Your Vision

Your Vision - 16 observations from Arsenal vs Spuds

PLEASE NOTE THAT YOUR VISION ARTICLES ARE SENT IN BY READERS AND ARE NOT WRITTEN BY ARSENAL VISION WRITERS.

1) Arsenal’s defence worst among the top six in BPL, not much of a help when you aim for silverware.

2) The midfield was missing without Fabregas. Rosicky was going nowhere. Diaby ran out of ideas, dwelt on the ball for eons and presented the ball to spuds in our own half.

3) Rosicky’s long range effort pretty much sums it up; there is no long range target practice in players training. No plan B. Simple.

4) No wonder Danny Rose’s strike seems one in a million. To be honest it is.

5) Walcott isn’t the player on the wings, never going to be.

6) Clichy gets carried away by his offensive duties. The switching off, even occasionally is costly every time.

7) Same for our Bacs Sagna. Anything Clichy can do, he can do. For better or worse I leave the judgement to you.

8) AW had a premonition about our CBs, so he got back Sol. Odd that he did not have one for our DM. Could have got back Patrick Viera. Incidentally was available too. If you wanna break a rule, break it big.

9) Arsene doesn’t want to know. Hawking young age statistics of rest of the team is bollocks when the average age of your center backs is on the wrong side of thirties.

10) Winning and nicking 3 points off your nearest rivals is the best. Draws against them ain’t a bad option either. Funny you cannot plan for them. Tighten up and not let them take three points off you is a big plus. No guesses for our position if all lost games lost would have been draws.

11) The squad isn’t big enough in terms of depth and quality. Arsenal injury woes to let them down every season, in big games and crunch times. Next season may not be any better with the WC and Arsenal’s big share of international players.

12) AW has been dead honest about one thing, missing RVP. Predicatably did nothing about it except of course, balancing the books. Same for CB, DM and GK.

13) The players ain’t mentally tough. Not after seeing the spuds game.

14) All of the above and still having a 4-3-3 formation or its variant. Whatever happened to the 4-4-2 or 4-5-1?

15) Spite Hart Lane or not, Campbell is a fighter.

16) Lee Dixon is right about one thing - we need a SOLID back four (add one DM to that).

Gooner for life.

Mean Lean's Response

Subir thank you for posting in your thoughts but I have to disagree with much of what you have said. Your title states that you have observations from the Tottenham game but then you say things like 'Walcott isn't the player on the wings, never going to be'

Theo was one of the players that actually made a positive impact when he came on and made the assist for our goal. You cannot say that 'Walcott isn't the player on the wings' which I assume you mean is not good enough. You do not know how he will progress, you do not know what he will be like with a full season without injury and you do not know what he will be like when he reaches his peak.

I will select a few of your points. #3 there is no long range target practice in players training. No plan B. Simple

How do you know what happens on the training ground? How can you make a statement like that without actually knowing the facts.

Gael Clichy was one of our better players on the night and has been over the last few weeks as he has regained his match sharpness.

I have to jump to the squad isn't big enough point. This is something that has been bandied about via the media to the fans. I would argue the opposite and suggest that a team that has had to cope with the most injuries in the league (fact) has still managed to remain in the title race with a handful of games remaining.

I would like to point out that when Manchester United had their one bad injury spell in one area they resorted to playing Michael Carrick in defence and subsequently lost to Fulham 3-0. We have had that level of injuries all over the team at different stages of the season.

We started the season with six possible choices for center back. That is for two positions. Djourou got injured and that meant we had five possibilities for two places. If I was a manager who had to start the season with a balanced squad I would have been happy with that. Senderos left in January and Arsene replaced him with Sol Campbell. That is fine. Not one person could have suggested that we would have had such a bad injury issue at such a crucial period.

As for not being mentally tough, I can counter that with victories at Hull City in the last minute, Stoke City after having one of our players legs broken, Liverpool away after going a goal down.

I could pick many more holes in your argument but I think what it boils down to is that Gooners are disappointed that we probably will end the season trophy less. It sure is a disappointment. We were all hoping that this year could have been our year but has it been an awful season on the whole? Is fighting for the league until the end with a ravaged injury struck squad reason to ask for mass changes? I think not.

Nobody denies that we could do with strengthen in certain areas, the boss has already mentioned that. We have seen big improvements from the season before and we will be back stronger next season.

I hope the players can show what they are made of in the games remaining, now that the pressure has been lifted slightly.

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Comments

#1 - Nick Says:

Life is going to be miserable for Gooner 4 Life. Maybe he should find a team that fits his needs better -- they lost to Spurs today, and they're local.

#2 - richie Says:

Our injury list isn't something that any team in the EPL could cope with. Transfer our injury list to either manuer or chavski and both would be fighting with the pool for 4th place.

To say that considering our injuries we've done well is like saying barca can pass a bit. I'm not one of the lunatic fringe who either wants to sell all our player or buy everybody like madrid. We all know that closed season we need to strengthen our squad, but we don't need to change our squad. I do think our 1st 22 is a work in progress, no where near a finished product.

Also I think we need to use a system that our current players can work within. Our possession game can only work with the right players. Watch what a difference the introduction of RvP had against the spuds. Likewise remember how games changed when Cesc came on. This isn't only that these players are brilliant individuals. Its having a playmaker and outlet.

Bendtner has done well and we have missed him big.
Diaby likewise has done well. Now Diaby might play a ball that RvP or Theo could turn run onto, but that doesn't work when Bendtner's playing because thats not his game.

With the players we have we can play different styles but putting all that together and getting it to gel into a system wouldn't be easy without all our injuries. With the injuries it was impossible. To the point that I don't know if we are a team that presses when we lose the ball or not? Does anyone know or have we just muddled through because of injurys?

I think more important that buying anyone (even a GK to really give big Al competition) is the branch and root investigation into why we have so many injuries?

#3 - lutongooner Says:

Remember for long periods we had them pegged back in their box and they went into the game with a small club mentality, ie let's get 10 men behind the ball. It was a great goal from Rose but lucky in the fact that Almunia hadn't got back onto his line after punching the ball away.

We defended pretty well apart from a mistake for Bale's goal which was purely lack of concentration. Spurs completely ripped apart Chelsea's defence today and that was with their first choice CBs.

You can't question their mental toughness especially as we have scored so many late crucial goals recently. Yes you can say that some players still don't have the maturity, but they do have the fight.

We have had a rediculous amount of injuries to first team players. RVP for a big chunk, Bendtner for a few months, Fabregas had one lengthy injury earlier on in the season. Gallas second half of the season, Nasri at the start of the season, Djourou the whole campaign. Walcott the start of the season. Ramsey, Arshavin, Vermaelen all out of the remainder.

#4 - Neutral Says:

Looking at the past few seasons, Arsenal is improving from season to season. Any true & loyal Arsenal fans should stand behind their team and give them the full support. I am convinced that they will improve and be in a better position in the next season. More importantly is to have the good players to stay on with the club, then adding in new blood that can further help the team to excel and push the performance to the next level.

Frankly speaking, with the injuries records over the whole season, Arsenal has done really well to be in the current position, which is only a few points away from the top yet a larger gap between them and the 4th position.

Stick up your heads, the Arsenal players, and give your best to every game remaining, and as a neutral, I would love to see this team get a trophy soon!

#5 - Bdoc Says:

Almunia is crap. But sagna bumped him on the rose goal. The team is great. I dont like negative gooners. Its a great season

#6 - Scott Says:

First you french assholes...then the russians. Will be nice to meet a real english team next saturday...hahahahaha

#7 - Dave@spurs Says:

Face it guys you lost,and your running out of exuses,a young team,
so have spurs,injuries, so have spurs, u just aint good enough.
the best team in london beat the 3rd best,then beat the 2nd best,
we will do u a favour by beating man u, CL is there for the taking,
changes are happening in north london, u no longer boss it, the yids r the best, relax chill,watch how a good team does it

#8 - Subir Kumar Roy Says:

First of all thanks to arsenalvision for posting my article. Thanks are also due to MeanLean and others who have replied/commented on the article. Point well taken that my observations should have been limited to the spuds game, thereby being consistent with the title.
It was a massive disappointment, more than that experienced after the loss to Barcelona. The point about Walcott is that we are probably not able to get the best out of him, by playing him on the wings. Regarding long range shots, I agree that I will never know what happens in the training ground, But what I have written is a deduction after watching every Arsenal game. (Denilson's long range effort in the Everton game is a rarity).
BPL is the most physical league having teams like Arsenal and Stoke at opposite ends of the spectrum (playing styles). Injuries are inevitable. Lack of depth can be gauged from the fact that when key players are missing, the replacements haven't been able to do half a decent job. There are many examples, about which we can go on and on. Last but not the least losing doesn't mean that I am a sulking gunners fan. It is only constructive criticism based on my individual assessment.

Thanks anyways

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