TWO possible reasons for Arsenal´s poor show at Spurs

There does not have to be any specific reason for the poor performance put in by the Arsenal players in the north London derby defeat at Tottenham yesterday I suppose. It would not be the first time that the Gunners had played poorly in recent years, by any stretch of the imagination.

But it was unexpected in a way. For one thing a local derby brings the best out of players, at least in terms of effort. And for another, we had been on a good run of form recently and had put the big game away day blues behind us with the win over Man City, so we all expected a lot more from Arsenal at White Hart Lane.

I have two theories which might account for the disappointing display. One is the kick-off time, that dreaded 12.45 on a Saturday that has always seemed to produce a bad game from us lately. The 6-3 loss to Man City and the 5-1 loss to Liverpool both came from early Saturday games. Wenger was asked about this before the game and played it down but nit is becoming too regular to be just a coincidence.

But with us not playing since last weekend and not having to travel for, it is hard to accept why this would make any difference. However, because of traffic issues in London, the Arsenal team arrived late to the ground so maybe we were just a bit unprepared.

The other possibility is that this was Wenger´s 700th Premier League game as Arsenal boss. The last big milestone that Wenger reached was his 1000th game in all competitions and that was the trip so Stamford Bridge last season, a truly terrible display which was our heaviest and most painful defeat of the season.

What do you think Gooners? Coincidence?

Tags kick-off Wenger

53 Comments

  1. TBH i never blamed Wenger for tactical aproach, or his manager skills, this man went whole season unbeaten, if you doesnt have tactics or good skils you cant do it, no matter what team you have, look at madrid or barca, why they cant do it? only problem is, due to aging people become more sentimental, our players dont give respect he deserves, yesterday i saw picture Ozil with shisha, and they call themselves pro, Wenger is zhe only man in Arsenal who has guaranteed place, which means, he can sack anyone he wants, he should use that power, if you wont give 100 % seeyaa, wilshere wants to smoke, send him on loan to burnley, last year Ramsey aplied wenger advice and became best player, now he knows whats the best, Wenger should punnish our players more, bunch of spoiled players!!!

    1. Now and then smoking doesnt effect players performance. They do it barrely and not regulary. Many do smoke, but there are some who get cought doing it and seem not to care.

      They are spoiled bec Wenger makes them that way. He refuses to bench underperformers which makes himself an underperformer.

      Arsen Wenger is a poor tactician. 10 years from now the game was played diff, also the Epl compared to today was very weak. A 2 race fight amongst us and manure. We where used to beat Everton to 8 goals. Now they beat can beat us to 3 without losing a sweat.

      What advice? Half season wonder doesnt make him right. Ramsey need to face some bench time bec i am tired of him playing in a such selfish way.

      1. thats what i said, you just rephrase it, on tactic level, you can have best tactics in the world, but you need right players for that tactic, i belive thats where wenger has missed it.

    2. From an analyst :

      Ramsey was one of his side’s biggest culprits for needlessly gifting possession to the hosts and allowing Mauricio Pochettino’s men to build up a head of steam.

      Over the course of the 90 minutes, he made just 38 accurate passes – a mere 16 of those in a forward direction – with a success rate of 70.4% and lost possession aberrantly on as many as 24 occasions.

      The defeat allows Spurs to leapfrog the Gunners into fifth spot, and to rub further salt in the wounds top-four rivals Southampton netted a last-minute winner at QPR.

    3. Arsene Wenger doesn’t care much if players smoke tbh. Özil smoking has been public knowledge for years. He probably knows which players do it anyway. The players have a right to smoke and many famous sportsmen do it. The memedia just want to unsettle the club.

  2. I believe that a trophy is in our future. Now that we are sitting back a bit means that we will be able to see out wins and that will slowly creep into the mindset of all our players. I know yesterday did not work out but it will.

  3. poor team selection welbeck should have started but in place giroud + we should have had rosciky & Walcott as well & poor tactics we were playing spuds not barca/Bayern we should have attacked them cazorla & ozil can’t play together & when teams play physical football they go missing in such games

      1. seen it happen several times in the past as well remember chelski 6-0 thrashing both players went missing ozil on lw is ineffective both he & cazorla best pos is in no. 10 role & only one can play there he need a proper winger

          1. HA559 – Ozil wasn’t playing but let us not let details like that get in the way of a good theory.

          1. OZIL is our biggest dilemma, right behind comes Wheelchair…..both good players but not great players at least not for us, OZIL looks weak and yes he did a great pass against Villa and scored a great goal against SPUDS, but he should be a 90 minute player like SANCHEZ and justify being our biggest signing. On another topic, watching the Hammers against MANURE, they scored first, then MANURE came with everything, they held and then they went back forward and retained possession, that was supposed to be our game plan yesterday.

  4. Two possible reasons for losing at Spurs. Poor planning and Poor Management. Well it boils down to one Arsene Wenger. #WENGEROUT!!

    1. There is another possible reason, admittedly a remote possibility, that the players executed a plan poorly. Just saying like.

  5. My two reasons:
    1 we missed alexis never say die attitude and workrate on the field, refusing to give up!
    2 our midfield were just mediocre allowing spurs too much posession allowing them back into game which cost us!

      1. A single La Liga title in past 19 years for Atletico and one FA Cup in 130 years for Soton – we can but aspire. They have undoubtedly got better fans though.

    1. First rule of fans: “Ignore the ‘first rule of leadership’ when you win and only cite it when your team loses”.

  6. One is thing is for sure. With the current board and manager, we will never win the leauge again. Cups, yes. Epl never again and the Cl never once.

  7. This is so puerile, when we lose one game we scream wenger out!!, win three, wenger is a genius, get behind the team boys!!!

    1. One game? We’ve been screaming Wenger out for years. We take a brake now and then. And than Wenger reminds us how SH#t he really is. You know like yesterday.

    2. When you do your job. Whatever you are. You get praised and with luck sooner or later a pay rise. If you dont, you will get a warning, then another, and in the end the sack.

      Wenger is not doing his job how the fans demand him to do. He makes his demand for himself bec his boss, the stupid yankee wants only the cash, and cash is something Wenger can give it to him.

      He is nothing a like a genius. Morover mayb you didnt notice it yet, but non Arsenal fans and media see him as a joker bec they have lost respect to him. They know that he is all tllk. Dont you see how they mock him over and over again over his jacket. Everytime the camara spends some time focosinng to him and cracking jokes about him. People hated for example Fergi, but they aknowleged him as a great manager. Same goes for Moro, stupid c4nt, but he knows how to do his job.

  8. Some players are just not up for 12.45 kick offs. I think even in the WestBrom game which was 12.45 we won 1-0 but Berahino missed three chances in the end and one chance for Wisdom.

    Only Coquelin, Monreal and Ospina played good yesterday.

  9. Simply put it was the wrong approach with a bad mentality… We went back to our old ways that quick…

  10. The Arsenal squad has so much “potential”.
    Sanogo Giroud Wellbeck
    Walcott Ox Gnabry Sanchez Podolski
    Ozil Cazorla Wilshere Ramsey Rosicky
    Arteta Coquelin Flamini
    Chambers Bellerin Debuchi Jenkinson
    Gibbs Monreal
    Koz Mertz Gabriel Hayden
    Szcz Ospina Martinez
    Zelalem Bielik Akpom.
    Enough here to win the EPL if healthy, fit and in form.
    I say give Wenger one more season win the EPL or go.

  11. Liverpool is only 3 points behind us. It’s not impossible for us to drop to 7th place.

    We must not underestimate Leicester. They are at the bottom and fighting for survival. It’s not impossible for them to take points off us.

    A strong team meeting is needed to sort out the mess and pump up the players. We need a better attitude on the field

    Before yesterday I was thinking beyond 4th place. I was thinking 3rd and even 2nd was possible, but
    This year 4th place will be a real dog fight between around 5 teams.

    We have quality, but we need to pull up our socks, play with a winning attitude and Wenger needs to put the best team on the field

    1. Yes Manu have talent and a brute of
      a Manager while Sotn have a basic
      squad but play to their strengths.
      Spurs have a harsh schedule Liverpool
      and West Ham are not quite good enough.
      Our home games v Liverpool, Chelsea and Everton will be critical.
      Newcastle away also could tip the balance but
      that Man U game looms as a decider for top 4.

  12. Every season we put ourselves in a position where we depend on others to drop points instead of fully controlling our own destiny. Terrible habit and for once it’s too close with many teams around us to be that dependent on other results…

  13. I expect Arsenal to flat track
    bully minnow Leicester.
    Sanchez back, Ozil at 10
    Walcott to start. Even Wilshere
    can light up v cellar dweller Foxes.
    de Abreu should see game time.
    Expect a minimum 9 goal win.

  14. Just a bad day at the office so can we all move on, just google shithole and see that you get “white hart lane”, smile, realise they will never finish above us and forget yesterday and look forward to tomorrow.

  15. Simple, no fight and intelligence..

    Poor attitude and disorganisation..

    Kossy needs to man up now, since he has been back he has been average, how many headed goals have we conceded since he came back and always he is the player that does not jump or put pressure on the striker in the air. He just looks clueless when it comes to contesting for very good high crosses into the box, Benteke exposed him, the southampton, Stoke, Liverpool and Spurs yesterday.. He needs to work on his aerial cleverness.

    The midfield was non existent, all of them..

    Welbeck, Ozil and Giroud apart from that goal they were all involved in did nothing after that..

    It was a game that we looked like we never prepared for, we looked uninterested, no intensity, could not make a simple pass, could not hold on to the ball for 1 second..

    The whole thing was bad..

  16. I think your 2 reasons
    1. 12:45 kickoff
    2. Wenger’s milestone
    is not the 2 reasons I would pick

    I would not even blame it on lack of Sanchez

    1st: Wenger’s mistake in starting line-up and late substitution. If a player is not performing well in 1st half substitute them early in secons half also, because Welbeck had just come off injury he should not have started.

    2nd: Most Important Reason. We looked uninterested. Poor mentality. Didn’t work hard enough. It’s strange because if you can’t be up for derby then I don’t know. Defense wasn’t working hard enough. And attack seemed to relax after Ozil’s goal.

    Sanchez is a great example of a guy who is always fighting, never give up attitude.

    We really need a leader type player who can pick up the players both in dressing room and on the pitch.

    Anyway, after we lost 2-0 to Southampton, there was a team meeting to sort out the problems. I hope the same thing is happening now for Leicester

  17. Among the few things that we learned from yesterday:
    FIRST without a doubt OSPINA must be our #1 keeper. We could have left White Hart like CHELSKI with 5 against if it was not for him.
    SECOND Now we need a Striker a real one, we can alternate the pseudo strikers GIROUD and WELBECK with a world class striker and make a difference.
    THIRD we need to keep the pressure on WENGER, yes the man was feeling it and we saw results; as soon as we all became AKB’s he screwed again. KOEMAN 2015/16

  18. There’s only ONE reason for our teams performance, WENGER!
    Outdated, arrogant,clueless, etc etc. Why replace a winning team that thrashed Villa , it would’nt surprise me if Wenger does it on purpose to piss us fans off!
    Walcott and Rosicky should have been on from the start, it’s the same old excuses from the french c@@t everytime, can’t wait for the day he fks off and we get someone in who knows what their doing. Steve Bold should leave at the end of the season, this man is beong held back by Wenger cos nobody runs the team and club but Wenger! and it’s only the Wenger way and nobody else’s. Arsenal will not make 4th and we don’t deserve it like we did’nt deserve it at the end of last season. Wenger and the board will realise that no CL means millions lost in revenue and will probably increase ticket prices to make up for it, well good luck as I will not be going to any more games until there is change at the club.

  19. marky958 you hit the nail on the head it down to WENGER and his so called Philosophy which I Personally think is a load of crap.The Man is a Dinosaur past his sell by date Arsenal need fresh ideas if they are to progress, IN WENGER WE RUST.

  20. We lost this game in the midfield, Ramsey and Cazorla were liability, especially Ramsey who sits in the core of the team formation where all attacks are started.
    We didn’t win the ball back in the midfield and we lost it too many times there because of misplaced passes and we were too cautious going forward and sat back and rely only on counter-attacks which ended with losing possession.

  21. Looking for alternative reasons for a loss that is easily explained:

    A 12.45 KO is usually reserved for a match between two top sides so it can be on TV. This means these are our hardest games, thus our poorest performances. For those on here who do not live in England, a 3.00 KO on a Saturday is not broadcast so most often these involve less high pressure games. You’ll often see a stat which says we win the vast majority of 3.00 KO but it’s generally due to the nature of those games as opposed to the timing of the KO. The milestone factor can also come down to this same reckoning – both milestones fell on games against top teams. Easy to explain that away.

    We lost because we played badly. Players didn’t perform, our team selection left us exposed on the wings and we were missing key personnel in Sanchez and Ox (he is a great winger for defending with). We cannot blame injuries for our performance (every team gets them) so we have to look at personal performances and team selection. Personal performances were poor generally across the board – Monreal had a good game but otherwise every other player (including Ospina) had poor games making individual errors and costing the ball to opposition. Every player will know this themselves and the thing I can happily say about the majority of this Arsenal team is you know they will go away and make effort to change that fact. Ramsey, Koscielny, Cazorla, Welbeck, Giroud – they are not gonna sit back and say “Oh well, we lost, I played shit, no biggy”. They’ll all be on the training ground trying to improve. I cannot comment on Ozil because I don’t get the impression he’d care BUT he is a born winner, so this loss may well have cut deeper then we see. My point is that our real issue came in a semi-poor decision by Wenger. He set out to defend but selected to attack. Both wings were vulnerable and we paid for that with two goals from unmarked crosses. Welbeck shouldn’t have been thrown straight in, Rosicky should play in every big game ever for his bloody determination levels and Ozil is ALWAYS a weak link in defensive situations.

    The last thing we should blame is superstitions. The fact is we played crap and Wenger made a goof in trusting Ozil and Welbeck to defend like Alexis and Ox. Move on, more games to play.

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