There were a lot of comments on the website today that suggested that the Arsenal fans were a bit nonplussed by the substitutions made by Arsene Wenger today and that was while the game was poised at 1-1. I don’t think anyone would blame the boss for replacing Francis Coquelin with our young striker Chuba Akpom after Tottenham took the lead but the two before can certainly be called into question.
The Frenchman’s first call was to bring Tomas Rosicky on, which seemed like a good idea and the Czech republic international was bright and positive when he came on. But the complaint from the fans is that he should have taken Aaron Ramsey off instead of Santi Cazorla. And I agree because the Welshman had one of his worst games for a while and that was one of the reasons our little Spanish maestro was not getting on the ball enough.
We were3 already under heavy pressure at that point so Wenger could have tried to be more positive by bringing Rosicky on for Ramsey, or he could have tried to shore things up by bringing Flamini on. But either way I think it should have been Ramsey to go off. He had the worst passing accuracy of all our midfielders and as most of the game goes through him, this was a big problem.
I also thought that Welbeck was one of our better players so was surprised to see him go off for Walcott. Danny was causing the spuds problems with his pace and energy as well as being very useful at defending from the front and helping Bellerin. So unless he was too tired to continue, which he didn’t really look, I think Wenger made a mistake with that one as well. What do you guys think?
yes -he got it wrong- it happens.
such is life
Yeah he gets it wrong a lot. Beginning of season, keeping out of form Ozil on pitch. The Chambers humiliation by Montenegro. The whole world can see how idiotic his decisions are. I was worried having Ozil back might mess things up again. Wenger get your meds straight
I saw somewhere on here that it was all Wenger’s fault we didn’t sign up Kane when he was 9, so he probably did mess up the subs as well. “Poor substitutions” is the standard fan response to losing – always has been. Always better to imagine that some other player would have made a colossal difference if he had come on for X at minute Y. Wish I had a quid for every time I read that Ox or TR7 would have been “game changers”.
I didnt like the idea of santi being sub off! I would have replaced “rambo” who is clearly out of form with thomas rosicky, leaving santi on!
Clearly Asen git it all wrong from the start.. but at the second half i thought he was going to make better adjustment by taking off Ram and bringing Rs7 to free the pressure on us, but he just wanted to prove us wrong by killing it all for us …
Not blaming Wenger for today or anything anymore for that matter because it never changes anything so what’s the point? He’s our manager, has been for the last 19 years and will be for the foreseeable future, anyone that doesn’t like it, well there’s simply nothing anyone can do about it, like it or not, Wenger is currently the best man for that job seeing as he brings so much stability to the club.
I understand why Welbeck was substituted… because he had been injured for a long time. But he looked okay and didn’t look like he couldn’t continue. I would have taken Giroud off and brought on Walcott and played Welbeck through the middle.
Le coq should have also remained on the pitch, to keep things tight!
Why? It was the 89th minute and we were 2-1 down. Right move for me. The only thing I would have done differently was to take off Ramsey instead of Cazorla. But that wasn’t the reason we lost. Kanes second goal was class..
@greg, I completely agree with you..
I just can’t wait until we stick it right into the Spuds next season and do the double over them, like we did the triple over them last season, revenge will be sweet. F*cking y*ds.
@matt
Save that racist bullsh*t for your next KIP meeting dude…
You do realise that even some spurs will refer to themselves as ‘yids’ and if they don’t take offense why should you?
Take your liberal soap box somewhere else, this is football, it is about banter and rivalry, not flowers in your hair.
Sometiimes in football you need a little luck on your side, danny welbeck was unlucky to see his rasping curling shot saved by lloris! Who knows if it had gone in things could have turned out differently!
This isn’t football manager. Nobody on this site knows better than Wenger who to replace with who on the pitch.
then we should all unsubscribe from any football forum … I think he got his subs wrong (Giroud, Ozil, and Ramsey should have been subbed) and doing that from now and then does not mean he is incompetent manger
Firstly I don’t understand why you would pick Ramsey ahead of Rosicky based on current form.
Then to top it off he subbed Cazorla for Rosicky and still kept Ramsey on the pitch.
Wenger got it totally wrong today.
Ramsey has been REALLY awful…the guy couldn’t even pass the ball most if the time. Not to mention he was giving us no stability defensively which helped expose Coquelin.
Schneiderlin for B2B next season please.
Ramsey and Wilshere contracts have to be reviewed, they have been kak lately.
Kos was also bad today.
But Wenger was terrible as well…
Arrgggh Arsenal can spoil your weekend.
On the bright side this loss might help against complacency in our following “easier” games.
We conceded two cheap goals. Coquelin was the last player for their first goal….Kos didnt jump with Kane for the second….they wanted it more. Thats all it comes down too. Ramsey was just poor, as most of this season.
Arsenal can still win the
ECL EPL FA Cup treble.
took soon for jokes davy.
some of us were at the game.
some of us are surrounded by the rivalry of arsenal an spurs day in day out
too soon
Ramsey is getting unfairly blamed, Cazorla was even worse! Did you guys not watch the game? I agree our midfield was atrocious but don’t put all the blame on ramsey when cazorla and ozil (other than his goal) were at least just as bad
Yeah, it’s like Wenger wrote the notes before the match and stuck to the plan regardless of what is happening on the pitch.
I dread Wenger making substitutions and trying to be tactical, he’s clueless with both. Sometimes he gets it right by blind luck but more often he takes of a wrong player like he truly doesn’t see the action on the pitch.
Cannot do anything about it, he has the balls of Arsenal in a vice.
Wenger is never proactive when it comes to substitution…fiddle with the zip & hope for the best!
Yes. Walcott should have started instead of Welbeck, but at least should have been put on at halftime not 75th minute
Who knows why Le prof. usually decides that he has to wait until the 70-minute-and-above mark before making his substitutions?
And more often than not, he get them so wrong.
Remember the Swansea game earlier ds season? C. Chambers was being roasted at right back, but the boss refused to do something ’bout it.
Today at halftime, while I and my mates analyzed and discussed, I told ’em that Wenger ought to bring Theo in at half-time for 3 reasons:
1. He has a superb record against the spuds; he seems to relish the contest.
2. Rose needed to be pinned back.
3. We needed to exploit D. Rose’s defensive frailities more and put in more square balls into the box for the likes of Giroud to finish from. This shoulda being the sole instruction given to Walcott.
And then I made another observation to my mates, we sat too deep in the first half, and most times simply rode our luck.
We were supposed to come out and attack spurs a bit more, get them back protecting their goal, without allowing our full backs to necessarily join in the attack, as well as Le Coq staying put.
But I was surprised to see us inviting them to us more than was necessary. And then Wenger changes Santi, and I look at my mates and I’m like ”well….”
wrong tactics, wrong changes.
Shows what a poor starting selection Wenger made, even Danny Welbeck said after the match that he really wasn’t up to speed, after injury, and he didn’t play too badly!
Walcott should’ve started for Welbeck, maybe bringing on Welbeck later. Ramsey needs time to adapt and get back on form, it’s no use keeping on starting him in these high pressure games and although I always get thumbs down for this, Kos looks like his achilles are troubling him again.
Maybe it’s clutching at straws, but if we had more of the London boys playing (Walcott, Gibbs etc) they know what it means and could’ve given extra impetus. Haven’t felt this bad since losing the Man Utd game at home. For me the problem was in the attacking midfield (Cazorla and esp Ramsey) not providing through balls.
I think we should have started with Walcott and Welbeck/Ozil, but Walcott should have started.. Walcott and Rosicky are always very good in the NLD’s…
But I can’t complain, the whole team was half arsed all game apart from The Coq and Monreal… Welbeck kept pushing far too high and leaving Bellerin exposed time and time again in the first half, and I did not see the reason why he was doing that when he was not even doing anything attacking wise apart from the goal he created.
Cazorla looked disinterested, his head was not in it..
Ramsey just trying fancy footwork and passing all ending in loss of possession.
Mertesacker is a big guy but Kane was bullying him and whenever he got a chance to clear he gave the ball away by trying to be too smart with his knock downs.
Kossy has been tentative since he came back, he reminds me of Kompany of City, Kossy has dropped a few clangers but always makes them up with his pace..
Ozil like Welbeck anonymous and apart from his goal, he kept losing the ball and crying to the Referee for fouls..
Giroud was like a lanky Sanogo whose brain and body lack co-ordination. He was so damn slow, and I have said it all this season, Our Giroud is not quick enough with his passing and link up, he just seems too slow and looks heavy with his hold up.
The Coq was good and could not do it on his own as he had to cover for Cazorla and Ramsey who were just not putting in any effort.
Bellerin was okay and in the second half he was not exposed on bit. But in the first half he was so sucked into the middle and Rose was just having open spaces.
Monreal was solid..
Ospina started getting nervous and as someone said on here, Ospina must be starting to spend too much time with SZNY..lol.. But he pulled off some class saves..
Yes he did but lets not blame him today, the players were poor and showed little determination or fight.
Ozil, Ramsey, Walcott and Welbeck, (not fit) all needed to step up/man up, (welbeck excluded from the man up statement).
Mertesacker looked terrified again today, very poor hoofing the ball long all the time.
Feel sick tonight, not that we lost but in the manner of defeat, (lack of composure, effort, aggresion etc).
I for one wish we could have taken Eriksen and Kane back with us on the coach today.
When you have a derby any Derby you should turn up to fight for everything, we didn’t , no fight
Ozil may be quality but he has no fight
Ramsey is poor and has been since he returned
If we don’t make top 4 which I don’t think we will, Arsenal stance will be only to spend what we have they will say as we not in the CL we need to reduce spending, this could get so much worse,
Players should play for their place, it doesn’t happen at Arsenal
TR7 deserves to start
I will get thumbed down for this but I would sell wilt and ramsey , but then again we have far to many like them that play no matter what, I would forgive Ramsey if he ran his balls off but shouldn’t every player on 30-70,000 a game ?
If Walcott is playing well, then why put someone who just came off injury. I’m not hating on Wenger but I think it’s okay to question that move.
In addition Welbeck’s goal conversion rate from passes is even less than Giroud (I mean he misses more chances), so with Sanchez out, I thought it was vital to start Walcott
Btw, I am not stating this opinion after the fact. I questioned Walcott’s absence the minute the match started when I knee who was on the field.
but at the end of the day, Spurs deserved to Win
Chelski has gone 3 points further. We are now 14 points adrift from 1st and 6th place with Liverpool behind us.
Not a good day to say the least.
Man it’s disappointing… Its always One step forward and 4 steps back, this is the cycle each every season. Have we even had a run of 5-6 games unbeaten in the league??
I agree that Rambo was particularly poor, but Cazorla had just taken a huge knock, they were worried about a potential injury, either ankle or knee, I have heard both.
Rosicky must start all big games most underrated player in premier league
Let’s be honest WENGER Fxxxxx up again. WENGER OUT.
Wenger needs to stop playing players out of position.
Walcott should have been on from the start instead of Welbeck(who clearly wants to be a striker)
Özil should be in the middle of the pitch.(was skinned by walker numerous times playing LW)
Fans can see when things are not going to plan but it takes until the 80th minute to start to change things up. Too little too late. just can’t seem to keep our consistency going. That’s our biggest downfall
I wont blame Wenger for playing the starting lineup, after all we started winning the game on top of that LLoris did a couple of good saves that if we have scored would have defined the game… the problem with WENGER is and has been that he wont adapt, change tactics when is needed. When the SPUDS had us against the ropes and were pushing forward was the time to get creative, change tactics and bring players with new ideas i.e TR7 BUT then Le Prof subs our best player, true it was not Cazorlas best game, but by far was not as bad as RAMBO….to make it short once the SPUDS scored the first goal they started believing they could win and they kept pushing forward taking the initiative and ultimately winning the game…WENGER has changed and it has been in part because he felt the pressure from Fans and experts alike, but he needs to become even more pro active, the SPUDS ran over us no question about it, but it was not because they are better, but because we let them do it.