Greenlizard0 Weekend Football Thread ** spoilers ** [30th September - 2nd October 2011]

Oynas said:
Seriously?
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No, that was an exaggeration. However for a guy his size, he doesn't challenge anywhere near enough at either end. On the 1 occasion Arsenal did hit it long, after he was sent up front, rather than challenge for the header he looked to leave it and played for some sort of flick-on (despite no Arsenal going for the header).
 
explicit4u said:
Meh. I'm so used to all our crap defending and performances that I don't even feel anything when we lose any more.

2-1 Spurs and they deserved it.
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That's definitely the worst thing about all this. I've yet to see a game this season won comfortably over 90mins against 11 players. For AFC that is pathetic. I don't think Wenger has lost the dressing room, but I don't see how better performances from players can be extracted or morale boosted if they do the same thing all the time and expect different results. It doesn't help the defence is basically a different line up every single game at the moment, but today it would have been another cricket score if it had been Flappyhands in goal. Embarrassing.
 
On the plus side our next fixtures are:

Sunderland (h)
Stoke (h)
Chelsea (a)
West Brom (h)
Norwich (a)
Fulham (h)

So we should start picking up some points.... hopefully.
 
BaZ87 said:
No, that was an exaggeration. However for a guy his size, he doesn't challenge anywhere near enough at either end. On the 1 occasion Arsenal did hit it long, after he was sent up front, rather than challenge for the header he looked to leave it and played for some sort of flick-on (despite no Arsenal going for the header).
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I'm not sure it was, he's horrible in the air, at set pieces, he stands still and IF it happens to go near him he MIGHT jump for it, might get it, probably won't.

Tim Cahill goes and wins a header, he can be on the other side of the box but he'll run at and win header after header, Terry does this, dozens of top players do this, infact hundreds. Mertesacker just stands around hoping the ball comes to him.

WE bought a tall guy to be strong in the air, while getting rid of Bendtner, ok not a defender but at set pieces, WHEN he played he won a lot of defensive headers, as he's done in the past few games for Sunderland. Instead of buying the best defender available(so we stop giving away set pieces ffs), or the defender who is best in the air, we bought a meh defender whose meh in the air, because he's tall, the single stupidiest thing to have done.

Why do Arsenal concede so many set pieces exactly? Because teams know they can win set pieces against us so easily, Song, Kos, Djourou, Squillaci and now the slow idiot, we concede from set pieces because we concede so many set pieces in dangerous area's. A better defence, and a better DM and our problem would be solved because we'd concede half as many set pieces, which is better than trying to defend twice as many with a tall guy who can't header.

Nothing, not one performance, not even one 10 minute spell in one game has impressed me from Mertesacker. Infact that tackle he, did he get carded for it, he didn't mean to, it wasn't intentional, but he's so slow he flopped over but actually ended up going in two footed, just off the ground, studs showing, lol, the only time his lack of pace had helped him, if he went in with any pace it could easily of ended up a red.


RVP, useless as lone front man, Theo, useless plain and simple, Gervinho, actually completely rubbish, Ramsey, shocking passing all game, tap in goal thanks to terrible defending from Spurs, constantly got us in trouble, no help defensively, looking awful in all but one game this season so far. Song, can't defend, can't pass, and like Djourou thinks a ginger(ish) afro is a good idea.

Gibbs, he may or may not end up a decent winger, he can not defend, at all, in any way.

Make no mistake, Spurs were crap today, thats how bad we were defensively. They didn't link up, the screwed up most of their passing, VDV was actually useless, their movement, their positioning and their passing trying to get in behind was useless and they still should have scored 3-4 more but for a great keeper. On a good day for Spurs Arsenal would have ended up losing that 6-1 or something.

Arteta, seemed absolutely unwilling to risk a "dangerous" forward pass, kept looking for the easy option, Ramsey had two good chances to shoot, lost posession both times when he decided not to and turned into trouble.

Until Wilshire comes back, we're not going to win many games.
 
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I think we'll be lucky, with a big turn around in form and both Verm and Wilshire back to their best, for a decent portion of the season, to hit top 6-7, without those two, playing as we are, I think we'll be lucky to hit 8-10th.

4th was out the window when we got shot of Cesc, Nasri, Eboue, Bendtner, and bought in basically significantly worse replacements, be they replacements for backup players or first team, we got seriously worse over summer and we were barely hanging on to 4th as it was.
 
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Just back from WHL. Spurs were bad, Arsenal were worse.

Redknapp played 4-4-2 in the first half of same fixture last season and we got destroyed. 3 vs. 2 in the middle and Fabregas was always the spare man. Eventually Redknapp changed to a 4-5-1 and we got back into the game. Lesson learned? Obviously not, Redknapp tried 4-4-2 again today and it worked. Sort of.

Apart from Parker, our midfield was anonymous for most of the game. We've got a decent set of footballers but they were hoofing it long at the first opportunity. There were a few scares at the back for Arsenal but surely keeping possession would have been a better idea.

I thought Defoe had an excellent game though. He often dropped deep and essentially became a 5th midfielder for Spurs - which was essential when VdV wandered off.

And what do you do with a problem like Van der Vaart? He can't play 60 minutes at most, he picks up stupid yellow cards and has absolutely no tactical discipline... and yet he scores the most amazing goals in big games. I'd hate to be his manager.

Spurs playing badly and winning against Arsenal. I can't remember the last time that happened. Both of the other pretenders for 4th place beaten. Could be a great season for Spurs.
 
K1LLSW1TCH said:
Name another goalkeeper who's his age who's even in the same league quality wise.
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De Gea?
Asenjo?
Fiorillo?
Delač?
Fährmann?

He's just a good young goalkeeper, there are plenty more and they all make mistakes, being young they will learn from them.

I think Arsenal were poor today but Spurs were just as poor, Arsenal keeper (Can't spell it) should have done better for the second goal, but ah well these things happen. I wouldn't slate him for it, it happens to everyone.

I thought Arsenal were really poor defensively mind, really poor.
 
I think Arsenal looked better in attack, but they always do, it's their midfield and defence that let them down again. They didn't do much in attack either, despite looking sharp and pacey.

Parker was alright today, I think that young Coq lad had a fairly good game in the middle for Arsenal and Walker had a good game for spurs.
 
Mr-White said:
Hit it long to win headers around the Spurs box ?

MW
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Tunney said:
Just back from WHL. Spurs were bad, Arsenal were worse.

Redknapp played 4-4-2 in the first half of same fixture last season and we got destroyed. 3 vs. 2 in the middle and Fabregas was always the spare man. Eventually Redknapp changed to a 4-5-1 and we got back into the game. Lesson learned? Obviously not, Redknapp tried 4-4-2 again today and it worked. Sort of.

Apart from Parker, our midfield was anonymous for most of the game. We've got a decent set of footballers but they were hoofing it long at the first opportunity. There were a few scares at the back for Arsenal but surely keeping possession would have been a better idea.

I thought Defoe had an excellent game though. He often dropped deep and essentially became a 5th midfielder for Spurs - which was essential when VdV wandered off.

And what do you do with a problem like Van der Vaart? He can't play 60 minutes at most, he picks up stupid yellow cards and has absolutely no tactical discipline... and yet he scores the most amazing goals in big games. I'd hate to be his manager.

Spurs playing badly and winning against Arsenal. I can't remember the last time that happened. Both of the other pretenders for 4th place beaten. Could be a great season for Spurs.
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a lot of truth there. I am sick and tired of Harry's obsession with 442 against 433 or 451. It does not work because your central midfield gets overrun.

the remedy is 433 with sandro, parker and Modric then bale adebayor vdv/defoe/Lennon/pav.

I was impressed with arsenal today and quite frankly their forward play deserved more. Spurs got lucky for the goals ans should have scored more from the number of arsenal mistakes. The good news for arsenal is that their football is still good and will win games, the bad news is their defence and they have no luck.

I don't like Defoe, he is too selfish for me. Over and over he looks for his goal rather than a goal for the team.

arsenal dominated spurs got lucky and looked so much better with the dynamic but defensive 451 at the end of the game.
 
Snax said:
arsenal dominated spurs got lucky
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i don't think we got lucky, we just battled it out more. the handball 'maybe' is a little lucky i suppose but i didn't see much argument from the arsenal players? arsenal were looking like a team seriously out of ideas with 20 minutes to go.
 
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