So the end of the season is here and let's just say that a campaign which promised so much has finished very disappointingly. Because of shitty internet signals i missed the first 10 min of each half but judging by what i did see, i hadn't missed much. Defensively we were BAD. Both goals happened because of our mistakes and there were plenty of chances for Fulham to score more. The defending on the second goal was especially bad. Djourou was marking Zamora and when Zamora moved towards the goal, Djourou decided he can just stay where he was initially and watch, instead of following his man. Simple cross, no one in front of Zamora = easy goal. The frustrating part is that this is something so simple that i shouldn't be writing about it and yet we still concede goals like this all the time.
The two goals we scored were the only positive thing we did offensively for the whole game. We didn't have our usual possession and control over the game. For large periods of time Fulham were the team who looked much more organized and threatening when they had the ball. Even when they got to 10 men (deservedly so after a horrible challenge by Gera) you still couldn't tell we had an extra player. We kept sending long balls and crosses into their penalty area despite the fact that their defenders had no problem defending them. Sagna kept his usual ratio of 1 good cross per 10 attempts, and he actually did better with his left foot in the first half when Gibbs almost scored after his cross. The bottom line is that our tactic to cross the ball and hope a miracle happens has even lower chance of success when we have good old Sagna crossing from the right. I love the guy but he can't cross to save his life. The first goal was what our attacks should look like, a few quick passes and great finish from RVP. Too bad we didn't create almost any other chances like this one.
Ramsey, Nasri, Wilshere and Chamakh did not have a good game. Diaby made a great pass for the first goal but after that he disappeared as well. Vermaelen made some mistakes but also had an important goal line clearance and he will need some time to get back into game rhythm. Djourou had a really bad game and that's disappointing because he was having a breakout season. I thought Gibbs was solid most of the time and Walcott scored a great goal.
I have always criticized Wenger for his substitutions being too late and the last two games i have seen a light at the end of the tunnel: Wenger made triple changes and they were made between the 60th and 70th minute. This is a huge improvement for The Professor who usually waits until the 85th minute before he makes a change. Let's hope this is not just "the end of the season" strategy for him.
With next season in mind i really hope we work hard on our defense because if we want to be champions we can't keep conceding silly goals all the time. Scott Parker should be a good addition to our squad, i hope we can get him. He is someone with experience and great abilities and he shouldn't be too expensive since West Ham were relegated. If we do get another defender he better be a big guy with some physical presence, we struggle a lot at set pieces because of our lack of size in defense. Whatever we do over the summer, we need to improve significantly if we want to have a shot at the title next year. This team has a lot of potential but we need to clean up our mistakes and learn how beat teams who close themselves in the back. Crossing the ball and hoping we score with a header won't do it.
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