Re: Official WOB thread.

[sportsczy]

You can't play the style Wenger is known for if your midfield is mediocre... that's why i'm surprised that he hasn't focused there.

[Great Leader Sprucenuce]

The signings have been fine, at least this summer they were.

Problem is the manager isn't getting the best from those players and even some of the ones who were there before. That never happened before, for all the problems Wenger always got the best from what he had.

He isn't now so it's time to part ways imo.

[Jay29]

The only signing we missed this summer was a centre back. We needed a holding midfielder, too, but at least we had the numbers there. Signing Chambers, Debuchy, Alexis and Ospina was very good business and I think we all agreed as such before the season started.

There's been a lot of players not performing this season and that's the most damning thing against Wenger right now. Mertesacker hasn't been the same since the World Cup, Ramsey has been terrible, Cazorla has been poor, Ozil has been shunted out to the wing, Wilshere doesn't have a set role in the team and now even Welbeck is going to be shoved out on the wing to accommodate Giroud.

Possibly the only two players playing well are Chamberlain and Alexis, where the former's getting an extended run in the team that's obviously doing him a lot of good and the latter is playing in his best position.

Then you've got the likes of Rosicky and Podolski, who can contribute a lot to the first team yet aren't given any sort of real chance to show that. And poor old Joel Campbell, deserving of a chance to show what he can do but being replaced by Yaya Sanogo on the bench. He's not giving Hector Bellerin chances, either, and is forcing a fullback to play centre back and a centre back to play fullback instead.

It's almost like Wenger hasn't got a clue how to manage a big squad.

[Chumlum]

Related to multiple players underperforming & the usual disappearance of sexy passing football ... it is strange, isn't it, how poor the players (and whole team) seem to be when crossing, taking corners, and taking set pieces? Not to mention defending these things, although there was some improvement on that recently ... but we're on shaky ground again now.

Even a lot of players who excel in these areas seem to experience a dip in performance after coming to Arsenal. I fear for Alexis' future!

In terms of Wenger's responsibilities, I agree his acquisition of Alexis, Debuchy, Chambers, Ospina--all good-to-great signings. Getting homegrown Welbeck for such a relatively low fee was also excellent. But that strong performance in the transfer market is tarnished by the failure to get those 1-2 defensive signings.

Had Wenger signed, say, Manolas and Schneiderlin, to pick just two linked names, might Arsenal still be having a difficult, injury-ridden season? Sure. Very possible. But there'd at least have been a stronger platform to mount a turnaround in form and not field such a ramshackle back four week in, week out.

[sportsczy]

Oh i don't know about that. The squad may be big, but it's imbalanced. There's no depth at CB, CM or CF. You have a bunch of AMs and wingers... completely overloaded there.

[Jay29]

I don't think we practice set-piece as much as other teams do because just about every aspect of attacking and defending set-pieces we fail to do to a good standard.

Offensively, the delivery is consistently poor. We've favoured the outswinging corner this season which usually requires a flick-on in the box, but more often than not the delivery doesn't even beat the first man. We're insistent on this too, because I've seen Cazorla go over to the left hand side to take a corner with his left foot just for an outswinger.

We show a lack of imagination when it comes to set-pieces, too. We rarely take a short corner, or try to play the ball to somebody on the edge of the box or anything that's a little different.

We don't mark properly when defending set-pieces despite having everybody come back to defend them, and we lack height in the team.

Just another thing that's been rubbish for a long time and remains to be rubbish today.

[Hapless_Hans]

Then again Arsenal apparently never win against Utd. Case in point, one shot on target, two goals.
So if you take that as a given, no need to get riled up

Inb4 you go on a run in the league now.

[Chumlum]

Arse

Inb4 you go on a run in the league now.

Arsenal will be Invincible from December through May. We will sign Eder Balanta and Lars Bender in the January window. Alexis Sanchez to score a hat trick in the Gunners' thrilling 3-2 defeat of Real Madrid in the CL final. Wenger can retire on a high and then we'll get Klopp.

[6unner]

well...  Ozil, Cazorla, Sanchez, Chambers, Giroud, Debuchy and Welbeck have all been good signings.  I think Wenger has done fine there.

Well I do classify Ozil and Sanchez as class players and players that actually know what it takes to win. Chambers I see potential in him that still needs a lot of work. The rest, Yes I thought that Welbeck would be better than Giroud. Are they really any better than mid-table average players though? Sagnas's defensive stability alone makes him heads and tales better than Debuchy. If anyone still wants to defend Giroud as a top class striker I will just give up there. A top class striker needs some speed and vision with movement and not just once every few matches. Welbeck was 4th choice at manu and about to be replaced by a reserve (deserving or not). Kind of the same thing with our Entire English core. Either Wengers extreme inability in regards to team management and tactics has made them into painfully average players or they were just not as good as we thought.
It is to the point now where I believe that big changes are needed with the manager and players. Unfortunately, Kronke is not the man for the job! Average is what his other professional teams do well.

[MJ]

Wenger's reputation in the transfer market is probably one of the biggest things we'd miss if he walked out.

Alexis and Özil definitely had opportunities to go elsewhere, our two biggest signings ever, and they specifically cited Arsene Wenger as the deciding factor.

But what's the use of drawing in big names if you don't manage them, or the team they play in, well? Kind of defeats the purpose tbh.

The FA Cup win was the best opportunity in years to leave on a high and looking back, (hindsight is 20/20) maybe he should have.

What bothers me most isn't that we're hoping for a top 4 finish and luck in the two cups we're still in, it's that there doesn't appear to be a case for hope that we could salvage something from this season.

Maybe I don't have my expectations set high enough but my hopes at the beginning of the season were a title challenge and serious runs in the cups. Now I'd take a top 4 finish and a very serious run at the FA Cup.

Even if we achieved that, it wouldn't change Wenger. He needed that DM and CB more than he anticipated. As Sport pointed out, Wenger's style is all about having the right personnel and I'm stunned he took us into the season with such an imbalanced squad.

[Hapless_Hans]

I don't get why you'd want Wenger out so much more forcefully after the Utd match compared to before.
Sorry, doesn't make sense at all, Arsenal were set up just fine in the match, had something like 70% possession, truckloads of chances and probably 10+:1 shots on target.
Own goal was a freak bad luck thing with a foul by Fellaini involved.
Second goal a counter when all your teams fighting for an equalizer.

Fail to see what Wenger has done wrong in this game that make you jump on him now.
I can only understand it as an expression of a long term frustration which is vented after such a game, when a win against Utd seemed to close and doable.
This is however the definition of 'kneejerk'.

[Raptorgunner]

[MJ]

This has been building up since deadline day passed without a DM/CB.

I always said give him a few transfer windows with the funds he's built up and then judge and he didn't get it done if we're being frank.

Any reaction after the Man United game was bound to be emotional and therefore closer to a kneejerk than anything but I don't think opinions changed sharply after the game.

We're aware that he set the team up well and it was down to chances not being taken, something beyond his control. But the position we're in is entirely on him, motivating the players is still on him.

I find these 'brigades' silly. There's nothing I want more than for Arsene to turn it around and be at the helm of it all for more success but it's looking less and less likely that that'll happen without serious change. Change that I don't know he's capable of.

[Hapless_Hans]

yes of course I understand that built up steam is blown off after the game, however you know as well as I do that failing to get a DM/CB was not a problem at all yesterday. In fact, Arteta was pretty good.

The players were motivated too, even overmotivated if you look at Wilshere, or the situation before the 0:2.
You completely dominated Utd all game.
Your problem is you lack quality in precision at the end, in front of goal.
You're missing Özil, Welbeck isn't top class, and the Ox's and Wilshere's end product isn't top class. That's about it, why this game wasn't won. That and a lot of bad luck. Cazorla and Alexis had good chances too.

I know the general complaints you have and I understand, but contrary to other games this season yesterday you actually played very well.

[izzy]

All this talk about signing a strong CM/DM..........

Yet you guys fail to realize that Wenger believes you already have one......................

[urbaNRoots]

I don't get why you'd want Wenger out so much more forcefully after the Utd match compared to before.
Sorry, doesn't make sense at all, Arsenal were set up just fine in the match, had something like 70% possession, truckloads of chances and probably 10+:1 shots on target.
Own goal was a freak bad luck thing with a foul by Fellaini involved.
Second goal a counter when all your teams fighting for an equalizer.

Fail to see what Wenger has done wrong in this game that make you jump on him now.
I can only understand it as an expression of a long term frustration which is vented after such a game, when a win against Utd seemed to close and doable.
This is however the definition of 'kneejerk'.

If you still don't understand our frustrations then you haven't paid attention, or you haven't read any of the posts here. If you cared to read the posts in this thread you would've noticed that barely anyone is talking about Man Utd, that game is just another failure in a big match, in the same manner as usual.

Arsenal fans have grown tired of getting humiliated by every semi-big team, failing to make up for it against weaker teams while playing embarrassing one dimensional football, so we're allowed to rant about the shit that has been happening for YEARS without having people patronize us with words like "kneejerk".

[Hapless_Hans]

I just said that I understand the general frustrations.

Still I'd say that it is interesting you'd classify that game as 'humiliating'.
It's only humiliating because Utd were there for the taking and clearly inferior.

It's not a failure to win 'big games', that wasn't a top game lol, it's also not a problem of 'heart', or 'grit' or 'motivation' as commentators harp about.

I think your player are rather overmotivated and have to big a heart, thats why they start hoofing the ball forward brainlessly when they've still got 4 minutes.
I think they don't lack motivation, but a bit of brain (footballwise) and quality.

Anyway that was probably the best game you've played all season, yet that's the game which spawns the WOB thread, that's what I find curious.
You should have understood by now that Utd games are apparently jinxed, no matter how well you do lol.
Unless you're mad Wenger didn't go see a gypsy woman in preparation, to do something about the jinx, I'm not sure what he did wrong in this game.

[urbaNRoots]

Best performance of the season a 1-2 loss at home but we shouldn't complain because we had the possessio and empty shots

Stop trolling, if you don't have anything negative to say about Wenger then get out of this thread.

[Raptorgunner]

I guess losing 2-1 at home to worst United team is a great result for Wenger.

Mourinho is right when he says it is easy when you have no pressure
to win the title.

[MJ]

No, tbh, we did play great football bar our end product for most of the game. We've struggled to play that kind of football for more than 1-2 minutes per match but we held it up for a while.

It was only when we conceded that brainfart of a moment with Gibbs and Szczesny that our play started to look panicky and United got those lethal counter attacks.

Add the fact that we haven't beaten United in three years and that this was our best shot at doing so and you have the perfect storm for WOB threads.

[Hapless_Hans]

I'm not trolling. You guys are so locked on the usual same old well known grievances that now you have confirmation bias with everything that happens.

[Hapless_Hans]

I guess losing 2-1 at home to worst United team is a great result for Wenger.

Mourinho is right when he says it is easy when you have no pressure
to win the title.

quoting Mourinhos bullshit against Wenger must be a punishable offense for an Arsenal fan tbh

[chad4401]

wonder whats wenger's pep talk like, before a lot of these games....

[Chumlum]

Wenger is a legend, a great manager, and I'm confident history will vindicate him overall ... in the end.

But I do wonder if part of why he struggles these days is that he doesn't quite know how to relate to players in a way that will energize them effectively to perform to their best. I think players know & respect him immensely, and some of them genuinely try very hard to do their best for him. That's obvious. But I think that there are these tiny little ways in which individual motivation & team cohesion might have changed, because of the way newer generation(s) of footballers have come up, that subtly prevent Wenger from being as effective as you, me, he, and his own squad & staff probably think he should be.

Just a bit of speculation, nothing more.

Even SAF, a truly singular figure with once-in-a-lifetime talents, talked near the end of his career about how he didn't understand footballers today.

[Raptorgunner]

Usmanov "My opinion - and I tell it openly - we need to strengthen every position to play on the level of such teams in (the) U.K. as Chelsea and Manchester City, in Europe like Real (Madrid), Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, (Bayern Munich) and other clubs," he told CNBC in an interview.

"Arsenal is a dream that sometimes becomes a mirage and sometimes a pain as every dream," Uzbek-born Usmanov said.

"(The) potential of the team is there, but there is no critical evaluation of mistakes and they need to need to acknowledge them. Because no genius can retain the same level of genius if they do not acknowledge mistakes. It's only when you admit your mistakes that you can get rid of them."
"He is one of the greatest coaches, not just of European, but of world football. But we have a Russian proverb which goes: "Even an old lady can have a roof falling on her," he said.

"Everybody makes mistakes. He can make mistakes and I know as you age it is more difficult, more challenging to accept one's mistakes," Usmanov said.

"Does (Wenger) have money or not? There is officially money in the club," Usmanov said.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102211548

[El Gunner]

Usmanov sees the light.
Would be good if Sir Chips and Stan also had these views.

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