Lack of width + substituting Eduardo early proves decisive in the negative
The art of a natural striker is immensely undervalued these days isn’t it? “Yeah he is okay, but he does nothing else apart from score”. How would we have love to have that player at the Stadium of Light. We did. He went off just after the 71st minute. Shortly after we went 1-0 down.
Frazier Campbell didn’t know what he did with Bent’s header from Reid’s corner. Unluckily for us, Darren Bent did and he reacted quickest to sneak his shot in. As instinctive a goal as you can get. I don’t think you can teach that.
Sometimes the ‘fox in the box’ is just too quick.
When we snatched a draw from the jaws of victory at West Ham, some Gooners wondered whether Wenger reacted too late in making his substitutions. I don’t think the same could be said here. Walcott was due to make his entrance even before that goal went in, but how many times do you see a substitution just before a corner?
Somehow we were 1-0 down from Sunderland’s only shot on target. And then Walcott and Vela make their sub appearances. Rosicky and Eduardo went off. Wait a minute Eduardo? Yes, he didn’t have a stellar game but neither did Bent.
The effect of Eduardo’s departure was profound. Between the 72nd minute and the end of the game, 12 passes (crosses in some instances) from either flanks went into the centre of the box. None of them found the intended target.
Who was the intended target? Vela? Played on the wing largely. Walcott? Ditto. Fabregas? Even he was crossing them in at times.
At present Vela and Walcott simply don’t know what it means to lead the line and based on what I saw, I don’t think they were instructed to play there either.
What puzzled me was that Nasri who I thought had a relatively quiet game was still on the pitch. Surely he could have made way instead of Eduardo? I am certain if that was the case maybe we would have at least equalized and perhaps even sneaked a win.
Did we need some many central-esque midfielders to begin with? Starting with either Vela or Walcott from the first minute would have given us that extra dimension to our attack that we only saw late in the game. Without them, we looked laboured, the play focused too much on the centre and it felt almost if we were waiting for Sunderland to make a mistake. The Black Cats knew they were rarely get beaten if the ball went behind their defence.
Sunderland on the either hand, were well-organized. They defended deep and manipulated the space on either flanks, particularly the space between Vermaelen and Traore. If Malbranque was as clinical as his other technical attributes would suggest, we could have been punished severely. Even Sagna was exposed at times and Song had to plug the gaps.
The 13 match unbeaten run came to an end but it had to at some point. This defeat won’t be a “massive setback” as Wenger stated. In the immediate future, this result will only prove to be a sort of ‘collateral damage’ in our season. Like United losing to Burnley, like Chelsea losing to Wigan and Villa. Now and then a jolt like this is needed. I’m looking for a positive response.
What’s the point of crossing it into the box without a big man to aim for. Bringing on midgets like Arshavin and Walcott with no big man in the box to hold the ball up is pointless.
Blame Wenger for not spending any of the 40 mill in the summer and not replacing Adebayor with another experienced, big striker. It was only a matter of time before van Pussylegs got injured and we only had the fickle, one-paced youth Bendtner as to rely on. But with Bendtner also out injured our worst fears about the lack of depth with our strikers is sorely exposed and it will be like this for the next six weeks minimum.
Are we really surprised at yet another November slump when our Manger refuses to invest properly in the squad, relying on kids and injury-prone players all the time? All this talk about Eduardo and Rosicky being like new signings is complete bollox.
Will be a miracle if we don’t lose to Chelsea next week. We have lost every tough away game this season and we’ve had a cushy draw in the premiership this season compared to our rivals.
The chickens are coming home to roost for Wenger.
Agreed, how many times will edu score with a header, his physical presence is just not going to help us much no matter how much service and crosses he receives. He’s an excellent second striker, but the failure of reinforcing the squad has revealed our limitations, no mystery here, we need more physical toughness to complement this side, also some of our competitors enjoy world class keepers while others enjoy simply better ones. Soggy away games to physical opponents is the achilles heal of this side, which is the real mystery as we do compete in the premiership.
Wenger delays too much to subsitute. After the first half, he would have immediatelly brougt in Arshavin , walcott and Eboue to replace Rosicky, Ramsey and Eduardo. I think if he had done this very early the story would have been different. This loss was due to poor selection.Secondly arsenal players when playing small clubs their moral is not always high as they play big teams like Manchester. I think if they can mantain high moral on the pitch they can win every game. it was only fabregas who was trying his best to score though his missed one good chance.
I am fully at one with the above reply from Simon. This team lacks depth. If Van Persie is given 9 out of 10 then our remaining strikers will get hardly 5. If Fabregas gets 9 out of 10 then similarly other midfielders (excepting Arshavin) will get 5 to 6.Yesterday I saw Chelsea’s game. Lampard, Ballack and Deco were not in the team but still they had Eshien, Mickel, Joe Cole and malouda. Similarly they had proper cover for Carvalho and Bosinga. My favourite team Arsenal can be successful in Knockout tournaments but not in League where you have to play 38 games and you need two quality players in each position. I regrd AW very much but he is not a practical man. He is research oriented man but can not run a Company where you need instant profit / success.
I disagree with you. Eduardo had no impact on the game whatsoever in the 70-odd minutes he was on the pitch. ”The one” chance (he usually only needs one clear-cut chance to score) that he got, he scuffed his chip over the keeper wide. He is short on confidence at the moment.
I think Wenger almost expected too much of him, playing him up front in the same 4-3-3 system that works so well with Van Persie, however Eduardo just cannot hold up the ball and bring others into play around him. I think that his ideal role is to be playing in just behind the central striker, not as the central striker. It was a good move to substitute Eduardo in the 70th.
There were a few moments towards the end of the game where you could see Vermaelen & Gallas sprinting into the box, waving their arms around to provide a target in the box in the later stages of the game, which I find embarrassing. Do we not have any strikers (besides maybe Bendtner) or midfield players that can actually attack/win the ball in the air?
I did not see Eduardo win the ball once in the air, nor did I see him once present himself to get on the end of a cross from the wings, instead, he just makes a tentative run, then drops back before he enters the box, and then our 10 other players stand around him making little passes around the box, to the wings then back, until we give away possession and leave ourselves dangerously exposed on the counter-attack.
Although we play very attractive football most of the time, we MUST have a back-up plan. We cannot beat every team we come up against with the same style of football. Well organised teams (as we saw yesterday) can nullify our style and make us look very ordinary.
When Theo was introduced, he put a couple of nice balls in behind defenders from the wing, but there was no-one here near the end of them. Why?? Because all of our players drop back to outside the box, allowing defenders to regain their shape & line, and then we resume trying to thread eye-of-a-needle passes through a solid defense. It is just stupid.
Maybe when we find ourselves in tricky situations like we did yesterday we should focus on our wing play. ie when we cant get anything going up forward, lets break them down on the wings and make a concerted effort to get alot of bodies IN the box (not around it). And to do it quickly. The faster the break the better. We simply took too long to move the ball forward last night.
It is very frustrating to lose last night. This was not a good way to go into next week. A week ago all of the talk was about how we have a strong squad, and would surely have enough cover for injuries throughout the season. But now we are instantly slated as a 1 or 2 man team.
Cumon lads, lets sort it out
Cumon lads, lets sort it out for
Lots of discussion here, so I’ll be brief in my replies to the points made here.
1. Not all crosses in the box were aerial, some of them were hit low across the penalty box.
2. Edu isn’t going to score that many with his head, but how many did Henry score with his head? Or Van Persie for that matter.
3. Morale an issue? I would say it was down to mental fatigue if we go down the psychological route.
4.Song deserves 7 or 8 from yesterday’s performance at least. Are we sure we watched the same game?
5. We don’t have the squad to go further in competitions? Did you see the team out yesterday? My point was about how they were used. Can’t compare our depth to Chelsea’s. No one has their depth.
6 Instant profit? How about selling Toure and Adebayor for Vermaelen and doing better than last year.
7. Eduardo didn’t have an impact on the game as much. I said that. Neither did Bent apart from his goal. That is the sign of a good striker isn’t it when he still finds himself in the right place, right time?
- Agree that he might be low on confidence and taking him off doesn’t help things. See where I’m coming from now?
GT, this team can do well and should do fine, but to put us over the top reinforcements(of the top quality variety) will be needed. To go from rvp to dudu is just too much of a drop off and blaming injuries makes no sense. The point about dudu and service is that is doesn’t matter what service he gets, leading the line is not and should not be his role(not sure vela starting would change much). I’ll give you song was good relatively, but until he has a great shot from distance and his passing more incisive he’ll be given more space to basically lumber around. Other areas need addressing as well, this team is close but not all the pieces are there.
Lack of depth? So your solution is to have 4 backups for every spot? For worldclass player fighting for every spot? Four 10M signings for every spot? Is that what you suggest?
Saturday loss eminded me of the formation of last year, i.e. 4-5-1, which has proved to be a failue. We have too much players in the midfield, doing routine passess and passess, without any real chance to go into the box.
I will not blame those players, who have had a busy international week and those who have just come back from the treatment room.
Having said that, I would like to point out the lack of confidence of our goal keeper to interrupt crosse from the corners. He appeared to have lost his drive. If this type of performance were acceptable to Wenger, maybe we can afford to call on the service of our 2nd and 3rd choice keeper, who have been trying their very best to impress us.
I think we will see more of Vela and Walcott tomorrow. In his press conference today Arsène was asked about those two and Arshavin, he replied “some will be involved tomorrow” not sure if that was his plan or if he saw that other players didn’t perform as well/try as hard as they should but I think there will be a fair few changes tomorrow.
vague as usual isn’t he? One of Vela and Walcott has to start. Theo does okay as a sub and the Mexican usually does well if he starts from the off.
Theo is an impact player, but can make that impact from the start of the game. Vela does need to be there from the start, he just cannot get into the game if he comes on later on.