Was Man United a watershed?

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Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz

the point is, this system is nothing new and its being banded about as some sort of new fangled conception that is ruining defending.

playing zonal, man or dick marking it won't make a slight bit of difference. if we were man marking, would it then be better for us to switch to zonal? because exactly the same things would be happening.

every team zonal marks in open play and mostly when defending - its just more 'tactical' nonsense thrown out there without much thought.

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I think N5 is too big a zone tbh. Players like Santos and Vermaelen need to get a little tighter.

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Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz

the point is, this system is nothing new and its being banded about as some sort of new fangled conception that is ruining defending.

playing zonal, man or dick marking it won't make a slight bit of difference. if we were man marking, would it then be better for us to switch to zonal? because exactly the same things would be happening.

every team zonal marks in open play and mostly when defending - its just more 'tactical' nonsense thrown out there without much thought.

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In an already chaotic and undisciplined defence, that seems to lose concentration, zonal marking makes it too easy for attacking players to get an unchallenged header on goal because our boys have failed to spot the danger or can't get enough spring in their jump to clear the ball.

Also, going back to the original point, is this something Bould has insisted on or this the way Wenger wants us to defend?

Some horrible stats:


Arsenal have still got the best defence in the league, conceding eight goals. But take out the Southampton game & we've scored 9 in 9 games


For the second PL away game in a row, Arsenal didn't muster a shot on target until injury time at the end of the match.


Since the start of last season, Arsenal have made 18 individual errors leading to a goal – more than any other side in the Premier League.

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Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz

time for Bielsa or Klopp please

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Gurdiola tbh. Which i think will happen at the end of the season.

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Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn

I think N5 is too big a zone tbh. Players like Santos and Vermaelen need to get a little tighter.

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zone two should cover it

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Originally Posted by Charlie the Gooner

Not really the board have said they would never sack him, so he will walk when he is ready not before. If he is about money, now then i don't think he'd be bothered about his reputation. His problem is he likes to stick to his principles. Which is fine sometimes though, you need to be less stubborn and admit when your wrong. He knows Project youth failed, henced why he has changed it up, but he will never say it failed.

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er, so...its a question of whether Wenger decides himself to leave?

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Originally Posted by Ice Berg Kamping

er, so...its a question of whether Wenger decides himself to leave?

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Id say its a question of when he decides to leave, but its clear he has the say when he leaves.

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Originally Posted by Ice Berg Kamping

I've seen it said that Saturday's 2-1 defeat was as bad as last year's 8-2, and while this stretches a point I can see the argument. Last year we caught them when we were in turmoil, transfer wise, and they were irrepressible. This year we were utterley dominated by a Manure team who barely got out of second gear. So 14 months on, and this time with transfer business concluded a long time ago, did this game underline in a revealing way why our manager's time is up?

Team selection? Clueless; incompetent and stubborn. Perservering with Santos at LB and Ramsey at RM was folly, and everyone in football apart from Wenger could see it. Arguably, even the selection of Vermaelen, who is woefully out of form, incapable of providing leadership, and gifting a goal a game these days was a mistake. Not to mention his failure to start Walcott, or to consider Oxlade Chamberlain. Wenger has always stated that he does not consider the opposition when setting up his team. It would seem now that he isn't able objectively to consider the performance of his own team.

Player positioning? Podolski on the left is clearly not working. Giroud up front with no service is pointless. Arteta at DM is too easy to mark out of the game. Theo - the best finisher we have, but Wenger would rather play Gervinho up front than Theo. We are a much better team on paper than we are on the pitch - and this team is increasingly looking like Wenger's vanity project more than anything else. It doesn't matter that he is bringling in more seasoned, experienced players. The advantage is being lost, because the manager simply refuses to play to their strengths. Saturday was a prime example of several players looking like they were playing a game utterly unnatural to them.

Team set up. This is a team and formation that can only be explained by the idea that it is set up around having a Diaby in MF. Wake up Wenger. We will never have a Diaby in MF for more than the odd game. Our style of football increasingly seems not to have really evolved since the Fabregas project. Only now, we have inferior players to play it. Wenger's brand of foolball looks not only stale - but almost as though it is the easiest type of football to play against - both in attack and in defence. All the opposition needs to do is to wait for the inevitable mistake. Norwich found it easly; Reading first half midweek...followed by a Manure team that looked almost bored by the lack of challenge on Saturday. Very difficult not to conclude that Wenger has run out of ideas and direction.

Motivation. Ferguson described this fixture pre-match as a 'hard-ish' game. I mean that comment alone would have been all the motivation that any team in the league needed to put in a display. Arsenal looked like they didn't care. Not about the veiled insult. Not about the fact that they looked a division lower than our old arch rivals, and even about making life difficult for Manure - still less about winning the game. Instead, we see that buffoon Santos swapping shirts with the captain that turned his back on us and who had scored against us for Manure, at half time. Second half against Reading aside, we look like a broken team. No belief, no spirit, no drive, no fight. It is the manager who is responsible for this. Rio Ferdinand spoke about how Ferguson buys personalities as well as players. Wenger represses personality - all he wants is characterless drones who do exactly what he wants them to do because his ego can't stand a challenge. So there is nothing shown on the pitch, and Wenger has clearly lost the ability to inspire off it. If he cannot get himself and his team up to play his oldest rival, in a fixture that resulted in such total humiliation last year than I would say that the writing is on the wall.

Regard for the club. Lets get this straight. I think the manager loves the club. But I think that we now need to ask what does this mean. I think that Wenger loves the club in the same way that you might love a faithful Labrador. A pet that exists to do his bidding. Re the team selection and other issues above, I think it is becoming unacceptable that the manager demonstrates such arrogance in perservering with policies, choices and risks that are almost doomed to fail - when the reality is that half of his tenure has now been trophyless.


This might be a bit of a ramble, and I know that all of the points made have been made before, but to see where we have come to against Wenger's oldest and fiercest rival, having been given a year to show that he has moved on since the nadir of last year seems like a watershed to me. I have always wanted to be convinced that Wenger still has it, but finally now I accept that there is no bounce back. I think the sooner his tenure ends now, the better.

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Excellent post Sub. Like many others I'm starting to feel numb about this season, we've had a really poor start and our latest slump has really brought home what this team is or isn't about.

For all my cries of "Wenger" out and I've wanted him out for a good few seasons now I do believe that putting aside the financial debate, Wenger really isn't a great tactical manager, I would go as far as to say he's not even one of the best managers out there now, there are a few in Europe and domestically who I comfortably rate above him as a Football Manager. Wenger is too inflexible and rigid in his approach to the get the best out of this team and it's to the detriment of the team.

Wenger is like a relic, a piece of history. In Football terms he's only reveered for what he has done, not what he is currently doing.

We here these arguments regularly "Arsenal fans are mad for wanting Wenger out, look at what he has DONE for the club", done being the key word here.

I just don't get what we're doing because we aren't aping Barcelona; as technical as they are - they still always have at least two players with pace and have about a gabillion willing runners. Having said all that, this isn't the first time we've played at Old Trafford and been beaten easily.

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Originally Posted by McNamara That Ghost...

I just don't get what we're doing because we aren't aping Barcelona; as technical as they are - they still always have at least two players with pace and have about a gabillion willing runners. Having said all that, this isn't the first time we've played at Old Trafford and been beaten easily.

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That is what is so frustrating.

We know it's one of the toughest games of the season, yet our manager persists with the most predictable line-up and set of tactics, since Sam Allardyce first told a player to "give it some welly".

If we wanted anything out of this game, we needed to test them out in their weak areas. Show their team some respect by trying to nullify their threats.

But even more basic than that. We needed to iron out a few of our own problems, which were even more obvious. But we did absolutely nothing.

Then we get into the game, we have no talking, no encouragement, no adaptation, NOTHING.

It's embarrassing.