Well that was irritating in the extreme was it not? I was left with an overwhelming sense of frustration at the manager, his selection and his in game management. Of course I have already been told on social media that I am not qualified to comment on or question the decisions of Arsene Wenger but what the hell!
Lack of in game management until it was too late to save match
What amuses me is that the same fans who consider a point away at Man United also believe that not losing yesterday is Premier League winning form. It isn’t. Yes a point away against your rivals can often be considered a good point and yes frequently we would have all settled for that before the game. BUT NOT YESTERDAY!
Because?
- Man United are not a title challenging rival. In my opinion, in most pundits opinion and in the opinion of all the bookies.
- A point away from home, against a rival (and if you honestly think United to be one, you have given up already,) is a good point, IF you win the home fixtures against rivals. In case you had not noticed we have already lost at home to Liverpool and played out a spineless, passionless draw with our North London rivals. Because of this the great display and three points against Chelsea has meant little, which is a crying shame. And not when you have taken 2 points from a possible 6 in the last 2 home matches.
- Title challenging sides do not settle for a point before the match against weaker opposition, by making negative or cautious team selections.
- The negative team selection/set-up was against a back drop of Man United only being able to field one first choice regular in their back 4. Jones had not played this season, Rojo is up for sale and generally used as a fullback and Darmian is out of favour and was playing on his wrong foot.
- Title challenging sides and managers DO adapt their team set-up in game time. They adapt to circumstances and they make decisive substitutions to try and impact the result in a positive fashion. For example when faced with a right footed, left back who is out of form and on a yellow card, they might suggest the team get the ball to Walcott and that he take Darmian on. * Or indeed consider putting on one of the best headers of a football in the league against 2 fragile centre backs? **
I could go on but I gave the piece a title with Top 5 in it so as not to depress myself further. Don’t worry I will have recovered by Wednesday and will be my useful positive self. I say this, as some on social media seem to confuse annoyance or an opinion contrary to that of Arsene Wenger to be a lack of support. You are of course entirely wrong and from 7.45 I will shout, sing and encourage for 90 minutes regardless of the selection, even if it does include Aaron Ramsey.
Rant over, enjoy your Sunday 🙂
Notes * I have formed this opinion having only watched football live for 40 years, only coached youth football and not Premier League football.
** Another opinion I formed on my own, with only 40 years of watching live football, only coached at youth level and not in the Premier League
Passionate fifty-something Arsenal supporter who has been making the journey to N5 regularly since the early 1980s – although his first game was in 1976. Always passionate when talking about The Arsenal, Dave decided to send a guest blog to Gunnersphere in the summer of 2011 and has not stopped writing about the Gunners since.
He set up his own site – 1 Nil Down 2 One Up – in February 2012, which he moved on in 2016 to concentrate on freelance writing and building Gunners Town, which he launched with Paul in 2014.
The objective of GT was to be new and fresh and to give a platform for likeminded passionate Arsenal fans wishing to write about their team. Dave still of course, writes for the site himself and advises the ever-changing writing crew.
It is soooo sad that we still have these same discussions and analyses for 10 years plus of what went wrong with our team against the so-called top clubs. Wenger is and has been our greatest glaring problem not only in selecting our teams, our team’s tactics but more so in his selection of players we buy to strengthen our team.
Why is it that the same mistakes and fall away occur every season? His naive “tactics” and selection criteria are recurring season after season. The management of Arsenal will never change as long as we cling onto Wenger.
Thing is Wenger’s been hammered for being “naive” at tough away games but gets hammered for going defensive in this tough away game against a team & a manager that he as the worst record against!
The performance was insipid going forward, I agree but we weren’t overrun and we came back at the death to nick a point.
Sure people say the sign of champions is winning/not losing when not playing badly – if we continue to play like that away at tough grounds (even the dour performance against Sp*rs) then we’ll struggle to win anything.
However, any fans who thought we ‘d roll up in Manchester against Mourinho and win with style & ease is deluded. This was always an acid test for this team and whilst we may have passed it, JUST, there is no doubt that performances need to improve.
In my opinion the one point arsenal achieved through the late equalizer from Giroud was purely deserved. this is in contrast to the general opinion of most fans and pundits. what the hell all these negative comments and whining! okay manunited in the current setting, may not be a rival in challenging for title this season, but they still remain one of arsenal’s fiercest rivals overall. how is the equalizer not deserved? who did not see the effort Chamberlain put in out running his maker before sending that perfect cross? did we not see how giroud came from behind to out jump every other player to thump in that header? for all I care that goal(a beautiful one in deed) was neither an offside goal, nor an own goal, nor from the penalty spot. it resulted from a team effort.
Liverpool, of arsenal’s main title rivals drew goalless yesterday at Southampton. spurs came from behind to snatch victory from west ham in the last minute. yet these were not regarded as undeserved.
arsenal are unbeaten in all competitions since that opening loss to Liverpool, yet Tottenham’s unbeaten status is highly regarded even though they have recorded more draws than arsenal.
I’m not saying that arsenal played well yesterday but the condemnation that goes with such a performance is sometimes blown out of proportion. no team in the world plays well all the time.
Emmanuel,
No one could argue that a goal which was manufactured so well in the way you described it was not deserved. When you do everything right, and the elements of the attack fall into place it is always deserved. However whilst Ox and Giroud deserved the goal, we did not deserve the result.
We simply did not turn up. Not one department in our team functioned and had it not been for Czec we would have been soundly beaten, which is what that performance deserved.
If you don`t compete and you offer no resistance, how can you expect a result?