EPL: Arsenal vs. Bournemouth - 28/12/15 - 5:30pm

[SA Gunner]

part 3:

solutions to nullify the anti wenger tactic:

it's actually very simple.

Arsenal have to play counterattack. Soak up their pressure and hit them on the counter. That means several things:

1.,Arsenal have to sit back in their own half and absorb rather than press upfield. It's silly that WEnger lets his players press so high up. To me, this tactic makes no sense.

2. Giroud cannot play striker. Walcott has to. This is fairly self-explanatory..

In addition, when forcing the issue, we need to play with far greater urgency on the ball, pass the ball faster and look to exploit the opposition space.

Southampton cannot get into attacking zones without losing their compact defensive shape. I dont think we can continuously wait for them to come out and play, we have to force the issue ourselves and apply a far more direct line of play when doing so.

This is how Bayern felt when we mugged them at the Emirates. Superior side beaten with defensive tactics by the inferior side. I expect a similar response to the one at the Allianz, when we meet again at the Emirates.

 

[General]

Haha, worst thing about the Southampton loss is the loss!

You don't say!

 

[haha_arsenal]

Hello, people
how are you ?
after a ****ty match two days ago,
anything new ?

 

[sggooner97]

In addition, when forcing the issue, we need to play with far greater urgency on the ball, pass the ball faster and look to exploit the opposition space.

Southampton cannot get into attacking zones without losing their compact defensive shape. I dont think we can continuously wait for them to come out and play, we have to force the issue ourselves and apply a far more direct line of play when doing so.

This is how Bayern felt when we mugged them at the Emirates. Superior side beaten with defensive tactics by the inferior side. I expect a similar response to the one at the Allianz, when we meet again at the Emirates.

ok at least u get it. You see the true issue of the loss.

However, what you are advocating can't be done. Because SOuthampton sit back so compactly, it's impossible to play with great urgency while they sit back, because they are simply too damn compact and they have mr wanyama WWE-ing us about. Hence why I said we should try to sit back and counter. It's the only way we can break them sitting back all day.

 

[Maxim]

well yes that's true. But one thing that can be done is not press over the halfway line. That would force them to come out slightly.

Huh? Like a Mexican stand off?

You attack - No you attack - No you

We had to attack after their first goal, just needed to be smarter about it.

 

[sggooner97]

Huh? Like a Mexican stand off?

You attack - No you attack - No you

We had to attack after their first goal, just needed to be smarter about it.

well yes...take my ideas with some moderation...obviously we still have to attack. I'm saying in general, we should not press beyond the halfway line. We should adhere to that as much as we can. It will help alot.

 

[SA Gunner]

ok at least u get it. You see the true issue of the loss.

However, what you are advocating can't be done. Because SOuthampton sit back so compactly, it's impossible to play with great urgency while they sit back, because they are simply too damn compact and they have mr wanyama WWE-ing us about. Hence why I said we should try to sit back and counter. It's the only way we can break them sitting back all day.

The problem with what you saying is, you cannot sit back and wait for them to come out, if that is what they are doing.

Its exactly what I think @Maxim is trying to say.

Urgency with passing and movement is the way to break down deep compact defensive set ups. Think the type of movement we saw against United at the Emirates this season, essentially one touch and fast movement around the ball.

When we were three down we started to move faster, and thus being able to reach the byline more regularly.

I agree, that the counter attack strategy works best, but for that we need to force the opposition out. You do that by scoring first, especially against inferior sides.

 

[Rosso]

Hello, people
how are you ?
after a ****ty match two days ago,
anything new ?

Been a tough few days in here, people feeling blue.
Thw team had the chance to go top but the players said "Ewwww!"

 

[Wryer]

I think it's good analysis on the Soton loss. All valid. But I'm afraid most of the points are hindsight and a lot of reverse engineering to explain the loss, tactically. There's really nothing new. We have managed to cope with all those points in separate games this season.

It's no secret that to beat big teams, you run faster, run further, fight harder and hope Lady Luck is on your side. All these went for Soton on Saturday. All the teams we've played so far would have employed the same tactics on us. But how many have fully succeeded this season? Leicester away is a perfect counter example, tactically, but unlike Soton, not every factor went for them.

Again, I'm not disagreeing with the points. But I feel the ultimately killer is lesser on tactics, but more about injuries. It's disruptive and crippling the momentum we have built. Add complacency and we have a recipe for disaster. That's the Soton game summary for me.

AW gotta quickly pick up the boys and get their brain screwed right on and fix this immediately. Onward to Bournemouth!

 

[sggooner97]

I think it's good analysis on the Soton loss. All valid. But I'm afraid most of the points are hindsight and a lot of reverse engineering to explain the loss, tactically. There's really nothing new. We have managed to cope with all those points in separate games this season.

It's no secret that to beat big teams, you run faster, run further, fight harder and hope Lady Luck is on your side. All these went for Soton on Saturday. All the teams we've played so far would have employed the same tactics on us. But how many have fully succeeded this season? Leicester away is a perfect counter example, tactically, but unlike Soton, not every factor went for them.

Again, I'm not disagreeing with the points. But I feel the ultimately killer is lesser on tactics, but more about injuries. It's disruptive and crippling the momentum we have built. Add complacency and we have a recipe for disaster. That's the Soton game summary for me.

AW gotta quickly pick up the boys and get their brain screwed right on and fix this immediately. Onward to Bournemouth!

we actually haven't managed to cope.

We win when managers dont use this tactic.
We lose when they do. It's simple. For example: when Pellegrini decided to not use tactics against us, we won. When Jomo decided to set up against us in the 6-1, we got destroyed. When Mr Koeman decided to set up against us yesterday, we got rekt too. It's binary.

to me I actually don't believe in any of these abstract factors: i.e mentality, spirit, momentum, complacency, the team caring too much about instagram likes on their christmas turkey etc. I think in reality most of them dont matter much.

BUt that's just my PoV. Everyone thinks differently.

also: you say that surely all teams have employed this tactic on us. This isn't true. Man City didnt. This season: only Koeman and Jose (it's his favorite tactic anyway) have.

There's a reason why Jose has such a good record on Wenger, it's because he understands this ANti-wenger tactic fully, and he loves to use it against us. he knows there's a secret sauce available from the supermarket, and he dutifully uses it whenever we play him. I believe SAF did the same too.

 

[Furious]

Been a tough few days in here, people feeling blue.
Thw team had the chance to go top but the players said "Ewwww!"

Listen, this story may well be true, but in the end the players said "Thank God we aren't ManU(eww)".

 

[MaraDon]

bounce back. send a message.

 

[clockwork orange]

Yep. We need a strong reaction. From the players and from AM. It's not all doom and gloom let's count our blessings. We're above all title contenders, we're playing at home v Bournemouth :

Let's go top.

By the way if you'ld have been following the Swiss league, you'ld all be very excited. Elneny is a class act.

 

[SA Gunner]

I think what a lot of people do not want to look at, is the combination of Ramsey and Flamini in midfield. Yes, offensively we have far more options other than the "sterile" possession, as some people like to put it, but we have better control of proceedings in the midfield and we now see how important that is.

Coquelin doesnt aid us with the press as well as peak Arteta did, but he gave us the opportunity to stop the free pass through midfield, as we have seen in recent games.

Stoke and Liverpool will apply their forms of shutting us down, and we cannot cope with either of them at the moment. We need Wenger to implement the necessary changes to deal with these tactics, we have it in ourselves to do so.

 

[Tir Na Nog]

We did have problems with keeping possession in good areas of the pitch where we could hurt Southampton, however to me that's more Joel and Theo who weren't really offering when Flamini, Ramsey or our defenders had the ball. And when they did, they usually ended up not knowing what to do with it, their first instinct is the opposition area and weren't overly concerned with the build up play. I don't think Flamini-Ramsey are the best partnership in the world, but for me you can see why Wenger puts an extra midfield on the wing, so we can essentially have 4 midfielders who can use the ball pretty and first instincts aren't always just running behind. Southampton saw our line up and knew what to do, mark Özil out of the game and it'd be difficult for us to keep the ball high up the pitch.

Wouldn't be surprised if we see an Elneny-Flamini partnership with Ramsey back out wide for the first few weeks of January anyways.

 

[General]

Gonna be Flamini and Ramsey in midfield again I'm afraid. There are no other practical options within Wenger's line of thought. They are less detrimental at home as Özil etc will get greater freedom to play. Can't see us keeping a clean sheet really with those two in the middle of the park so it will come down to how clinical we are on the night.

 

[Rain Dance]

Walcott was also playing
there's like 10 yards between Center Forward (Giroud) and Right Forward (Walcott) what's the difference? Why Giroud is to blame?

Giroud shouldn't play.... ya sure, time for him to rest
Funny so few complain about Giroud during City game with reasonable stuff (yes yes I know who complained back then, credits to you)

 

[Wryer]

we actually haven't managed to cope.

We win when managers dont use this tactic.
We lose when they do. It's simple. For example: when Pellegrini decided to not use tactics against us, we won. When Jomo decided to set up against us in the 6-1, we got destroyed. When Mr Koeman decided to set up against us yesterday, we got rekt too. It's binary.

to me I actually don't believe in any of these abstract factors: i.e mentality, spirit, momentum, complacency, the team caring too much about instagram likes on their christmas turkey etc. I think in reality most of them dont matter much.

BUt that's just my PoV. Everyone thinks differently.

also: you say that surely all teams have employed this tactic on us. This isn't true. Man City didnt. This season: only Koeman and Jose (it's his favorite tactic anyway) have.

There's a reason why Jose has such a good record on Wenger, it's because he understands this ANti-wenger tactic fully, and he loves to use it against us. he knows there's a secret sauce available from the supermarket, and he dutifully uses it whenever we play him. I believe SAF did the same too.

Yup, we'll just have to leave it at that. The moment I read that you don't believe about mentality, complacency and momentum means we are coming from totally different angles.

End of the day, the team has got to try to fix and improve all the aspects we've touched on. Cliche it may be, we must beat Bournemouth. Absolute must.

 

[sggooner97]

Regarding the BM match.. I have one thing to say...

If the manager of Bournemouth is smart, watches our previous matches to look for tactical weaknesses to exploit:

He watches Koeman pwn us on the telly and decides that he's going to execute a carbon copy of Koeman's tactics (what I would do if I were him
).. then we are quite screwed.

However, I have no clue if Eddie Howe is that tactical. Of course, here's hoping he doesn't, and we win.

 

[fabo]

He won't be able to execute that gameplan. Match is at the Emirates.