Arsenal Thread 2015/16

That was a far different City to the one we saw at Stoke and Spurs. I didn't think they lacked in determination and effort and kept trying to get back in the game.
Good win for Arsenal, not even half way through the season though so a very long way to go. I think Arsenal go to city in the last 2 weeks of the season, could be a title decider that. Unless leciester keep winning, surely not.
 
Gladstonian Liberal said:
My observation.

Both Leicester and Arsenal have marginally better away form than at home so far. Both have played 9 away games from 17 played so far with Leicester gaining 21 points out of 27 and Arsenal 19 points out of the same. It seems teams are likely more vulnerable when playing at home against Leicester and Arsenal because home teams supposedly at an advantage tend to be more adventurous.

When you consider that Leicester and Arsenal are set up now to concede possession and then hit teams on the break through fast counter attacks, it suggests a change in thinking especially for Arsenal who made a reputation out of keeping possession a la Barcelona. Who'd have thought last night that City would have so dominated possession at the Emirates? It would have been unheard of only recently.

Looking at those teams that tend to dominate possession like City and United, that dominance hasn't been as successful this season.

Maybe Van Gaal is right, the world has moved on and teams can defend so much better now making them hard to break down. It's clearly easier to score if you have fast forwards breaking at speed taking advantage of the lack of organisation when a team over commits and loses the ball. When combined with the fierce pressing both Leicester and Arsenal employ when without the ball, it's a smart tactic that I suspect other teams need to catch up with.

I wonder if we will see teams begin to change tactics now against the top 2?
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I'd actually disagree with you on some of that. In the last couple of years, we've mainly only adopted this tactic against the big teams. I don't think it's because we aren't good enough to keep possession against the big teams (maybe barca and bayern we might not be but certainly against the rest we are). It's clearly a very deliberate tactic, and generally its worked well in the big games. However, against almost every other team, we almost always have majority possession.

Basically, you could argue that the style we play now (fast, direct, counter attacking) is the style we have played for the majority of the last 20 years, apart from that 4-6 year spell during the fabregas days where we were obsessed with possession. Think about pre 2005, we regularly used to hit teams on the counter in the blink of an eye. Those teams didn't go out to play possession football.
 
afc16 said:
I'd actually disagree with you on some of that. In the last couple of years, we've mainly only adopted this tactic against the big teams. I don't think it's because we aren't good enough to keep possession against the big teams (maybe barca and bayern we might not be but certainly against the rest we are). It's clearly a very deliberate tactic, and generally its worked well in the big games. However, against almost every other team, we almost always have majority possession.

Basically, you could argue that the style we play now (fast, direct, counter attacking) is the style we have played for the majority of the last 20 years, apart from that 4-6 year spell during the fabregas days where we were obsessed with possession. Think about pre 2005, we regularly used to hit teams on the counter in the blink of an eye. Those teams didn't go out to play possession football.
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I agree we began to use that last season with the performance at the Etihad the one that caught the eye with a deep playing Cazorla.

However, it's be seen more frequently this season and our possession stats demonstrate it. In 17 PL games, our average possession has dropped to 42%.
 
Watching a few arsenal fans being interviewed on sky sports it reminded me a bit about the scousers in 2014. To be fair they are slightly more cautious, none of this "we gonna win the league, we gonna win the league" chanting. But there is a bit of "this is our chance" and "it is this year only". Time will tell but history has a habit of repeating itself; we do seem to be winning every other title and it was fun piping United to the post and snatching the tile from Liverpool's grasp, maybe it is the Gooner's turn to feel that disappointment?
 
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