Don’t blame the boss! by Sam P
A lot of Arsenal fans will blame Arsene Wenger for this disappointing defeat away to our north London rivals today. Because while Tottenham played well and put us under a lot of pressure, the Gunners seemed content to sit back and defend while hoping to hit them on the break. So did Wenger set his Arsenal team up too defensively and hand the initiative to the home side?
In a way perhaps, but I don´t think we should be too hard on the Frenchman. After all, many of us expected Arsenal to approach the game in this way. Did we really want the Gunners to go straight back to the bad old days of being too attack minded away from home and seeing the game all but over in the first half an hour.
The truth is that the win away to Man City a few games ago has shown that Arsenal can defend as a team and use this tactic to good effect. The problem today is that we didn’t play as well both collectively and on an individual level. Cazorla was nothing like the player that did such good work all over the Etihad pitch.
Ramsey also had an off game as did Bellerin and most of the Arsenal team to be fair. So it was not so much the fact that we sat back and conceded possession because we have been doing that more recently. The main problem for me was our use of the ball when we had it. Our passing accuracy of less than 70 percent tells a big story. Compare that to the 85 percent last week or the 77 percent against Man City.
It was a bad day at the office for Arsenal but I lay the blame at the feet of the players, not the tactics. What do you think Gooners?