2008-the year of suffering (not for the faint hearted)

[Invincible]

If you get kicked, you kick back. Simple as.

Problem is we don't have players with the character or balls to dish it out.

As for 2008, has been a **** year. Best memory is the victory at Milan, worst the Birmingham game and the Eduardo incident.

 

[JGooner]

We get so many injuries for two reasons. The first is that we have a small squad, which forces us to put players recovering from injury back into action before they are ready because we lack adequate cover for them. The RvP farce last season, when he admitted that he came back before he was ready (thus aggravating his injury, which played a part in us losing the title), is a case in point. The second reason is that our determination to save money in the transfer market means we often end up buying players with dodgy fitness records, such as Rosicky and Nasri, not to mention Bischoff, who is like a parody of a stereotypical Wenger signing

 

[hackajack]

I don't think this 'we get more injuries' stacks up. I did see stats on number of first team days lost per season and ours were comparable to the rest of the top 4. If you think about ManU they've had major injuries to Neville, Scholes, Smith, Saha, Rooney, Brown, Ronaldo, Hargreaves over the last couple of years. The difference is they've got a deeper squad.

 

[Biggus]

Well its a combination of a few things. The type of players Wenger prefers (young light small & fast) and as Invincible says, that we don't dish it back, so teams know they can kick us with impunity. Then its our style of play, we move the ball too slowly to players already in position rather than balls into space and we don't move the ball fast enough, which tends to make us sitting ducks.

 

[Anzac]

C'mon. You know that's not what I said. I do think that there's a reason for all the injuries though. We get kicked a lot. Always has been. Even a strongman like Vieira got a taste of it, with knees that started to struggle at the age of 27.

Klaus - IMO our close passing style makes our players more of a target to getting hit late - and the excuse is that we are simply too fast for them. See Walcott's injury v Stoke, some of the late hits on Hleb last season & even that tackle on Eduardo - the same excuse that when the defender committed to the tackle the ball was there, when he got there it wasn't. Somehow the implication is that we invite the tackle by playing close short passing amongst the opposition & if we get injured it's our own fault or an accepted consequence. If we speak out we are branded as 'soft' & moaners. :roll:

 

[kamikaze80]

Then its our style of play, we move the ball too slowly to players already in position rather than balls into space and we don't move the ball fast enough, which tends to make us sitting ducks.

this pisses me off enormously. but i dont think its a style of play, i think its mental deficiencies in our players.

 

[Anzac]

Then its our style of play, we move the ball too slowly to players already in position rather than balls into space and we don't move the ball fast enough, which tends to make us sitting ducks.

this pisses me off enormously. but i dont think its a style of play, i think its mental deficiencies in our players.

Apologies Biggus - didn't see you earlier post re the issue of style of play. IMO it's the fact that we look to pass to the man as opposed to space that is part of the issue. The ball movement slows down and the player waiting to receive the pass is a target, regardless of how quickly they move the ball on. It's not referred to as a hospital pass without reason.

We are also too light weight in central midfield as well as lacking any sort of enforcer on the pitch. I thought Sagna was going to be that player after he extracted some summary justice on fat boy Tom H at Spuds last season, but it hasn't followed thru'. Perhaps IF AW signs a DM with some physical presence?????

 

[Asmo]

Then its our style of play, we move the ball too slowly to players already in position rather than balls into space and we don't move the ball fast enough, which tends to make us sitting ducks.

this pisses me off enormously. but i dont think its a style of play, i think its mental deficiencies in our players.

Confidence I reckon. Yesterday everyone seemed too scared to risk an incisive through ball or lose possession. Was the same against Pompey.