The problems at Arsenal lie deeper than the surface by KM
At the end of the past week, Arsenal managed to get two wins from two away games. On the surface that looks like a deal you would take at any time. The problem with AFC is that there is always a “but”. We took the points, but the performances were awful once again.
Lets start with the positives. The points. Sanchez. Why is Sanchez the only player pressing so high? He was taught to do so at Barcelona. If we want to be a mini version of that famous Barca side, we need to implement the most crucial aspect of their game that brought them success. You guessed it’s not the passing, but the pressing.
Guardiola said that he wants the ball back up to 5 seconds after it’s lost. At Arsenal, a lot of players seem to care little about the ball getting back after it’s lost. What can the manager do to inspire all the players to put in the effort Sanchez does.
Fitness is another major issue. Did you see the Classico? Some players at Real Madrid play 70 games a season and do not have a problem with it. We have players who play every game and they look broken. We look tired at the start of the games and we look broken at the end. What do we do about monitoring individual players health? How about individual programs and diets for players to get the best out of their bodies?
People can be modified by numbers just like we monitor numbers in our accounts and work on improving them. We destroy our players on training and we still cannot defend a corner kick. If we are going to put a tireless effort into something, we might as well put into something that will improve our game.
We have bad preparations, we have bad fitness management and we have a tactically inadequate manager. Wenger cannot make players die on the field for him like Mourinho does. Wenger has a favourites list and an ignore list. If you are in the first, you will get run down to the ground until you are injured, and if you are in the second (like Podolski) your confidence will get shot to the point you don’t care anymore.
We played the worst PL side at the moment – Sunderland – and it took two horrific errors for us to win. These games were supposed to get us back on track in our passing and free flowing game, instead we are riding our luck. Results have matched our performances, contrary to what Wenger says. We’ve been average and our results – poor.
Southampton sold the core of their squad, but their manager had a vision of what to do and it’s paying off. West ham are another example of smart business. Good players like Song and Zarate were brought, and put in a good formation that suits them, and they beat the Champions.
Just imagine the post-Wenger era. It could be a disaster or a masterclass. We are rich. Any manager would love to manage an Arsenal side full of quality, enough money to repair the holes and with a good vision and strategy can be one of Europes heavyweights. When the players come out and say things are bad like Per did, you cannot be brainwashed enough to believe Wenger anymore, well at least I don’t. Things are not okay, but luckily, players are coming back and we have an easy (well at least on paper) fixture list. Hopefully this will bring some good results on the table.
Konstantin Mitov