The Madness of Arsene Wenger

[Darth Vela]

I don't think they are even remotely accurate. The defence is a joke......in terms of ability, organisation and resolve.......even the worst of defences has a few good games but on the whole they play without confidence, composure and they play like individuals not as a unit.

Well, they were part of the team that fell apart so they've got to take some stick for that but there was a brilliant run of games where they kept it tight and there was decent defending throughout the season (usually whenever Squillaci wasn't present) along with the errors that seem to dominate the landscape. They weren't perfect but considering we're an attacking team and a rather inconsistent one at that, they did a pretty good job from open play, there was plenty of defending like a unit (Clichy aside, who seemingly went to the Adebayor School of Offsides) and composure, if not too much composure at times given our reluctance to HOOOOOOF when there's any doubt.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

if your almost incapable of holding onto a lead as demonstrated against spurs home and away, liverpool at home, sunderland away, wigan away, newcastle away....than you cannot claim to be a solid defence, we won only half of our games last season, and 75% of the points dropped were in games where we conceeded goals from horrorshow defending, lapses in concentration, individual errors etc.

[Darth Vela]

Liverpool, Wigan and Newcastle were all down to set-pieces. Not beating Spurs was indefensible but also involved set-pieces.

I'm not entirely convinced by your stats either, there were many times when the team simply wasn't there and provided our defence with very little protection which, even if they're accurate, don't take that into account.

We need to improve, especially on set-pieces, but we've got a decent base to start with, not the circus that most seem to think we have.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Liverpool (a) - Ngog - giving away possession on edge of area

Blackburn (a) - Diouf - giving away possession in midfield

Sunderland (h) - Bent - lapse of concentration

West Brom (h) - all three goals defensive and goalkeeping calamity

Chelsea (a) - Drogba - not cutting out a simple cross

Birmingham (h) - Zigic - headed goal but not a set piece, despite being on top.....poor marking

This is in our games from August to October, goals that were conceeded from defensive lapses not set piece related....i could carry on to the end of the season

[Kano]

Liverpool (a) - Ngog - giving away possession on edge of area

Blackburn (a) - Diouf - giving away possession in midfield

Sunderland (h) - Bent - lapse of concentration

West Brom (h) - all three goals defensive and goalkeeping calamity

Chelsea (a) - Drogba - not cutting out a simple cross

Birmingham (h) - Zigic - headed goal but not a set piece, despite being on top.....poor marking

This is in our games from August to October, goals that were conceeded from defensive lapses not set piece related....i could carry on to the end of the season

i not even going to begin to protect the defence, as it’s obviously an area problem.

but sitting there breaking down every single goal is a pointless exercise, you can't criticise every one in a realistic sense, in the knowledge that goals will always be conceded. in a large majority of cases a goal is conceded due to a variant of mistakes made by players in the defence – i can’t remember wherei read it but there was some sort of analysis that suggested up to 6 players are culpable for any particular goal.

[Joker]

He is so ideologically invested in this project (i.e. bringing together young players from around the world and schooling them in "Wengerball") that he cannot see this has failed. I've said before that it reminds me of Alan Greenspan, who believed so dogmatically in the self correcting ability of free markets that he wasn't able to respond quickly after the onset of the financial crisis. The same with Wenger IMO. Our manager is now simply an ideologue who's lost touch with reality.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

my point was more saying irrespective of set pieces there is a problem with the defence full stop. Every goal scored is arguably a defensive mistake if you want to be pedantic, but there are times when it's simply unforgiveable such as sunderland away where having defended so stoutly for the entire game we switch off on 94 minutes....that's criminal in my book.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

comparing him to Alan Greenspan is harsh in the extreme, in that I don't believe Greenspan is an Idelogue people like him and Larry Summers were crooks with a vested interest in total deregulation of the market place, and when it failed they weren't the people who suffered.

[Power n Glory]

And we do it every season. Wenger doesn't have a point.

[Darth Vela]

Midfielders and Almunia doesn't really count as this defence though imo, keepers are part of the unit and I'm sure the unholy trinity of him, Squillaci and Koscielny contributed to some of our earlier mishaps but you won't find me arguing that Almunia was good enough last season, not by a long stretch.

I'm not saying our defence never makes errors or that we're watertight as tight can be, that's impossible and I'm sure I can come up with similar instances of Chelsea/Man U/City doing stupid things like that, just that there's been plenty of good defending and we're nowhere near as clueless as you're claiming. We cut out more of those lapses in concentration (lack of Almunia and Clichy next season should help that imo) and tighten up on set-pieces, along with consistency from the guys in front of them and this defence will keep a reasonable number of clean sheets.