Arsenal FA Cup SF Post-Match Thread

[Fordyboy46]

In a game with so many bad performances Walker was the fly on the turd . Surprised he's getting off so lightly and Mendy is drawing more heat.

It was just a collective shambles all over the pitch mate, nobody deserved any more than a five out of ten.

 

[The perfect fumble]

Fortuneately we can all watch City and Madrid again in a couple of weeks.

We are an outstanding team. We played a poor game yesterday and Arsenal deserved to win but we'll be focused on the Champions League now, we may not win it but I'm sure we'll give it a good go.

There's a reason most football fans hate the dippers and rags winning anything, and that's because they're full of shit and never shut up.

We're not dippers, we're not rags, we're not entitled. We should never lose sight of what makes us blues, we should be magnanimous in victory and gracious in defeat and for the most part we are.

 

[Marvin]

Really poor performance - with and without the ball.
The first goal was indicative of just how passive we‘ve become. Moved through the pitch from their keeper to our goal, and I don‘t think at any point we got within 2-3 yards of the man on the ball.

Silva and Gundogan are completely useless without the ball so why play them together? Arrogant decision that cost us massively. We could have still lost the game because in truth we don't have a single effective senior defensive midfielder at the club.

In the Summer we worried about not replacing Kompany. Well the problem is bigger than we thought because Rodri has not worked. I wouldn't completely rule him out because I can see that he is a very good footballer and it maybe that as a team we can cover his lack of mobility. I much prefer a kante or De Jong like player in that position. As a pre-requisite you have to be quick imo to play defensive midfield although I can readily think of players e.g. Barry who were not. The game though is getting faster by the season. You compare the physicality of the Liverpool midfield to our midfield. Light and day.

 

[Del_Bosque]

Jesus Sterling and Mahrez really isn’t good enough as a front 3

The inverted wingers system makes us so flat

rest of the team gets sucked up the pitch as we try to thread the eye of a needle getting through the middle of the park, then we get caught on the counter

Arteta knows this and drew us in

Never want to see Gundogan as a 6 again and i’d let Jesus go in summer

 

[Sir peace frog]

We are an outstanding team. We played a poor game yesterday and Arsenal deserved to win but we'll be focused on the Champions League now, we may not win it but I'm sure we'll give it a good go.

There's a reason most football fans hate the dippers and rags winning anything, and that's because they're full of shit and never shut up.

We're not dippers, we're not rags, we're not entitled. We should never lose sight of what makes us blues, we should be magnanimous in victory and gracious in defeat and for the most part we are.

i try to be gracious in defeat , maybe because I'm older and realise that football isn't really that important in the grand scheme of things, sadly we have our fair share of babies whose dummies come right out of the pram when we lose.

 

[Keeper!]

Silva and Gundogan are completely useless without the ball so why play them together? Arrogant decision that cost us massively. We could have still lost the game because in truth we don't have a single effective senior defensive midfielder at the club.

In the Summer we worried about not replacing Kompany. Well the problem is bigger than we thought because Rodri has not worked. I wouldn't completely rule him out because I can see that he is a very good footballer and it maybe that as a team we can cover his lack of mobility. I much prefer a kante or De Jong like player in that position. As a pre-requisite you have to be quick imo to play defensive midfield although I can readily think of players e.g. Barry who were not. The game though is getting faster by the season. You compare the physicality of the Liverpool midfield to our midfield. Light and day.

Rodri is a class player, will be a wonderful player for this club.
Our manager has some faults, one is arrogance, I utterly respect his football principles BUT sometimes you have to adapt to the strengths of the opposition, sometimes total football is not the answer.

 

[Sir peace frog]

Silva and Gundogan are completely useless without the ball so why play them together? Arrogant decision that cost us massively. We could have still lost the game because in truth we don't have a single effective senior defensive midfielder at the club.

In the Summer we worried about not replacing Kompany. Well the problem is bigger than we thought because Rodri has not worked. I wouldn't completely rule him out because I can see that he is a very good footballer and it maybe that as a team we can cover his lack of mobility. I much prefer a kante or De Jong like player in that position. As a pre-requisite you have to be quick imo to play defensive midfield although I can readily think of players e.g. Barry who were not. The game though is getting faster by the season. You compare the physicality of the Liverpool midfield to our midfield. Light and day.

arrogant, is thinking you know better than someone who knows better than you, to call pep arrogant is fucking amazing, he's a very humble guy in my opinion, and possibly the least arrogant manager in football considering he has every right to be .

 

[sh249]

Silva and Gundogan are completely useless without the ball so why play them together? Arrogant decision that cost us massively. We could have still lost the game because in truth we don't have a single effective senior defensive midfielder at the club.

In the Summer we worried about not replacing Kompany. Well the problem is bigger than we thought because Rodri has not worked. I wouldn't completely rule him out because I can see that he is a very good footballer and it maybe that as a team we can cover his lack of mobility. I much prefer a kante or De Jong like player in that position. As a pre-requisite you have to be quick imo to play defensive midfield although I can readily think of players e.g. Barry who were not. The game though is getting faster by the season. You compare the physicality of the Liverpool midfield to our midfield. Light and day.

Agree with most of that. We certainly lack physicality, for want of a better word, in midfield. But the problems also run much deeper at the moment. With the exception of Jesus, our pressing from the front is shit. And the back four are far too passive as well. Sick to death of seeing opposing forwards just walk off the centre halves, pick the ball up and turn or bring others into play. Like the late-Pellegrini era redux at times. And our defensive shape in transitions is poor - 17/18 we were so solid with Delph-Fernandinho-Walker nice and tight in front of two centre halves defending aggressively. Now we‘re all over the shop and horribly exposed.

 

[Marvin]

We are an outstanding team. We played a poor game yesterday and Arsenal deserved to win but we'll be focused on the Champions League now, we may not win it but I'm sure we'll give it a good go.

There's a reason most football fans hate the dippers and rags winning anything, and that's because they're full of shit and never shut up.

We're not dippers, we're not rags, we're not entitled. We should never lose sight of what makes us blues, we should be magnanimous in victory and gracious in defeat and for the most part we are.

Deceive yourself if you like but the league table records 9 defeats. 9.

We do not have an outstanding 2nd central defender, and we do not have an outstanding defensive midfielder.

We should be magnaminous and gracious, and we should also be honest with ourselves.

 

[jimmygrimblesboots]

Thought i would have been really pissed off this morning about this defeat , but in hindsight we got very little credit for our domestic treble last year so winning the two domestic cups again would have gone under the radar , but no doubt if the Rags win the FA Cup , it would be likened to the second coming of christ
Our focus for the re-start has always been the Champs league and this now makes or breaks our season , we are four games from making history , its tough Real Madrid possibly Juventus and then Barca or Bayern is the toughest route , i have never really cared about the Glamour Cup but it would be sweet justice watching Cerferin or one of his UEFA cretins handing Big Ears over to Merlin.
We can dream.

 

[Marvin]

Agree with most of that. We certainly lack physicality, for want of a better word, in midfield. But the problems also run much deeper at the moment. With the exception of Jesus, our pressing from the front is shit. And the back four are far too passive as well. Sick to death of seeing opposing forwards just walk off the centre halves, pick the ball up and turn or bring others into play. Like the late-Pellegrini era redux at times. And our defensive shape in transitions is poor - 17/18 we were so solid with Delph-Fernandinho-Walker nice and tight in front of two centre halves defending aggressively. Now we‘re all over the shop and horribly exposed.

Well partly we can address it through utilising Foden and Bernardo but that is only a part solution. I think we may need to recognise that Rodri is not going to work, and that we still need a central defender. We probably need another forward too but I suspect Aguero will stay for one more season.

 

[Marvin]

Thought i would have been really pissed off this morning about this defeat , but in hindsight we got very little credit for our domestic treble last year so winning the two domestic cups again would have gone under the radar , but no doubt if the Rags win the FA Cup , it would be likened to the second coming of christ
Our focus for the re-start has always been the Champs league and this now makes or breaks our season , we are four games from making history , its tough Real Madrid possibly Juventus and then Barca or Bayern is the toughest route , i have never really cared about the Glamour Cup but it would be sweet justice watching Cerferin or one of his UEFA cretins handing Big Ears over to Merlin.
We can dream.

Utd are better than City at the moment. They don't have the fantastic players we do, but they don't have huge holes either. What's the point of having the two finest wide forwards in the Premier League if an opponent can just put the ball at the feet of their fastest player and he can just race through unchallenged to your six yard box?

We have to accept that City have defensive weakness and we have to address it.

 

[herrock]

Within the first 10 minutes you could see the pattern of play yet we continued to bang our head against the wall.

The shortcomings in this game for me sum up our season.

1. Left footer on the right wing and right footer on the left wing, not for me. I don't mind switching to that to try something different but this is the approach 90% of the time.
2. Despite his legendary status and what he might have done in the last couple of games Silva is one season too many this year.
3. Gundo and Mendy, simply not good enough. Arsenal, like several other sides, worked out they can effectively leave Mendy out wide as all he does is smash crosses into, and mainly over, the penalty area. Teams double up on us on the right side as our attack has more finesse on that side. I think we see it as having more space on the left so target more of our attacks down that route. Gundo lacks any pace and his positional sense is baffling which are two problems you can't afford with our style of play.
4. Rhodri, jury still out on that one. Same with Cancello - not sure why we signed him. Plenty of talk on here initially that he could play either side but have we tried him on the left.
5. Foden needs a run in the team in one position rather than throwing him on to cover whoever has been taken off.
6. The centre half problem, I'll leave it at that.
7. What's gone wrong with Bernardo?
8. I understand rotation but for me it's too many too often.

This may sound like a knee jerk reaction to a couple of bad games but it sums the season up. As has been said many times on here you strengthen when at the top as it's a lot harder to do when the problems start arising.

Agree with everything written here, especially the right footer on the left argument. When we had Sane down the left and Sterling down the right, we were frightening.

 

[Blu3m00n91]

Jesus Sterling and Mahrez really isn’t good enough as a front 3

The inverted wingers system makes us so flat

rest of the team gets sucked up the pitch as we try to thread the eye of a needle getting through the middle of the park, then we get caught on the counter

Arteta knows this and drew us in

Never want to see Gundogan as a 6 again and i’d let Jesus go in summer

We’re so predictable going forwards with this front 3 but we have no alternative and unfortunately our two full backs can’t cross a ball

 

[jimmygrimblesboots]

Utd are better than City at the moment. They don't have the fantastic players we do, but they don't have huge holes either. What's the point of having the two finest wide forwards in the Premier League if an opponent can just put the ball at the feet of their fastest player and he can just race through unchallenged to your six yard box?

We have to accept that City have defensive weakness and we have to address it.

So true , ive just commented in another thread Koulibaily is a vital singing , he has been superb for Lazio he is a leader and bullies forwards if he costs £75-80m its worth it , he is on a par with VVD in my opinion.

 

[nellyonthewing]

Rodri is a class player, will be a wonderful player for this club.
Our manager has some faults, one is arrogance, I utterly respect his football principles BUT sometimes you have to adapt to the strengths of the opposition, sometimes total football is not the answer.

Rodri would be OK if he was in a midfield with 2 stronger athletic players who could cover for his lack of pace strength but then again who wouldn't.

 

[jimharri]

I thought I'd feel better this morning.



I don't.

 

[lazerblue]

one things for sure, we cant go into next season with just jesus and aguero as our only strikers

 

[Segga]

one things for sure, we cant go into next season with just jesus and aguero as our only strikers

I think you are going to be disappointed because we will do. We have serious holes in this team that need addressing before we think about a striker

 

[SilverFox2]

Got to laugh at Dion Dublin's comments. Yes we were strangely limp and subdued once we got to their box (we spent most of the game around their box), but for him to say 'Arsenal completely outplayed City' was laughable. Arsenal were in the game for a total of about a minute - four chances and two goals. They closed their eyes and hoped for the best - they don't know how they won that game. Like I've said in earlier posts, we're pre-season rusty with a tendency to leave the door open at the back. Do we attack Madrid from the off or do we smother them ? Madrid expect us to attack.

Depends if time in possession counts towards outplayed.
They certainly used their time in possession better than we did and for that matter scored 2 goals.