The ideal situation for any football fan, not just those of us of the Arsenal persuasion, would be for our team to play the beautiful game in the best possible and most entertaining way while getting the results needed to win every major trophy available.
But let’s face it Gooners, that is not likely to happen very often. The Gunners were close to having the perfect balance back in the days when we had Thierry Henry, Bergkamp, Pires, Ljungberg and all going forward and hard cases defenders like Adams and Keown stopping our opponents.
Perhaps the nearest to perfect would be the early Barcelona team of Pep Guardiola, which bal;anced the brilliance of Messi, Iniesta, Xavi and all with the likes of Puyol at the back, but it did not last and you will find that almost every team is better at one part of the game than the other.
For years we Arsenal fans have been spolied by the attacking flair, creative genius and great goals from our team, but it is safe to say we have not been good enough at stopping the other teams from scoring and I think you need this balance.
This season I have been hearing some Gooners complain about our lack of attacking fluency and we certainly have not been cutting sides apart, but at the same time we have been harder to score against and we have been winning games. Even when we went to Chelsea and came away with a point when everyone expected Arsenal to get thumped, some suggested that we could have won had the players and Arsene Wenger been a bit more adventurous.
Yes we could but we could also have lost and surely at that time it was more important not to lose. To be more defensive I think you will inevitably forego a bit of attacking flair, so which would you prefer? I am not saying that Arsenal should turn into the sort of super negative side we saw from Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea a few years ago with their parked bus, but I reckon our balance should be a bit more tipped toward defence for now, as long as it is getting results.
Bob.
As long as we get the result we want, even if it is by winning ugly. I reckon the attack & defense has been pretty good lately.
Arsene once said if you can’t win make sure you don’t lose
I don’t agree. I watch football to be entertained, not to watch ugly wins.
Dear fellows and football fans, do you realize that you cheer for someone else’s glory? When your favorite club and players win a trophy, it is their trophy and achievement, not yours.
When you support a club and its players to get money and titles, it is their money and titles, not yours. You PAY those people to entertain you with high level football skills, not with penalties and set-piece goals.
After so many years supporting something (in this case, a football club), you will feel attached to it. You and I have been wasting our precious time to see a good entertainment in each weekend in the last twenty years (maybe more, for a hardcore fan).
Instead of looking for more money for our families and spend more time with them, we watch our favorite team for years. So when they play, they had better play well and entertaining us.
I just want Arsenal to win. I’ve spent a lot of money watching them over the years. They can’t play brilliantly & win them all. They may be lucky & scrape a few ie winning ugly
I’m not a West Brom fan cheering on penalties & set pieces! But at the end of the day a win’s a win
We’ve also lost big to PL teams in the last few years. ie. 8-2, 6-1,6-0,5-1, this season 4-0 to Liverpool and no PL or CL trophies. Also without Cazorla and with Ozil’s laziness we are lacking Creativity as well, so you could argue we have neither enough creativity and quality to win trophies.
I honestly don’t mind if we become more defensive. The Invincibles had creative spark AND top notch defence. Those days are gone but we should have strengthen the defense more and added a top defensive midfielder which we’ve needed since Viera. Without a good enough defense you won’t win the PL or CL. Even when Leicester won the Premier League they had a fantastic player in Kante who helped Chelsea win last season. Wenger should have tried for Kante, Matic, Krychowiak, Carvalho, Seri, Goretzka etc. Wenger’s stubbornness in this regard is ridiculous. He rarely spends big on defensive players.
He’s always after a bargain… who hasn’t cost much then turns out to be awesome, just like Koscielny
Except that ONLY Kos himself has” turned out to be awesome like Koscielny”. Virtually ALL the other defenders he has brought in since Sol Campbell and Gilberto left have been sub-standard or mediocre at best. He IS though always after a bargain and thus gets bargain basement quality defenders constantly. KOS is the only DECENT pure defensive player we have had in almost a decade. Scandalous neglect of the defence by a manager who has NEVER understood the vital need for tight defence and team will to win throughout the squad. Hence, Walcott, Ozil and those faintheart types and a long list of dud CB’s over the years, mostly French, though we currently have two Germans of basement quality too. And before you mention Kolasinac, yes, he looks good, but it’s still very early days so far.
We were able to beat teams even if we are down toto 10 or even 9. Back then, who would dare called us boys?
We were too obsessed with the red cards and started bringing in boys. We were just being kicked all over the place.
That is where the rot begins.
If Arsenal want to win the Premier League, it is actually a matter of their willingness to change their football phylosophy. They just need to buy taller, faster and stronger players, like what Mourinho always has, and try to score from set pieces.
Just get tall, fast and strong monsters like Krychowiak, Goretzka, Draxler, Cavani, Van Dijk, Sissoko, Aubameyang, etc, and dominate the opponents with the players’ physicalities. Do you notice the similarities of the players I mentioned?
Yes, they all are quite tall, fast and has good strength. The player type that Mourinho likes (he bought Pogba, Matic, Ibrahimovic, Lukaku, Bailly, Ivanovic, Drogba, etc).
So if Arsenal manage to have more physical monsters like them, they just need to score a very quick goal, then defend for the rest of match. Launch a quick counterattack ala Ranieri and Simeone, once the opponents open their defense. Sounds easy, isn’t it?
The old headline news used to read “It’s 1-0 to Arsenal”. Nothing wrong to get the result right.
The old man was never interested in defenders. He was just lucky to inherit Adams, Keown, Dixon and Winter. Together with Paddy and Petit, which players dare showboat in front of these guys. And with Anelka and Overmars, we are awesome to watch.
But after those defending players left, we were never the same again.
Viera was his frst signing so was only the defence there when he came from the list.
“The old man was never interested in defenders.”
Lauren/Toure/Campbell/Cole
Wenger may not be the best def minded manager but to claim he was never interested in def when he was the manager who built the team to go unbeaten which was in part due to having a good solid def to play out from.
Campbell was on a free transfer.
Was Lauren really that good in Defence? He wasn’t signed as a defender, likewise Toure.
Cole was from Academy.
How many defenders did AW sign?
We have seen pretty football for years noting to show for it.
We need trophies,and u can only wins trophies by winning games.(that’s result)
Gotanidea, its my first time I read your comments that are aligned to mine.
As long as I’m not a shareholder, football is entertainment to me. Good football should produce results. That’s the reason I’m criticizing Giroud, Ramsey, and Ozil always. Giroud and Ramsey have no skills, so they make the game boring. Ozil has skill but he runs like a sick man, even the ball looks heavy for him. I like skill and pace. That’s the reason I defend Walcott always.
Good football first, then results later. I can’t spend my money to watch teams like Chelsea and Italy national team playing
I agree with your premise but “Giroud and Ramsey have no skill”.
C’mon,
Really?
Result.we need to win epl at any cost. i like mouriho. he always wins league in 2nd season
I am a supporter of Arsenal Football Club so as long as they win I don’t care how they do it. I remember the double year of 1970-71, everybody called us boring but I loved it, that team had something then, a big desire and determination not to lose. I’ll probably get thumbed down for this view but I want my team to win and not play pretty tippy tap football and lose.
Too bad we can’t get a player like Frank McLintock; what a a captain, leader and player!
We are getting some physical players over the past few years.
Alexis may not be big but he is physically strong.
Xhaka is a tall and powerful player.
Sead may not be the tallest but he is physically strong.
I do not think we need 11 7ft WWE built players, I honestly prefer a mix as some players can be the brick wall while others can be the exciting flair which gets us jumping out of our seats.
If Holding and Chambers can strengthen up a bit more then they could be beasts of CBs… If they can hit good form and build on that.
I think we are starting to get a good shape but still needs work, until we can get all the pieces then I am happy with SOME ugly wins but I want to see us destroy lesser teams still.
GB
Giroud and Ramsey don’t have skill. Ramsey is just a hard worker, when he tries to dribble the opponents takes the ball. Giroud on the other hand, when he gets the ball, he turns around to face his own goalkeeper. I’ve never seen Giroud dribble past one defender since his arrival in Arsenal. He falls like a child.
Winning games like Maurinho is not my thing. When he won Champions league with Inter, the game was boring. Inter scored 1 goal them the whole team went back to defend.
I pay my dstv to enjoy sports not to count goals. Arsenal is not paying, but I pay to watch them. Football is entertainment to me, because I don’t benefit anything
Watching your team score goals is entertaining. Watching them pass the ball around, not score, then concede cheaply is not entertaining.
Mourinho’s “Boring” Man Utd have scored 21 goals so far this season. Our “Exciting” Arsenal have scored 11 goals. We have also conceded 8 goals, whilst Moureen’s lot have conceded only 2.
So is the “Pretty” football really that entertaining? Only if it results in more goals. Otherwise it’s just a waste of time.
get this right we have not seen “exciting” arsenal this season nor the last if i remember correctly. plus i watch all utd epl matches and you will notice that most of their goals come in the last 10 min of the game when they play counter. watching them trying to score the 1st goal they are worse than sideway passes arsenal.
they labor to get the 1st goal then nick another in 80 min after mostly defending and counter then the opponents give up and gets smacked. e.g all 4-0 wins are the same format. plus most teams they played were bottom sides and they lost 2 pts against stoke, we lost 3 so we are really 1 pts behind them. the real big team is man city not utd.
But MU have come off the pitch winning 4-0 which is all the supporters want. If you want to see entertaining football all the time and don’t mind losing then you should not call yourself a supporter of one club but go and watch different teams in your search for this. I still maintain that first and foremost a supporter of a club wants his team to win, however they do it.
I think you always need a right balance between attack and defence. This team haven’t scored Lots of goal this season but that’s fine as long as we are getting results