re: Arsenal 2014/15 Season Long Thread

yeah that sucked. up a man and no one is marking the tallest guy on the team. And gibbs just wonderig around the post but not actually covering it. Do they watch film and see how fricking terrible we are on set pieces?

Any coach with half a brain would drill the frick out of this team until these issues are fixed. Our issues are obvious everywhere. Address them. Improve. We don't seem to be doing that in a few key areas and it's preventing us from becoming an elite team.

Arsene clearly learned nothing from the Swansea game as again Chambers was abused by a small, agile, speedy player.

And we can't hold a lead a man up against a team with its worst ever start to a season? That's bad.

Thank god for Giroud though. He has been great since his return.

Flamini is still insane. The only person on the pitch today who might have had less self control was Borini

Bottom line is, our injured players can't get back soon enough.

Timeline for each is supposed to be Arteta & Rosicky for QPR (H) match on Dec. 26, Ramsey & Koscielny for West Ham (A) match on Dec. 28, and Özil for Southampton (A) match on Jan. 1.

As terrible as Arsenal has been at times in this first half of the season, the fact is that we will be back in the Top 4 at New Year if we win our next two league games. That is really bad if you are one of those other Top 4 hopefuls (Liverpool, Everton, Tottenham, Southampton, West Ham) that they couldn't take advantage of our spotty form throughout this first half of the season.

If we can just keep our key players healthy after getting them back, there is no way this team misses out on Top 4.

Just some random big picture thoughts after dropping more points from a winning position today.

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Ozil would have been massive today. His ability to pop into space and to hit the killer ball on the counter would've been clutch.

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No doubt. My take is Arsenal should have been down 2-0 at half. Getting a point where we were massacred last year is a positive. I hate zonal marking on set pieces.

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The likes of Rambo and Özil would have brought a bit of calm in midfield today

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Agreed. Ox wasn't visible for most of the match. He doesn't yet have the touch and patience to be a CM at the moment.

Imperative we get 6 points in the next two matches. Beating West Ham at Upton Park is going to be crucial on the 28th. QPR at the Emirates should be a done deal on Boxing Day.

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Imperative we get 6 points in the next two matches. Beating West Ham at Upton Park is going to be crucial on the 28th.

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This could change of course, but we are supposed to have Arteta, Ramsey and Koscielny all back by this game. Another week for Walcott to hopefully integrate more into the team. Clearly a stronger team than we could roll out today.

Will be MASSIVE in what is a game we need to win!

Ozil is awesome at moving into spaces and helping relieve pressure. Way better than all of our players save Santi, who played like a monster today. I can't count how many times he wriggled out of pressure with a deft little turn, or a quick left-right. He's a magnificent dribbler.

Completely disagree. We lacked intelligence and technique, not work rate today. Alexis also had a stinker.

Ozil could have drifted into the gaps in Liverpool's defense and created some space for others.

That said, Rogers outmaneuvered a Wenger completely tactically. Flamini constantly had players on both sides of him, because Sterling had our CBS on the retreat and Lallana and Coutinho drifted inside too far for our fullbacks to track. We should have gone double pivot almost instantly.

Wenger's solution ended up being to push Welbeck and Sanchez deeper in defense, which kept us more compact centrally but killed our attack.

Not a pretty day. We got a better result than we deserved and nearly stole all three points.

Just not an enjoyable season thus far. Really hope it picks up.

We have to go back to the double pivot. It's insane to me that we let Flamini have so much responsibility.

I have some free time tomorrow, so I may do a tactical write up, but look how poor our defensive shape is. This isn't on a counter, really, just a quick build up from Liverpool that leads to a chance for Lallana.



Our back four (black line, and I use the word line very loosely) is terribly disorganized. Chambers has pushed up to deal with Markovic, the left mid of a 3-4-3.

Ox is tracking Coutinho, the left forward who has drifted in and is now running out. That run frees up all kinds of space, because Flamini is sitting deep because Per is slow as frick and terrified of Sterling's run, even though Debuchy has it covered.

Meanwhile, Alexis and Giroud (blue circles) are nowhere to be found in defensive coverage. Giroud, for some unknown reason, was often wide left in the first half, and it left us totally vulnerable down that side. Look how isolated Gibbs is. That's the space that Lallana ends up taking after Markovic's run, and more incisive work from Pool would have led to a goal here rather than a blocked shot.

If we're organized, Chambers falls back to mark Coutinho, Ox is coming from deeper to meet Markovic, Per is next to Debuchy, Gibbs is closer to Henderson, and Flamini is sitting in front.

Terrible organization by Per and Flamini, both of whom have been shite this year. Scez, who was good yesterday, also needs to take a role in this and get everyone organized.

ETA: And terrible instruction from Wenger. All this work on patterns of attacking play in practice, what we really need is defensive organization. Is Kosc really the guy that gets us organized? Are we that poor without him?