How Convincing Are We As Title Challengers?
Ever since May we’ve been on a real high and as we extend our unbeaten run to 11 games. Since the Community Shield game we have looked fairly sluggish in our play of late however we’re refusing to lose which is a new mental dimension that is welcome to our game, no doubt. I think our problem currently is being unsure of our strongest team, although the first 10 games should shape it…..if injuries don’t do it for us.
We’ve also missed our strongest back four playing together (although Calum Chambers is staking a claim at the minute). I do believe that we need to go back to a 4-2-3-1 formation, though even if it was to come at Jack Wilshere’s expense. I won’t jump on the new trending ‘bash Jack Wilshere’ hype, if anything he’s started the season off pretty solid.
The problem is we don’t transition quickly enough. With our former 4-2-3-1 formation we can play our No. 10’s in their position, you know the No. 10 role…. Arsene Wenger has always had a particular liking for utilising central creative players on the flanks, think back to Alex Hleb, Samir Nasri, Andrey Arshavin, Tomas Rosicky. The majority have been successful for different reasons but Mesut Ozil and Santi Cazorla will be wasted there.
Santi has been in and out of form ever since his superb debut season and it’s no surprise it’s due to the arrival of Ozil who’s taken up the central positions. I think this means he’d make for a better impact player like yesterday where he put Aaron Ramsey’s goal on a plate after coming on.
What annoyed me about our tactics yesterday was that Wenger ended the game with less direct players than we started with. Olivier Giroud was a good sub but Alexis Sanchez should have stayed on. He was pressing very well and was even gesturing the boys to help out.
If Wilshere was going to come off eventually he should have come off for Giroud. Alexis and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain on both flanks with Ozil in the middle behind Giroud would have got us going a lot earlier to maybe, just maybe get all three points.
Of course you’d take this result due to circumstances but against any good organised outfit we’re all over the place and we look just like we always have in the big games, A MESS! Wenger’s never really been a tactical genius in terms of countering opposition threat, (Ozil vs. Seamus Coleman validates this) what he finds success in is putting together a really good team.
We used to boast great balance of power, pace, flair, skill and so much more. Now our whole midfields are clones, great players but do the same thing. The middle gets so congested it’s frustrating.
If Giroud plays he’ll need two direct players either side of him, as would Ozil behind him. Pick any two from Alexis, Joel Campbell and the Ox, then Theo Walcott to come back of course, oh how we’ve missed his goal threat. Just balance the attack really it’s not that difficult to do.
Alexis is also better on the flanks I think he’d thrive coming in off the left but needs a partner if he plays up front even Luis Suarez and Sergio Aguero benefitted off partners and you’d think Alexis is of the same ilk.
We are paying an awful lot of money to play our most valuable players out of position. We need to base the team around them rather than squeeze them in somewhere.
It’s a given we need powerhouse of a midfielder, even more so than a striker I’m pretty sure of that. Champions League qualification can’t come soon enough so we can secure the extra funds allowing us to move more in the market. Mikel Arteta and Mathieu Flamini just do not dominate.
Flamini is incredibly good at telling other people what to do as opposed to doing his job himself, a top DM would have also flew at Romelu Lukaku who had all the time in the world to either set up a shot or provide the assist he did to Steven Naismith.
We also need a new CB for sure, I hope this Kostas Manolas chap is decent because I think we need someone good enough to potentially displace Mertesacker. Per is brilliant and very solid but unfortunately quicker teams expose his severe lack of pace. If we could maybe switch it up for the bigger games we’d have a greater chance.
Mertesacker denies us the opportunity to press teams high. As you saw with Germany, they successfully rotated him regarding opposition, so yeah we kind of need to do this too.
In conclusion I’d say we’re good enough to float around the top for an extended period like last season but two players (good CB + powerful DM) short of looking like challengers, three players (+ top CF) short of looking like favourites in my opinion.
My biggest concern however, is Wenger’s reluctance to tactically adapt to decent opposition, which sees him outwitted by more adept coaches.
Unless we change our approach in the tricky away ties I think we might just fall short with this current team, but we look mentally stronger in the way we keep pushing for the whole 90, it could help us pick up points we’d previously drop, after all we probably would’ve lost this fixture last season, in fact we did whilst starting off in similar fashion to this one.
Subomi Oguntoyinbo
I am Subomi. An Arsenal supporter throughout my lifetime currently in my early 20’s. I am a graduate of West London’s Met Film School and an aspiring screenwriter. I do like to write about various topics that interest me and that tends to swing towards matters concerning Arsenal, it’s a passion of mine.
I was born and raised in North London, moved out to Essex but I am now back in North London for university of course.
The FIRST author of a thread whose comments are absolutely spot on and I FULLY AGREE with your observations and comments. Only wish Wenger, Gazides & Co can somehow read this, even by accident, maybe they will wake up to reality.
Another blog post bashing our manager…
As I see it there are coaches who coach for the game and coaches who train a team to play a certain method.
For the first type to be succesful there has to be suffecient almost bottomless funding available.
Wenger is the best at coaching a team to adopt a method and though it is not geling right now it is crazy to start to blame him..
Do your bit as a good fan and supporter.. Talk about the games and critique if u must howeverwhat these sort of blog posts do is counter productive as if we were lose wengr..free fall
Oh sorry arsene is doing a great job m8 he is without dought the best manager and coach around who always manages to get the best out of our top players! How’s that pal better? At the end of the day our record against top sides is poor because of our managers refusal to change tactically to suit the players available, if u want to play with two wide men play two wide men simple! Arshavin was not a wide man and neither are carzorla,Ramsey, or ozil! Why spend big money on players in positions we are overloaded in when we are crying out for a top draw holding mid and striker!!! Simples
You make some very valid arguments.. Especially re Arsenes lack of tactical adaptability and the Wilshire and Sanchez substitutions..
I however am a fan of Flamini, however we do need a DMF for sure. Plus a CD and out and out goal scorer with pace and a shot in him..
Zz.
Jude, have you started watching Wenger in the last two seasons or so? Anybody with an iota of football knowledge knows that Wenger is the biggest obstacle to Arsenal ever winning the PL again.
To put it mildly, Wenger is a tactical dwarf. Last season, Chelsea, Liverpool and City exposed him for what he is with terrible beatings and he simply had no answers. Watch when Arsenal are losing how he berates the fourth official.
Please don’t ever use the words ‘Wenger’ and ‘tactics’ next to each other. You insult “tactics” and the two will never meet.
The quicker Wenger packs his bags the better for Arsenal.
Couldn’t agree more. Wenger is the weak link and I’m convinced he has NO tactics. He picks his team based on who he prefers and not who will do the best job in a position for the team.
His reluctance to play Podolski and Campbell is puzzling. The former has yet to play. I feel like he doesn’t deserve to have them.
For how many years have we watched Man UTD play poorly in the opening 10 games and go on to win titles and trophies. Look on the positive we played badly and have four points. It’s the sign of a good team and shows how much winning the FA Cup has done to the confidence of the team because it was a case on Saturday that even at 2-0 down I thought if we get one goal, well get another which wasn’t the case last season. If we had gone 2-0 down last season it would have been over and it would have been a bout how many.
Also as Martin Tyler said in commentary even though we played badly in first half it wasn’t like last season with the fact we where lucky it was only 2-0, this season it was a case of we were unlucky to be 2-0 down even though we played poorly and Everton where better then us. So there are positives and improvements have been made but the test will be the back to back games against Man City and Chelsea.
I agree some and I dont agree some. But the main point about tactical approach was spot on… its now about player but more on tactical approach of the game that make arsenal getting lesser lethal..meaningless pass and the inability to penetrate defends
This is spot on mate I’ve been saying this for ages if we were playing at an field then it would of been 5-0 and wouldn’t of been able to come back! What worries me Is that wenger never learns and always sets up wrong for the big games! He needs to start with the ox & Sanchez on the wings or even Campbell players that are going to track back for the team it’s not ozil’s game to do that he needs a free role, plus I’m starting to worry for jack he slows the game down and doesn’t offer us anything.
I couldn’t agree more with you. I hear the AKBs shouting that we’ve made some improvements in the squad. We have but the truth is that our top rivals have made better improvements. I wanna see us win the league or at least beat chelski but- I’m afraid- I don’t think this present team is capable of doing that.
I really wonder how some Arsenal fans think. When somebody makes a sound analysis of our play and call for changes to our tactical approach and they brand it as an assault on Wenger. Even the lame football observer could see that everything the writer of this piece said was true. Wenger doesn’t adapt his style of play to suit the strength or weakness of the opposing teams. For him, it is like ‘play your own and I paly mine’. Knowing that he has played against some of the managers in the EPL several times, it is always easy for them to plot a way to beat Arsenal. Whether any fan believes this or not, that is the truth. Second, the idea of playing to accommodate players is wrong. Wenger sometimes leaves very good players on the bench and play some of those who do not click in a match just to have them play. Even when they don’t perform, he will not effect changes unless very late. This idea of having character or mental stregth works when you field the right players and depends too on the opposition. We have not yet got a team to beat easily Man C, Chelsea, Liverpool , Spurs or even Man U [at this their low times]. So no matter the character or mental strength we have, it will come to nothing. Wenger needs to get more players particularly, a striker, LB, CB and a DM. Those fans who believe in what Wenger does even when wrong to my opinion, don’t understand the game. Why can’t fans relax as before when we play those mentioned top teams? It is because we are not yet their match. Let Wenger do the needful and we shall thrive. All of us love Wenger and Arsenal but I hate some his decisions.
Very good post , but Wenger will never listen or learn. Thats why winning epl or champions league will always be a dream to Arsenal fans
John I’ve acknowledged the new mental dimension to our game, it’s certainly a positive but I don’t think we’d repeat such situations against the likes of Chelsea, City and even Liverpool if we start games off like that as the game could be dead by half-time.
We need to get going from a lot earlier on if we’re to be champions but we need the right players to do so. If we can’t physically dominate in midfield then we’re very likely to be left wide open as we were and also credit to Giroud on eventually earning us a point but it took 3 very clear chances.
His first volley was unlucky I said that initially but it was a chance a certain Dutchman would’ve scored unfortunately that’s the difference between a top bracket forward and a good CF we have in Giroud.
RVP vs Liverpool away in his final season was the perfect example of how you can somehow nick ALL 3 points with a top forward, if you remember that day we were shocking but 2 chances was all Robin needed to get us the 2-1 win which came in added time!
We need to upgrade right through the spine of our team otherwise it’ll turn out to be a different year, same outcomes albeit with a tad more improvement.
This is hilarious. 1 team will win the league. Despite millions spent, 4 other top teams will win nothing. It won’t be because their managers are bad.
The reality is that it’s a competitive league. Grow a pair and grow up.
What a deluded way of thinking, why hasn’t the “1 team” to win the league not been arsenal in well over a decade? Perhaps, the answer lies in your belief that arsenal much like for the past decade has presented a suitable “team”? Much emphasis on “team”, Arsenals weakest link is the manager.