Chelsea started the season well and quickly built up a 10 point gap over a misfiring Arsenal side, but as tiredness and attacking injuries set in towards the end, Jose Mourinho used his park-the-bus tactics to gain points from Man United and also Arsenal. The cries of “boring, Boring, Chelsea” rained down from the stands, but the fact is that they came to the Emirates to do a job and practically confirmed their title credentials by leaving with a point.
Arsene Wenger was asked if he thought that the Gunners could wrench the title from Mourinho by playing their trademark attacking style of football, and Wenger replied: “Why not?”
“We have done it before. Manchester United have won it playing that way. Plenty of teams have done it.
“It’s not necessarily the type of game you play, it is how well you play it. For example, you don’t question Barcelona about the way they play football. When they started this way you questioned, ‘Are they not too naive?’ But when they win you don’t question it of course.”
Wenger has always set up his teams to attack and entertain the fans, sometimes maybe at the expense of leaving the defense exposed at the back, and Wenger grudgingly admitted that tactics still have a part to play over a whole season.
“You cannot play 38 games in the same convincing style,’ Le Prof continued. ‘You need to have a balance in your team so that if you are not at a level of fluency you can still win the game.
“Then most of the time it is the individual talent that prevails. We saw the other night with the Barcelona and Bayern Munich game, it was very level.
‘Then suddenly the ball goes to Messi and the game is decided. You have to accept that at some level — unfortunately — the game becomes an individual sport.
‘Will my philosophy remain the same? Yes, because you cannot influence too much a talent like Messi.
‘What you can do as a manager is improve the collective style of your team.’
Right now, Arsenal seem to have found a nice balance between defensive stability and attacking prowess, but the fact is that goals win games so when Chelsea “park the bus” they also lose the entertainment value and restrict goalscoring chances for BOTH sides, BUT they got the job done and are crowned Champions. Should Arsenal try to play like Chelsea or try and win the title with exquisite style?
we need a new manager and we need to spend to secure the spine…..next season
The irony lol
To succeed, we have to be ourselves and pLay BETTER THAN CHELSKI….
The fish should not leave its habitat to compete in a race with a horse on dry land.
Mourinho is the only manager in history to have used the 9-1 formation (nine defenders, one striker).
A 9-sitter bus…..one huge pyramid….L()L
Give credit where credit is due. You are without doubt the most disliked person on this site yet you still persist on talking absolute nonsense LMAO!!!!
Thats some sort of consistency
Hafiz you need a health check asap
We should play the way we do…and change tactics according to opponents and game plans…like we did at Etihad…
I agree totally. Play our Arsenal way (one reason we are in love with the club) and change tactics based on opponent.
We need to play our football but do so sensibly. We need to play entertaining, passing football that will unlock defences while also keeping ourselves tight at the back and aggressive in midfield. There is a balance between the bus and the Ferrari – Chelsea for the most part spent the first half of the season striking that balance. The issue I have is once Chelsea go backs to the wall, that bus comes out faster than a speeding bullet and it don’t move. This will win then titles but it is frigging boring. Arsenal struggle because we have in the past never brought the bus out and instead usually keep driving our Ferrari into brick walls – sometimes you have to adapt to the situation. Wenger seems to understand that now and be more willing to adapt team shape to shut out opponents but still allow our creatives room to show off their style. As he says, sometimes the game does come down to an individual piece of brilliance but now we are making sure our whole team works as a unit so that when we do pull off the piece of magic it wins us the game instead of acting as a consolation.
i’m Looking forward to us buying a train or a bulldozer if need be….. And possibly unleashing it against those teams which wanna prove stubborn …
I believe we have
played more like
Chelsea and the
results are clear to see since Jan.
We defend hard as a group we press hard as a group
and we probe probe probe using the slick interplay
of Cazorla and Ozil our hazard and Oscar, Giroud our Costa
Sanchez our Willian Ramsey our Fabregas .
Walcott Ox and Gnabry are huff and puff one dimensional
ok against lower teams. OX and Gnabry are
young enough to change but would welcome Pedro.
While I agree we have played more like Chelsea, it’s only in the sense that we haven’t been totally naïve in defence. I can think of 2 games where we played like Chelsea (City and Spurs) but usually our game has revolved around cautious attacking play. We don’t over commit, we compact without the ball and when we get the ball we open out and start passing. The more dominant in a game we are, the more our attacking side comes to the forefront. Chelsea since Xmas have defended deep, committed little and relied on the skill of just 2 or 3 players to unlock defences. Much prefer our style.
That’s one way to empty a stadium, if we all played like chelsky. Look what’s happened to the Italian league where defence was a top priority.
Real couldn’t wait to get rid of the Greater Portuguese Gob because of his Gob and his defensive tacktics. I also recall that was some of the reasons behind him leaving chelsky first time.
Wenger’s policy is the best way only not selling your best players and buying the best players is the way forward.
Buy defensive players.Mattia perin,Baba Abdul,Imbulla and we can put a bus station if we want
Pass to Sanchez = silverware
Football is a beautiful game and Arsenal play football. We love the team because of that. Ok, am not a Baca fan but people talk about the team even when they are not fans because they play football. We are not loved by British press but inadvertently the talk about Arsenal and Arsene Wenger because of the football they play. Give me my Arsenal and take your Chelsea.
Beautiful game 🙁
That’s loser talk.
Enough of the excuses.
I want us to win.
We can’t be fussy.
Lets just do what it takes to
bring the EPL title to the Emirates.
Beautiful football is gud but sometimes it cant win us matches , we need to forget d style and just focus at winning when times are hard and d team is not clicking. Probably wat we shud hav done at d beginning of d season .
We just need to be humble and park a gooner bus 5 or 6 times a season as needed. We don’t need to ditch our general game plan for a whole season. It would be hilarious to arrive at Stamford Bridge next season and park the biggest f**k off bus ever seen – and see how the grumpy One likes it.
I fell in love with Arsenal because of our brand of football and fans of other EPL teams envy us for it. So no it will break my heart if we ever play like Chelsea.