Quote Originally Posted by Coney View Post
That, for me, is the most frustrating thing. We can usually hold our own and often get a result against these top teams. The frustration is the points we dropped against sides who, given our general table position, we should be pissing on.

To an extent I blame Wenger for being blind to that aspect of the PL. When we are playing top sides and the game is generally about footballing skill, we do well. What we need (and what the manus and chavs tend to have) is a few hard cases who can do the thug play that you need when playing the neandertals in the bottom of the league. Each side we play needs something a bit different and we need to flex our approach to deal with that. When we had people like Adams and Keown who knew how to 'deal' with certain people, we got those results that make the difference between being a winning side and an almost also-ran. I think those kind of players in the team also helps give the overall squad some backbone. It is not just experience, it is attitude. People like the Ox and Wilshere should be regulars simply because they don't lie down (till their legs are broken) and will fight as hard as it takes to make something happen.

If we can get the squad fit over the summer, we don't actually need to buy in that many players - lose the loser dross (Chamakh and the like) - another 2 experienced strikers (Podolski + 1) and most important is someone who can do the kind of DM work that we missed when Arteta was in the team so that we can cover when he is injured and also give him a rest now and then. A backup keeper, of course.

But overall, as has happened year after year - where I think Wenger is getting it wrong - is these easy matches. Look at the last few seasons and it is the draws and occasional defeats against the bottom teams that have cost us a chance of the title. Things like 8-2 at OT might be embarrassing but they are not the cause of our failure to win the title. Those are one-offs. The grind of the draws and worse against supposedly crap teams is what kills us every time.
I agree with the need to change tactics and needing to be more flexible, but we haven't been bullied by teams this season, just played off the park. That's the sad thing about it all. We haven't been bullied and kicked off the field like we've seen before, teams haven't taken advantage of us during set plays this year, we've been pretty solid in that area. Teams have just outplayed us and we've been open to counter attacks and sloppy play all season. More than anything, I think we've been exposed tactically and we're out of ideas. The way we play has to change. It it wasn't for RVP, we'd be far down that table.