Arsenal FA Cup SF Post-Match Thread

I feel like we are seeing the start of a mini-decline for us. In the way that Chelsea dropped off the pace after being so dominant. And this is WITH Pep. It will be exacerbated when we are without him. The level of investment needed to get back to where we were is vast. We need a huge transfer window.

I feel this is because some of our recruitments haven't reached the standards we thought they would, namely Cancelo and Rodri. Jesus might work hard and people say his scoring rate is good but most forwards rate would be good the amount of chances we create. His problem is he rarely creates much for himself, he can't grab games by the scruff of the neck and win games like great forwards do.

We have given Stones, Otamendi and Mendy far longer here than we should have. Dinho is about 35, David Silva is going and Aguero is a year older.

Going forward we HAVE to get the next set of recruitments right. It's a minimum of three for me, left back, centre half and centre forward. Pep has to be ruthless and cull the deadwood.

On the bright side we have won the league cup this year, more than the majority of teams will win. Forget the champions League no way will this squad win that. In fact on tonight's showing I see Madrid putting us out. All about next season now and if we want to compete again we must get it right.
 
Pep Guardiola: "We didn't make a good performance. We weren't ready enough and if you don't do that at this level you will be punished. The only regret is we didn't play the first half like we played the second one. That's why we lost

"We have to change a little bit, the set up. We could not do it. I said we have time, we can do it. We change something, the mentality, be aggressive. Be aggressive."

Pep Guardiola on individual mistakes: "It happens, it's football. Mistakes in front of the goal, it happens. Today, that is not the reason [why we lost

"If you don't play for 90 minutes in a semi-final, this can happen. We didn't play good, we are human beings. The opponent played good, sometimes it happens." [via
@ManCity
]
 
mendy is absolute dross runs like he’s got a hunchback can’t run, defend, slow and hits and hopes his shit crosses... gundogan has been shit for 2 years ( and before i get we won leagues and trophies) united won them with chadwick, may, jones!! so let’s not go there!! city need left back another ch, midfielder and a striker
 
I’m fucked off yes.

4 months for a game that matters and that’s the performance these ****s put in.

Some of them were lazy as well.
I get it, I just can’t get too upset about it but fuck it, everyone has their own way of dealing with a dire performance.
 
Fans not having to travel down there, spend money on travel, tickets and then traveling back late at night after seeing this awful City performance is really the one thing that can be mentioned as one of the good things tonight.
 
Ugh, where do you start?

3 things for me:
1. We pride ourselves on being a well run club but the squad has aged and we haven't recruited well. For a top team to have to play a DM at CH most of the season and to only have 1 fit striker in the run in is terrible
2. We have a lot of gaps to fill in the squad and a truncated pre-season to do it in.
3. Biggest worry is I can't see a plan, or style of play. That's why we were so consistent before. We had a plan that we knew would come together. When I see us spamming the box with crosses like we do at the moment I find it pretty worrying

We've got a great manager though and money to spend, so hopefully it's not a prolonged rebuild
 
Mahrez is a monster coward. Couldn't beat an egg. That easy nod in after 15 minutes...looked away like a schoolboy. Awful. Gundogan runs him close for coward of the county. What a negative player. Usually passes back to offload responsibility...on the odd occasion he tries something, it's delightful. But he prefers dross safety.
 
If City would've converted a few of the scoring chances he created, this game wouldn't have been lost. His worst game? lol
I've said similar, the chances that did come should have been taken, it's inexcusable we didn't put at least 1 of those away, Aubameyang would have scored all 3 judging by his first goal.

That said, that doesn't mean we didn't play poorly overall(it was poor for the most part), 1 of those chances was a complete fluke, the other 2 chances were from arguably KDB's only 2 good pickouts in the whole game.

You know it's not your day when a cross hits your player in the face, instead of what should have been a simple headed goal.
 
That had nothing to do with Arsenal despite what the commentary tried to have us believe, they were there for the taking if we wanted it, they didn’t play phenomenally well, they just did their basics competently which is what Southampton and all the others that have beaten us this season have done to.

This wasn’t a game where players played poorly and made mistakes, it was a game that highlighted the glaring deficiencies in our system. no real surprise Arteta is aware of them as to be expected but the worrying thing is the likes of Southampton are doing it too. You take away the space for our one attack pattern on the inside of the fullback and were absolutely clueless.

I’ve never seen a team camp on the edge of the oppositions box and do fucking nothing with the ball for 10 minute periods before launching a pointless cross to the one person in the box.

When the opponents do that you have to draw them out or you have to go wide, they wasn’t coming out no matter what so we went wide but nobody was getting in the box, Jesus was in the box alone surrounded by defenders, david silva would join from time to time but that’s it. Sterling and mahrez/Foden we’re keeping out wide when they wasn’t delivering balls instead of getting in around the back post meaning they may as well had gone and sat down on the halfway line for all the threat they caused, Kdb went to the right to deliver, walker dropped into midfield which should have allowed Rodri to push in to the box too as time ran out but that didn’t happen either.

We don’t score late goals in tight games or come from behind late on anymore because we don’t apply any real pressure on their goal, Liverpool got so many late goals this season because they apply real pressure, they put quality in and get numbers in the box, we just go side to side in front of an organised unit and fizzle out. I can’t even name a solitary chance we had after going 2-0 down despite having 92% of the ball. Our attack is a bigger concern than our defence

The first half was a disgrace the lack of effort was unforgivable. Second half the effort was there again at least but it was an increasingly familiar story. Our attack right now doesn’t have enough variety or pace to win titles, we’ve lost Sane and we’ve turned sterling into something closer to the type of player we already have in abundance, far too many players wanting to do the same thing.
I’ve No real complaints with the defence today, The first was a good goal and the second was a consequence of the way we play with the high line, Garcia isn’t quick enough to play for us in this system, you either change the system or you need pace at CB.

I don’t think I’ve been this angry at City and their performance (no ref/opposition/bar influence) for a long long time, probably since Wigan in the cup final. There’s a big job to do this summer, smashing 6 past relegation fodder isn’t going to mask it.
 
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mendy is absolute dross runs like he’s got a hunchback can’t run, defend, slow and hits and hopes his shit crosses... gundogan has been shit for 2 years ( and before i get we won leagues and trophies) united won them with chadwick, may, jones!! so let’s not go there!! city need left back another ch, midfielder and a striker
Mendy was the least of our problems tonight.
 
Did we go into this game with arrogance thinking we had already won. still cannot believe how bad we were, arrrrrrrrghhhhhhhh
 
Ferna has needed replacing now for 2 years and apart from Gundo's amazing great half a year there last season we still haven't got anyone there who can play up to the standard we need. Gundo hasn't reproduced that form consistently this season and Rodri just doesn't look any better. I'm not even gonna complain about starting Gundo as the alternative is worse for me.

I think we might have another Bravo situation at DM where 1 year later we have to get a replacement.

Really prefer Rodri over Gundogan, pretty much agree the 6 is a problem area though.

Worrying that we probably won't do anything about it this window.
 

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