Manchester United U21s 3 v Arsenal 2 - Match Reaction

[selassie]

An absolute waste of a player. 10 years of the development. Has to be the poster boy of Emirates failure. I've defended in him as well but I can't defend that performance. Overpaid, underperforming and showing zero signs of improvement. Wenger has got his development totally wrong and I don't know why we wasted so many years of him playing on the wing if this is how he's going to perform. I thought the whole point of him starting wide was to get him to be more of team player. He hasn't totally regressed on that part of his game and the dribbling is nonexistent. A massive disappointment and he should hold a bench for the rest of the season. If he can't handle that, we should move him on in the summer. Along with Ox and Ramsey, he's developed into a poor player with zero intelligence.

The states are worse. 6/9 passes. 3rd lowest just above behind Iwobi and Januzaj who played just over 10 minutes of football. 4 touches in the box. 0 shots. 0/1 take ons....it's a shocking performance. Heat map has him all over the place besides the box. I have no idea where he was supposed to be playing but regardless of instructions, that's an example of a player with zero intelligence. Along with Ox and Ramsey, he has no idea how to be effective and considering the years we've spent with him on the wing, it's embarrassing. How and why isn't he looking to make more of a contribution? Get more touches on the ball for goodness sake. Make more passes. He has to be benched for Campbell. Sub appearances. Maybe....not even sure if he'd contribute much there.

Yeah I've given up with Theo too, I had been a staunch supporter of him up until this season and had defended because his numbers were fairly decent.

Theo is a waste of time now and if Wenger was a pragmatic manager he'd put him up for sale in the summer. I want him gone, seriously...if he's not scoring he brings nothing to the table, he's also been directly at fault for conceeding possession by stupid dribbling which led to us conceeding against Liverpool and yesterday against United.

I also agree that him, Ox and Ramsey have stagnated. Theo will be lucky to make the England Euro squad if he carries on this poor form, he doesn't deserve a place in the squad IMO.

[Dein-machine]

Finally a GW where certain Wengerites have finally seen the light - about 5 years too late.
For a guy called Le Prof, you would have thought the intelligent side of football would be a strong point for him. Henry, Bergkamp, Pires, Llundberg - all had a footballing brain - he has now created a team with Ozil surrounded by a bunch of retards. Even Sanchez makes more wrong decisions than right ones - Ramsey, Walcott, Giroud, Ox make the wrong decision 80% of the time - simply not good enough, never will be. Listening to his latest batch of excuses I really do worry if Wenget's brain is deteriorating
rapidly due to his age. Our problem is that we have an owner who wont understand that we played a Man Utd youth team yesterday, probably didnt know that we had a game, but is puffing on a cigar somehwhere because he's heard about how much money we're sitting on. Its all going well as far as hes concerned.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

But as you've explained yourself we have an owner who doesn't give a shit, so who cares if the fans sang from the same hymn sheet or not.
I've been fluidic on the Wenger in/Wenger out thing because he's here regardless of whether we want him or not

One intangible question is whether we will spend more money with a different manager, going by your description of Kroenke probably not.

As you say players like Ramsey and Walcott lack footballing intelligence

[Letters]

This could get me banned, but years ago when I posted as Ashburton, I said then that Wenger was passed it, well, I was bloody right! I will say it again, his early success came from inheriting the best back five this country has ever seen! Wenger out.....please!!!

Well, that's bullshit.
His early success came about because his training methods and knowledge of the European game were light years ahead of other teams.
The Invincibles team was pretty much entirely his own.
Football has moved on, other teams have caught up and overtaken us in some of those regards. He's been a safe pair of hands while we were moving stadium and did well to keep us in the top 4, the two Cup wins will help his legacy but his time is up now.
But let's not rewrite history and pretend he wasn't a very, very good manager back in the day.

[Power n Glory]

Well, that's bullshit.
His early success came about because his training methods and knowledge of the European game were light years ahead of other teams.
The Invincibles team was pretty much entirely his own.
Football has moved on, other teams have caught up and overtaken us in some of those regards. He's been a safe pair of hands while we were moving stadium and did well to keep us in the top 4, the two Cup wins will help his legacy but his time is up now.
But let's not rewrite history and pretend he wasn't a very, very good manager back in the day.

The Invincible squad learned a lot from Adams and co. The mentality on the pitch certainly came from that crop.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

It helped no doubt, but it would be ridiculous to state that any manager would have been able to compile that team and go a whole season unbeaten with it.

The same Adams mentality had seen the team in mid table in 1995, if you want to be that forensic

I broadly agree with Letters on this, there is no sense in historical revisionism because we are annoyed with the guy for his failings. We know he's not the guy to take us forward, but trying to claim we shouldn't be appreciative for what he has done for the club is ridiculous.

[Marc Overmars]

The Invincible squad learned a lot from Adams and co. The mentality on the pitch certainly came from that crop.

Most of our current lot are only winners in their own heads. The reality is they don't know what it takes, it's absolutely inexcusable to look so far off the boil when now is the time we should be hitting top gear. Though I suppose it's hard to compete with the oil money at Leicester and Spurs.

[Power n Glory]

It helped no doubt, but it would be ridiculous to state that any manager would have been able to compile that team and go a whole season unbeaten with it.

The same Adams mentality had seen the team in mid table in 1995, if you want to be that forensic

I broadly agree with Letters on this, there is no sense in historical revisionism because we are annoyed with the guy for his failings. We know he's not the guy to take us forward, but trying to claim we shouldn't be appreciative for what he has done for the club is ridiculous.

That would be a ridiculous claim. But as you said yesterday in the match thread, the player's mentality just wasn't right yesterday. If they take some of the blame then they can also share the glory. We haven't come close to having that sort of winning mentality under Wenger since. It's hard to ignore. Souness was ripping into that team yesterday about the poor attitude but he's said that before about other Arsenal teams. This is totally different squad from the kids we were playing. Same hallmarks each year. I can't reproduce that fighting attitude but we constantly see these spinless, jellyback performances in each side he's create since that team died. Since Vieira left.

[Letters]

The Invincible squad learned a lot from Adams and co. The mentality on the pitch certainly came from that crop.

I guess that's true. But let's not get all revisionist and argue that Wenger just got lucky and inherited a good squad back in the day, he did far more than that to create that period of success.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

I think we do see that hunger and winning mentality but far too sporadically

Yesterday was a case that we knew United were missing key players and we didn't think we'd need to put in a shift, and unfortunately you have to work hard in every game.


I can think of three games this season where we have shown a consistent mentality of hard work, guile and talent

United at home, Bayern Munich at home and Man City at home

Barcelona we turned up but we lost our heads, it seems really that only in a handful of games do we actually bother to play like a team.

Even at 2-0 down yesterday we should have won, but didn't seem to want to make the effort.