Quote Originally Posted by Syn View Post
I'm tired of this formation talk. Am I the only one who thinks that once an attacking player keeps getting the ball in good positions, he should have no excuse for failing to deliver? Lets get some basics straight - attacking players have to score goals. Gervinho should be scoring goals. He isn't and so he isn't doing his job well. He gets into good positions and hasn't been delivering.

Arshavin should be played in the hole, Walcott should be played upfront etc...I don't give a fuck. When they get into good positions, they have to be doing much more than they are. Ramsey, too. No exuses - if you get the ball 25 yards out, fucking do something useful with it instead of nervously edging it out to Sagna to hit the first man on the cross.

Sorry to sit on the fence a bit but I can see both LDG and PnG's point about Sessingyoung (don't care how its splet). I don't think we should have to look for top quality players. I'm still happy with the Arteta and Mertesacker signings. But if we're going to make small improvements, we need a few more of them to compensate for the lack of one big improvement. But it's not sustainable to buy lots of players and keep the disproportionately large squad we'll need just because we can't sort out the issue of why we get so many injuries. We make a good signing, he'll play a month and get injured for the next 5. What's the point.
This is right. Let anyone here pick the starting line up and formation and it would make no difference. That's because our players can't do the basics. All year long we've been playing shit in the final third. Now that Sagna is back we're even worse. These players can't pass under pressure, they can't cross, they can't change the pace. Well maybe they can but they certainly haven't been doing it. Every time we win a corner, get a free kick, find space wide, look for a pass through the middle - you already know the outcome before the ball is kicked. Careless, sloppy, panicked garbage. With one exception, RvP. And now maybe Ox. (Wilshere is dead). The gulf in class between these natural footballers and the rest of the journeymen we have is immense. You can see it so clearly in everything they do. I watch teams like Stoke and Sunderland managing to take effective free kicks, cross, play simple passes and it's beyond belief we can't do the same. We can sure pass the shit out of the thing in midfield though. Square, square, square, back, square, wide, back to the middle, wide, square, back, forwards... oops. Boring. Most of these players don't deserve to be at the club and certainly don't deserve their eye watering salaries. Gervinho, like Walcott, is unforgivably stupid in the danger area. Pires he is not. Forget about bringing in one or two players to change this. We have been starved of investment year upon year and all that investment will have to be made up before we can field a decent team again. Teams like Man City have made the cost of that investment even greater, probably beyond our reach now. Is Wenger to blame for this? Yes. Is the board to blame? You bet your arse. And the players are to blame too. They all demand much for the service they provide but they don't deliver, in any sense of the word. Fuck them. I'm going to wait it out until they are all gone.