Arsenal Vision Podcast - v Man City

[Power n Glory]

https://www.acast.com/arsenalvision/episode117-manchestercity-a--alittleholeinourbucket

Good discussion about the Man City debacle. Still listening but good points so far.

[Blink 1nce Quince 2wice]

They discussed something really prevalent to me from the game that I just had no energy to go into following our insipid performance. Our CB's were just soooo frightened to come out/advance or play the ball forward with any gusto. It's not the sort of thing that would normally stick in my mind but it really did in this game. I was surprised (a little) that they picked up on it.

[Power n Glory]

It's a good observation from the guys and not something I wasn't paying too much attention to during the game. But Mustafi really is an important part of the machine with him being able to play the ball out. He's taken over from Merts on that front.

[Blink 1nce Quince 2wice]

The timidness, especially given the seniority at CB seemed to permeate the team from there. I felt that something as simple as a CB moving 10 yards forward at the right time would have been the catalyst for momentum in midfield but it just wasn't so.

[Power n Glory]

Kos really isn't the commanding type and I think that played a part in it. You could see Sanchez screaming for support and to push up but nothing from anyone else.

[mastermind84]

You could see Sanchez screaming for support and to push up but nothing from anyone else.

This is always interesting to me. Alexis likes doing that a lot and no one follows. Knowing Wenger has never implemented his attackers to press that far up, and our fullbacks didnt engage City's wide players further up the pitch, was this Alexis being a lone wolf? The Yankee Gunner guy suggested that.

I tend to think its Alexis doing his own thing and the cameras fixating on the gesticulations while Wenger's instructions probably were not that.

FTR, I think we should have engaged them higher up the pitch but Wenger.

[Niall_Quinn]

Kos really isn't the commanding type and I think that played a part in it. You could see Sanchez screaming for support and to push up but nothing from anyone else.

Kos could be a leader but he's having his legs chopped out from under him by HeWhoShallNotBeNamed.

Kos is our Alert 5, Flying Squad, International Rescue defender. We use his pace to rush him to the defensive hot spots as they flare up and more often than not he gets there in time. Unfortunately for him he almost always at least makes it into the vicinity of the crisis and as such offers himself up for blame when it all goes to shit. I think Bellerin is a great young player but he's not a patch on, for example, Ashley Cole in terms of his defensive game. Cole by the same age was a much better player. I haven't noticed Bellerin improving at a steady rate and a lot of this is masked by the fact he's such a potent offensive weapon.

Monreal is a better defender but frustrating going forward and he's crippled by his lack of pace, particularly as he plays in a team that defensively relies on pace rather than teamwork and planning.

Mustafi and Gabriel. Don't know. Sometimes good, sometimes suspect. Gabriel to a degree can cover for Kos because he has that tear about element to his game that's required to be a "good" defender in Wenger's crackpot system. Mustafi seems to be a bit more level headed and that probably works against him. He needs to be a lot more disorganised and random if he wants to do well here.

Holding and Chambers were evidently trained elsewhere in the dark arts of traditional defending so they are out of their depth at Arsenal.

Can any of them be leaders in such a haphazard non-system? They are too busy just trying to grip on to their own task to worry about the chaos around them I would think. Maybe Cech is the guy who needs to step up a bit more but even he's suffering the Wenger effect it seems.

There's only one leader at Arsenal. Alexis will learn that too, if he sticks around long enough.