Cazorla denies injury reports - BACK April 1st

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Originally Posted by Kano

We were at least playing with some sort of cohesion with Cazorla in the side and Ramsey doing what he does best on the wing, which is run. Since then we've become a pub side relying on set pieces to score.

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The cohesion has been gone for a long time. That season where we sold Cesc and Nasri and were thrashed 8-2 by Utd was the start of it. Ramsey and Coquelin played together in the middle for that game funny enough. But Ramsey was quickly moved further up the pitch with Arteta and Song playing the duo in 11/12 season. He wasn't any good higher up the pitch either. Only 3 goals and 6 assists. Alex Song had a stand out season with 14 assists and he was our CM even though most people thought it was Arteta. I really don't know where else Ramsey can play or what other combination of players we can try. He doesn't work well with Wilshere, Coquelin, Flamini...Arteta is finished.....

Cazorla can have some patchy games. He's not really consistent but he's so much better than Ramsey and one of the few players that can cope with teams pressing high up the pitch. We need to go back to the drawing board on CM because Cazorla isn't a long term solution. We shouldn't have sold Song so quickly. We really need to sort this position out along with buying a top class striker. Two biggest mistakes we've made was getting rid of Song and RVP.

Let's not go overboard on Ramsey, he's not a bad player. It's just he's not capable of doing the stupid shit Wenger wants him to do. Cazorla has much better command of the ball in tight spaces. He's slightly more accurate with his passing - he also gives the ball away A LOT considering we're supposedly a possession team. This isn't Cazorla's fault either. Wenger prefers a system that may move the ball quickly, too quickly most of the time, but the players don't move. Have you noticed? It's child's play to pressure us. As soon as we get beyond the comfort zone of our back four screwing around with their sideways possession passing, tapping it on to the midfielder coming deep, back, tap, you know the drill - as soon as we get out of that comfort zone everything goes to shit unless we somehow make the million point bonus pinball shot. Our strikers don't get in the box, our "wide" players come deep and central, whenever a player like Ramsey or Cazorla or Ozil looks up to try to pick a pass they have two options, play it back to keep the possession or try for the 1 in 3 pass whilst under pressure from the marker who can just stroll up and cover due to the lack of movement. On the other hand, when we occasionally, rarely, once in a blue moon inject a bit of pace and use the flanks, then we look dangerous and things happen. It's this stupid manager. He makes our players look brain dead. His stupid tactics, his stupid ideas that don't work. You get the impression Alexis has said, fuck that, I'm doing my own thing because that shit isn't working and will never work. Wenger destroys the basics so three times a season we can marvel at some balletic passage of play that relies more on statistical chance than technical execution.

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Originally Posted by AFC Leveller

With the amount of money we have sitting in the bank, im sure we could have signed a better player than Elneny.

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Of course we could, it was a ridiculous signing and we're now banking on Ramsey, Coq & him pushing us over the line, it's bonkers TBH.

Wenger even said he wasn't ready for PL a couple of weeks back, why buy him then? He's literally no use to us this season.

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Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn

Let's not go overboard on Ramsey, he's not a bad player. It's just he's not capable of doing the stupid shit Wenger wants him to do. Cazorla has much better command of the ball in tight spaces. He's slightly more accurate with his passing - he also gives the ball away A LOT considering we're supposedly a possession team. This isn't Cazorla's fault either. Wenger prefers a system that may move the ball quickly, too quickly most of the time, but the players don't move. Have you noticed? It's child's play to pressure us. As soon as we get beyond the comfort zone of our back four screwing around with their sideways possession passing, tapping it on to the midfielder coming deep, back, tap, you know the drill - as soon as we get out of that comfort zone everything goes to shit unless we somehow make the million point bonus pinball shot. Our strikers don't get in the box, our "wide" players come deep and central, whenever a player like Ramsey or Cazorla or Ozil looks up to try to pick a pass they have two options, play it back to keep the possession or try for the 1 in 3 pass whilst under pressure from the marker who can just stroll up and cover due to the lack of movement. On the other hand, when we occasionally, rarely, once in a blue moon inject a bit of pace and use the flanks, then we look dangerous and things happen. It's this stupid manager. He makes our players look brain dead. His stupid tactics, his stupid ideas that don't work. You get the impression Alexis has said, fuck that, I'm doing my own thing because that shit isn't working and will never work. Wenger destroys the basics so three times a season we can marvel at some balletic passage of play that relies more on statistical chance than technical execution.

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But what is that? What instructions is Wenger giving to Ramsey that's different to what he's asked of Cazorla and producing drastically different results? You have two players that play as CM and the way they approach the role is totally different. Cazorla goes looking for touches of the ball to help build up play but Ramsey doesn't. Cazorla will go deep and make himself available for the pass from deep in the first phase of play and work the ball until we reach the final third. Ramsey seems to avoid doing that and wants the ball higher up the pitch in most cases. I don't get how and why Wenger would be giving separate instructions for the same role. It just seems like a free for all and players can do what they want. Just look how different Flamini plays the DM role compared to Coquelin and Arteta.

As for our philosophy, it seems like we don't have one. The pass pass pass stuff you say is dead. We struggle to pass the ball. Most of our goals are coming from direct play or good counter attacks. The stuff we saw during the Cesc era is over. We no longer create several clear cut chances for our players. We can't. We create chances but the quality isn't the same as before. It used to be a case where we'd struggle against teams sitting deep but really carve open teams that attack us and that's not even true anymore. We struggle against any team with any style.

Ramsey has stunk out the place recently, but I have some sympathy for him. The truth is that he is being asked to fulfill a number of roles for this team - none of which suit his natural game. If the Coq was a distributor of the ball as well as a DM, Ramsey would thrive alongside him. I'd like to see Ramsey play higher up the pitch, but as PNG says, Wenger is wedded to a passing game that no longer has any real purpose, and this wont happen.

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Originally Posted by selassie

Of course we could, it was a ridiculous signing and we're now banking on Ramsey, Coq & him pushing us over the line, it's bonkers TBH.

Wenger even said he wasn't ready for PL a couple of weeks back, why buy him then? He's literally no use to us this season.

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This reeks of another low budget gamble by a tight ass manager, as opposed to any great master plan. I am willing to give Elneny the benefit of the doubt until he's had a run of games, but surely we needed someone ready to step in right away. An upgrade on what we already have. Also means making another CM signing in the summer could be out of the question if Wenger is still in charge. I bloody well hope not, but not holding my breath.

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Originally Posted by Gooner23

This reeks of another low budget gamble by a tight ass manager, as opposed to any great master plan. I am willing to give Elneny the benefit of the doubt until he's had a run of games, but surely we needed someone ready to step in right away. An upgrade on what we already have. Also means making another CM signing in the summer could be out of the question if Wenger is still in charge. I bloody well hope not, but not holding my breath.

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It's tough on kids like Elneny and Sanogo and the others who have vanished into the bottomless pit at this club. Of course they want to come here and play for a club with such a great tradition and history. Based in London no less. Playing with the likes of Ozil. In the Emirates Stadium. It's tough when the tired fans look on and ask, WHO FFS!? All very unfair on the player, but all the more reason to condemn the manager.

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Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn

Truth of it is Cazorla is not a long term solution for the team either. He did a lot better than most, being forced into a new role by the cheapskate in charge. Better Cazorla that Flamini, but what was really needed was for Wenger to show a bit of ambition in the transfer windows. Fat chance of that. As it turns out Cazorla is the best we have for the position.

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Our records with and without Cazorla are almost exactly the same.


We need to upgrade on Cazorla. Wenger needs to buy a player like Xhaka or the player himself. We will probably see better from Ramsey since he won't have to control the match. (Also less Coquelin as he has shown his game cannot expand past destroyer mode as well)

The Ramsey hate is ridiculous at this point. He is a very talented player.

He just said the reports are BS and he's back in April!

https://twitter.com/19SCazorla/statu...12813144715266

Like a new signing :bow:

April fools day?