Zagreb 2 - Arsenal 1 Match Reaction Thread

[IBK]

Damn! He didn't spare any punches and it's downright embarrassing. I don't know why Wenger isn't embarrassed by this. Maybe the press need to stop sparing him with the soft questions and really dig into claims such as 'being unlucky' and the other team being 'committed'. Press him on it and find out if his brain is really working back there. Is he just being coy or is he an absolute fraud. These journalist are bloody lazy. They don't ask the right questions and they regurgitate soundbites from ex players, pundits and what's written on social media.

We have already seen other teams who beat Arsenal use the same tactics. This is a good way to beat them.

Sums it up, really.

[Niall_Quinn]

On Wenger's ability to improve players - Wilshere is a prime example. I do not rate Roy Hodgson - but the way Wilshere played for England prior to his latest injury embarrased our manager. As for the Ox, I fear for him a bit. I don't think he is being coached properly, and with Wenger's propensity to play Ramsey out of position where Ox plays (another player who has gone backwards from being player of the season a couple of years ago) I wonder whether he needs to move on to realise his potential fully. Theo has been with us since we first moved to the Emirates (can you believe that), and I think that another manager would have made him into a better player than he is.

All our players need to move on if Wenger is staying long term. But if the incredible and impossible happens in 2017 and he decides (because it will be entirely up to him) to go then it will be quite exciting to see what a proper manager and coach can do with what is unquestionably an excellent array of raw talent. Particularly English raw and so far unpolished talent.

[IBK]

You should stick around, it's so nice to have a grown up to talk to.

I basically agree with a lot of the above. I'd still like to leave it a little longer in this season before jumping to too many conclusions although I agree about the Groundhog Day nature of the last 10 years. That said, I've said endlessly why I see some glimmers of hope - players like Ozil and Sanchez, results like Old Trafford Cup Quarter Final and the FA Cup wins (which I don't accept were luck, I agree to an extent about some of the team being knocked out but there's always an element of luck in a Cup and last year we beat Utd away, the season before we played 3 of the top 6 - all at home, but still).

The last 2 years we've won the Cup and finished 4th then retained the Cup and finished 3rd. There have been frustrations but overall it's not been a bad 2 years. Last year we only finished below the two sides who have billionaires propping them up. People always say the billionaire thing is an "excuse" but the fact is they've mopped up most of the titles between them since they got going. Only Fergie has bested them both and as good as I think Wenger is, he's no Fergie. I do think now we have the new financial deals in place we can give them a run for their money though. As much as we all want to push on for the biggest prizes I think the level of moaning and hyperbole on here is way out of proportion to the situation. We lose, people moan. We win, people just moan about the performance instead.

I see the Chelsea game as a bigger indication of how this season will go than anything we've seen so far. We've not flown out of the blocks this season but only City have. Chelsea have had poor results so far but our record there is horrible of late, if we could win there it would show something about this team.

Ultimately I agree Wenger should be sacked it we don't start competing for the league. But I don't think he deserves the level of criticism much less the disrespect he gets on here.

I'm actually quite enjoying being back!

The problem with your glimmers of hope point is that this is part of the whole groundhog day thing. I would wager that almost every season since 2005 - and certainly for the past 3 years there have been reasons for hope. Long unbeaten runs; cup success; beating Citeh last season...but they have all been false dawns - what reason is there to consider that even a win against Chelsea will be any different. After all this win at their place



hilarious as it was - did not herald any real progress. Given that Chelsea have issues at present, I don't see why winning there will show that there is something about this team other than the ability to pull off the odd great result - which all of Wenger's teams have had for the past 10 years.

I think the real problem is Wenger's tactical shortcomings - and it is these more than anything else which are being laid bare on a regular basis. And given the status, position and renumeration as one of the world's top managers I think its perfecty fair to criticise what are such obvious failings in his approach.

As for our performance relative to other teams, I don't think its any defence of Wenger that other top teams apart from Citeh are struggling a bit. He has not had to cope with turnover in his players - and unlike Citeh or Manure (or even the Chavs, come to that) he had a league-topping in the 2015 calendar year team to build on - plus the inspiration of an FA cup. He has simply not done so - and has failed on a more general level to address our recent problem of an indifferent start to the league. He has failed to capitalise on the travails of Citeh; Manure; Liverpool - just as he failed to do so against the same teams (with Citeh this time in place of the Chavs) last time round.

And yes - there is always the 'billionaire' argument that we Gooners will roll out. Counter to that I would point out that when you take wages into account - we pretty much tend to finish where we would be expected to - given the investment in our team. In other words Wenger is not punching above his weight. Yes we finished 3rd rather than 4th last season, but that had more to do with Manure's fall from grace than any obvious progress. What was more telling for me was that we pretty much pissed away the chance to finish 2nd - which would have shown progress.

Most people - even on here - are not moaning for the sake of it. They are moaning because (2 enjoyable FA cups aside) they are disillusioned with a situation that never seems to change - but more to the point the manager's refusal to try to do so.

[IBK]

All our players need to move on if Wenger is staying long term. But if the incredible and impossible happens in 2017 and he decides (because it will be entirely up to him) to go then it will be quite exciting to see what a proper manager and coach can do with what is unquestionably an excellent array of raw talent. Particularly English raw and so far unpolished talent.

What would really be exciting would be if Wenger showed some humility and brought in a proper coach. Won't happen though...

[Niall_Quinn]

What was more telling for me was that we pretty much pissed away the chance to finish 2nd - which would have shown progress.

Whatever you do, don't mention the war!

[Niall_Quinn]

What would really be exciting would be if Wenger showed some humility and brought in a proper coach. Won't happen though...

I think we all tried saying that about 4 years ago didn't we? We've since moved on to other patently obvious things.

[IBK]

This is an issue I have put to you a few times and not once have you addressed it. Part of me thinks you are avoiding it so I thought I'd try one last time. As NQ has said above, many people have put forward well composed arguments, alongside some of the jokes that keep this place worth returning to. I've consistently read in your posts the mantra of how beating City and Utd away, our 'magnificent' run in the second half of the season and I'm assuming now this Chelsea game would be added to that if we got a point, not even a victory.

I've pointed out that over the past two seasons (which comprises this squad) where our issue in the league has come from, which is against the top 8. A group that make up the better teams in the league, a set of teams that have remained consistently in place over the past two seasons. With a small group outside the top quad of teams that offer more of threat to the top four and are in the running for a Europa position. So overall, clubs with a higher standard of player than everyone else below.

The run in the second half of the season illustrated similar failings, beating those in the lower half of the table and consistently dropping points against the better teams. As we did in the first half of the season. As we did in the previous season too. The amount of points we collected over those two seasons against the top 8 is also very similar, both around 17/18 points from 42. Saying that we tailed off at the end of last season because the focus was the FA Cup Final can't be true either - because in 13/14 we won our last five games of the season, unsurprisingly all against teams in the bottom half of the table. Last season in our last five before the final we got 7 from 9 against the lower teams and 1 from 6 against those in the top 8. It's hard to ignore the pattern.

It is absolutely clear that this squad and manager struggles to figure out ways to beat the better teams. That is a combination of his failings and a weak squad. Games against the top four have been a microcosm of that over the past number of seasons but when you extend it out to the other strong teams, the problem persists. Go out further to Europe and we all know that once we get beyond the group stage and the quality increases, we fail to step up.

So bearing all that in mind I'm curious how to know where these signs of progression in the league are being illustrated from your point of view. We may have new financial deals in place but if they are not being utilised to maximum effect it doesn't really offer much help. People do complain about performances when we win - and really, not just on this forum, you should go and look - because we are not playing very well. Doing just enough to get by, which doesn't inspire confidence in fans in a period when all the talk before the season started was about challenging for the title. We hardly look like a team that are capable of sustaining strong performances across an entire campaign. That is why people are worried. We look fragile and just as capable of winning or pulling out a result like Wednesday, or West Ham. We have been living on a myth that we still play great football, fed to the mainstream by numbskull pundits who churn out the easy and safe one-liners. If you watch our games consistently, there is nothing very exciting about the mostly slow, pedestrian approach to our play. That is another reason why fans complain about the performances. It all looks and feels very familiar to the patterns of previous seasons and the facts exist in our results to prove that is the case too.

For me there is a simple reason for the trend that you have laid out so clearly. We have better players than all but the Manchester clubs and Chelsea. These players' talent will generally see them through against inferior teams - although we are seeing increasingly that 'lower' teams are now acquiring better players and managers with proper tactical nous (sorry Newcastle). Arsene struggles, however, against decent tactics - and without a bespoke tactical approach that maximises his own players' talents and negates other teams' his teams are effectively playing with one arm behind their backs. We saw how Alexis almost single handedly won us a heap of points last season. This is a worry, because it does not show a winning system, it shows an approach that relies on moments of individual brilliance. And such an approach simply cannot be relied on on a consistent basis.

[IBK]

I think we all tried saying that about 4 years ago didn't we? We've since moved on to other patently obvious things.

I agree - but honestly in a parallel universe where Arsenal has one the league 3 times in the past 5 years, this is what has happened. Because it would deal with almost all of the patently obvious failings at a stroke.

[Niall_Quinn]

For me there is a simple reason for the trend that you have laid out so clearly. We have better players than all but the Manchester clubs and Chelsea. These players' talent will generally see them through against inferior teams - although we are seeing increasingly that 'lower' teams are now acquiring better players and managers with proper tactical nous (sorry Newcastle). Arsene struggles, however, against decent tactics - and without a bespoke tactical approach that maximises his own players' talents and negates other teams' his teams are effectively playing with one arm behind their backs. We saw how Alexis almost single handedly won us a heap of points last season. This is a worry, because it does not show a winning system, it shows an approach that relies on moments of individual brilliance. And such an approach simply cannot be relied on on a consistent basis.

You should stick around, it's so nice to have a grown up to talk to.