Match Reaction vs Chelsea (FA Cup, neutral)

[Blink 1nce Quince 2wice]

Someone made a joke the other day on a podcast hat you just want to lock Welbeck on a 5 aside pitch with Ian Wright. Honestly.....I think he should make his training 50% finishing. That's not even a joke.

At the start of the season....(might even have been preseason) I asked the question on this forum whether we should seriously consider playing 343 through the season.....I can't be bothered to dig it out, but it was a non starter to most on here people were saying we didn't have the players for it. Anyway do people think now we've seen it that we should move forward with it...ie next season and base transfer targets with that system in mind?

I don't think the system change has simply been placebo and I'm personally not of the school of thought that it's all down to the players and the system is an irrelevance.

[GP]

Someone made a joke the other day on a podcast hat you just want to lock Welbeck on a 5 aside pitch with Ian Wright. Honestly.....I think he should make his training 50% finishing. That's not even a joke.

At the start of the season....(might even have been preseason) I asked the question on this forum whether we should seriously consider playing 433 through the season.....I can't be bothered to dig it out, but it was a non starter to most on here people were saying we didn't have the players for it. Anyway do people think now we've seen it that we should move forward with it...ie next season and base transfer targets with that system in mind?

I don't think the system change has simply been placebo and I'm personally not of the school of thought that it's all down to the players and the system is an irrelevance.

No, I don't think we should be going to 433.

We've got to stick with the 3 at the back.

[Blink 1nce Quince 2wice]

HAHAHA! Doh!

I mean 3 at the back of course!

[Power n Glory]

Someone made a joke the other day on a podcast hat you just want to lock Welbeck on a 5 aside pitch with Ian Wright. Honestly.....I think he should make his training 50% finishing. That's not even a joke.

At the start of the season....(might even have been preseason) I asked the question on this forum whether we should seriously consider playing 343 through the season.....I can't be bothered to dig it out, but it was a non starter to most on here people were saying we didn't have the players for it. Anyway do people think now we've seen it that we should move forward with it...ie next season and base transfer targets with that system in mind?

I don't think the system change has simply been placebo and I'm personally not of the school of thought that it's all down to the players and the system is an irrelevance.

I never would have thought Wenger would make a move to 3 at the back. It's definitely something we should continue with and I'd also like to see him alter the formation by playing 2 up front instead of one. My main gripe with Giroud up front is his lack of mobility. Combine his physical presence with a smaller player like Sanchez or Walcott and we get the best of both worlds. The three of them have scored a load of goals this season and we have a system that can accommodate a partnership. Also, we'd be able to play Ozil as a 10. The closer he plays to Sanchez, the better.

But even without the alterations, we should stick with this formation. Would prefer Sanchez up front and maybe get Iwobi back playing but in the wide attack position Sanchez would play. I think the kid deserves a second chance. He's not a winger and didn't suit playing there.

[Coney]

I never would have thought Wenger would make a move to 3 at the back. It's definitely something we should continue with and I'd also like to see him alter the formation by playing 2 up front instead of one. My main gripe with Giroud up front is his lack of mobility. Combine his physical presence with a smaller player like Sanchez or Walcott and we get the best of both worlds. The three of them have scored a load of goals this season and we have a system that can accommodate a partnership. Also, we'd be able to play Ozil as a 10. The closer he plays to Sanchez, the better.

But even without the alterations, we should stick with this formation. Would prefer Sanchez up front and maybe get Iwobi back playing but in the wide attack position Sanchez would play. I think the kid deserves a second chance. He's not a winger and didn't suit playing there.

I've always favoured 2 up front for defensive reasons. Sounds bizarre at first but consider this. If you have one up front when the rest are defending, the one up front can be man marked meaning the other side can have more attacking. If you have 2 up front with the potential for interplay, then the other team need to consider having 3 in defence, 2 being a bit risk, thus reducing their attacking potential. Given the way having a back 3 seems to have worked really well, a 3-5-2 gets my vote.

[Marc Overmars]

We should definitely continue on with the formation next season, it's helped confidence return and most importantly produced some good results. I would like to see if it can stand the test of a whole season.

Wenger made the right move but it's frustrating that it (again) took us reaching a nadir for something to change. He probably could have made any number of changes to the system and it would have yielded something positive because we were absolutely shocking this season.

[Niall_Quinn]

Honestly don't think we can read anything of significance into this new defensive set up. We've been up against teams that have gone on holiday and we've used it in a cup final which is a one off game where form goes out the window.

What we actually need is for Wenger to duck out of coaching so we can bring in proper coaches instead of his cronies. We need a defence that can do the business during the season, not just at the tail end of it. We probably won't get that, so what I'm saying is we'll need to wait for the first third of next season to play out until we can determine if there's genuinely something new happening defensively. We've seen the current pattern too many times already.