Arsenal (H) | PL | Post-match Thread

[spiny]

Agreed. They are getting away with murder but watching them last night, they resembled a lower league team with their tactics & behaviour- not the only rival to us.

They are set up not to lose and will come unstuck when they have to score goals and win games. Not just lower league teams will deploy the same tactics and behaviour against them.

 

[inbetween]

 

[Cheadle_hulmeBlue]

Walker has been a big, big player for us over many years. Has the occasional brain fart moment but he's earned the right to start in the biggest games.

I agree he’s earned the right, but not so far this season. He’s barely played and out of form. I think he should have started against inter and Lewis against Arsenal.

Good thing pep knows what he’s doing

 

[Platt Lane 59]

How many times did Walker win the ball back from Arsenal when they lumped it forward in the 2nd half? He snuffed out nearly every single one. I’d have gone 3 at the back. Moved Gundo to play as the 6 and left Doku on and played Grealish as an extra 8 or old inside forward. We were quite static up front when we were passing side to side on the edge of the box.

Fair enough.
You cannot beat a formation of a "6 and two 3's"...

 

[give it to gordon]

Doku passing the ball back under instructions from the ref, love Gundogan telling arsenal players to shut up lol

 

[pride in battle]

Give the rb keys to Rico

Was appaled by Kyle today

So leave Rico last man second half ?

 

[pride in battle]

The fuck is wrong with the Nancies on here.. with 5 mins to go we were 4th now we are top.. fuck off.

5 seconds ;)

 

[Skrastins]

So leave Rico last man second half ?

last man would be Dias then

 

[Gary James]

Arsenal fans sang the old 'Where were you' fairly early on yesterday. Here are the attendance facts in case anybody needs them (follow the link):

Where Were You?

Fairly early on in the game between Manchester City and Arsenal the fans of the London club started to sing the old ‘Where were you when you were…’ chant. You’d think they&#…

gjfootballarchive.com

 

[danielwood5]

our set piece coach, wonder what is he doing in trainings. I think we are mediocre at defending corners ad even worse in attacking ones. delivery of our corners are like making sure it doesnt arrive to dangerous places. but for us to go up and score a header directly is so fucking rare. this stupid Gabriel did it Spurs away 2 weeks ago, did it yesterday too. cross comes in he arrives with momentum and strong header from close. having said that he would never score from our deliveries as we try to make sure ball avoids danger positions for some reason.

It helps if you're allowed to make sure the goalkeeper ends up on his arse rather than getting to the ball.
Arsenal's tactic of putting their big lads on the defenders and goalkeeper and making sure they can't move by any means necessary only works for them as they're a team made up of big burly cheats across the pitch. We can't set up to attack or defend corners the same way they do as we don't have the same numbers of personnel of the same stature as they do.
That's even before we get in to the conversation of whether we'd be able to get away with the same levels of obstruction and holding at corners as they do. As an example, if they tried that corner technique against Liverpool do we think that goal would have stood? We already know from experience that a brush against Alisson while going for the ball is reason enough to chalk off a goal.
I'm pretty sure we were the top team at defending corners last season though and I'm not really sure what more we can do in an attacking sense, especially when we're a generally smaller team than the majority of the opposition. That's the price you pay for having a team mostly made up of skillful, mobile players rather than big bruisers. There's always room for improvement though so we'll have to see what happens, personally, I think that Arsenal's cheating at corners will get clamped down on and they'll lose a big part of their attacking setup.