
Originally Posted by
Niall_Quinn
No way are those players as poor as that. They have been coached into being so poor. These players aren't playing with any instinct or ambition. Seems to me they are far more concerned with retaining possession, building little triangles, keeping the ball away from the opposition. Add to that a desire to conserve energy at all costs. If they can do less they will do less. Until the last few minutes of the half or if we fall a goal behind, then they can magically pick up the pace.
This is all Wenger. He has them following his fucked up principles of football rather than playing football. Look at the way we constantly try to engineer the best possible option in front of goal, as opposed to taking a chance where maybe the odds aren't great. We pass up 2, 3, 5 or 10 chances to shoot so we can work the sideways ball and try to advance from a 25% chance of scoring to a 25.000004% chance. Same with our play in the middle. When we get the ball and have the chance to transition to attack, what do we do? We slow it down, play it sideways, play it back, start building our little triangle and commence the long process of tip tapping it towards the opposition goal by a process of 12 passes sideways and back for each 1 pass forward. Keep the ball, keep the ball, don't lose the ball.
This is Wenger's terror made into a tactic. He bloody well knows he hasn't the faintest clue how to build a defence. He's never had to do it. Graham and Adams and Bould and then Campbell did it for him. And then those players retired and Wenger had to work in an area he has no clue about. And he brought in a stream of shite and we transformed into the soft touch we see today. So he resorted to keep ball instead. If they can't get the ball then they can't rape our laughable defence. It's fear.
And these are just some of the sick aspects of his game. How can a competitive player excel and how can a team knit together when you have such a horrible set of principles to uphold as a priority? Coward is the word I have consistently used to describe him. A coward on the pitch, a coward in the transfer market. Why didn't we want Kante? Because he wasn't as safe as an Arteta/ Xhaka. Of course Wenger's so past it now he couldn't spot that Xhaka is about as safe as a grenade with the pin out. But he had that tip, tap, tip, tap routine down that must have been attractive for Wenger.
As soon as we bring a new manager in - ANY MANAGER - the team will improve.