This is a serious question, and it is not just the fact that Arsenal could only manage a 0-0 draw against Hull yesterday at the Emirates, it has been going on for some time. How many goals has Giroud scored since Christmas? How many Walcott? You could say that yesterday we played our reserves, but we had 20 shots on goal and 70% possession. And this is certainly not the first time that has happened since Christmas either, we had similar stats against Leicester. How come not one ever goes in the net?
Yesterday we started with Walcott, Welbeck, Iwobi and Campbell in the team, all players that profess to be goalscorers. For the last half hour we had Giroud, Walcott, Sanchez and Oxlade-Chamberlain trying to hit the target. Is it just an incredible run of bad luck? Or have our players lost their confidence? Should I even mention that we were playing a RESERVE team from the Championship?
Here is what Per Mertesacker had to say after the game. “We had a couple of good chances and we couldn’t keep the pressure as high as we wanted, especially in the second half,” he told Arsenal.com.
“We had enough chances to win, but we were unlucky at times. Overall it was disappointing, especially our finishing.
“We allowed [Hull goalkeeper Eldin Jakupovic] to make some decent saves because we were not that decisive.
“It is down to us, we produced a good defensive performance but overall in the final third, that little final pass at the end, we always rushed ourselves at times to finish so we need to learn from that.
“Overall, we missed a bit of something today and we have to come back quickly in three days time. We have a very important game, the first leg against Barcelona, and we will see the fans again, it will be another buzzing night but it is up to us how we perform.”
It certainly is, but as we can see it doesn’t matter if you play a brilliant game, because at the end of the day football games are won by scoring goals. This is what Wenger had to say about it after yesterday’s game: “Because Hull defended well, because their ‘keeper played well, because our final ball was maybe not good enough and because when we could give the ball in the final third, we decided [to go for] an individual solution.
“The goalkeeper did well of course, but we had maybe 70 per cent possession and more than 20 shots on goal, and we didn’t score. We have to look at ourselves as well, even if you can give credit to their ‘keeper.”
Arsenal always seem to make our opposing goalkeepers look like world-beaters, but how many of our shots are very easy to save, because they are not making the keepers work as hard as they should. I don’t know how we can change this. Has anyone got any ideas?
Our possession football is one of the reasons we don’t score enough .The opposition being unable to gain possession of the b
it’ll be interesting at hull city: if they have more possession than they did today, it will force their players to come out of the bus and actually may make it a bit easier for us. alternatively, when we form a semi circle around their goal, maybe we can make it bigger to entice their defenders out?
oh, i almost forgot: if wenger could be willing to cede control a bit and allow a david dein type to do centre forward purchases next season, maybe we would actually win a purchase for once.
in a way, its a testament to us. more teams are parking the bus against us. but we know thats what we’re going to face now. we have to solve it. maybe more counterattacking & faster counter-attacking. let them have the ball. let them come out a bit more.
and our attacks contain too many sideways and short passes. we have to mix it a bit. some more direct counterattacks.
we’ve started shooting a bit more from outside, we need to keep doing it. some times everyone is in the down part of their cycle at once; thats what’s happening. we have to dig out.
If a team decided to park a bus there’s nothing you can do to make them move the bus, because they just clear everything that comes to their with no intention of holding the ball. So the only option you have is to find a way to smash the bus. By taking more shots, more crosses and more dribble as passing become less effective in such a situation. #MyTaught
ox : he needs to let the ball come down a bit before he strikes at the ball.
gibbs: not improving fast at all. let their RW ghost past him.
iwobi: gave away the ball a few times in 1st 20mins.
when one of them shoots, wenger needs to teach the others to go in for the spoils. many times they just look on. also, there was some individualistic stuff going on today; i’d see walcott trying to do it and welbeck would be too far away, outside the box.
sanchez: that last freekick went straight down the GK’s alley. before his injury he’d have buried that. we only get those kind of chances 1-2 times a game. you have to take them.
a lot of stuff trying to go straight thru the middle and many of our passes are straight TO the player. they need to be a bit in front to allow the player to keep his stride.
i feel we’re close to being good! just need to do a lot of things just a bit better.
We don’t really have a lot of players with a decent shot from outside the box and the one who can are reluctant because of our style of play. Cazorla was quite good in that regard. The threat of shot often drew defenders out towards him. Sanchez is also quite good as we know but he seems to have left those scoring boots on the bus recently.
Elneny could definitely be that threat if he played more and chambo if he works on his accuracy.
I reckon Welbz and wilsh could also be a pretty big threat if they took on more shots
ball retreat on mass to their penalty area therefore we have at least. a 9 man walls plus the goalkeeper. to get through That and the fact our strikes are p *** poor.
Because our players don’t know how to play with urgency unless they’re under pressure from a row of successive crappy games. We need more players like Sanchez and Ramsey who will keep attacking until the team is tired of scoring.
And less players like Walcott and Ox who panic at every opportunity they get or have the chance of creating.
i remember ronaldo (phenom) and his utter coldness in front of goal. great scorers always have that. as long as wenger’s not willing to spend, i cant see us digging out of this.
this time, what’s happened is the cyclic nature of scoring: all of our strikers are going thru the down period at the same time. i’m hoping they are all going to hit the up swing together and come out of this funk soon!
Exactly and on top of his scoring instinct he NEVER stopped searching for another goal. I don’t get why people are thumbing me down, the best strikers won’t be satisfied with one goal, they won’t even be satisfied with a hat trick, they keep demanding for the ball and keep moving forward. Look at Suarez and Lewandowski, they can keep scoring until they get 4-5 goals in one game. Suarez already has 41 goals this season, he didn’t get that much by not being selfish or letting the opponent keep the ball.
“It is down to us, we produced a good defensive performance but overall in the final third, THAT LITTLE FINAL PASS at the end, we always rushed ourselves at times to finish so we need to learn from that.”
great! u said it….. Its always down to passing the ball even in the final third….. For chrissake, why can u just shoot like Kane or Aguero (u never know where the ball’s gonna end up at)….why do we want all our goals to be the Nice type?
When u get a clear cut chance, u shoot on target…. U don’t pass s***….. All the passing has been done by the defence and midfield….the attack/strike force is left with the duty of burying the ball, Not Passing!
Don’t we ever Learn??????
actually today i did notice a bit more shooting. elneny did one from outside the box. welbeck did a fantastic curling one that was beautifully curling into the corner. and campbell’s hit the post. we need to keep shooting, esp from outside the box. but we also need a way to draw out the defenders, even if it means letting them have a bit more possession. at the start of this season, we were playing a different type of game: we were letting the other teams have more possession and we were winning more often than we are now. but if you’re going to counterattack you have to be ruthless one-on-one. walcott’s last 1:1 still haunts me. if sanchez were given that chance, he wouldve buried it.
i heard wenger analyzing it saying we were too individualistic. presumably he wants more passing.
someone ere (won’t give names) was saying its hard to play a team with 9 players defending (or parking the bus….as it’s commonly called)
as much as i hate to say this, i’d say give this game to a team who knows how to press….and see how many goals they’d get out of it….. Its only at arsenal , that our styles of play is one dimensional
going into a game knowing u’re bout to play agains a bus…..and u play ur usual passing game all day…….u’re expecting to gain what?…..
Maybe alot of teams would come for hull’s Jakupovic in the summer
Thanks to Arsenal, we put him in the spotlight…..
His price just went up L()L
(did u see him hand wriggling to the crowd like he stopped a ball from hell?)
{But……But …..make no mistake when we put a few balls behind Jakupovic in the unnecessary replay …do not wonder why we chosed the Appian way in the 1st place.}
Uhh guessing this is a question from football retards exam night … We have one quality forward (currently off form) two decent strikers who can deliver in bursts (but probably wouldn’t make the bench of most of rival top 10 european clubs we aspire to match) and three hugely overrated wing players who should be nowhere near starting in a team aspiring for top honours at home and abroad … Conclusion we need at least 3 new attacking options in the summer …. Will wenger do this … No …. Conclusion wenger needs to go for arsenal to score more goals …QED
as for the league, giroud is a 13 goal per season scorer, that is one goal every 3 matches, he is a feature striker, and this wont win anything unless you generate huge output from your midfield… by comparison, henry scored 27 goals in the epl when we won the league…
Why can`t Arsenal score goals? Good question. If we had Suarez and Messi would it make a difference? If it would we can blame the players, if it didn`t we must look at the training methods.
Because we lack a real number 9. It doesn’t have to be someone world class – players like Mandzukic, Bony, Hernandez, Vardy will thrive in this Arsenal side. We just need someone who knows how to play number 9 that’s all.
At the end of the season wenger will be in an unusual situation, in that he will only have 29 players classed as over 21, 5 of those will be keepers so I expect 1 will be sold and 2 sent out on loan again, with Huddart or iliev being able added 3Rd choice keeper status and being underage. That will mean he only has 26 players. 3 of which I expect to be released arteta, rosicky and flamini. Leaving 23 players. I fully expect Debuchy and sanogo to be sold. This means wenger will have the ability and certainly the funds to add 4 world class players, CF, DM. CB and a winger. For me that would solve all.our problems. Players such as bellerin, chambers, iwobi, gnabry, hayden, toral, zelalem will all still be classed as underage and will add great depth to the squad.
Next seasons squad (underage in brackets)
Cech, Szczesney, (Huddart or iliev)
Jenkinson.(bellerin, moore)
World class Cb, Koscielny, Gabriel, mertesacker (chambers, pleguezuelo)
Monreal, gibbs (bola)
World class DM, coquelin cazorla Ramsey, wilshire, ozil elneny (hayden, zelalem, iwobi, toral)
World class winger, alexis. Walcott, chamberlain, campbell, wellington (gnabry)
World class CF, giroud, Welbeck, (Akpom)
Of the players in brackets I would send iliev, moore, chambers, pleguezuelo, zelalem, iwobi, gnabry and akpom out on loan along with the 2 keepers Martinez and macey
First, while this shouldn’t be an excuse, we should have had an early penalty for a great save by their CB. This wouldn’t have won us the game 1-0. An early goal would’ve made them attack and we could have scored counter attacks bcos they would have moved the bus. We don’t start fast enough. Look at Chelsea vs Newcastle. We won that fixture 1-0. They won 3-0 within 20 mins, like us vs man u. Fast starts are key.
yes mk, we need early penalties to kick start us
Simple Answer Arsenal don’t have a TOP CLASS STRIKER.
Wenger and the Board know this but are happy with the
way things are being an also ran club with the odd Cup
and let’s not forget our 4 place spot.
Very true bro, even Spurs are scoring more than us, why?? Harry Kane is five times better than OG, that’s y.. When you think of it it’s so stupid, LCFC were about to be relegated last season, but our le prof in F still don’t know how to win the league anymore. the kids came and overtook the most serving manager in EPL, and we are here still waiting for our few talents to mature so that we might one day win it