re: Arsenal 2014/15 Season Long Thread

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if gibbo is long-term injured

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I seriously hope he isn't. He could be so good if he didn't get injured constantly. That said I sometimes wish our wingbacks wouldn't be positioned up the field so much. Gibbs seems to stand 40 yards to goal and waits for the ball to rotate to him. For some variation we could use some late runs from both fullbacks, especially when teams settle in and are drawn to the ball. Monreal is way better at those sorts of runs, though he hasn't done them consistently since his first season here.

I'm not sure Debuchy is an upgrade on Sagna, but he will do until one of Chambers/Jenkinson/Bellerin is ready to take over. He's a good player defensively, but going forward I don't know if he is as good as Sagna was.

We looked like shite in all honesty. Alexis dribbled way too much, Sanogo was anonymous, Giroud wasn't any better in truth, Santi lost the ball way too often, and Wilshere and Ramsey couldn't link with anyone. I'm so glad we got 3 points out of this game.

On the positive side, Chambers looks like a really good CB. He might displace one of Koscielny or Mertesacker. I'm also not sure how fast he is. It would help if he was as fast as Koscielny so we could play that high line.

This was also a game made for a player like Arteta. He did a pretty spectacular job recycling possession and filling in the holes in the defense. Not every team will be as toothless as CP going forward. They could barely complete 5 yard passes.

It seems Wenger is committed to this Ramsey-Wilshere partnership, and I think it's possible that it could work without Arteta if both are a little more patient driving forward. But it seems unlikely that it could work with Ozil. It would have to be another player ahead of them.

I feel like it will take a while for this team to gel. How Ozil fits into all of this is going to be very interesting. There wasn't any space in behind the D today, but if we have another season of static movement I'm going to kick a puppy. I was immediately annoyed at Alexis's dribbles. He has fantastic close control but he just holds onto the ball way too long. He had a decent debut though. Hopefully he will help us in games where it is more open. We will see how we do in the middle of the week though. It's going to be a tough game.