Arsenal Vs West Ham [EPL 15/16]

It comes from giving too much freedom to our attackers to go where they want. By nature, Ramsey wants to attack and Cazorla wants go infield, but if you give them specific instructions about their positioning you can avoid that problem - provided they follow them, of course.

Players need to perform a specific function for attacks to work. You can't just stick them all on the pitch and just wait for the magic to happen. I feel we're guilty of doing that at times.

On another note, the average position of the full-backs is too deep considering we were playing a team that didn't have a threat outwide.

Calma guys.
There seems to be too much of knee-jerking going on in here.It's just the first game.

I personally felt twas better we fans got to know Cech wasn't the second coming of Lev Yashin & he too is prone to mistakes.He was responsible for Czech Republic getting eliminated in the 2008 Euros & I felt he seemed wrong footed for Barkley's goal during BAT as well.Anyways the sooner we get back to Earth the better.

I don't understand how signing a new CF and/or DM is gonna change our fortunes when the mistake seemed to be at the tactical level.For one AW to got the personnel and the formation wrong and his folly got vindicated by the players who seemed to misplacing every friggin' pass.Even the usually dependent Cazorla had a few of his own.

The biggest issue here is AW trying to squeeze all his best players into the XI thus damaging the team as a whole.Ramsey cannot play with Coq.It has be Cazorla.

As pointed out by those screenies posted,Ramsey seemed to take too advanced positions to get the ball while according to this formation he was the one who had to be feeding the ball.Ultimately,Cazorla had to come infield which meant one of the wings was completely vacant & against a diamond,it's a crime IMO.

Coq was forced to try all those Hollywood passes which isn't a part of his game.Due to the lack of players on the wing you had Giroud playing on the wings half the time,unable to beat his man or bunting poor crosses with no player in the box.

Unlike others I found Debuchy to be OK but he's definitely not as good as Bellerin at least based on current form.

Only Monreal seemed good yesterday.Hope he signs a new contract ASAP.

That said,I guess people(not anyone specific) here are jumping the gun asking AW to quit by next season,new CF/DM bah blah.Let's wait for a few matches before we start the WOB.

^Signing a CF and DM improves our squad massively, I don't think this is really hard to understand. Yes of course tactically it was a poor match, but signing a striker means no Giroud as our starting CF which immediately improves our chances of winning and a DM would allow to bench Coquelin in matches like these as I think Arteta is nowadays an unreliable player apart from a few minutes to close games and against weaker opposition.

I said in our expectations thread before the season started that we need to win the league now or our best players will leave again as in 2011, in fact I think it might be even too late now, they will probably leave anyway should we not win the league. A new manager might make the best out of this squad, because as it looks right now Wenger hasn't learned his past mistakes. I hope he gets it right though, nothing would be better.

Can't get past a standard diamond midfield with a 16 year old at it's base.

We will never learn to adapt tactics and style to the specific opposition we face. We only know one way to play, which only works when the opposing manager is stupid enough to bend over in awe and allow us our comfort zone.

I refrain from making extreme comments. But this one is on Wenger as much as it is on the players.

Cringeworthy, at best.

I guess we're going overboard with this title challenge thing IMO.If we are to realistically talk about title challenge we need to wait a bit more,at least after round 10 we'll know we are in it.

Just like we've a good squad,I believe most of the others have strengthened too incl. the middle tier clubs due to the filthy TV money.If a player like Dimitri Payet is in WHU,I hope people realize how difficult things might be.

That said,we need to atleast challenging for the title unlike last season but I want is people to give AW some time before we can start the WOB.

And again I'd say the players we buy are gonna do zilch until we get the tactics right.We were craving for a top class GK,and now what happened?

Rather than blaming the players,blame AW for the formation and the players' lack of ability to play their specific roles.

If only player X had played his role in the formation that's the whole issue imo.Either AW changes the formation and/or personnel or makes them understand their roles better.

Had we won yesterday or had we avoided the two mistakes which directly led to goals,I don't think we would be craving for Benz or at least not to this extent.Still 3 points lost.

P.S. Are we really thinking we're getting Benz?

RealGunner wrote:https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CL_3u9KW8AAGXIK.jpg

THIS. I came on here today to post this and nothing else.

And the sad thing is we already know we play like this. We've been playing like this for the last 4 years now if not more.

And THAT is exactly how you DON'T play against a diamond

Having a bloody clusterfack in the middle of the *bleep* park and getting dominated by Mark Noble and a 16 year old FFS

I did have Reece Oxford on my bench and did expect him to perform decently, just not bossing our midfield so much

Even more frustrating after we played Lyon's diamond in pre-season and tore them to pieces.

Jay, do/did you have time to compare the two games?

I think yesterday, we just didn't spread play at all. Also, Cazorla on the wing was a crucial difference. Even at the Commy Shield, it was clear that it is not his best position any mroe. Yet, AW

I strongly feel that our 1-game-jitters are down to tinkering with working systems past the pre-season period. Remember the 4-1-4-1 disaster?

Pre-season is where these innovations are to be trialled/tested/drilled into the players. But the fact that the transfer window is still open gives an incentive to tamper around - and gives the fanbase more reason to clamour for unicorns farting rainbows.

Transfers should only be allowed before season starts and over a winter break ffs. But that's for some other thread/time.

And while tactics/formation can help explain a bit of our performance going forward, the two goals were downright shambolic. And to think that we played our oldest and wisest defenders

A few brilliant posts on the last few pages, agree mostly with what EL Patron and Jay said. But I want urban to explain something to me.... WHY AND HOW IS HE SO ADAMENT THAT WALCOTT SHOULD START OVER GIROUD???????????????????????????

Walcott is a waste 8/10 up front. He doesn't get into the game and it feels as if we then play the game mostly with 10 men. At least with Giroud we get a hardworker and a CF who DOES KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT A CF ROLE (especially in this team) and he tries to stretch the play as if he is the only one at Arsenal FC who knows the team lack some general width to our game. Patron hit the nail on the head with his post on Walcott.

RG and Mole will remember not too long ago I talked about the width issue on twitter and Mole (his usual joking self, said Bellerin was the solution and RG confirmed it). But in a sense that is also true and this is where I'm starting to agree with urban. Debuchy was shit! If there was a clear difference in our team from the one that played y'day and the one that ended last season - it is that there's no one storming up that right wing adding width to our game. Debuchy looked slow and lethargic and was beaten once or twice to the ball by West Ham players. I don't agree to the extent that Debuchy is utter crap and Chambers should start before him as I believe his injury layoff and lack of PL game time could have had something to do with his performance, but regardless Bellerin should get back into the team as soon as he gets fit.

The performance was abysmal. Cech was at fault for both goals no two thoughts on that IMO, but there's no pointing fingers towards him because we win as a team and lose as a team, and even more so we are quite used to losses of this display. Take some of our poor performances and losses to "weaker" opposition in the last few seasons and it is basically a copy-paste situation.

With all that being said though, I also agree a little with T-Mach. We shouldn't lose confidence now because there are still 37 games left. If this goes on into September and we keep dropping needless points, then yes, by all means, we can start a riot on GL. And go loco.

I think you, quite like Arseblog, are being unfair to Walcott. We had more shots after Theo was introduced yesterday, but I don't want to make inferences on one off stats in an abysmal overall performance.

He's not going to do too much with the ball. But to deny what he does bring to the team is taking it too far. Him and Giroud have completely different skill sets and the team has to understand how to play in both situations. You can't ping lonog balls to Theo, and you can't put Giroud through and expect him to beat a CB for pace to get at the end of it. Both Theo and Giroud have shown good touches and finishing prowess on different occasions, though I am inclined to think that Theo is more clinical of the two. Theo is by no means a traditional CF, nor one of those false forward bs guys. But set up to play to his strengths and he will have a good impact on goal - here there is no denying what the stats suggest.

I think the choice of who starts, from Theo/Giroud/Welbeck, depends on who we are facing. They are somewhat like Plan A and Plan B. Unfortunately, our players never ever seem to understand the need to switch things around when something clearly doesn't work. Or maybe the gaffer doesn't. Or maybe they don't communicate well enough.

In all,

The Giroud/Walcott debate is going to go on all season, isn't it? I'm really looking forward to it.

srigooner wrote:Jay, do/did you have time to compare the two games?

Just a couple of general observations:

Arsenal's attacking shape against Lyon was better than it was against West Ham. Against Lyon, Iwobi (LW) and Ox (RW) rarely left their respective sides of the pitch; if Iwobi came infield to play closer to Giroud (he's a forward, so he'll do that by nature), Ozil drifted out to a wide left position. So when we had the ball, we always had the option to spread the play.

Also noticeable was that Ramsey played a lot closer to Coquelin against Lyon and picked his moments to get forward better, rather than go forward at every opportunity as he did against West Ham. So he wasn't clogging the centre of the pitch all the time.

Lyon played a high line which enabled us to bypass midfield altogether and play more direct passes in behind; Ozil got a lot of joy getting in behind. West Ham played very deep and forced us to play through midfield, and we found that tough since the movement from the midfielders was poor (Ozil very static, Ramsey too advanced, Cazorla too narrow) and we didn't use our outlets (Ox, the two full-backs) very well.

Putting tactics aside, Arsenal simply played with more energy and urgency against Lyon than against West Ham. Noticeable was Debuchy's performances; vs Lyon he was high up the pitch and lively, vs West Ham he looked slow and lethargic. Arsenal pressed and won the ball in good areas vs Lyon and were devastating on the counter, but were too passive vs West Ham.

As long as people accept G-Rude has his set of strengths and weaknesses the Theo vs. G-Rude debate is fine with me.

But fans talk as if G-Rude is worse than a traffic cone.I hope AW plays Theo frequently as CF so that we get to know he's no R9.

You had people built like tanks playing for WHU and they're playing with a deep defensive line.Under such conditions Theo will be equally ineffective as G-Rude was yesterday.

AW did start Theo vs. Chelsea because he knew G-Rude had been rendered ineffective vs. Chelsea in the past & thus decided to start Theo as CF and it sort of paid dividends.

It's more like horses for courses.

Anyways this Theo vs. G-Rude argument is completely useless wrt yesterday's match as we lost the game in midfield & defense.Neither Theo nor Benz was gonna come good with our tactical mess of yesterday.

Maybe twas just me but I found Debuchy OK.Maybe its because whenever I've seen him play for us he has been horrendous.But is he "bring back Chambers as RB" ineffective?I highly doubt that.

That said it's clear our future RBs are most likely to be Bellerin as a starter with Jenko as the reserve.

I sincerely hope Ramsey learns when to join the attack and take up advanced positions.He seems to always make that mistake.Anderlecht 3-3 comes to mind.Hope AW can sort this out.

Also I found the second goal to be more horrendous than the first.Coquelin's needless sliding tackle,the ensuing tangle and Chambo's loose touch.To top it all our CBs were ball watching and seemed to be repelled from the ball and the player.

It seemed the entire playing XI and the subs had been playing the Copa America and the Gold Cup.When you bring a player who's been training with the club only for a week as a game changer instead of giving him minutes at the end,then there's something wrong with the team.

T-Mach wrote:

It's more like horses for courses.

Anyways this Theo vs. G-Rude argument is completely useless wrt yesterday's match as we lost the game in midfield & defense.Neither Theo nor Benz was gonna come good with our tactical mess of yesterday.

+1

MJ wrote:That's horrible.

Do we have any natural wingers in our squad at all ffs?

Obertan is available

T-Mach wrote:
It seemed the entire playing XI and the subs had been playing the Copa America and the Gold Cup.When you bring a player who's been training with the club only for a week as a game changer instead of giving him minutes at the end,then there's something wrong with the team.

First, he should not even have been on the bench with no pre-season.

Second, we shouldn't even be in a situation that we have to throw him on.

So much for all that talk of depth.

El Gunner wrote:A few brilliant posts on the last few pages, agree mostly with what EL Patron and Jay said. But I want urban to explain something to me.... WHY AND HOW IS HE SO ADAMENT THAT WALCOTT SHOULD START OVER GIROUD???????????????????????????

Walcott is a waste 8/10 up front. He doesn't get into the game and it feels as if we then play the game mostly with 10 men. At least with Giroud we get a hardworker and a CF who DOES KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT A CF ROLE (especially in this team) and he tries to stretch the play as if he is the only one at Arsenal FC who knows the team lack some general width to our game. Patron hit the nail on the head with his post on Walcott.

RG and Mole will remember not too long ago I talked about the width issue on twitter and Mole (his usual joking self, said Bellerin was the solution and RG confirmed it). But in a sense that is also true and this is where I'm starting to agree with urban. Debuchy was shit! If there was a clear difference in our team from the one that played y'day and the one that ended last season - it is that there's no one storming up that right wing adding width to our game. Debuchy looked slow and lethargic and was beaten once or twice to the ball by West Ham players. I don't agree to the extent that Debuchy is utter crap and Chambers should start before him as I believe his injury layoff and lack of PL game time could have had something to do with his performance, but regardless Bellerin should get back into the team as soon as he gets fit.

The performance was abysmal. Cech was at fault for both goals no two thoughts on that IMO, but there's no pointing fingers towards him because we win as a team and lose as a team, and even more so we are quite used to losses of this display. Take some of our poor performances and losses to "weaker" opposition in the last few seasons and it is basically a copy-paste situation.

With all that being said though, I also agree a little with T-Mach. We shouldn't lose confidence now because there are still 37 games left. If this goes on into September and we keep dropping needless points, then yes, by all means, we can start a riot on GL. And go loco.

I prefer Walcott because he can actually move and run and doesn't occupy positions of other players like Giroud constantly does with his ridiculous dropping deep kind of thing. With him Özil/Ramsey/Cazorla never play at their full potential because he never offers an opening that these creative attacking midfielders can exploit.

Walcott is the complete opposite, he's quick, he can move, he doesn't block other players, with him our creative players play with full freedom and they don't worry if the striker can receive one pass or not, they just play it and EXPECT Walcott to get there.

Now Giroud is an acceptable player if we have some wide players who make runs in behind playing with him, but that's not his fault and this was evident yesterday when Wenger put Cazorla/Oxlade-Chamberlain to support him... two players who don't make any effort to run in behind the space Giroud leaves. The manager of Arsenal Football Club, it appears doesn't know this very basic stuff.

Once again, Giroud is a good but limited player, you need to make adjustements with him which we can't afford if we want to take full advantage of our strengths which lie with our attacking midfielders (Özil/Cazorla/Ramsey).

So that's why I prefer Walcott over Giroud, who maybe is not necessarily the better striker, but is more adaptable to our style of play and other players.

srigooner wrote:

T-Mach wrote:
It seemed the entire playing XI and the subs had been playing the Copa America and the Gold Cup.When you bring a player who's been training with the club only for a week as a game changer instead of giving him minutes at the end,then there's something wrong with the team.

First, he should not even have been on the bench with no pre-season.

Second, we shouldn't even be in a situation that we have to throw him on.

So much for all that talk of depth.

The depth is injured. We didn't have Rosicky or Welbeck available. Ox is usually a squad player but was playing since Alexis wasn't fit.

urbaNRoots wrote:

El Gunner wrote:A few brilliant posts on the last few pages, agree mostly with what EL Patron and Jay said. But I want urban to explain something to me.... WHY AND HOW IS HE SO ADAMENT THAT WALCOTT SHOULD START OVER GIROUD???????????????????????????

Walcott is a waste 8/10 up front. He doesn't get into the game and it feels as if we then play the game mostly with 10 men. At least with Giroud we get a hardworker and a CF who DOES KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT A CF ROLE (especially in this team) and he tries to stretch the play as if he is the only one at Arsenal FC who knows the team lack some general width to our game. Patron hit the nail on the head with his post on Walcott.

RG and Mole will remember not too long ago I talked about the width issue on twitter and Mole (his usual joking self, said Bellerin was the solution and RG confirmed it). But in a sense that is also true and this is where I'm starting to agree with urban. Debuchy was shit! If there was a clear difference in our team from the one that played y'day and the one that ended last season - it is that there's no one storming up that right wing adding width to our game. Debuchy looked slow and lethargic and was beaten once or twice to the ball by West Ham players. I don't agree to the extent that Debuchy is utter crap and Chambers should start before him as I believe his injury layoff and lack of PL game time could have had something to do with his performance, but regardless Bellerin should get back into the team as soon as he gets fit.

The performance was abysmal. Cech was at fault for both goals no two thoughts on that IMO, but there's no pointing fingers towards him because we win as a team and lose as a team, and even more so we are quite used to losses of this display. Take some of our poor performances and losses to "weaker" opposition in the last few seasons and it is basically a copy-paste situation.

With all that being said though, I also agree a little with T-Mach. We shouldn't lose confidence now because there are still 37 games left. If this goes on into September and we keep dropping needless points, then yes, by all means, we can start a riot on GL. And go loco.

I prefer Walcott because he can actually move and run and doesn't occupy positions of other players like Giroud constantly does with his ridiculous dropping deep kind of thing. With him Özil/Ramsey/Cazorla never play at their full potential because he never offers an opening that these creative attacking midfielders can exploit.

Walcott is the complete opposite, he's quick, he can move, he doesn't block other players, with him our creative players play with full freedom and they don't worry if the striker can receive one pass or not, they just play it and EXPECT Walcott to get there.

Now Giroud is an acceptable player if we have some wide players who make runs in behind playing with him, but that's not his fault and this was evident yesterday when Wenger put Cazorla/Oxlade-Chamberlain to support him... two players who don't make any effort to run in behind the space Giroud leaves. The manager of Arsenal Football Club, it appears doesn't know this very basic stuff.

Once again, Giroud is a good but limited player, you need to make adjustements with him which we can't afford if we want to take full advantage of our strengths which lie with our attacking midfielders (Özil/Cazorla/Ramsey).

So that's why I prefer Walcott over Giroud, who maybe is not necessarily the better striker, but is more adaptable to our style of play and other players.

Fair enough.

I get your point and the fact that Giroud doesn't bring the best out of our midfield is true. But I still honestly think Walcott doesn't do much better as a CF on that front. Now as a RW. That's another story. He brings pace and with that a runner outwide - width (again we're talking about this) and that's how you use him. He has scored from there and he has assisted from there. And I also actually think having both of Giroud (CF) and Walcott (RW) on the field brings the best out of both of them. Walcott makes the runs from outwide, and he with Ox as well are actually the only two players in our team which take the ball to the byline and cut it back (even if it doesn't happen a lot) sometimes they do, and that's another dimension to our attack to use. Walcott then is more involved and becomes our natural outlet with Giroud (EH HEYYYY so now we have two of those). And I have seen in the past how effective Walcott is on that wing as an outlet, especially in counter attacks. Also with Giroud's movement to the left side of the pitch which is always vacant as we know, it leaves/creates space for Walcott to make those diagonal runs infield (EH HEYYY what do you know, now we have something that Ozil can find with his through balls) It's basically more effective and adds more dimensions to our attack if you ask me.

So having both in our starting line-up in those respective positions is the best way forward imo (at least for now). I don't care if Walcott's aspires to be prime Henry, he will NEVER be, and it's best for him to accept that his best position is on the right side.

That's a weak alibi at best, Jay.

Alexis should not have been involved in any way - much less with us chasing a 2 goal deficit.

Desperate stuff.

We got to give credit to WHU, normally they come to get destroyed at Arsenal but their new manager really outplayed Wenger.

I know its becoming a habit for us to start slow, but past few seasons we had the chance to win the games, just lost due to bad luck. Sunday loss we gave up, which is just embarrassing for team with so many top players.

The truth is we have no leader in our team. Wengers excuse was "West Ham were better prepared than us"
Wenger never learns, always trying false players in the wrong positions.

Even though many fans and the media have been picking on Cech for the goals, the first one he had to come out since no Arsenal player bothered block out the player, and the second goal He couldn't see the ball until it was too late.

First one was poor defensive organization, even though Cech eventually ended up in no man's land.

Second was Coquelin tackle and Ox turnover - both being horrendous; as well as Cech going completely wrong.

Neither goal was completely his fault; nor can he be completely absolved for either goal.

srigooner wrote:First one was poor defensive organization, even though Cech eventually ended up in no man's land.

Second was Coquelin tackle and Ox turnover - both being horrendous; as well as Cech going completely wrong.

Neither goal was completely his fault; nor can he be completely absolved for either goal.

Exactly, I believe even if he didn't come out, we would still concede there since it was at such close range. I really feel bad for Cech, the media is going crazy on him.