Mertesacker defends the Arsenal defence and waffles a lot!

The big German Per Mertesacker was our captain in Arsenal’s humiliating defeat at Tottenham on Saturday and by rights should be accepting some of the responsibility for allowing Harry Kane to punish us twice. Arsene Wenger clearly blamed the Gunners defence after the game, but Mertesacker thinks that we didn’t defend badly, and prefers to name other (rather cryptic!) factors for the loss.

“Obviously we’re not satisfied with that result,” he told Arsenal Player. “We weren’t active enough.

“Just at the end we started to play our game, but it took us too long. We didn’t defend badly but we couldn’t take advantage of any counter-attacks.

“It was very difficult for us, so we’re very disappointed that we couldn’t find our way to play.

“I think we reacted all the time. When you defend, you react sometimes. When we had the ball, we couldn’t find solutions.

“They were always at us – and we couldn’t get the ball so quickly in our half. We couldn’t make sure that we get good counter-attacks and good breaks to help.

“We’re very disappointed with a lot of ball losses, especially in our half. They lost the ball and we won it but then couldn’t find a solution to get out of the situations.”

I’m not quite sure what he is trying to say there, in fact i’m not even certain it is in English! “They lost the ball and we won it but then couldn’t find a solution to get out of the situations.” What does that mean? Perhaps ‘we couldn’t find anyone to pass it to’??

Would anyone like to try and translate what he said into plain English?

Tags BFG Mertesacker Spurs

12 Comments

  1. I have no interest in all that nonsense.
    He should be saying, ‘we apologise to the fans for hardly breaking out of our half against a 2 man team. We know we have ruined your weekend and we will undertake extra training sessions from now on!’

  2. Our formation was too rigid. Ozil and Welbeck hugged the touch line too much and never came inside to create an outlet for the centre midfielders. Hence why we was overwhelmed in the middle of the park. It is not a coincidence that Santi probably had one of his ineffectual games of the season. It was only when we was 2.1 down and with the introduction of the Rock and Walcott that we looked dangerous as they floated around the park and caused the wing backs more problems. Unfortunately it was too late.

    The second goal was just far to obvious, although the subs had already been used the Totts had the incentive with them. And to be honest they did deserve it seeing that we just didn’t turn up, which is a shame as all I have had since is dogs abuse.

    What bugs me is that AW obviously tinkered with the formation in the hope of counter acting the spuds wing play, hence Welbeck starting. I just don’t understand when you have a winning formula he needed to change it.

    So I’m blaming AW for the fiasco of Saturday and none of the players. The way I look at it is that we were bloody lucky it was only 2.1.

    1. I said it before the weekend Rosicky should have had a bigger role he knows how to play especially against the spuds and he really should have been brought into the mix far earlier and this is the machinations of our manager, yes the players do need to take responsibility but MANAGERS ARE SUPPOSED TO MANAGE and that means during the game not telling us what we already know after the result. Its not thye end of the world loosing to the spuds but what it does so is expose the failings of certain people both on and off the pitch. Mertsaker can hardly defend the way the players performed because they really didn’t turn up on Saturday and theres no excuse for it.

  3. from now on, ozil should play 50% of a game and caz the other 50% as cam. ramsey should sit and we need to find a WC B2B and striker. For counterattacking , you cant do better than walcott. i dont know what AW was thinking. but players too at fault: i think at 1:0 at half-time, they thought fate will take over and they will beat spuds as usually do.

  4. No excuses in our next game, the players barely broke a sweat against spurs.

    Wenger definitely needs to make some changes in the next game, one of them been giving Gabriel his 1st start and also fielding a partner who will help Coq tie up that midfield. This is not time to play names or players based on their past, the race to top 4 is tight this season slip at your own risk!

  5. I could not give a flying f@ck what Per or any other AFC (or other footballer) has to say.

    All I hear is ‘ he is so great, we were unlucky, we couldn’t get settled, couldn’t get the ball’.

    I don’t want your excuses. Talk to the press after you lift a trophy and otherwise keep a lid on it.

    Especially as most of it is cliche or down right nonsensical spew. Concentrate on doing your job a bit better and spare us the constant stream of post match Lamentations (I know busine$$ dictates a constant stream of useless drivel).

  6. 1. When the game plan was to sit back and counter, why was Walcott not included in the starting line up and a just recovered not 100% Welbeck was started and allowed to play for so long.
    2. Ramsey was a real liability and it was evident in the first half. He should have been substituted at the start of the 2nd half itself with Rosicky.
    3. Ozil was pi$s poor again in spite of a goal. I dont know why Wenger loves Ramsey and Ozil blindly. Substituting Caz instead of Ozil was a real shocker. Welback played better than him and showed some fight.
    4. Sit Back and counter does not mean you have to surrender possesion for the whole 90 min and keep playing like that. This is a Mid Table team’s approach. The fact is that Wenger has still not been able to find the balance between playing Arsenal’s possession based game and “sit back and counter”.
    5. The Man Cikty win was a fluke. Yes there i said it.

    If we had a manager who had the balls to take on the Spuds and make REAL changes, it could have been a different story.

  7. And one more thing. These so much highly paid people need to stop talking to the media like they are the stars of the PL. Before the match they talk about the fire, passion , importance, team mentality blah blah blah and then after the match they plunder us with the excuses. Damn!!

  8. Walcott was necessary for counterattack instead of Giroud who is slow.
    Ozil is excellent player but not for Arsenal , he cant return quickly for defense making it very difficult for Monereal who is (in my opinion) the MOTM .
    If Wenger wants Ozil to play as LW he must bring WC DM.
    still Ospina is much better than Schzesney.

  9. Wenger didn’t slate the defence. He slated the team for not defending. He slated the team more for our woeful retention of possession.

    What Merts is saying is that when we did get the ball, we couldn’t find passes to avoid Spurs players. He is saying we were poor on the ball and it escalated to the point we couldn’t get out of our own half, even when there was options to do so.

    He is right. We didn’t defend that badly: although the first goal was horrendous, the second goal was definitely a great cross, great finish, and the only way to defend it was to put pressure on in midfield. Our problem was down to us not retaining the ball. We lost the ball consistently due to poor decisions and lack of solutions. He isn’t shirking the blame so much as saying “we didn’t play our football, we just reacted to spurs and because of that, we gave them too much opportunity to attack and eventually conceded”.

    I don’t really disagree with Merts, only in the sense I think a big part about defending is when you win that ball being able to distribute it and then reset the defense. If you’re just hoofing it into row Z any time you get the ball you’re not defending, you’re just prolonging the inevitable.

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