Quote Originally Posted by Tipsychubbs View Post
Years ago I remember being infuriated that Wenger had replaced Viera with Cesc. Cesc was talented but too young to take up the burden He would slow our play down so much, then what does Wenger do? Build the team around him. We went form having a powerful, mobile, box to box all rounder, complemented by a sitter in Gilberto to an young inexperienced AMF learning to play CMF and slowing our counters down, and with Gilberto being a sitter we now had sitters. Later on Cesc came good but it took a while when because wasn't ready for the role.

Then Wenger changed to a possession based style intead of our faster movement based attacking style, and here we are. Little movement, dribbling and penetration, just sideways and backwards passing.
I never understood that theory. Cesc plays like he has eyes at the back of his hand and can release an inch perfect pass that sets us off on attack in one move. Surely it's down to the players he's surrounded by and the opposition we face. Games vary. Just look at the contrast between our style in the Champs League when we reached the final to our actual league performance. We were restricted to counter attacks in the Champs League and it was pretty successful when you think of the goals we scored. None of this pinning teams back and trying to break them down, we were hitting teams on the break.

In the league, teams were scared to come out and play against us. They'd park the bus, restricted space between the lines and stay compact. You also have to consider the fact that we played with a 4-4-2 for a very long time whilst other Prem teams were playing 4-5-1 or 4-3-3. They always had an extra man in the middle that could press Cesc and Gilberto. Cesc able to evade tackles and pass it off without getting rushed and he'd make the right pass 9/10 times. But Gilberto struggled when pressed and couldn't get the ball from out under his feet or made hurried passes that put someone else under pressure. It was a major issue always have a 2 v 3 situation in the middle of the park and Wenger took too long to address the issue. We finally started playing great possession football and opening teams up when we played 4-3-3/4-5-1. But again, Wenger still cocked things up on squad selection. Playing guys like Nasri, Rosicky or Hleb on the flanks was one issue, but it's extreme when you see him persist with Eboue or Diaby on the flanks. Why? In fact, it took him an age to play Diaby deeper in the midfield like Vieria when he was actually fit. He kept playing him out wide or behind the striker.

Then we have Denilson....fuck knows what he was thinking with that one.

He needs to get his squad selection right and recognise when a certain combination of players won't work. We've always been a team that's held more possession than the opposition. He's from the school of Total Football and his philosophy hasn't changed. I think he's out of ideas and now it's just luck of the draw for us. When he won accolades years ago in this league, it was weaker and we had players light years ahead of the opposition. It's all changed now and he's really struggling.