Wigan Athletic 0 - 1 Arsenal: More difficult than it should have been

After Monday night's performance, there was some tentative optimism going into this game. Wigan were on a poor run of form while Arsenal were improving. However, Wigan have proved to be a very annoying team to play against since they've come up into the Premier League and they were, once again, today.

First half

This season, Arsenal have struggled against teams who press heavily and get their tackles in. Today, that weakness came up once again and it lead to a highly frustrating performance.

Arsenal's response to Wigan's tenacity wasn't to be just as tenacious or as aggressive in their pressing, but to sit back and invite pressure. It's been a long time since we've seen Arsenal actually keep a good shape, so it's a positive from that perspective.

However, I didn't like seeing it. This isn't a good team with technical players who can hurt us we're playing against, but a team in the bottom three struggling for form. This is the sort of team that we should be dominating. We should be pressing them, winning the ball back high and keeping the ball. Instead, we sat off them, let them have the ball and did virtually nothing on the counter because our midfield was too easily stifled.

We did well to force them out wide and limit them to just crosses. The service from their wing backs was very poor and they didn't slice through the middle of our defence too much. Unfortunately, we weren't so great going forward, either. Had we pressed them and won the ball high up, we would have been able to exploit their high line and the space they left down the side due to advancing wing backs.

So it wasn't a great half for either side, though Wigan would have certainly been happier.

Second half

Needless to say, Arsenal had to improve in the second half. For the next fifteen or so minutes, Arsenal managed to get some control over the game and were a bit sharper in their passing, but still struggled against Wigan pressure. One Walcott chance aside, there were no major chances to speak about.

The only goal of the game came from a penalty. Walcott did well to nick the ball in front of his marker (perhaps the only time he did all game) and was brought down. Arteta dispatched the penalty coolly.

From there, Arsenal sat back and saw out the game. They actually did this pretty well, although their countering still left a lot to be desired.

Must learn to cope with pressure

Our struggles against pressure has been a recurring theme this season and is something that has to be dealt with. The majority of teams we're going to come up against are going to play this way.

The technical quality of our midfield trio is possibly the best in the whole league, but physically they are weak, their stamina isn't great and they lack aggression. Wilshere, at least, has the aggression and you can see him trying to press and drive Arsenal forward, but his defending can leave a lot to be desired. Arteta and Cazorla, for all their guile, have no aggression or desire to close down space.

It's a big problem. You can't have one player pressing and the others not. The desire to work hard, close down space and win the ball back quickly needs to be instilled into these players somehow, because the best way to cope with opposition pressure is to apply your own.

Our recent wins over West Brom and Reading involved pressure from us. We controlled both of those games and won them comfortably. We didn't do so against Bradford and couldn't score against them from open play. We're best when we have the ball, but we can only keep the ball if we earn the right to do so.

That's perhaps the most important change Wenger can make to this side: get them pressing other teams.

The Walcott experiment continues

Being a striker is hard. There'll be games like today where you're not going to have a lot of service. Walcott looked anonymous today because he didn't have that service. He's the sort of striker who needs that service otherwise he's not going to have a lot of impact on games. You could put Ba, Huntelaar or even Villa in that situation and chances they'd have struggled, too.

Walcott's movement was good, but he wasn't clinical. If you're being ultra-critical, you'd say that the best strikers - the £100k p/w strikers - take their chances when they come. Walcott didn't take his chance when it came.

I can't criticise him for not being good at holding the ball up because that's just not the sort of forward he is, Walcott has to prove that he's okay with not being as involved in play as he would like to be, because there will be plenty of other games like this one.

3 delicious points

Sagna completed the most attacking 3rd passes (22/28)

Good solid 1-0 win. 3 points

My Mom kept commenting how impressed she was with Wigan and how they wanted it more than us. When she said she thought maybe they were just as good as us, I stopped listening to everything she said , but the fact she even said that proves we weren't great today. When we got chances, we looked dangerous, but we did not get many chances. At least we kept a clean sheet. I'll take 3 points

Not totally convincing, but what's encouraging is that this is exactly the kind of match the squad, in its more brittle guise, would have lose 1:2 in the last ten minutes. Pretty good defensive performance, I though. Ox was good, Coquelin looked lively when he came on.

We've lost games where we played far better so I'm satisfied with this hard earned win.

Walcott's movement was good, just unlucky with those blocks.

Our crossing was poor, but the defense has picked themselves up and bailed us out in the end. (Particularly Mertesacker)

Just need to build from this performance and we'll be back to our best.

Done with the first post.

Atm, I don't care how we get it done, as long as we get the 3 points.

On to the next one.

GoonerJay29 wrote:Done with the first post.

excellent postmatch summary Jay..
*
Lucky win by another soft penalty.. It is a surprise that luck has been on our side this season and still we are struggling.. Win against QPR, West Brom, today and even Tottenham can be cited as examples..
I cant understand our tactics.. Wigan presses us, we sit back to defend and invite more pressure.. Wtf ? And we are 1 goal up in last 10 minutes and still playing high line..?
Cazorla got nullified today again under pressure.. Arteta hardly made any forward passes, actually he doesnt risk it. He knows if he misses it we will pay for it.. Only Wilshere puts his body on the line and fights on or off the ball.. McArthur and Maloney ran our midfield.. We need to press as a team.. Podolski hardly possess the energy to play 30 minutes that too without pressing..

Ratings..
Sczeny - 7.. Solid.. He has definitely improved his distribution.. he offers some composure which Mannone doesnt..
Sagna - 6 had a lot of work to do.. Good work along with some poor positioning and mispasses..
Metskr - 6.5 we cant play such high line with him.. Good interceptions.. Solid except when his slow pace was exposed..
Vermelen - 6 he has been good for about 5 matches save that Bradford..
Gibbs - 6.5 defensively solid.. Didnt have much chances upfront..
Arteta - 6 played safe making simple passes.. Well taken penalty
Wilshere - 6 fought hard.. Took knocks continuously.. Needs more support from other players while pressing..
Cazorla - 4 poor again under pressure.. A weakness which will be exploited more frequently now..
Podolski - 5 on anonymous mode.. He doesnt have the energy to do under pressure.. Should play no more than 60
minutes in such matches..
Ox - 6.5 best player today.. Tried his skills which didnt comeoff half of the time.. Looked like the only player with some spark..
Walcott - 4 poor.. These are the sort of games where your finishing or pace wont help you.. Failed to hold the ball.. I hope he learns soon that this is not his position..
Ramsey - 5 all over the field after he came in.. Dont remember anything special..

Missed the game, visited some old friends in central london - they're over from Sweden. Kept up to date with the score on iphone though.

Good win, but can't comment as I've seen nothing!

Samuelj29060 wrote:Missed the game, visited some old friends in central london - they're over from Sweden. Kept up to date with the score on iphone though.

Good win, but can't comment as I've seen nothing!

highlights will do.. same boring game.. Wigan pressed hard and played physical nullifying our midfield.. we struggled to create any chances.. lucky to get a soft penalty and win the game.. Wigan looked more threatening but our defence stood the test..

Journalist: "Arsene, that's two wins in a row now" / Wenger: "Three. We play in the Premier League."

Lol.

Press conference: http://t.co/QTJlIsdE

Eman wrote:My Mom kept commenting how impressed she was with Wigan and how they wanted it more than us. When she said she thought maybe they were just as good as us, I stopped listening to everything she said , but the fact she even said that proves we weren't great today. When we got chances, we looked dangerous, but we did not get many chances. At least we kept a clean sheet. I'll take 3 points

I agree with your mom, Wigan were the better team today, but great teams get 3 points when they shouldn't get 3 points. This is a lesson Arsenal needs to learn if they want to stay in the top 4.

Oh, and after today, please finally give Podolski a run at CF, because Walcott is not the answer.

I dont care how we win, all I care about is the 3 points for now.

Has Wenger turned Giroud to next Chamakh?

I think Walcott will get better, but we still need a Top striker.

Sina wrote:

Three straight wins in the PL

We rode our luck today but we just were not gonna let them score. The battling aspect was good to see.

Tactically, we got lucky. The substitutions made things worse. I'm not sure what Arsene was trying to do, but playing this formation at the end was always going to cause problems:

Szczesney
Sagna Merty Vermy Gibbs
Ramsey Arteta Wilshere Coquelin Cazorla
Walcott

Looks good on paper to hold a lead, but it was pure luck that we held on in my opinion.

Koscielny came on, but not until stoppage time. For the last ten minutes we just invited Wigan to attack us and we somehow got away with it.

Theo maybe now understands that there is more to playing CF than pace and finishing. His movement was not great and he couldn't hold the ball up when we needed him to.

I would still give him another game or two, but at that point we may have signed a proper striker (Giroud is doing ok imo, but we need another).

But...we won...again

I don't see how it was pure luck because we were hardly stretched by Wigan after we made the subs.

I suppose Wenger's line of thinking was that Chamberain was tiring and he needed some extra bodies in midfield to help us keep the ball, so Rasmey seemed the logical choice. For what little Ramsey was involved in, he actually did do what was required of him; tracked their left wing back, and helped us keep the ball.

Brining on Coquelin was a good move because we needed some extra bite in midfield. He came on and made some really good challenges.

GoonerJay29 wrote:I don't see how it was pure luck because we were hardly stretched by Wigan after we made the subs.

I suppose Wenger's line of thinking was that Chamberain was tiring and he needed some extra bodies in midfield to help us keep the ball, so Rasmey seemed the logical choice. For what little Ramsey was involved in, he actually did do what was required of him; tracked their left wing back, and helped us keep the ball.

Brining on Coquelin was a good move because we needed some extra bite in midfield. He came on and made some really good challenges.

exactly

furiouswindbottom wrote:
For the last ten minutes we just invited Wigan to attack us and we somehow got away with it.:

missed the entire match apart from last 10 minutes, what fun.....

why was szczesney hoofing the ball from every goal kick? lost it repeatedly,was we scared to play out or something?

A few times, when the centre backs got the ball they just couldn't play the ball forward because of Wigna's pressure. I guess Szczesny decided that in order to get Arsenal up the pitch, he needed to go long.

It was a sensible move to bring on Ramsey and Coquelin. Their wide players were causing all sorts of problems. It was important to go 4-5-1 against their 3-4-3.

It was a very exhausting game. And like wenger said " We had chances, but, especially in the final part of the game [it] was difficult to come out at the back and master possession. They had a lot of possession in the end but we really wanted it. "

We won because we showed resilience and true grit. It's not bad to win dirty at times

What's up guys?

Sorry I haven't been here in a while. Good write-up Jay and nice moderation from RG as usual.

Wigan weren't actually 3-4-3 today, they switched formation, even the commentator spoke about it. Some other analysts said the same thing too. I'll upload my tactical analysis in like 10 minutes.

Greetings to y'all

Naj