Morning all.
Shkodran Mustafi, who had a stinker against Man Utd, has won Arsenal’s goal of the month award. No surprise really as it was a cracking heading which opened the scoring against our most bitter of rivals in Tottenham. Lacazette came second for with his goal against Huddersfield while Giroud came third with his first against the same opposition.
It’s not often we see high profile footballers in the news for good reasons, in fact more often than not it’s because they’ve been up to something silly. Mind you, I doubt reporters search as much for good news, not when a bad news headline will get their paper more viewers. What Jermain Defoe has done this year though has been incredible. He brought a spark into the life of a young Sunderland fan, a story we all know about. He didn’t have to, he chose to and he stayed close to young Bradley and his family through their painful and heartbreaking journey. Bradley didn’t win his battle with Cancer but there’s little doubt that Defoe made his last months a lot brighter than they perhaps would have been. He and Bradley’s family remain close, friends for life both Defoe and Bradley’s mother said this week.
This time of year, many many footballers bring joy to other very poorly children and this week the Arsenal players have done just that by visiting Players young patients at Whittington Hospital, Homerton Hospital and Teenage Cancer Trust. A few also helped with with a training session at Blessed Sacrament primary school and Stoke Newington secondary school for a girls.
Whether that’s of their own choice or not I don’t know but they certainly look like they’re enjoying themselves. And so they should as it’s not like it’s a chore is it, at least it shouldn’t be because for these young children, especially those who are so poorly and perhaps don’t even know how long they’ll live for, it’s massive.
Per Mertesacker, who was one of the men and women representing the club told the official site:
Per Mertesacker, talking to the official site said:
“I’ve been at Arsenal for seven years now and this is my seventh visit to Whittington Hospital. It means a lot to us – for the men’s and women’s players – to all come together and give a little bit back. Especially at this time of year.”
Amen to that Per.
The good side ! After all these men have families too and they know that life can be cruel sometimes. Good on them.
As fans we are often accused of being fickle and in truth we are . Footballers are heroes one day and the world’s worst the next and it’s this fickleness that clouds the issue and makes it easy for the more serious long term problems to get swept under the carpet. We went 13 games at home undefeated but then came up against Jose and lost . Were any of us surprised ? doubtful. Most of us knew that he has Wenger’s number and no doubt did the manager and players. Was Wenger’s nervousness passed on and was that why the players made silly mistakes ?
When it came to football we are their equals , if not better but mentally we lost , as 9 times out of 19 we do.
On this occasion supporters criticising players is not being fickle merely pragmatic.
Surely though, these individuals have been in the game long enough to know not to faff around with the ball in defence when a hoof up front or off the pitch is needed. The pass was Kos was really out of character and again, if he felt under pressure why not just boot the ball clear. Doing that might not be pretty but it’s the only way sometimes.. It doesn’t need Wenger to tell them that surely..
Probably it’s Wenger that tells them not to do it. Row Z doesn’t exist in his methods , He over complicates and forgets the basics . He is like the politician that won’t use two words to say something if he can find 20 to say the same thing.
Then he’s foolish..
Morning guys.
Football everywhere is “play out from the back”.
I find it annoying, as the obsession to maintain possession too often leads to trouble.
Sometimes, it’s best to belt it long and though it becomes a 50/50 chance of regaining it, it’s in a less dangerous part of the pitch.
I see it becoming the trend even here in Oz, now.
It didn’t matter when he had players that already knew the basics but now he is using players that have been taught the Wengerball style and they only know one way. To play out from the back you need central midfielders dropping back to recieve otherwise the only out ball is to the wingbacks. As Xhaka and ramsey are often up the pitch together shutting down our wide players is quite easy so we either dwell on it looking for a pass or knock it long and as Scott says , we play a 50/50 ball
Nothing wrong with playing out from the back imo, but it’s about when to and when not to.
Good morning Rico
Attacking team they always starts from back.How comfortable is Mus on that ?
And i had a feeling he is not.
By the way Mustafi when lost the ball to Lingard ….did you see any force that lead to injury…..meeeeeh i think the imbarassement injury morf lijely than ligament or knee
Rico, I didn’t mean to suggest we shouldn’t pkay out from the back, just not every single time.
No need to place ourselves under pressure and that’s happening too often, imo.
Safety first, and if it allows, maintain possession.
Coaches have to work on getting things organised properly when playing possession football .Pep had to bring in new players starting with goal keepers in his attempt at City to play possession football and it took him a season to get it working.Oh dear old Arsene has been at it for 12 years and still can’t fathom out how to play possession football properly! Wenger’s tippy tappy version of Tiki Taka is based on slow short passing moves that go on and on like a game of pass the parcel and 98 times out of a hundred end in loss of possession. Wenger’s tippy tappy generally works at home against the lesser sides but stats show that this is not the case against top ones and there are always every season odd games when even the lower case teams spring a ‘shock result ‘. So far Wenger’s only won one game against one of the top sides home and away that one being the stuttering carreying a niggling knock Harry Kane team and everyone in the Prem has been getting early Xmas boxes off them recently .. other results have not been so great a humbling embarrassing 4-0 defeat at Liverpool, a dour 0-0 at Chelsea – when Conte’s crew were off the pace and a 3-1 defeat at home to United last Saturday is how Wenger has fared so far and you would need to be a super optimist to believe that this sad state of affairs will improve. Some though see Liverpool as being the weakest side to help out desperate Arsene .I’m not convinced by this school of thought though because Klopp will not be going gung ho from the half way line like stupid Arsene did at Anfield and Liverpool can play long passes that spilt defences such as our one and hit us on the break at speed.The lack of enough use of long passes is one of the biggest weaknesses in Wenger’s yawn inducing tactics . With managers like Mourinho knowing how to play against Wenger’s slow build ups and last Saturday’s 3-1 defeat to United proved yet again that Wenger never learns from his past mistakes and just keeps on repeating them. Possession without taking advantage of it means nothing – goals win games – not statistics.
Should have added the defeat at City away away as well it doesn’t make for good reading does it and all of Wenger’;s pathetic excuses can’t change that .
Nice post rico. Watch out Sanchez, touching a member of the opposite sex and being photographed can get you into trouble in 20 years time way things are going!
No seriously, love seeing pictures like this, and the pics in Aus. Shows they are human some of the time!
@Jeff
???
Hello everyone. I note that you guys enjoy some good discussions on here and have commented before in the past but not for a while. Personally I think there are a combination of factors that set us back and don’t allow the team to progress. Where I am in agreement with most on here is that I feel the majority of the factors (but not exclusively all) can be traced back to the manager. I feel in many recent seasons that we had another 15-18 points in us with the same squad if we had addressed certain weak aspects of our play. That would have placed us in a title challenging arena in a few seasons.
I do like us to play out from the back, but Jeff is right in stating that it needs to be within a disciplined framework. I do find many really pro Wenger fans will always pull you up and ask “well would you rather have this style of play, (accepting its weaknesses as a trade off), or witness Mourinho’s style of play every week”.
It ignores the concept that you can have something in between that keeps an attacking identity but is still tactically disciplined and well drilled. These oversights in turn leads to a mental focus that is often found lacking. The sloppiness we witnessed early in the weekends game is fine to pass as a one off if it was just that, but this lack of mental focus is a habit with Arsene’s sides over the last number of seasons, so there must be some oversight in the psychological preparation of the side that isn’t happening under other top managers.
I tend to feel that Arsene doesn’t believe in addressing the finer details of tactics and discipline and the understanding of roles and positioning. I have always felt that he feels these are negative (almost anti football) matters that will stifle the natural fluidity of the team. If this were the case my conclusion would be he has to be wrong because the new(ish) breed of top managers are showing that both can exist alongside each other, and more importantly that it is actually a necessity to have both if you want to challenge for titles.
I don’t know if Arsene did at one time address the finer details and has since changed his management outlook, or if he never really believed in it but that it didn’t hamper us before due to factors like it being in a different era or period or that the team was balanced enough to take care of it themselves?
Oh sorry, thanks Rico for the post
Gooner B, What a well thought through post. I see things exactly as you outline, in that Wenger is just not a fine details man and is a cavalier not a roundhead. I always remember that the cavaliers lost in the Civil War, just as Wenger almost always does to Mourinho, an arch details man who passionately believes in practicalities above mere style. If you have a team chock full of truly great players as Wenger did through much of his glory decade, you can often get away with a lack of detailed coaching as pure great talent will often overcome this deficiency in ones team. But since 2006, having lost many of the 1998-2004 greats by then, we have been trying in vain, because of Wengers lack of attention to detail, to carry on as before but with grossly inferior players. He refuses to accept this truth, as is patently obvious, and thus the club has drifted, markedly, away from the very top rivals. Those rivals all have more hungry , detail intensive practical managers who live in todays football world. Wenger, alone of the top 6 clubs, does not. I do not condone but do admire the passion Pep showed in his strange behaviour with Redmond last week. I admire and wonder at his energy and sheer passion for the game which Wenger just does not show when on the pitch, except when he is berating, uselessly, the fourth official. Though I could write a whole chapter on the reasons for Wengers decline -which I won’t in this thread – it is clear and has been for many years past that Wenger is an inferior manager to his main rivals and that Arsenal is trying uselessly to stem the tide of necessary change, throughout all the clubs decision makers in KING CANUTE STYLE, and are doomed to continued failure at top level, until Wenger is replaced with a more progressive, in touch, more practical, younger and hungrier manager who will refuse to accept mediocrity. Wenger allows and even seems to encourage mediocrity, with his lack of attention to detail and puppy like faith in old discredited methods.
I do wonder how many of us could sustain the sheer amount of criticism and bile that is directed at Wenger on a daily basis in our professional lives.
@Adam
I can absorb triple of that for a @15/h
Lol
Jon, I tend to think that Arsene has dropped by 10% in his abilities relative to other top coaches, or possibly it is that he has not added that 10% required for today’s game. I have 2 thoughts on this overall.
The first is that he has always been a bit of a romanticist and always had a deep wish to develop some sort of Utopian attacking team that could even exceed the sides he fielded between 1997 and 2005. When we moved stadium and couldn’t compete for the first number of years for the top players he had to resort to getting the precocious talents and try and mould them himself into world class players that would form a world class outfit.
Now this may have been out of necessity at that time, but part of me always wonders whether he actually looked at it and welcomed it as his opportunity to implement his Utopian football project. He certainly seemed to wear the “we don’t buy world class players, we make them ourself” line as a badge of honour. I actually think he did pretty well keeping us near the top with limited access to top players in the first few seasons, but if there was an even greater goal in his mind beyond this it hasn’t really been realised. The more recent ability to add the better players hasn’t improved our progress in the league for the better, so it seems whatever ideology Arsene had in his mind has proven flawed.
The second consideration could be that he never actually had that attention to detail at any point and that it was covered for him, (so that he didn’t have to bother with it), by the mentality of a group of players that he inherited from GG. I know that this is an opinion that the absolute pro Wenger fans hate, but I am not actually saying he did nothing at all, and still feel he has been a great and revolutionary manager for us, but maybe it is the players that he inherited that brought the mental fortitude and attention to detail and Arsene just added a bit of “Je ne sais quoi” to the formula (which can’t be underplayed in its importance) to give us that perfect balance and subsequent success.
Either way I think our identity has changed and will not change back to what is needed under Arsene now. There has been a steady erosion of players that inherently have that mental attitude, which means that younger academy players and players coming in to the club don’t have anyone to learn it from and take the baton from the prior generation to create their own successful mentally strong team, and they can’ then pass this on to the next generation after them. We have lost the momentum in this sense so despite playing great football at times, as witnessed on Saturday, we haven’t got the balance right for many seasons, and show no sign of getting it right any time soon.
Good post Rico and yes Jermaine Defoe has certainly showed us that there’s more to him than just kicking a ball about. He’s certainly gone up in mine and I’d imagine a lot of people’s estimations.
It’s always heartening to see, at this time of year, our players taking time out of their day to spend a few hours at children’s hospitals etc. Those kids will retain those memories for the rest of their lives, it’s a good news story so you’ll never read it in the press.
Interesting to see Sporting Lisbon drop into the UEFA Cup.
I hope we get them in the next round as they’ll be a pushover.
Afternoon all.
I had to do my charitable work today and visit the inlaws… ?
Kev, agree re Defoe, he’s really gone up in my estimation too.
Hi GoonerB. My view re your earlier comment is that during 1996-2004, Arsene Wenger signed men, men who knew what the game was about and how to play it. For several seasons now though, those big characters/players have been replaced with a very different kind of player are nothing like those great ones.
Thanks guys re the post comments btw.
Agree with that Rico. Players like Petit and Vieira were strong individuals but even they will have learned some of that from Arsenal’s famous back 4. I remember it was strongly rumoured at the time, when Arsene won his first double in his first full season, that the existing senior Arsenal players that AW had inherited had a team sit down with the likes of Vieira and Petit being told what they had to do and what was expected of them at this club. It is likely they carried that forward with them. I think that continuity has been lost somewhat now. If we don’t have the players to do it and it is not in our managers character to instill this then we will probably see the same themes until one of these factors changes.
I do hope the rumours about Ozil staying are true. I am almost thinking it is more important to keep him than Sanchez now and think we can get a decent swap + cash deal with Sanchez somewhere in Jan. Draxler has indicated he wants to play with Ozil so that could be a goer, or Madrid who must have a player that can bring a bit of what Alexis does. Maybe Isco who seems unsettled.
Would like to see Reiss Nelson play in Sanchez’ position tomorrow rather than at WB. Could easily be a longer term solution if we develop him properly.
Gb, I’d imagine that what they were told was more about the club, it’s history, the Totts rivalry etc etc. They were proper footballers who just needed to learn what the club meant to its fans.
Now it’s all about how much the next contract is worth for many, not all I know, but many.
Darn Sky and Bt eh!
I’d like to see a Draxler/Alexis swap… we’d have to pay a bit of money but that’s the best of a bad situation imo.
Afternoon Rico and the house
Excellent post Rico just like all your recent posts.
There are a number of very good videos and photos going around
of the boys from yesterday . They show just how much pleasure they give to the very ill youngsters.
Like you I feel Defo has gone up a lot in my estimation and puts him up there with Jack Wilshere who done something very similar a few years ago ( with very little ( with very little publicity )
Some good news,
Eddy, BenSheaf and Macey have all singed extentions
Following Joe Willock signing his it leaves Nelson and Mcguane to get one.
Reiss is 18 0n the 10th and I think he will get one as a xmas pressy.
The guy from Sky is doing the business
Please excuse any mistakes having trouble with keyboard.
Afternoon Rick, thank you. Very kind of you.
I watched the the under 18s clip on afc.com. The number eleven, Smith-Rowe I think looks like a good player in the making..
Good news re the contract extensions…
Night guys..
So all the English clubs have qualified for the knock out stages of the champions league……big fcuking deal, call me bias but I’d say we’d probably win that competition if we ever got a crack at it !
Micko,
I think our fate was determined when Arsene said “5th is like a trophy”.
It started at second and is working it’s way down as the next batch of clubs get their stadiums sorted we will be told that it’s harder to compete.
I reckon we’ll soon be on the way up…
Morning all.
New post up.
Morning.
Rico, I never feel we are far away from stepping up 1-2 levels to where we can challenge. The things I mentioned yesterday in feeling that AW lacks a bit (or chooses to overlook it) on the coaching side and finer details in the modern game (relative to few other top coaches), I feel remain a factor that can determine whether we stay still or move onward and upwards.
In addition I think a balanced squad and first 11 is important and I think he needs to alter his thinking on the CM positions. he seems to have a love of attacking midfielders over ball winning athletic powerhouses, (still have to have some ability obviously), so I feel we always lack balance in the CM partnerships. 1-2 more top notch commanding CD’s wouldn’t go amiss either. I am not unhappy with our forward line now we have Laca and if we can retain Ozil, replace Alexis effectively, and get those other factors above sorted we will not look too shabby.
The problem is there always seems to be some area that we haven’t addressed each season. It would be nice to just see every area covered.
Spot on there GoonerB. We must have been saying things as you’ve written every summer after transfer window closes..