reason known only to the Frenchman. If it was to help Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain thrive on the right and perhaps persuade him to sign a new contract I could understand, but that ship has sailed after he rejected a huge pay rise last week.
Then we get to the front three and he decides to drop Lacazette in favour of Welbeck and Ozil, neither of whom are as likely to win you a game, so I think Wenger got a few things wrong in his team selection and I feel he got the subs wrong as well.
bringing Coquelin on to shore up the defensive side of things was right but in taking off Ramsey we lost too much going forward. It should have been Xhaka and it should have been Ozil to make way when Giroud and Lacazette came on. Do you agree Gooners? Did Wenger get it all wrong in Liverpool or did the players simply let him down?
Bob.