How can Wenger fix Arsenal’s leaky defence? by Darren N
Arsenal’s season has been one of the worst I have ever seen under Arsene Wenger’s reign, and although Wenger continually says that the Gunners need to score more goals, it is also obvious that we have lost many many points because of horrendous errors by our defenders.
As Wenger said after this weekend’s win over Everton. “Our challenge, I think, is to find the balance. We are a very offensive team, we want to play that kind of football, but we have to find the balance between attacking and defending and that will certainly be our challenge between now and the end of the season.”
The strange thing is that Arsenal don’t make so many unforced errors when they are playing at the Emirates where we have only lost once this season. Even in that defeat to Man United we had over 30 attempts on David De Gea’s goal and failed to score more than one, but we were undone yet again by two horrendous defensive mistakes, but that was the only time that happened at home.
But in away games we are rife with problems. We have already conceded 21 goals in 13 games away from North London and have only scored 15 in response, and Wenger certainly needs to fix this problem. The Boss has been tinkering with our formation a lot this season after opting to go with a three-man defence at the end of last season when we started grinding out wins as we attempted to return to the Top Four. Wenger has mostly kept to that this season, but it seems obvious to me that we should be using the more attacking line-up of four defenders when we are at home, but switch to the five at the back in our away matches.
In that formation, we usually line-up with a back three of the ageing Koscielny and Monreal, with Mustafi making up the numbers. Then we have Bellerin and either Kolasinac or Maitland-Niles down the flanks as either extra defenders or wingers depending on if we are on the front foot or not. The Boss doesn’t seem to trust our other defenders in Holding and Chambers, but with the retirement of Mertesacker coming up, and with Jenkinson and Debuchy disposed of, there are no other options available, so we should be using one of those instead of Koscielny to give them a chance to gain experience, but only in away games.
So if anyone is considering betting on Arsenal, they should think about a few things before doing so. Arsenal is playing much better on their home turf, so you can get more safe odds when betting on home games. For example, an online bookies like NetBet Sportsbook would give the very best odds when Arsenal is playing a home match. Also, before placing a bet, people should look what is their best option among the offered tips on BetNet to be sure that they will get desired quota on their betting ticket.
It should be obvious to Wenger that we need to concede less away from home and convince the wing backs to stay back, instead of marauding forward leaving gaps for our opponents to test the back three, which is when our errors mostly come into play.
With our new attacking line-up of Ozil, Aubameyand and Mkhitaryan, with Ramsey behind them, they should need less support from the wing-backs but even if they have trouble getting on the scoresheet our focus should be on keeping clean sheets first and foremost in our away games. It is obvious to me so why can’t Wenger see this?
Darren N