It’s The Bitter Morning After Pill For The Arsenal
ByIt’s mornings like this that many Arsenal fans have to decide how to swallow the bitter pill that results from losing your bragging rights. It’s not just the fact that we lost to the old enemy – it’s the ’how’ that makes it a very bitter pill.
It comes in 3 doses:
- 20 mg – for those philosophical supporters who conclude that it was really a bad day at the office but we’ll live
- 80 mg – for those supporters who can’t cope with the humiliation of facing family, friends and colleagues to explain yet again – why this also-rans team have fallen short
- 800 mg – special industrial strength dosage for the anally retentive fickle glory hunting plastic fan who only supports Arsenal when they’re winning and playing champagne football.
Let’s face it – Man United got their tactics spot on. Flood the Arsenal midfield, hunt down their playmakers like a pack of wolves, and hit them on the counter attack.
Other teams have tried this tactic with mixed results. The only difference is that aside from Arsenal, Man United are the only other team in the EPL that can hit you that devastatingly on a counter attack finished with clinical precision.
I guess once in a while, it’s normal that we will experience the pain of the counter attack treatment that we so often devastatingly unleash on unsuspecting teams.
The game was still up for grabs at the break, and it was inevitable that the team that scored the next goal would claim the bragging rights or have a chance of making it even. In truth, Arsenal only have themselves to blame for 2 aspects of the defeat.
Firstly, for gifting United 2 goals. Nani and Park should have never scored the goals they did.
Secondly, for not converting the chances we had. Unfortunately when playing quality teams, you more than likely rue any chances you don’t convert.
There’s not much we could have done about the Rooney goal. At first I was pissed off that when Rooney pinged the ball to Nani and started his 40 yard run towards our goal, we had 4 players goal side and he beat all those 4 players to the ball.
But it would be unfair for me as a lover of total football to take away the quality of the goal from Rooney and attribute that to our naive defending. As much as it pains me to say, Rooney’s goal was ecstatic. I can only imagine how it was for those that watched it in 3D.
Naturally, the mantra of ”Oh Arsenal’s pygmies can’t cope in the EPL anymore” is already being peddled. Frankly speaking, it’s absolute nonsense. The height of Arsenal’s players had little to do with yesterday’s defeat, and only those who are devoid of analytical acumen and want to collect a pay cheque as a band-wagon pundit will resort to that refrain.
Yesterday’s game was lost on tactics –until Walcott and Eboue came on, we never seemed like getting behind. Walcott didn’t even have to do anything magical. He just had to run at them and that would inevitably create panic. It was then that Arsenal started getting behind winning more corners.
I haven’t done the kamikaze thing and tried to drudge through the thousands of negative match reports and analysis about the game. I guess this is one week that the doom and gloom merchants and trolls get to enjoy as they crawl from under their rocks for some air time.
I also haven’t bothered trying to listen to any mainstream sports news just for the sake of managing my health and well-being. Self inflicted pain is not something that tickles my fancy.
In isolation, this can look like a very bad result – especially in the sequence of the ’fixtures of death’. I said before the game against Villa, that 9 out of 12 points in the 4 games was an excellent return.
2 games in, and Arsenal have 1 out of 6 points. There’s still the opportunity to make it 7 out of 12, which is still a bloody good return.
For that to happen though – Arsenal have to be clinical at finishing their chances. We had several clear cut chances yesterday, but it seemed like everyone left their shooting boots at home.
It’s not impossible to beat Chelsea and Liverpool, but in our high risk game, they’re the two teams that will convert any counter attacking chances against us. That’s why it’s important that we put our chances away.
The issue is not about the fact that we don’t have a striker to replace Van Persie. The Dutchman couldn’t have stopped Man United from scoring the goals that they did. ON the other hand, we needed different options to get around the wall of black – and we had the personnel to do it. We just didn’t do it well.
The title challenge is by no means over. All we lost yesterday was the opportunity to overhaul our immediate challengers. The end result is that we don’t get to control our own destiny with our closest rivals.
Our game now has to be focussed on the mathematical poker of ensuring that we win the games we need to win against lower league opposition. Losing against the other big teams doesn’t rule you out of the title race. It just batters your psychological advantage.
Tue 13th September 2011; 19:45, Dortmund
I was going to stay away from it all today but as I had to check the emails thought I would see what conclusions you had come up with, Darius.
I agree it is not all over but until we can defend like a championship winning team, particularly against the top teams, then there is little hope. We have now conceded 7 goals in 3 home games, 3 of which have resulted from gungho attacking allowing very easy counter attacks. I disagree about Rooney’s goal from our point of view. He made ground on at least 3 of our players, all of whom followed the ball instead of one of them tracking him. Great stuff from a Man U perspective but naive & unprofessional from us.
We have a real problem defending the FB positions. It is the same as against Chelsea we simply could not afford our FBs to get forward so constantly that we are always open to the counter. It is not that we are getting sufficient gain, in terms of goal scoring opportunities from it. Clichy is feeling his way back but unless he can get himself immediately back to that super quick dynamo that we know he can be, then he is not good enough. I would play Sylvestre at LB next week & tell him to simply defend.
I really do not feel that it is a personnel problem but one of tactics, organisation and finding the work ethic displayed by ALL the Man U players from start to finish.
There needs some shaking up to be done without destroying the admirable philosophy behind making this side. We are tantalisingly close but it is disappointing that we are not learning the lessons quickly & permanently enough.
Anything can happen at Chelsea, but whilst there’s life there is hope.
Flint, like you – I agree that we don’t need an overhaul of the personnel.
For me, there’s 2 key issues:
Firstly, the notion that against our closest rivals Chelsea and Manure, we’re almost certainly undone tactically.
Secondly, it’s clear to see that the team will have worked on defending transitions when we lose the ball, but the players clearly take leave of their duties when this happens.
That’s why I said that it wasn’t really about the fact that we lost, it’s the how that has disappointed me.
On the flip side, we could also do better at putting away the chances we have if only to relieve the pressure.
We’re a confidence team and the teams that batter our confidence are the teams that have the edge.
Wenger was slow tactically to change a few things to get us round the wall of black, and for that he has to take some of the blame.
However, we do get found out especially by the teams that are good at counter attacking. I don’t think it’s all up to the full backs though as they don’t seem to get all the help they can from the tracking midfielders – but they still can do more.
ON the issue of the title challenge – it’s paramount that we collect the 36 points from the 12 games remaining after we play Liverpool and Chelsea.
Chelsea and Manure will both drop points for sure when they play each other and when they play other European hopefuls like Villa, Everton, Man City, Spurs, etc.
Winning the title now is a game of mathematical poker. To have a chance, we must beat the lower league teams that we’re expected to. In some respects, the loss to Sunderland, and the draws to West Ham and Burnley are the most important 7 points that we’ve carelessly lost this season, and they might cost us in the long run.
But first, winning the Chelsea and Liverpool games will keep us in the mix.
Morning After Pill? Too late for that Darius; this was an abortion.
The first quarter hour, or so, represented our best chance of getting our noses ahead and we didn’t. ManU then went on to do us a great favour: They held a mirror up to Wenger.
Now, there is, in my view, one and only one thing that’s going to make Wenger wake up to some of the flaws (What I think they are is something I’ve alluded to, and we’ve exchanged views on, on earlier occassions.), far too persistent for comfort, that are blighting the progress of this team: Thrashings like yesterdays,once and again. He’s a winner, and too intelligent, and sensitive, a man to be perpetually deluded in the face of such dismantlings. I absolutely believe we are very near the point where he’ll pull the blue print apart and reassemble the thing better.
This Arsenal team, for the most part, as things stand, is like a collection of fine components that haven’t yet been assembled into a machine worthy of such inputs. I believe Wenger, and these lads – with some exceptions- can do it; and I very much want them to do it.
But the time Code Red methods is here: Tactical discipline and a relentless, and fierce, doggedness needs to be remorselessly whipped into these boys now. No more pussyfooting under the pretext of development, process of maturing, etc. They’ve had five years, and while we’ve come some way over that time, there are too many chronic deficiencies to justify a clean chit.
I’ll say this again, I’m not obsessive about titles and such: They’ll come of their own accord given the effort. What I want to see is a team that’s relentlessly working at becoming better. On our worst days, I want us to be hard to beat, and I want to be able to say We lost, but the lads did everything they could.
Yesterday neither was possible, and that hurts.
Now, to the business at hand: There’s six points yet in the pot constituting these four games. I’d like to see this team go out and sweat blood, outcomes be damned, to earn them. It is time to make a statement to the skeptics, and there aren’t going to be better stages than the next two games; specially after yesterday.
They owe themselves, and us the fans, nothing less. They’re at a club that takes exceptional care of their wards, with a fan following more mature, and supportive than most. They better do the colours proud.
When I started typing, Darius, there were no comments on the board; after I post, I see Flint and you have already had a comprehensive, and honest, exchange.
Good points both.
Brings to mind a disenchanted Liverpool fan-friend’s recent comment: “I wish we had half as mature a community as I see on some of the Arsenal boards.”
Kudos, ofcourse, to you Darius, and to the excellent commenters who populate this, as also some of the other, Arsenal boards.
Saloner. I am the one who should be more thankful for regulars like Flint, yourself, ELS, LRV, Magneto, Diceman (and a few others) who make it worth the while writing for Stone Cold Arsenal.
You guys really make this a great blog.
I feel what you say about the issue here being about discipline as opposed to the need for wholesale changes. It’s not all about the trophies for me, and like you, I feel that the trophies will naturally follow.
But we firstly need to stop our Kamikaze tendancies. When the team don’t work in synch, and there’s a few players not pulling their finger out – even the heroics of some of the remaining individuals can’t help.
This last mile to the trophy has and will continue to be the hardest. Wenger’s post match comments about the teams lack of discipline and naivity says a lot and I think (well, I hope) they have a bloody hard time in training this week.
Fighting back against Liverpool and Chelsea is a wonderful opportunity – and we have to take it.
I agree Saloner but I feel he did change “the blue print” to some extent this season by reverting to 4-3-3 in order to accommodate Cesc in a more attacking role & to release him from some of his defensive duties.
This worked when the players realised they had to defend from the front, which is something that has been too relaxed in recent games. We have to “be in the faces” of the opposition just as much as they are in ours. Yesterday they made it far more difficult for us than vice versa, which is simply not good enough.
Work-rate is to be emphasised here & maybe for these really tough games we need to add a Fletcher type spoiler to balance things out a bit. That or have a genuine sit at home DM, which we have not really had under AW.
We actually had enough chances to have won that game, had we defended much better.
You get the sense that attitudes need to harden up. I believe in this squad but there is a missing ingrediant & it is to do with attitude rather than ability.
No it is not about trophies just that the team is letting itself fall short of what is available to it.
I never commented here before, even though I’ve been a avid reader(from Virginia, US) of this blog for a long while…..
Excellent points, even my wife observed yesterday that Denilson did not seem to want to be on the pitch. What really gets me though are all these fair weather “fans” who attribute every setback to AW not buying one player or the other! They call for a sriker, a cdm or a cb! This on a team that has the highest goals scored with a very respectable goals conceded.
I’ll however take the very bitter “pill” of the loss yesterday to the “how” of it.
Thank you for your continued insightful analysis of our organization, philosophy, team and games.
It’s a bad loss, but it’s a loss to the better team on the day.
Recently we got hit s much on counter attack, be it manu, man city, or chelski.
But what this loss had done was it puts the next game to be a damn crucial one. If somehow we pull a win there then this loss will feel like a small hickup.
Keep the faith…
Flint: “they had to defend from the front”. With that, you hit the nail on the head.
Absolutely right that our game is, or will be, at its best when we consistently press the opposition all over the park. That, as you rightly point out, requires relentless drilling, to instill the requisite discipline, and sustained work rate on the part of the entire team; something that wasn’t all that evident yesterday, or indeed on quite a few occasions this season. ManU’s work ethic yesterday is something we could, and should, learn from.
These are aspects that we need to work very hard on, and my reference to redoing the blue print was an allusion to the fact that we have the attacking talent, but not, yet, the defensive mettle, to consistently pull the 4-3-3 off.
Anyway, time, now, to put the past behind and give the rest of the season a right go. Character, after all, is about scrambling out of the hole one finds oneself in.
Come on The Arsenal.