It's only Ramsey, Özil, Koscielny, Ches and BFG that have played all our recent games and the first two haven't played all 90 minutes either. I'm not sure how much more rotation we can hope to get away with. It's hardly like Man City are giving much rest to their best players, nor Chelsea and if their squads were so much better, that is not what they would be doing.Originally Posted by She Wore A Red Ribbon
They have top draw back ups though, we have to rely on players like Podolski coming back who's either hit or miss depending on which side of bed he got out of. They bring in Navas who will be quality regardless. That's why I'm worried. We have more depth than we have had in previous years but a few injuries in key positions still worry me.
Ozil looks pretty tired to me although admittedly I hardly watched him at Madrid, so I don't know whether he's one of those machine type players that can play every game like Messi, Aguero, Ronaldo etc. Basing my judgment on what I've seen at Arsenal, I think he looks tired now. You watch a lot of La Liga, can he play every game or does he need rest?
I'm not sure they do, at least not in the way it seems to be idealised. It's like any other team, if they aren't playing that often it's not all that likely you can expect them to come in and start performing immediately. Look at Dzeko, a good player he is has been sleepwalking through any recent appearance he has been making, hence why Negredo is so regularly picked. Jesus Navas has not been consistently performing but it seems to be agiven that Man City and Chelsea just have everybody performing at top level when that really isn't the case - if it was they wouldn't have lost 1-0 to Sunderland when they brought on those two aforementioned players to try and change the game.
Players get tired at the end of games but then they recover. It's what happens. He rarely gets injuries and he's not likely to pick up a suspension so he should be available for most games in a season. Mourinho did often bring off Özil after a certain amount of time it's true but he also regularly started him too.
I'm not sure I buy that, Navas has been brilliant when I've seen him play. It's far from idealised, they spent on a top player and he's provided 3 goals/3 assists, but more importantly, had an impact when he's been on the pitch. Sure you can point out 1 or 2 games where the City team as a whole performed badly, but they certainly have the strongest squad alongside Chelsea. Anyway, comparing our squad to the likes of Man City's is ridiculous because we have very different philosophies when it comes to spending. I'm interested in what Wenger is doing with our squad; I'm not entirely comfortable with him starting certain players and leaving the likes of Walcott out when we have a tough run of fixtures coming up. For example, Cazorla is out of form, every Tom and his dog can see that, why didn't Walcott start yesterday? He came on and instantly gave us width, setting up a goal. Or even against Hull at home, giving Theo 70 minutes would have been ideal, giving us an opportunity to rest Ozil or Ramsey, the latter of which was also turd yesterday.
It's little things like that which make a difference over the course of a season. A fresh Ramsey could have been devastating yesterday but he was hopeless, due to fatigue. Yesterday we were too narrow and tried playing through congested areas. I know we had to keep it tight but we gave Everton an incentive to continue attacking us.
And you didn't answer my Ozil question, is he a machine type player or will he need rest at some point?
Theo will get his chance. Everton came out the blocks flying and dominated possession and I don't think anyone was expecting that. Even if Theo had started, I think we'd have still been shocked because we couldn't hold possession. Took us a while to get a shot on goal. The best we could have hoped for was to counter attack because our midfield were struggling. But we went a goal up, Theo contributed with the assist, it was looking good.
The main change to line up would have been Flamini over Arteta. We needed his physical presence and organisation. Our full backs were getting pulled way to narrow, Gibbs especially and Flamini is good at covering the flanks and giving instructions so we're defending as a unit and looking for cohesive.
Oviedo had a field day because he had no threat to pin him back. If Theo was starting he wouldn't have pushed up as much. Also, we could have hit them on the break more effectively when they committed their players into our half, leaving them exposed. None of that was possible because we had no pace in our attack. Not to mention the fact that Ozil once again had noone to play through balls to. At one point he literally begged Jenks to overlap him when he had the ball but Jenkinson stayed in his position. Ozil cut inside again through a congested area. Ineffective.
I agree about the counter attacks but it was such a poor showing from the midfield, we just couldn’t win the ball back and more combative DM like Flamini may have really helped break up their play. To be honest, the three subs he made probably should been starter. Rosicky is always up for a scrap as well.
Walcott has barely come back. If resting players is that important then having someone like Theo who has barely played, for the second half of the season can only be of benefit. Or doesn't it work like that?
I'm not basing the discussion on Jesus Navas by stats, solely by incosistent performances and that's not a huge slide against him, it's unfair to expect consistency from somebody if they aren't consistently playing. Anyway two of those goals came against Tottenham which is not to be churlish enough to take them away from him but like you say, you can point to 1 or 2 games.
I don't think Man City's squad is as good as it was in 2011/2012. Tottenham have shown that spending money doesn't neccesarily equate to a squad ready to take good results week after week but nobody seems to want to challenge that perception for Chelsea and Man City.
We only had congested areas to play through because Everton pressed us so well. Players do have poor games from time to time, you said that about Jesus Navas not long ago and you're not attributing those games of his due to tiredness and I understand that's because he hasn't played as many minutes but this whole tiredness excuse is becoming so easy to wheel out, I wonder what the point is in coaching players to do anything else other than have physical endurance.
I don't know what rest means. How long for when a player is truly rested? Ramsey just had two weeks off internationals, five games after that he's now physically struggling supposedly. My instinct for Özil is that no, he won't need it. I said Mourinho very often picked which obviously suggests he is fairly robust enough.
but we've have an injury crisis in key position this season already, and guess what? we're top. by five points. during this season, we've had gibbs, sagna, vermaelen, mertesacker, arteta, flamini, walcott, podolski, gnabry, OX, wilshere, cazorla, rosicky all out with injuries. we've spent most of this season playing without wingers because of injuries so we've answered what happens when we get injuries. we go out and win.
chelsea and city have better squads on paper but that doesn't mean in reality they have better squads. if you're squad players come in, can't be arsed and you lose the game, whats the point? look at city and chelsea's record this season, especially in away games. its appalling yet we have gone to some tricky away games and lost only once. we've gone into these games with tons on injuries, you only have to look at our bench in most of the games, its been poor yet we still keep winning. as maccy says, city have brought on great players as subs and still lost, we bring on bendtner and we win.
the difference is squads so far this season has been hunger and desire. chelsea and city both look at times like they don't care, just look at their away form whereas every arsenal player this season looks up for it. the reserves when they come in, make a mark. everyone is fighting for that win and while we might not have the squad depth that city or chelsea enjoy, right now we have the stronger squad because we want it. we fight for it.
I understand why people doubt our credentials, a lot has happened in the past 8 years to create that perception of doubt, but I don't get why City and Chelsea are made out to be so much more legit. They've had some dire results but nothing seems to be said, you can bet your bottom dollar the next bad result we have will be held up as proof of our inability to challenge.
Chelsea haven't challenged for the league in years. This 'Mourinho factor' is bollocks, his 04/05 team was lightyears ahead of this crop.
City fluked it the other year but were nowhere to be seen last season.
Both have a lot of improving to do as well and the basis of what we've seen so far, we're the only side who have actually improved.
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