Match Reaction vs PNE (away, Cup).

[Niall_Quinn]

We need to stop using this tippy tappy term. Our Plan A has always been a short passing game and that's how we scored that goal. A short pass to Iwobi from Perez and a short pass from Iwobi to Ramsey. We always try to open teams up and create those little pockets of space. We saw that with that wonderful goal Perez scored in our last game. I'm not saying it's a fluke, it's about quality. Certainly for this game. We weren't playing a great team. There are times where Plan A won't work and it starts to look slow and labored against teams sitting deep. That wasn't the case for this game. There was a serious problem with the quality and effort in this game. Not the tactics.

So why bother with bullshit like that when a lower league team like Preston do it twice as well as we do using simple, traditional football that we've seen in this league for decades? Push the ball and go, get men in the box, get your cross in. Why do we have players like Ox and Theo and Giroud and why the hell do we start them if we persist with this tippy tappy (Perfect term for it) bore ball? Yes, I suppose you can disguise it by saying it's a short passing game. But we all know the sort of shit I'm talking about.

[Power n Glory]

If short passes are quick and decisive, I would agree with you, but we have a slow build up, or tippy tappy which allows defences to get back and have a cup of tea waiting for us to get to their box. When we get there, a lot of the time we don't know what to do. Defences then get into a comfort zone and are not troubled. They then get more confidence and score on the counter. We are predictable. Today we were just awful in the first half, we just couldn't cope with Preston's commitment and pressing. They were unlucky not to be three up at half time.

I agree with you on passes needing to be quick and decisive to be at our best. We're a million miles away from the football we used to play with Cesc, Rosicky and RVP. Best I've seen us play this season was the Basel game. But it's still 'tippy tappy' as some call it. Difference is the speed at which we play.

But for this particular game and many others like it, we struggled at kick off to find our rhythm. Either the attitude of the players was wrong or they're not good enough technically to play this way. The way Xhaka almost lost the ball from kick off isn't something you can blame on tactics. We often see these sort of mistakes from our build up that stops our rhythm. Too often I see people blame the tactics for unforced errors. That's not me dismissing how predictable we can be but for this particular game and few others like it, we were just piss poor technically.

The goal we scored wasn't even a case of us passing the ball quick enough to avoid facing a packed defence. The build up was slow and Iwobi was surrounded by players when he had to play in Ramsey.

But I agree with you on many of the points. It's more so me continuing a debate with NQ. It annoys me that everything negative with our play is classed as tippy tappy but when we score and play well, all of a sudden we've stopped playing tippy tappy. We need to stop using that term on here. It's just lazy.

[Power n Glory]

So why bother with bullshit like that when a lower league team like Preston do it twice as well as we do using simple, traditional football that we've seen in this league for decades? Push the ball and go, get men in the box, get your cross in. Why do we have players like Ox and Theo and Giroud and why the hell do we start them if we persist with this tippy tappy (Perfect term for it) bore ball? Yes, I suppose you can disguise it by saying it's a short passing game. But we all know the sort of shit I'm talking about.

Yeah, just stick it in the back of the net.

Alright Ian Wright.

[Niall_Quinn]

Yeah, just stick it in the back of the net.

Alright Ian Wright.

No, it's a perfectly valid question. How come Preston North End can play effective football without all the pissing around? But we can't?

Although we can, can't we, because we've seen the lads play excellent football when (for whatever reason) they have been let off the leash.

Wenger out solves everything. He has to go. It is way, way, way past time now.

[Power n Glory]

It's a terrible question. Preston lost the game because they missed some real good 1st half chances.

[Niall_Quinn]

It's a terrible question. Preston lost the game because they missed some real good 1st half chances.

It's a terrible question if you completely change the context, as you have done here. We weren't talking about who won or lost. We were talking about the type of football played by Preston compared to the (alleged) football we play. Why you are trying to avoid acknowledging what the whole world can see, I don't know.

[Power n Glory]

It's a terrible question if you completely change the context, as you have done here. We weren't talking about who won or lost. We were talking about the type of football played by Preston compared to the (alleged) football we play. Why you are trying to avoid acknowledging what the whole world can see, I don't know.

So you want to swap the style of play we have now for a midtable championship team that we beat? Nothing out of context, it's just a silly question.

[Niall_Quinn]

So you want to swap the style of play we have now for a midtable championship team that we beat? Nothing out of context, it's just a silly question.

Anything to avoid focusing on the issue. I said I wanted to change our style of play to be more direct and higher tempo because we've seen what our own team can do when we play with ambition. As it is, indeed, Preston were much the better team with much the better style and they were extremely unfortunate to come out empty handed. It wasn't their style of football that cost them in the end, yet again Wenger was unprepared and outclassed. Fortunately for Wenger he has a lot more money than his counterpart at Preston and so we have better talent in the team and, as is usually the case, it was individual players who dragged a result from this latest shit show.

Wenger is giving us absolutely nothing. He's a giant stone around the neck of every player. His shitty ideas about football are not only the most boring on the planet but they are also robbing the players and the fans of the possibilities that are available to this squad, given an even semiconscious manager at the helm. Yer after year of wasted potential and the ongoing embarrassment of enduring games where teams like Preston play us off the pitch. The fact Wenger is still here is probably the second greatest scandal in football, after the abuse scandal. But keep on explaining how what we are seeing is somehow rational. It doesn't change the facts. A decade of nothingness and the fucker is going to get a new contract so he can keep on, like a catatonic vegetable, automatically repeating the same madness season after season in the expectation it will all suddenly fall into place. It's pure craziness. There is no system here, no logic. It's just mindless, moronic, bloody minded nonsense and to describe it any other way and, worse, to try and assign some sort of credibility to it is way beyond optimistic.

[Power n Glory]

Anything to avoid focusing on the issue. I said I wanted to change our style of play to be more direct and higher tempo because we've seen what our own team can do when we play with ambition. As it is, indeed, Preston were much the better team with much the better style and they were extremely unfortunate to come out empty handed. It wasn't their style of football that cost them in the end, yet again Wenger was unprepared and outclassed. Fortunately for Wenger he has a lot more money than his counterpart at Preston and so we have better talent in the team and, as is usually the case, it was individual players who dragged a result from this latest shit show.

Wenger is giving us absolutely nothing. He's a giant stone around the neck of every player. His shitty ideas about football are not only the most boring on the planet but they are also robbing the players and the fans of the possibilities that are available to this squad, given an even semiconscious manager at the helm. Yer after year of wasted potential and the ongoing embarrassment of enduring games where teams like Preston play us off the pitch. The fact Wenger is still here is probably the second greatest scandal in football, after the abuse scandal. But keep on explaining how what we are seeing is somehow rational. It doesn't change the facts. A decade of nothingness and the fucker is going to get a new contract so he can keep on, like a catatonic vegetable, automatically repeating the same madness season after season in the expectation it will all suddenly fall into place. It's pure craziness. There is no system here, no logic. It's just mindless, moronic, bloody minded nonsense and to describe it any other way and, worse, to try and assign some sort of credibility to it is way beyond optimistic.

Spare me. 4/5 seasons ago when I kept saying Wenger has to go and even if he had money to spend he'd still choke, you'd constantly deflect attention away from the manager and his tactics to talk about Gazidis and Ivan. You've got no business lecturing me when it comes to focusing on the issues.

I don't see much point in going over this issue again. I've always said Wenger wasn't a great tactician but there are certain mistakes made that I can't blame on tactics. You've seen the video. We kick off for the second half and within seconds Xhaka takes a heavy touch and almost loses possession which would have resulted in a dangerous counter attack. He almost cost us a goal in the opening minutes of the first half as well. How can a heavy touch from a supposed top class player be blamed on the tactics? The sort of errors we're seeing come down to mental preparation or fatigue. The attitude of the players isn't right. These are unforced errors. Sloppiness. The players have to take some responsibility for their shit performances. They're all experienced enough to know better. I'll put more of the blame on Wenger if we see the same sloppy attitude from this lot and he doesn't correct it.

[Niall_Quinn]

Spare me. 4/5 seasons ago when I kept saying Wenger has to go and even if he had money to spend he'd still choke, you'd constantly deflect attention away from the manager and his tactics to talk about Gazidis and Ivan. You've got no business lecturing me when it comes to focusing on the issues.

I don't see much point in going over this issue again. I've always said Wenger wasn't a great tactician but there are certain mistakes made that I can't blame on tactics. You've seen the video. We kick off for the second half and within seconds Xhaka takes a heavy touch and almost loses possession which would have resulted in a dangerous counter attack. He almost cost us a goal in the opening minutes of the first half as well. How can a heavy touch from a supposed top class player be blamed on the tactics? The sort of errors we're seeing come down to mental preparation or fatigue. The attitude of the players isn't right. These are unforced errors. Sloppiness. The players have to take some responsibility for their shit performances. They're all experienced enough to know better. I'll put more of the blame on Wenger if we see the same sloppy attitude from this lot and he doesn't correct it.

How far away from the original topic are you now? Nobody has said the players shouldn't take responsibility. Nobody has said they don't make sloppy, shitty errors - on the contrary, we see them every week. The point was, is Wenger's football shit. After a decade, the self evident answer is yes and it has fuck all to do with the players. The players are a problem of a different kind, but it is Wenger and Wenger alone who has dreamed up the nightmarish system we play. It's his boring shitter-patter we've been putting up with for years. That's what the discussion was about. Why we play that sort of shit so much when we could utilise these players in a much more positive manner.