20 Oct 2014 03:58:02
How not to lose to arsenal.

Sit deep, a bank of four behind a bank of five with one quick bloke on halfway line

Arsenal only play one way - short passing through the middle. As long as the space is closed down they won't create a thing

Eventually they'll get frustrated and a fullback will overcommit and the ball will go loose. At this point hit the ball long and high up the pitch.

Mertesacker will be on halfway line as Arsenal ALWAYS playthe high line, despite Mertesacker being totally ill fitted to this style of defending. Itll be a race between him and the striker.

Striker will get the ball. Midfield floods forward, we get an overlap and a chance is created.

This is guaranteed to happen at least three or four times a game.

Mourinho and fergie worked this out years ago. Now everyone has figured it out.

We are so easy for crap players and teams to play against its a joke

1.) 20 Oct 2014
You're right AG that we have key weaknesses that teams manipulate, but the problems this season have been more complex than that. Look at the key goals we've conceded - they come from a few different situations.

I've noticed 3 major ones:

1. Full-backs fly forward and don't recover when other team counter attacks. One of our CB's goes over to meet their player on the wing and huge holes emerge in our defence, which another player can exploit. Naismith goal vs Everton, Aguero goal vs City, etc

2. Players very easily muscle through the centre of our defence with no challenge from CB's or DM. Immobile Dortmund goal, Spurs goal (flamini muscled off ball), Hazard for Chelsea penalty, Diame for Hull (in spite of foul, I can't help but feel we should not have let him through).

3. Perhaps most worrying, opposition players have found huge gaps where they are completely unmarked in our area. Particularly from set pieces, getting headers. Hangeland for Palace, Coleman for Everton, Ulloa for Leicester, Demichelis for City, Hernandez for Hull. I think this is the most basic but has lost us the most points. It is also worth mentioning that, as with the 2nd problem, Koscielny has been as much to blame as Mertesacker - look for example at Ulloa's goal.

I don't think this is necessarily to do with teams setting up defensively against us. Or our passing game. Those issues are more to do with goalscoring - at the end of the day, our attacking has been a bit sub-par this season but not our main problem. We got 2 goals against Hull, that should be enough to beat them. We got 2 goals away to Everton and home to City- we could well have won if it weren't for stupid defensive errors (in those cases we conceded completely unmarked goals in the box).

It's the basic errors that are costing us. I don't know what to put it down to - even Koscielny has made big mistakes. It looks like basic lack of organisation and focus at key moments.

2.) 20 Oct 2014
Excellent post.
Also other teams try to stop us with a lot of rough house treatment. When have you ever seen an Arsenal player rough up an opposition.
JW has tried but ends up injured. And Flaminni is nothing short of a headless chicken but better than Arteta

3.) 20 Oct 2014
Great posts both of you, fair honest and 100% accurate