PL: Arsenal v Manchester City | August 12th, 2018 16:00 BST | Sky Sports

[TheArsenalis]

He did so at Dortmund and was one of the most prolific and dangerous lone strikers in Europe's top flights, but 'cause you say so he can't

This isn't even about contesting Auba having had a rather bad game, or that he clearly profits from Lacazette being on the pitch...

...but maybe don't look at football so narrow with such one dimensional statements. Some people clearly don't get that systems and movement play a big role in football, and that whatever is written on paper mostly looks very different on the pitch, that how positions are interpreted and played vary from team to team and manager to manager and player to player.

Auba played lone striker successfully for most of his career, he didn't just unlearn it. It's the system and football that's the difference. BVB's 4231 is different to Arsenal's system right now and that's the reason Auba struggles a bit without Laca to find his voodoo 'cause he creates space and at Dortmund this was done differently, but in no way is Auba unable to play lone striker in general. Most systems are asymmetrical anyway with every and each player having a specific role.

My bad you already address the reasons, I was so fast to reply after seeing the 'he played as lone forward' as he ddnt really, never had. Either rues or or someone else was up his arse. Against city it looked as if he was a target man that not his cup. But you already know that. My bad

 

[TheArsenalis]

he was, but that wasn't down to him being generally unable to play as lone striker. Without another player doing certain things like occupying certain spaces, making diverting runs and distracting defenders or luring them out, it's hard to be involved for any striker - be it Ronaldo or whoever, be it a lone striker or one in a two. Right now Laca does this best for him, but it's a system question not an individual question.

Wasn't questioning his individual quality, you look at drogba, he can play as lone striker and bully defender without help. Auba doesn't work like that

 

[Batman]

He did so at Dortmund and was one of the most prolific and dangerous lone strikers in Europe's top flights, but 'cause you say so he can't

This isn't even about contesting Auba having had a rather bad game, or that he clearly profits from Lacazette being on the pitch...

...but maybe don't look at football so narrow with such one dimensional statements. Some people clearly don't get that systems and movement play a big role in football, and that whatever is written on paper mostly looks very different on the pitch, that how positions are interpreted and played vary from team to team and manager to manager and player to player.

Auba played lone striker successfully for most of his career, he didn't just unlearn it. It's the system and football that's the difference. BVB's 4231 is different to Arsenal's system right now and that's the reason Auba struggles a bit without Laca to find his voodoo 'cause he creates space and at Dortmund this was done differently, but in no way is Auba unable to play lone striker in general. Most systems are asymmetrical anyway with every and each player having a specific role.

Plus he wasn't even playing striker yesterday. He was out on the wing and spent a lot of time tracking back. I don't care what it said on paper or what the team sheet looked like in theory, on the pitch Ramsey was playing essentially as the lone forward with Auba and Mikhi on the wings though Mikhi didn't track back at all, Özil took that responsibility. It was quite a mess and while certainly Auba needs to take some blame, it was pretty clear that there was much more continuity when Laca came on and the roles became less muddied.

 

[KrissKringle]

433 in Dortmund, and 433 at arsenal is a different story. At Dortmund he had wingers, full frontal forward with him he was never alone.

I can't defend your "Auba can't play the lone forward", but you do have a point here.
We can't create width with the players we have and they are wingers only on paper.
In reality they don't have the traits to perform the job required on the flank, so we have to resort to the combos at the edge of the box instead of a player dribbling his opponent and crossing the ball to the striker.

That's why Auba looked a lot of times isolated under Wenger and now under Emery, because there are no players who will drag opponents in order to create space for him other than Laca and that's mainly because everyone knows he's also a striker, not because he's pacy.
You see a striker, you mark him. Those are the rules.

 

[Gegen Pressing]

Honestly I can like almost anything except horror, I like shows that have strong characters in them..

Horror movie (#ARSMCFC) , where the token black guy gets sacrificed first ?(Lacazette) and then the rest are isolated disappear one by one (Özil)?

 

[krengon]

You forgot the FA Cup semi-final. Agreed about that 0-2 game, played that way a few times and almost always worked. Never understood why he didn't do it more often and avoid some of the drubbings we got.

He did do it plenty of times, but without the results to show for it. In the end tactics only get you so far, it always comes down to the performance of the players on the pitch. All those experts crucifying Emery’s tactics now would be praising him for the same thing if we had gotten a different result.

Haven’t watched the game, but from the highlights I’ve seen it seems like we were let down by individual quality/mistakes again.

 

[Ceballinhos]

I thought Emery's approach to the game was the right one.

Tbf we can't sit back and defend anymore with the error prone defenders we have right now against such a talented team.

If it wasn't for the (usual) individual mistakes and terrible individual performance from our front 3 we could have hurt them so much more !
Our pressing was good and we've won the ball very high on the pitch on multiple time against one of the most technical team in Europe. This kind of pressing is gonna destroy weaker opposition.

I thought our defense has been pretty solid if it wasn't for the usual individual mistake that Emery can't do much about. And the inexperience of Guendouzi. But our system at the back was good.

It was really promising and with some tweaking we can become a solid team.

Can't wait for the next game.

 

[Tourboh]

Riijkard inherited an overall worse squad, I think - not to say it was bad but worse than what he left for Pep. For Guardiola it was world class all over. He also won two La Ligas, came second two times and just messed up his last out of fives years. A lot of people make him worse and paint Barca as some garbage type of team before Pep came along.

He rightly cut loose some older players, managed to hang on to the right ones and randomly happened into some very good youngsters.

Rijkard blew a 15 point lead to finish a season tied with points and come second and then finished 18 points behind to be third in his next (last) season. Let’s not reinvent history here, it’s unnecessary. I loved his team but they went to s^*t.

You state some things Pep did right to enable himself to succeed and then dismiss them like they were merely irrelevant random happenings that just happened to come about. Selling Ronaldinho and Deco. Replacing Yaya with and unheard of Busquets... using Pedro. Playing some of the most dominant and entertaining football I have ever seen. I think it’s inappropriate for me to be discussing Pep here but I’m not sure why some feel that it’s necessary to distort history in order to validate their reservations about him.

Like I said his CL record outside Barcelona is suspect. He has his shortcomings and I wouldn’t object to critique based on actual facts. But all these subjective criteria y’all seem to be going by seems weird to me. Just comes across like hating tbh but it’s maybe not that.

Underperforming puts it quite right. He took it to its level of performance again but in no way did he miraculously make them stretch their ability to achieve something unheard of. This is like Conte taking Mourinho's Chelsea and winning the league with them. Even if a WC team underperforms, they still have WC ability.

We judge teams based on performances and results. Ability doesn’t count for much if it’s producing nothing and when it’s successful it should be celebrated IMO. Dude smashed pretty much every premiership record after people suggested he could never be successful in the premiership. That’s a fact no an opinion. Analyse that.

Maybe there isn't. And maybe those guys weren't top managers.

Or maybe some clubs only measure of success is trophies and nothing else will do. Coming second at some clubs is considered a failure. Pep’s first season at man city, considered in isolation, was a disaster.

So Pep can do what they do, but they can't do what he did? Awfully biased.

Those are your words not mine. I said there were no guarantees they could deliver the level of success Pep has had with his spending. But that I felt Pep can play at a high level with less expensive squads, not that he surely would. That’s all conjecture, like your arguments against him and you can run with that if you’d like.

The quality of his teams can't be dismissed, but it's enlightening to look at the context in which he was able to assemble those squads. 200m less and not enough top players - will Pep be able to make his team perform? That's a big big question.

It is a big question. Could Michael Schumacher have had his success driving for Maclaren? That’s a big question too isn’t it? Maybe he’s overrated. I wonder if Jordan could have won anything playing for the Atlanta hawks... what an overrated player.... how far can we take this nonsense?

I’m curious to see how Klopp does after his big spending. I expect him to do well but I’m now holding him to very high standards. I hope you are too. Anything less that 100 points and he’s a failure lol

Let's leave it at that. You are an admirer of his, I don't think he should be on top of manager mountain as there's contest and serious doubt. That's it.

Haha I would have left it alone if you hadn’t made the doping comment. But oh well.

And we haven't even gone into the doping.

That’s so beneath you lol

 

[Preacher]

https://arsenalcolumn.wordpress.com/2018/08/14/arsenal-0-2-manchester-city-growing-pains/

 

[BobP]

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/fo...chester-city-says-sam-allardyce-a3909946.html

Allardici with some riveting insights.

 

[vijay]

The fact is that City never got out of 1st gear.

No point judging Wenger on his last season either, the vitriol was off the charts.

Pretty much all of Wenger boys were let go from the club neatly.

Only those remain that Sven/Raul/Emery wanted to keep, and they have been buying a lot of players too. Its better to look forward. We had a great run under Wenger and it was an era in itself.

Now we are going to be a Sevilla type club, where we work hard, press hard, compete for minor honours and hope we get lucky with a few players striking red hot form, and then challenge for the title.

In that scheme of things, you cannot play Laca + Auba + Özil + Mkhi + Ramsey .. its a luxury. In a counterattacking setup you will have 10 players who can defend, and a striker who presses hard.

 

[Makingtrax]

Arsenal not mentally strong enough, says Paul Merson: "If you want to keep on coming along making money and finishing fifth or sixth, nothing has to change. But if you want to break in, get to that level, it's going to need a better mentality of player; I don't think the players are mentally strong enough.
Sky Sports

After one game against City

 

[Tourboh]

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/fo...chester-city-says-sam-allardyce-a3909946.html

Allardici with some riveting insights.

Lmao at alardyce being some kind of authority. Kudos to Arsenal for being committed to their plan and sticking to it. Things will improve and the ends will justify the means. These things take time and there’ll definitely be more collateral damage but that’s the way forward IMO

 

[Tourboh]

The fact is that City never got out of 1st gear.

No point judging Wenger on his last season either, the vitriol was off the charts.

Pretty much all of Wenger boys were let go from the club neatly.

Only those remain that Sven/Raul/Emery wanted to keep, and they have been buying a lot of players too. Its better to look forward. We had a great run under Wenger and it was an era in itself.

Now we are going to be a Sevilla type club, where we work hard, press hard, compete for minor honours and hope we get lucky with a few players striking red hot form, and then challenge for the title.

In that scheme of things, you cannot play Laca + Auba + Özil + Mkhi + Ramsey .. its a luxury. In a counterattacking setup you will have 10 players who can defend, and a striker who presses hard.

Sevilla was not a counterattacking team. Quick transitions and setting up as a counterattacking side aren’t the same thing. It’s seems many outsiders are more excited about your prospects that some arsenal fans lol. Weird.

 

[Ricardinho]

That result was facilitated by one of the better performances you'll see at CM. Santi Cazorla was running rings around everyone that day. We haven't had a functioning midfield for years. Xhaka who I had high hopes for isn't the answer in today's PL.

Wasn't that game among the first where we saw the santi-coq partnership as well? He was simply superb that day. If there was any doubts about him playing cm before that day then they ended after the 90 mins.

 

[Yousif Arsenal]

Arsenal not mentally strong enough, says Paul Merson: "If you want to keep on coming along making money and finishing fifth or sixth, nothing has to change. But if you want to break in, get to that level, it's going to need a better mentality of player; I don't think the players are mentally strong enough.
Sky Sports

After one game against City

Who the f**k these c**ts think they are does Merson even managed one game in his life? He just need to shut it and f**k off him and Adams too just f**king shut up

 

[Yousif Arsenal]

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/fo...chester-city-says-sam-allardyce-a3909946.html

Allardici with some riveting insights.

 

[Ricardinho]

Talksport always looking to stick the boot in on arsenal as they know it gets them attention. They'll use allardyce for that a lot this season and it's just a shame Adams feels the need to play into their hands.

 

[Preacher]

The less we talk about insights from people like Merson, Allardyce and similar mugs, the better.

 

[Trilly]

Gary Neville probably had it right when he pointed out how long it could take to overhaul this squad.

I pity those who go into this season with high expectations. We will most likely remain a work in progress throughout this season...

Was also against the best team in the league who just a week before effortlessly beat Chelsea (who are still a very good side).

City are clear of everyone and I think only Liverpool could trouble them in a one off game.