Positive news: we got a win. Reality: we still played shit. More
reality: our goal was from an offside position; Reading had two 100%
chances to score with 10 men on the field in the last 5 minutes of the
game!!! What does that tell you? We are nowhere close to being a top
team right now. And we got away with a very, very lucky win. Let's hope
Wenger and his staff will be honest with themselves and get back to
work, because if we perform like we did today against Man U next week, i
see a painful 90 minutes ahead for any Arsenal supporter.
The best thing that happened to us today was seeing Jack Wilshere back in the starting 11. He was our most impressive player while he was on the pitch. The guy looked like he hasn't missed a beat in the last year and a half without football. He was energetic, hungry to play and was involved in every decent move we had going forward. What i love about him is that, when he gets the ball with his back to the opponent goal, he always looks for an opportunity to turn and advance forward and then look for the pass or his shot. That opens up space for other players and also makes us much more dangerous when we try to attack quickly and more direct. A lot of the other midfielders, when they get the ball with their backs to the opponents goal, they play the ball back or start twisting and turning at the same spot. That's fine, but slows down our attack and our runs are not very penetrating. Not to mention, defenders recover and we have no space to work with. Bottom line, Wilshere was great today and i was really happy to see him playing again! That guy is a true fighter and plays with his heart, let's hope he stays healthy for many years to come!
Another positive today, was the return of Sagna. I really like Jenkinson, but Sagna is very important for us with his quality and the need for rotation. He also had a great game today. Had some good crosses, made a very important stop in the 65th minute when Hoilett was about to be one on one vs Mannone. He looked sharp throughout the whole game and that was great to see. Mertesacker and Vermaelen were steady in the back up until the last 10 minutes of the game where we allowed twice Granero and Mackie to be one on one vs Mannone. I am not saying it was only their fault but the defense (with the exception of Santos whom i will talk about, in the next paragraph) was pretty good for most of the game and then it collapsed the last 10 min.
Now the Santos topic. The guy is a liability at the back against any player with some speed. Not only that, but often he is in the wrong parts of the pitch, thus creating even bigger challenge for himself to get back and keep up with players. To give you some proof i took pictures during the game today of two situations when he was nowhere near where his position requires him to be and that allowed for huge pockets of space on his side and i am amazed QPR didn't do better on those chances. The first sequence is in the 21st minute:
The best thing that happened to us today was seeing Jack Wilshere back in the starting 11. He was our most impressive player while he was on the pitch. The guy looked like he hasn't missed a beat in the last year and a half without football. He was energetic, hungry to play and was involved in every decent move we had going forward. What i love about him is that, when he gets the ball with his back to the opponent goal, he always looks for an opportunity to turn and advance forward and then look for the pass or his shot. That opens up space for other players and also makes us much more dangerous when we try to attack quickly and more direct. A lot of the other midfielders, when they get the ball with their backs to the opponents goal, they play the ball back or start twisting and turning at the same spot. That's fine, but slows down our attack and our runs are not very penetrating. Not to mention, defenders recover and we have no space to work with. Bottom line, Wilshere was great today and i was really happy to see him playing again! That guy is a true fighter and plays with his heart, let's hope he stays healthy for many years to come!
Another positive today, was the return of Sagna. I really like Jenkinson, but Sagna is very important for us with his quality and the need for rotation. He also had a great game today. Had some good crosses, made a very important stop in the 65th minute when Hoilett was about to be one on one vs Mannone. He looked sharp throughout the whole game and that was great to see. Mertesacker and Vermaelen were steady in the back up until the last 10 minutes of the game where we allowed twice Granero and Mackie to be one on one vs Mannone. I am not saying it was only their fault but the defense (with the exception of Santos whom i will talk about, in the next paragraph) was pretty good for most of the game and then it collapsed the last 10 min.
Now the Santos topic. The guy is a liability at the back against any player with some speed. Not only that, but often he is in the wrong parts of the pitch, thus creating even bigger challenge for himself to get back and keep up with players. To give you some proof i took pictures during the game today of two situations when he was nowhere near where his position requires him to be and that allowed for huge pockets of space on his side and i am amazed QPR didn't do better on those chances. The first sequence is in the 21st minute:
 |
| The ball is in the middle of the pitch, Santos pushes way up to attack the guy with the ball who passes to Shaun Wright-Phillips... |
 |
| ..now there is a huge gap on the right side, Santos is no where near the guy with the ball... |
 |
| ...which leaves with a 5 vs 5 situation.... |
 |
| High ball towards Zamora, Vermaelen is right behind him. Santos LEAVES his position to try to win a high ball from Zamora!.... |
 |
| ...obviously Santos loses that duel, and now... |
 |
| ...Wright Phillips has the ball again with lots of space to work with... |
The point i am trying to make here is that not only Santos is not fast enough to keep up with people, he is also NOT DISCIPLINED enough with his positioning to make up for it! I am going to make a little prediction today: if Santos is our left back for the Man U game, we will get scored on at least twice. Let's hope i am wrong but the way i see it, good teams punish mistakes like this. p.s. If you look at my post from an year ago when we beat Chelsea 5-3 at Stamford Bridge, you will see similar pictures with our boy Santos being the main hero again.
The midfield today was not great. We still didn't create nearly enough chances to win the game and at times in the second half we were dominated by QPR. Wilshere was the bright spot as i mentioned earlier. Ramsey had a decent game but neither him, or Cazorla created many chances. A lot of times guys were not on the same page for one-two passes; Cazorla did a bit too much of dribbling the ball and turning 360 degrees instead of passing it quicker. He also missed a great chance with an open goal. Podolski was working hard but also didn't create much. We just need to get on the same page as to what we are trying to do offensively. Be more direct with our runs, have more through balls and be decisive in the final third.
Giroud put a good effort today. He wins a lot of high balls but the guys around him almost don't expect him to do it, so they sit around watching, instead of making runs anticipating that he will win the high balls! The good news today was that Gervinho didn't start and even though i am sorry he got injured, i promise i won't miss him a lot. Walcott has to get more playing time if we want our offense to become more dynamic. We will take the points today but let's not kid ourselves, we need to IMPROVE! C'mon You Gunners!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment