Yes. And that books down to the manager.
This article is quite
true.
I argue that Wenger earlier success at Arsenal was because the team he inherited had a mix of the old Arsenal in them and he could just focus on the attack.
He's over stayed at the club. It really is time for him to go.
I've said this for a long time, the point our defence crumbled and our personality changed coincides with the last players in the defence and midfield who played and trained alongside Adams or Keown. Sol was already a leader and played with their influence in training, so did many others. Once anyone who spent the day training alongside those guys influence, who can direct and basically coach other players while doing training, the teams core defensive strength that allowed the attack to build from simply vanished.
I talk about Mourinho and other managers, you build on what was there and you can have success but long term it doesn't mean you can repeat your success as what was there before that was key to the success is long gone. Mourinho adds defensive stability to an ultra attacking side and you get success but after a few years the offences become disjointed and stop working and the defence becomes under more and more pressure, the players are shattered from his lack of rotation and the exact same thing he did during title winning years now becomes a disaster, because what was a key ingredient was a great offence from previous managers and their form which only lasts so long.
Wenger is the same, the mentality, the defensive strength and the leadership was at Arsenal before Wenger joined, he bought well for 5+ years and improved the attack immeasurably and you had a golden period, but once the entire defence and old team was gone and their influence was no longer apparent on new players that defensive solidity and leadership was gone and has never been replaced. This is why I've wanted Wenger gone for so long, he never made these things in the first place, half the reason for Arsenal's success was something Wenger never actually did and it only takes 3-4 years to show he couldn't learn to produce it on his own so the next 10 have been a joke waiting for others to realise that.
Wenger's biggest failure is not recognising this, he credits his own training and management with why the team won before so he keeps repeating the same mistakes without realising why they aren't working.
Did anyone honestly think we would beat City?? Come on!!! It’s bloody City, a team that is running away with the league and have only suffered one loss all season.
The way arsenal are at the moment, I gave them absolutely no hope of winning.
I could understand if it was say Wigan or a lower league team beating us. That would be unforgivable but it was City and I imagine any team would have struggled to beat them yesterday.
Meh anyhow just find it funny how much hate Arsenal get in the media.
To put that in context, City are running away with the league yet drew with Palace, Burnley and lost to Liverpool. Everyone has off games and for the record, City didn't play very well in the final, we just played absolutely abysmally. Same story for what 8 years in a row in the round of 16. It's not that we lost, it's HOW we lost. The same thoroughly pathetic mistakes being made, the same woeful performances from the same players. Wenger after 3 years of seeing Ozil fail to show up in such games rewarded him with a 350k a week contract shortly before our only chance of silverware this year.... Ozil failed to show up. Yes Wenger/Arsenal deserve crushing because they don't change.
Did I personally think they would win this game, hell no, could they, hell yes. Same way Wigan won a FA Cup final (was that also against City?) at the same time as getting relegated. It's a single game and anyone can win, but Arsenal didn't get beaten by better football, they got beaten by failing to show up and being completely awful. No other teams I can name consistently embarrass themselves on such a stage. 3 FA cups, woo, two were against Hull and Villa, we almost lost the first and only came back because it was Hull, a team that deserved to go down but I believe didn't tlil the next season, Villa were even worse. Chelsea was our only genuinely good performance in such a big game in the past 15 years and one in like, 50, is not good enough.
Yes he would but the question then is, do Arsenal benefit from this? Ozil isn't good enough to justify having a side built around him and Arsenal aren't good enough to carry him. The days of attacking players just having the freedom to attack and not have to put a shift in are over, at least they are to anybody that's not peak Ronaldo/Messi anyway. You only have to look at the two best attacking sides in the League and the defensive work their forwards put in to see that. It's not just a defensive issue too but also an offensive one - as I said, look at Liverpool and City, how many goals do they score as a result of their forwards winning the ball high up the pitch? Ozil's a very talented player and when things are going well he's incredibly dangerous but all too often he goes missing and Arsenal suffer because of it.
The only attacking players that did little to nothing defensive were straight up strikers which Ozil isn't and has never been. I can't think of many players who were playing wide or central attacking midfield roles who simply never did anything defensively at all. But look at City, Fernandinho with Yaya looked good sometimes and awful at others. This was mostly because Yaya was exceptionally lazy about getting in position or tracking any runs. If a player isn't part of the system then they become an easy weakness to be exploited. Without Yaya but with someone who works harder the defensive solidity changes completely. KDB works harder defensively than almost anyone, he's got an absurd amount of tackles and is incredibly disciplined despite being the most creative player in the league.
Ozil has absolutely no excuses and frankly I don't consider him that talented. Footballers aren't good because they can do one thing well but every other part of their game is useless. A CB who is phenomenal in the air but utterly useless positionally is a bad defender. Ozil is someone who when under little to no pressure and has all the time in the world to pick out passes while paying zero attention to anything else picks out some wonderfall passing, but under pressure he crumbles completely, his passing goes to hell, he's woeful defensively, he's physically so weak it's embarrassing, he has a woeful mental strength, he's a poor shot who constantly passes up great chances to shoot. He has a couple of good aspects in his game, but so many poor ones. At best he comes out as an average player, the kind of back up you play against the bottom half but you play a better player against all top opposition. The two places he's had success (as in not been constantly mercilessly torn apart for such performances) were Real and Germany, both teams had exceptionally hard working players who took the pressure out of the game for Ozil to exploit but without those players Ozil would look a joke. For Germany it was Muller upfront who was just magic, chased lost causes and won a corner against Brazil leading to the first goal, chasing another lost cause into the corner and set up a goal for Schurrle out of absolutely nothing. Real had Bezenma, a work horse, but also Ronaldo and Di Maria who would counter at break neck speed but that meant the entire opposition was killing themselves to keep up with Ronaldo leaving lots of space for Ozil. If teams ignored Ronaldo/Di Maria and just put Ozil under pressure they would have been more effective in stopping them. Though still for me it's absolutely no coincidence that mostly the same side managed to win 3 CLs in 4 years after they replaced him for someone less showy but who was more effective when it mattered.
.
