CL: Arsenal vs Thun | 14/09/05

[the dawn raids]

still too much passing around the box; a perfext example was Hleb around the 85th minute or so, and he had the ball in the box and had space. what does he do? tries to force a pass and the movement breaks down. ****ing shoot it! overall i thought we played a decent match. and as always, 3 points is 3 points.

 

[whoztheman]

pires seems to have improved. apart from the three points, the only positive i can see is quincy gettin a chance to play in the next couple of games( i hope dennis doesnt start against ajax and prague).

 

[Gunner Ossie]

I predicted in the pub that Thun would give up once we scored the first goal. I also predicted that bringing Bergkamp on was a negative, ineffectual move.

Shows what I know...

Nevertheless, I think that tonight was another awful display from a team that we're constantly told by the management is 'good enough'. Sorry, but it was another shocking game, we didn't have much luck, but we shouldn't have needed it.

Champions League? You're having a laugh!

my thoughts exactly. I thought the win reall does mask the fact that we are in trouble.

 

[Kum_Arsenal]

i'm happy and relieved.

The Good Old Dennis Berkamp did the magic for the Gunners.

Hail Dennis :angel

but still theres lots of room for improvement for the gunners and lots of work to be done by Wenger.

I'm waiting to see the Real Arsenal they used to be a few season back.

 

[ccc]

pires seems to have improved. apart from the three points, the only positive i can see is quincy gettin a chance to play in the next couple of games( i hope dennis doesnt start against ajax and prague).

your hope is irrealistic. with henry injured, rvp suspended, berggy must be on start list. ajax is his home club, he will feel comfortable of playing there

 

[anomaly]

I was at the game aswell last night...was f*cking crazy when Bergkamp scored, the place just erupted. Was total class..lost my voice too, mostly from shouting "the referee's a w*nker!"

Crap performance...quality night

 

[raphael_as]

Why all this old-English-football crap? I'm sure there's enough Carlisles and Herefords that have players do exactly what you want them to. Arsenal don't play like that. They have a playing style and they try to play it to the best of their ability. Sure people can make their point but it's all the same: Play a long ball! Shoot! Get stuck in! We need a big centre-forward!

People are not asking Wenger to change the way we play, but they are asking him to allow some variation.....

The point is that we attack a certain way 90% of the time and teams (even mediocre teams) have found a way to (mostly) neutralize it. Nothing we have done over probably the last season and a half (when teams really started using the '10 men in defence and kick the hell out of Reyes' as their strategy) seems to be a good (consistent) answer to that.

I certainly don't advocate buying Peter Crouch, but lofting a ball up field is not illegal, and doing it every now and then (especially given the speed of Henry, Reyes, Lundberg, Quincy etc) would keep teams on their toes: e.g. "No you can't just string all your players across the pitch and clatter into us the second we get the ball, 'cos then we'll hit it over your heads and beat you for speed".

On the game:
Positives - we won, Bergkamp scored, Pires wasn't a complete liability on the pitch
Negatives - RvP red card (for me a toss-up, a little harsh since there was obviously no intent to violent conduct, but definately dangerous play), Wenger's substitution strategy (will it always suck?) and another generally woeful performance against a well-organized defensive group of triers.

 

[invisibleman18]

good post raphael, i just made a similar one in the thread about playing the long ball.
noone in their right mind would say change to old style smack it up the pitch tactics. however, variation in the way you play is necessary these days. we have been getting predictable and teams know now that all they have to do is defend with 10 behind the ball and we will struggle to break them down.

 

[Mbaki Mutahaba]

Why all this old-English-football crap? I'm sure there's enough Carlisles and Herefords that have players do exactly what you want them to. Arsenal don't play like that. They have a playing style and they try to play it to the best of their ability. Sure people can make their point but it's all the same: Play a long ball! Shoot! Get stuck in! We need a big centre-forward!

People are not asking Wenger to change the way we play, but they are asking him to allow some variation.....

The point is that we attack a certain way 90% of the time and teams (even mediocre teams) have found a way to (mostly) neutralize it. Nothing we have done over probably the last season and a half (when teams really started using the '10 men in defence and kick the hell out of Reyes' as their strategy) seems to be a good (consistent) answer to that.

I certainly don't advocate buying Peter Crouch, but lofting a ball up field is not illegal, and doing it every now and then (especially given the speed of Henry, Reyes, Lundberg, Quincy etc) would keep teams on their toes: e.g. "No you can't just string all your players across the pitch and clatter into us the second we get the ball, 'cos then we'll hit it over your heads and beat you for speed".
quote]

How do you call for the long ball tactic if you don't have the players to play the long ball to? For you info the reyes, quincy are not meant for the long ball. The goal Bergy scored was long ball out of desperation!! A long ball tactic requires a big man upfront. Just look around you and see teams that adopt to that style. Don't give half solutions. Long ball football as a tactic would require a change in the guys upfront!!Who do you suggest we should have bought so he can help us in those games and for 90% of the other time when we play our usual style he can sit out!!!!

If you really try to look at the full picture of the team/club you will realize implementing "an effective plan B or direct approach" is just a bit more complex. Its not just hoofing the ball to Henry.

 

[Mbaki Mutahaba]

How do you call for the long ball tactic if you don't have the players to play the long ball to? The goal Bergy scored was long ball out of desperation!! A long ball tactic requires a big man upfront. Just look around you and see teams that adopt to that style. Don't give half solutions. Long ball football as a tactic would require a change in the guys upfront!!Who do you suggest we should have bought so he can help us in those games and for 90% of the other time when we play our usual style he can sit out!!!!

Its amazing how easy it is for peope in this forum to just claim we should do this and that without looking at the full picture.

 

[MK5]

Good things to take from the game,

We finally scored from a corner, Fantastic!

We outplayed them despite having 10 men.

Sol looked as solid as ever.

Bergy still got it.

Bad things from the game.

Robin shouldn’t have been sent off but it was really clumsy done by RVP.

Pires is trying but it just doesn’t work out for him.

Our game is more than anything about pace and players come flying into free spaces but at the moment our movement just isn’t good enough.

I start giving up on Reyes. The man just isn’t a goalscorer, as it seems.

Why why why is ALmunia still there AW?? I sat at Clock End and it was just obvious that neither Kolo or Sol trusted him enough to listen to a word he said. I really hope Poom will be fit enough for Ajax.

Although Almunia maybe shouldn’t be blamed for the goal a really good keeper would have been able to tip the ball over the bar.

 

[MK5]

How do you call for the long ball tactic if you don't have the players to play the long ball to? The goal Bergy scored was long ball out of desperation!! A long ball tactic requires a big man upfront. Just look around you and see teams that adopt to that style. Don't give half solutions. Long ball football as a tactic would require a change in the guys upfront!!Who do you suggest we should have bought so he can help us in those games and for 90% of the other time when we play our usual style he can sit out!!!!

Its amazing how easy it is for peope in this forum to just claim we should do this and that without looking at the full picture.

I was going to make the same point until I'd read the posts properly. I think they are taking about long balls into open spaces, on the flanks or behind the opponents back line, which I'd agree with 100%. As a matter of fact this used to be one of our major attacking weapons back in 97/98 with Petit delivering perfect balls onto Nicholas $£€€€€£$ and Overmars.

 

[RocktheCasbah]

My view, just in case you're interested.

 

[Mbaki Mutahaba]

Post deleted. You probably know why...

 

[MK5]

How do you call for the long ball tactic if you don't have the players to play the long ball to? The goal Bergy scored was long ball out of desperation!! A long ball tactic requires a big man upfront. Just look around you and see teams that adopt to that style. Don't give half solutions. Long ball football as a tactic would require a change in the guys upfront!!Who do you suggest we should have bought so he can help us in those games and for 90% of the other time when we play our usual style he can sit out!!!!

Its amazing how easy it is for peope in this forum to just claim we should do this and that without looking at the full picture.

I was going to make the same point until I'd read the posts properly. I think they are taking about long balls into open spaces, on the flanks or behind the opponents back line, which I'd agree with 100%. As a matter of fact this used to be one of our major attacking weapons back in 97/98 with Petit delivering perfect balls onto Nicholas $£€€€€£$ and Overmars.

But we still do those ones but not as often as before. Remember its only been the last 2 years or so that teams have changed their system when playing against us.They now sit back therefore its about impossible to get the long ball to the flanks/behind the back line. So unless a team has to come at us or play an open game its becoming more difficult getting the ball behind the defense. Its not an issue of us changing tactics but the opposition changing theirs. They sit back..make sure u can't beat them on the long kicks therefor giving you two options. Try to slice through them with passes/movements(by far we are the best team in doing that) or use long balls hoping a flick, lucky bounce, knock down will get a goal.(we suck at that mostly cos we don't have the big man to do that effectively)

Very true but you just have to look at Overmars goal in the cup final 98 to see that you don't actually always need that much free space beind the backline.

 

[Mbaki Mutahaba]

takes someone very very special to routinely be able to put the ball behind the line when the defense is playing deep and the goalie is descent. Not an easy task my friend believe me.

 

[RockyRocastle]

Another very poor performance.

Our captain in a yid and the away team at Highbury play in red and white. Something is just not right about that.

 

[goonerwarsh]

I think the team bust a gut in the second half to try and win that game. We kept going right until the final whistle and I think showed a lot of spirit.

There is a lot of talk on here about what was wrong with the game, so there's no point adding to that, so i'm gonna write about what I thought was good about last night's performance.

We missed a few chances, that on another day could have gone for us. Chances we created against a team that stuck everyone and their nan behind the ball. We had everything going against us, the ref i'm sure was on their payroll, we were down to ten men, we went into the game off the back off a bad defeat, we had a lot of youngsters in the team that are being doubted by everyone apart from their manager that they're not good enough, we scored a goal that we worked bloody hard for, only to concede a demoralising fluke straight afterwards, but we picked ourselves up and ****ing went for it. You can give me last night's game over that **** at Stamford Bridge the night before anyday of the week.

I think Reyes and Quincy showed glimpses of brilliance, I think Gilberto was solid, I think Cole worked his bollox off down the left side. I think Ljunberg went in were it hurts to nearly score a goal for us, I think Dennis realised his performance against Boro wasn't good enough and pulled his socks up with limited time on the pitch to try and do something about it and I think the team showed hunger and desire when their backs were against the wall and deserved the victory even if it wasn't their best display and should recieve at least some credit for getting back to winning ways.

A lot to improve on, but also a morale boosting victory

 

[Gurgen]

Everyone who is moaning and can't even enjoy a win like this one should stop watching football. I mean it.

Ffs, we were without our best player, with a ****e goalkeeper, with 10 men for one half and still won. Not to mention we should have had about two pens, notably when Reyes turned in the box, their left back knocked him out with his arm and then passed the ball. But I understand from other topics that some of you think this is 'running into players'.

 

[Gurgen]

Oh and did I add that we scored from a corner and a long ball? Cheer up.