Has Wenger faiiled to develop our young players?

[Power n Glory]

Other than goal scoring how has Ramsey improved as CM, not a particular good passer, lacks discipline, cant control a game. Doesnt understand how to set an attack from the CM position at all. Our midfield has look downright garbage at times when he's part of the midfield 2.

I fear Ramsey is following in the same footsteps as Cesc Fabregas in terms of development. Different players with different attributes but it seems as though all the focus on their development went on scoring more goals and everything else got pushed to the wayside. Cesc was a great passer and could control the game from the midfield. He should have been a Xavi or Pirlo. His biggest weakness was the defensive discipline but Wenger had no interest in tightening that part of his game up it seems. Instead of keeping him as a CM, teaching discipline in his movement, working hard to win the ball back, he pushed him up field to a number 10 role so he could get more goals and not have to defend. So that effected how we controlled games because he wasn’t further down the pitch dictating the tempo of a game. Neglecting that side of his game effected his career at Barca and Pep didn’t trust him as CM so he’d play as a striker!

Now I see a similar pattern with Ramsey. As you rightly point out, it’s just the goal scoring that’s improved and everything else about his game hasn’t. He’s not a good passer of the ball and he has no positional awareness. You’re right about him not knowing how to set up an attack from the CM and that’s why Rosicky and Cazorla are so much better at it than him. But it seems like we have no interest in developing that side of his game. It’s why I question him getting played on the wing and Wenger praising the quality of his runs. That’s great but can we at least get him functioning as a CM that can control the flow of the game? He has a terrific engine and not afraid of making a tackle. I worry about his development because it looks like a similar pattern.

Way too much focus on scoring goals for some players. You only have to look at Ozil’s comments today about adding more goals to his game. Or take Walcott as another example where all wing play and build has been neglected and he’s just allowed to hang on the shoulder of defenders making runs all day instead of actually getting in the ball and dribbling. The balance just isn’t right when you look at it.

[Özim]

I fear Ramsey is following in the same footsteps as Cesc Fabregas in terms of development. Different players with different attributes but it seems as though all the focus on their development went on scoring more goals and everything else got pushed to the wayside. Cesc was a great passer and could control the game from the midfield. He should have been a Xavi or Pirlo. His biggest weakness was the defensive discipline but Wenger had no interest in tightening that part of his game up it seems. Instead of keeping him as a CM, teaching discipline in his movement, working hard to win the ball back, he pushed him up field to a number 10 role so he could get more goals and not have to defend. So that effected how we controlled games because he wasn’t further down the pitch dictating the tempo of a game. Neglecting that side of his game effected his career at Barca and Pep didn’t trust him as CM so he’d play as a striker!

Now I see a similar pattern with Ramsey. As you rightly point out, it’s just the goal scoring that’s improved and everything else about his game hasn’t. He’s not a good passer of the ball and he has no positional awareness. You’re right about him not knowing how to set up an attack from the CM and that’s why Rosicky and Cazorla are so much better at it than him. But it seems like we have no interest in developing that side of his game. It’s why I question him getting played on the wing and Wenger praising the quality of his runs. That’s great but can we at least get him functioning as a CM that can control the flow of the game? He has a terrific engine and not afraid of making a tackle. I worry about his development because it looks like a similar pattern.

Way too much focus on scoring goals for some players. You only have to look at Ozil’s comments today about adding more goals to his game. Or take Walcott as another example where all wing play and build has been neglected and he’s just allowed to hang on the shoulder of defenders making runs all day instead of actually getting in the ball and dribbling. The balance just isn’t right when you look at it.

Wenger has no interest in the defensive side of the game, he just thinks about the offensive side, his comments a number of years ago about more points for goals highlight this, Barcelona turning up with their tippy tappy football many years ago was the worst thing that could have happened to us because Wenger has taken this as the blueprint and put all of our focus on attack (although they also had a very hard working team, even if they did look vulnerable defensively at times).

Football is about more than attacking, a solid defensive unit is sometimes required to snatch results when you're not playing well. The irony is offensively we're nowhere near as good as we could be either.

[Power n Glory]

It seems that way. You can see a pattern in the sort of young players he's helped develop. It's fine to focus on a player like Ozil getting goals although I find it odd that Ozil has spoken out in public to contradict Wenger. See below.

http://www.fourfourtwo.com/news/i-do...s-my-game-ozil

[Letters]

Gabriel, Chambers and Cech are 3 of his most recent signings.
I generally agree he is more attach minded but he's signed a 'keeper and 2 defensive players in the last year or so.

[Power n Glory]

Gabriel, Chambers and Cech are 3 of his most recent signings.
I generally agree he is more attach minded but he's signed a 'keeper and 2 defensive players in the last year or so.

We're not talking about signings or recent signings. It's about development.

[Letters]

I was responding to Zim's assertion that Wenger has "no interest" in defence.

[Power n Glory]

I was responding to Zim's assertion that Wenger has "no interest" in defence.

And he's responding to what I said about developed players lacking defensive discipline. Keep up, lad. This isn't about signings.

[Özim]

I was responding to Zim's assertion that Wenger has "no interest" in defence.

Our keepers were a disaster zone, he'd have been foolish not to sign a new keeper as they were costing us points, Chambers is a kid who let's be honest isn't great at the moment (not too sure what made us sign him as he wasn't one of the standout players at Southampton), I wouldn't call signing him as a sign he's trying to improve the defence more that he wants another project. Gabriel is good I'll give you that, but we were short of CB's so needed some cover.

I'm not saying he doesn't sign defensive players, every team needs 4 defenders a goalkeeper etc etc more that it's not something he focusses on in training or in developing players. He made Gibbs a full back and the guy was a winger and can't defend for toffee and never has been able to and we've seen little improvement on that side with him.

I just don't think players defensive awareness improves under Wenger because he put so much focus on attacking, even our full backs have to roam forward and attack. The comment PNG makes about Ramsey and goals is testament to that, he could be a great all round player, instead his primary focus is goals.

[Kano]

Our keepers were a disaster zone, he'd have been foolish not to sign a new keeper as they were costing us points, Chambers is a kid who let's be honest isn't great at the moment (not too sure what made us sign him as he wasn't one of the standout players at Southampton), I wouldn't call signing him as a sign he's trying to improve the defence more that he wants another project. Gabriel is good I'll give you that, but we were short of CB's so needed some cover.

I'm not saying he doesn't sign defensive players, every team needs 4 defenders a goalkeeper etc etc more that it's not something he focusses on in training or in developing players. He made Gibbs a full back and the guy was a winger and can't defend for toffee and never has been able to and we've seen little improvement on that side with him.

I just don't think players defensive awareness improves under Wenger because he put so much focus on attacking, even our full backs have to roam forward and attack. The comment PNG makes about Ramsey and goals is testament to that, he could be a great all round player, instead his primary focus is goals.

Not sure that is true about our defence. Bellerin is one of most promising full backs in the league, Monreal is potentially the best left back and Koscienly one of the mostly highly rated CB’s in the league. Full backs from every team go forward on a regular basis, which is why in the modern game you need team mates that are willing to work back and there is no room for luxury players only willing to concentrate on attack. It’s the way of the modern game. And I will go back to your statement that you do not watch a lot of football anymore, so your judgement on this is not the most accurate.

What we’re seeing at the moment is a team with no central midfield and a defence completely exposed with no protection because Ramsey and Flamini are not a pairing that works at all. A look at our goals against column shows we are as good as our competitors. As was the case last season. You may then go on to say Cech is the reason we don’t concede much and of course that is partly the case because every successful team needs a top class goalkeeper to succeed. Why? Because he’ll save his team mates arses on several occasions throughout the year. And let’s not forget Cech wasn’t here last season when our defence improved on the previous years mess. Since we’ve seen Bould join the set-up our defence has improved – hardly a coincidence and unless you are spying every week at London Colney, you have no idea of knowing how much work we do or do not put in on the training pitch defensively.

[I am invisible]

I think we're very much approaching this from the POV of the player, and what they regard as their best position - from that perspective then, yeah, you'd have to look at it and say that we're not really adding much to their games, or coaching any new abilities into them.

However, I'm not sure this is how Wenger looks at it - I think he sees it from a more functional, 'play to your strengths' perspective, and will try to find a player a role in the side based on what they're best at (which isn't always what the player thinks they're best at, or where they thought they'd be playing)? Coquelin's probably the most recent example, albeit a fairly subtle one - by all accounts, he was trying to play beyond his ability as a central midfielder, and was losing his way by trying to add too much attacking play to his game until Wenger took him to one side and told him to just focus on the defensive side of the job. Thankfully he took it on board, and he's now focussing on doing one job to a world class standard before he starts pissing around with anything else.

Generally speaking, I think the success stories are the players who are humble and honest enough to accept our assessment (or reassessment) of their abilities, and who embrace the role we give them. And the ones who fail to make any significant impact are the ones who never quite find a place in the side: either they never fully accept the job that we give them, and their ego (or entourage!) tell them that they're destined for other things (sadly all too common with a lot of these teenage millionaires); or they simply don't have any one skill or attribute that makes them anything special, and we never really find a specific job for them beyond being a bit of a utility man (there's still a good career to be had in that, but it probably won't be a glamorous one)?