Furthermore, we are always stuck with one shape or formation all season – the 4-4-2 formation in the Vieira, Henry, Bergkamp, Pires era and the current system of 4-2-3-1. I strongly believe the fluidity and dynamic nature of our football today gives cause for a manager to study the game through its duration and react accordingly. Something I do not see Mr. Wenger do so often. Our ill-trained, classless and noisy neighbours were handed a cheap draw sometime last season at three-point lane as our most potent, lively and dangerous players who were runners all through the duration of the game, namely Theo and Nasri, were unnecessarily subbed with seven minutes on the clock when they were obviously causing the Spuds a lot of trouble with Arshavin, who seemed to lose the ball more often than not and a Bendtner who even though its clear to see is an out and out striker has always been played out of position wide right or left. Of course our attacking steam cooled and the Spuds from WHL were allowed to escape with a point on the night, a game they were 3-1 down at one point. I thought since we had the upper hand with our very quick and mobile players, as well as our approach and with seven minutes to go, we didn’t need to change anything.
Another aspect to Wenger’s tactical side is the choice of corner kicks year in year out.
AFC is known to only stick with one type of corner kick which are in-swingers. Despite our low conversion rate from this particular set-piece, our gaffer refuses to throw in a mix of in and out-swingers, as well as short corners. As they say, variety is the spice of life.
Modern day pundits tend to say we deploy a 4-2-3-1 formation when we take to the field, but in simple terms, it’s still a 4-3-3 system. This formation came to life about three seasons ago in order to accommodate Fabregas’ lack of physical strength and effective box-to-box play. I have always labelled Cesc as physically weak, but what he lacks in physical strength, he makes up for it with vision, great passing ability, skill and superb accuracy. Needless to say, Cesc was pushed further upfront to play in the hole and Jack was slotted in behind him to mark and destroy opponents, and play alongside the beast from Cameroon. The only defect in the way Wenger deploys this formation that I noticed is that the wide men are made to track back and cover the full-backs, thus leaving our top striker isolated and ineffective for long periods of the game. I am not saying that our wide men should not fall back and help the team when needed, it just baffles me that we have two holding midfielders who are in a better position to do that job, one to either flank and allow our wide men to face their primary duties of supplying the central striker more and also seeking to create a three on three situation with opposing teams more often.
A team can only attack through one flank at a time or through the centre and with three midfielders, we have more than enough weight to defend without our shadow strikers having to drop too deep. If our flank players were primarily midfielders or wingers then it would be understandable, but these are strikers longing to play centrally who are made to play wide roles. If the two holding or central midfielders are made to protect the full-backs, with the wide player on the side dropping to defend, then we can always have one attack-minded player supporting the top striker even when the opponent is attacking, thus making clearances or long balls more dangerous for the opponents to deal with.
True wenger is a great man and coach but he needs to be able to admits we he has failed and make corrections. Why are we so silent on the fact that his project youth he forced on us over the years has failed. And now we are back to the old ways when some of us have been shouting about this for a while. In other words ‘Wenger doesn’t always know best’
Project youth?
Wojciech Szczesny
Kieran Gibbs
Carl Jenkinson
Alex Song
Emmanuel Frimpong
Francis Coquelin
Aaron Ramsey
Jack Wilshere
Theo Walcott
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
Ryo Miyaichi
Current 1st team/squad players
Let’s hope he gets rid of all these failures ASAP eh!
Ramsey and jenkinson r average gibbs is overrated. Wilshere too. Good player but praised above his actual ability atm.
Oxlade is promising along with wojech but a long way 2 go before greatness same with wilshere
As for walcott he is a class…….. Sprinter.you can reel out the stats and quotes but when u watch him you can see he is going nowhere fast.
Frimpong is the black cattermole le coq is quite good.
Atm none of this players will take arsenal to the top
A bit harsh in saying that! No doubt Wenger makes mistakes. He had done and will continue to do so. But tell me one person who never makes mistakes! Not trying to defend Wenger but to give him 3/10 is ridiculous. We didn’t always play 4-4-3 after our all conquering 4-4-2, for a while we played 4-4-1-1 when we had Flamini. We simply don’t have the player to play 4-4-2, it would be too open in the middle and we will get killed. Fiberglass is a great player, no doubt. But would I complain with him being replaced by Arteta? Not one bit. Chances we can create and always will even without Cesc. But grit we don’t have. The addition of Arteta really help this team endless. We are a better team with Arteta then with Cesc. We are more balanced in every way.
Wenger has always let his player have the freedom to play on the pitch that’s why our movement are always so good and players switching for positions. When things are going our way, everyone was saying how wonderful everything is, but when things get tough, everyone starts to question Wenger for his tactical sense. It’s simple sometime it works wondrous, sometime it goes horribly wrong. But would I change our way of play? Not a chance.
Another thing is, parking the bus doesn’t work with us, because we don’t defend well as a unit. We are an attacking team, our strength is to defend high up, put pressure on the opposing team and try to score a goal. We didn’t loose against AC because of tactical error, we lost because we had no heart, we didn’t have the drive to win, we didn’t have any guts to go out and play. The players’ attitude was absolutely un-defendable. Had we scored an away goal, even at 4-1, we would have won the tie. Wenger took a gamble and didn’t pay off. That was that!
For the most part i agrèe with you, &this isn’t anythng new. For löng many people have said the same good coach, poor manager.
The coach is supposed to hone the players technique &character to get him to be the best he can be. The manager is supposed to take that player knowing his technical ability &fix him where he can maximize that ability to the best for the team. Some persons are better coaches than managers -wenger. Others are better managers than coaches -mourinho/ or wenger of old. Few are good either way – SAF, ?guardiola.
Unfortunately, in top level football coaching comes 2nd to managing. Its more important to be able to 2get the best out of talent available to him,if that isn’t sufficient he must go out &get ready-made talent-ala SAF,mourinho,pep. Coaching is predominantly done at the academy,youth &reserve team levels.
But i disagree with u on som matters, wenger couldn’t have made a player like bergkamp who was fifa’s 3rd best player in 1993/4,years b4 joining arsenal. Also agree that he had a hand in henry’s development but the boy was already a star. Voted best young player in the 1998 world after scoring 3goals from the wing. Juve didnt pay big money to monaco for him for nothng. Point is those 2 &viera to a lesser extent were far from unknown before arsenal.
Some people have defended wenger with myriad of excuses
1. Injury- we have been beaten by teams with worse injury problems. Last year an injury ravaged man utd dumped us out of the fa cup with a team of defenders, the 1-3 CL loss to the same team occured wen utd had 3/4 of its 1st choice defence out injured. Even the recent 1-2 loss utd had a beta chunk of 1st team starters out. Thats wen a manager shows his ability. Getting the best out of the available is his job. Btw its no coincidence we always hav an injured squad -another failure in management
2. Age -well i think man utd thrashing 8-2 with a younger squad put that to rest, despite mourinho telling the world that wengers team can’t be young forever. All great managers utilize young talent, none use it as an excuse, they just play them when they thnk the boy is ready.
3. The others, referees, pitch,balls etc. Yada yada yada. Bla bla bla
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