Arsenal Rant.

HangTime said:
Got to stop you there I'm afraid. I think people actually underestimate Vieira's value to the team - they were quick to **** him off, saying how poorly he'd been playing in the 18 months or so prior to his sale. But what they clearly don't understand is that even when he's not at his best, and not contributing much going forward (which was a fair shout), Vieira still does a fantastic job for a couple of reasons:

First and foremost, his ball-winning ability in midfield is second to none. He can do everything that Makalele can do, but better, and also offers something extra in terms of his driving forward (which was not so effective in the past couple of seasons). In other words, he was fantastic at breaking up opposition moves. Secondly, he was a strong physical presence. Losing the likes of Keown to retirement, and Campbell to injury, is only compounded when our biggest and strongest player is sold, allowing teams like Bolton to rough us up.
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I'm not saying Vieira wasn't a quality player, I'm saying that the consensus among so many people at the moment seems to be that Arsenal would be second if we hadn't sold Vieira, and that's just blatently untrue. There are plenty of reasons why we're not doing too well at the moment, and selling and failing to replace Vieira may well be one of those, but it's not the main reason by a long shot.

The irony is that Gilberto has come in for critisism from fans this season, when it was the fans saying what a huge loss he was last season, saying that he was the secret link, silent but effective in a holding role. How come he can't cope this season then?
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If only I knew. He's gets picked constantly, and has played alongside various type of player in the middle of the pitch, from physical ball-winners (Flamini), to creative attackers (Fabregas), and even Vieira-lites (Diaby), and he's failed to produce.
We beat both Everton and Blackburn at the start of last season without Vieira, and neither of them are known for their tendency to hang back and give us space. Conversely, we lost to ManU (twice) and Bolton (twice) last season when Vieira was fit and well, so I stand by my belief that he was hardly some kind of magical key to Arsenal greatness.

My point was that we have far more pressing problems than lamenting the loss of a single player over 8 months ago, and for the rest of your point I agree with you. Although I wouldn't really call Hleb useless at this point in time, considering he's probably on second best winger on current form.
 
Gooner14 said:
we have some of the greatest young potential this country has ever seen. Walcott, Cesc, RvP, Reyes, Diaby, Djourou, Bendtner, Lupoli and many more.
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Giggs, Scholes, The Nevilles, Beckham and Nicky Butt were alright as well though.
 
I'm surprised that Owusu-Abeyie was allowed to leave... the fee was undisclosed, anyone have any guestimates about what it could have been? He always looked pretty lively whenever I've seen him play?
 
If we get one quality CB and CM in next summer we will be back on track. Wenger didn't have any options after the Baptista and Diarra deals fell through and that was his biggest mistakes. Letting Vieira go was the right thing to do, the Vieira lovers can go on and on about him but he had been poor for two seasons and needed a change. Last season we played some shocking games with him in the side last season as well. Gilberto had less responsibility when Vieira was around, now all this added pressure has exposed the flaws in his game and he is struggling as well. He did the simple thankless jobs and that is what he was good at, he is not good at passing or controlling the midfield. Letting Vieira go was not a mistake, not replacing him was.

Things look rough right now but we are yet to see the best of players like Walcott, Hleb, Fabregas, Reyes and RvP. This season we have had so much go against us it is untrue and I don't think you become a bad team overnight. We are just low on confidence right now and having virtually our whole defence out on top of that just makes things worse.

We will be ok though and think some people are over-reacting. We have played a single game with all our big players fit in god know how long and when your squad is small these things make a big impact.

daz said:
I'm surprised that Owusu-Abeyie was allowed to leave... the fee was undisclosed, anyone have any guestimates about what it could have been? He always looked pretty lively whenever I've seen him play?
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Looked really good against poor defenders but not much between the ears is what I've heard. Also with Walcott coming in his chances were little.
 
He didn't say our lack of form was due to a depleted defence though, he said it didn't help, and he's right, it doesn't. Pires plays better with an attacking left back to swap around with, and Ljundberg plays better with Lauren supplying good passes to him. That doesn't excuse them from playing woefully as they have recently, but it doesn't help matters either.

One More Solo said:
Don't worry, I wouldn't expect Arsenal fans to parlez Anglais. :D
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Methinks someone has missed the point somewhat.
 
Lol.
Its funny to see how with no extra injuries that its slowly migrated from 4th, to 6th to 8th.
Blown out of proportion anyone? :p

A few big teams are struggling with their defenses as of late. You dont hear them complaining. United are slowly getting back to normal after a batch patch of almost no fit/on form defenders. Real are just about looking solid at the back now. And Milan for the last 2 months have had only 1 first team defender to call on. And are only where they are due to the fact that we seem to score for fun. None of them are complaining as much though.
Of course, i could me misconstruing peoples comments on Arsenals defence, and prehaps its coincidence that all the threads i read has people saying the same. But that remains to be seen. Arsenal havnt had a good defence in years and they've been fine. You've allways managed with Sol, Mr Overrated LB & two door posts in the past. So why does one position, LB, seem to bring the entire team too its knees?
Theres far more to it that your defence. Far more than whats been pointed out already.
 
BoomAM said:
Lol.
Its funny to see how with no extra injuries that its slowly migrated from 4th, to 6th to 8th.
Blown out of proportion anyone? :p

A few big teams are struggling with their defenses as of late. You dont hear them complaining. United are slowly getting back to normal after a batch patch of almost no fit/on form defenders. Real are just about looking solid at the back now. And Milan for the last 2 months have had only 1 first team defender to call on. And are only where they are due to the fact that we seem to score for fun. None of them are complaining as much though.
Of course, i could me misconstruing peoples comments on Arsenals defence, and prehaps its coincidence that all the threads i read has people saying the same. But that remains to be seen. Arsenal havnt had a good defence in years and they've been fine. You've allways managed with Sol, Mr Overrated LB & two door posts in the past. So why does one position, LB, seem to bring the entire team too its knees?
Theres far more to it that your defence. Far more than whats been pointed out already.
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That's just it though. It's not our defence as such that's the problem (we still have the third best defensive record this season), it's that the way our team plays has fallen apart.

We build from the back. That's how our team has played over the last few years, and its what earned our title of "greats" for the football we put on. Most of our great goals came from either quick passing built from Lauren and Paddy, or bombing down the flanks via Cashley. Take those away, and the team has to start playing a different way to make our goals, and they seem to be having more than a little difficulty doing that at the moment. Clichy can fill in for Cole fine, and Kolo could probably do Lauren's job on the right, but Cygan/Senderos/Flamini aren't used to playing on the left, and Eboue hasn't quite got the hang of the team just yet.

Our style of play is very much built around a regular eleven of players, and substitutes that can fit straight into similar roles from whoever they replace. Just like our game came unstuck against the likes of ManU and Bolton, so it comes unstuck when you take away the players that make that style.

But again, no-one is claiming that injuries are the only reason we're struggling right now. As many of us have said in this thread and others, the main problem is more the lack of form from the likes of Pires, Ljundberg, Gilberto, Campbell and Henry, and if you have any idea quite what's wrong with them, I urge you to write to Wenger immediately, because it's got me stumped. ;)
 
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