Premier League 2016/17 season

[Iddi]

I will say it again. As long as we can't work out how to handle well organised and high pressing, high intensity teams then we will keep being the weeping boys of the EPL. We can't handle real Top teams at all if they are on their game.

People were deluding themselves about "We are not playing well but are picking up points blah blah.. We got lucky against Burnley with that fortune hand ball / offside goal, Middlesbrough, Sp**s, Liverpool, Bournemouth etc all had us on roast at home, sneaked a win in 2 of those. Away at United we got away with it, Everton and City away I don't need to say more about those games.

Against a half decent PSG side we got absolutely humiliated in both legs but as the season has been, we got away with 2 points, Cavani to thank, he could have scored 2 hat tricks in those games but luck was on our side.

As a team we are so disjointed, so disorganised and always seem clueless against any half decent team. Against Top teams the best we seem to do is draw, but normally we get spanked.

Sanchez's endeavour, individual brilliance and graft is what has kept us hanging in this season.

We need to find a suitable formation and the right players that fit it. Need to coach our players to learn how to play when out of possession because right now it's a joke and embarrassing watching us looking clueless with out the ball..

Pheww.. Much better now..

 

[Sapient Hawk]

What's really infuriating is that we've reached our point of limbo earlier than we're usually meant to, meaning that dejection as to our pathetic state of affairs will now carry on for longer and aggravate the slow but sure to rise toxic atmosphere yet again.

There're no such things as bankers or certain wins. West Brom & Palace will be anything but formalities, both are teams heavily reliant on their physical attributes to play a telling part in the game & are led by men who've been nothing but vocal in their disdain for Arsène and his ethos.

All we can do is win our games and hope fortune, which has been scorning us for what seems like eons now, goes our way.

But if we somehow find ourselves mired in a battle for fourth with Manchester United, I'm not convinced that Arsène can outpace Jose for the long haul.

 

[Penn_]

Little things like this going Chelsea's way.

 

[CurryFlavoured]

Ridiculous scheduling. I think we'll need to rotate for the second game against Palace, it's followed by a one day break then B'Mouth away which is the only really tricky fixture out of our next 6. You can't expect 11 guys to play twice in 3 days, and Palace have been dreadful anyway.

 

[Hunta]

That's disgusting that, Chelsea have had free weeks all season and get the most time off at Christmas?! Bullshit.

 

[Mark Tobias]

That's disgusting that, Chelsea have had free weeks all season and get the most time off at Christmas?! Bullshit.

Why is it that we never seem to catch a break this way?

 

[KingVerse]

Wow some you guys are rolling back the years to 2012 like it's the end of the world all over again...honestly before the everton game we were top of the world having master minded 3 great wins vs stoke basel and west ham scoring 12 goals too...now we're just ****?? Watch us win our next two games and let's get the party started again!! I liked the atmosphere in here better when we were undefeated

 

[Rimaal]

A christmas treat from Arseblog and Gunnerblog


Merry Christmas to Arsenal and all Gunners who celebrate the season.

 

[CurryFlavoured]

Why is it that we never seem to catch a break this way?

To be fair, we don't have it too bad in comparison. I'd be raging if I had Southampton's schedule, that's completely unfair.

 

[Trilly]

Our underlying stats have been worrying since the start of the season tbh. A few picked up on it and our unsustainable conversion rate.

We were scoring loads of goals and everything looked good but the stats showed that this was going to happen tbh.

Özil playing poorly and Sanchez playing like Chilean Jesus might actually be worse than when we had both of them simply playing well. Probably overanalysing tbh. We needed a top forward and we didn't get one.

Shouldn't really be surprised at what's happening tbf.

 

[Penn_]

Looking at some of our results this season it does look like our luck has finally ran out.

Wenger always brings up the ref but we've had at least two decisions, Monreal v Southampton and Kos v Burnley, that have got us six points.

Balances out the past two games really.

 

[turkish gooner]

Race for title? Come on FFS!

 

[North5]

I'm pretty much done with this season. Hopefully we make a surprise champs league run.... to the quarter final.

Just give Özil and Sanchez their money so they can play under our new manager.

As long as we keep those 2 and Hector, Iwobi, Holding and Xhaka continue to grow, it will be damage limitation. Wenger is done and dusted my friends.

 

[ArtetaCognition]

As far as I'm concerned, we can harp on about how we need a world class striker or whatever else like we've done for years. The reality is that the guy playing up top for us has got 12 goals and 7 assists in 17 games. Can't ask for much more. Sure, we could benefit from a more rounded winger that can carry the ball forward, dribble past defenders and pass but the reality is our lack of defensive coaching and tactical nous means we are almost always starting from behind in big games. We need to coach our defence and have some better organisation - the defending for Sterling's goal at the weekend was horrendous. This isn't a one off thing - there's literally hundreds of examples.

Our failings begin and end at coaching and tactics (lack thereof). We have a team with enough quality to win this league and have done for around 3 years.

 

[Trilly]

As far as I'm concerned, we can harp on about how we need a world class striker or whatever else like we've done for years. The reality is that the guy playing up top for us has got 12 goals and 7 assists in 17 games. Can't ask for much more. Sure, we could benefit from a more rounded winger that can carry the ball forward, dribble past defenders and pass but the reality is our lack of defensive coaching and tactical nous means we are almost always starting from behind in big games. We need to coach our defence and have some better organisation - the defending for Sterling's goal at the weekend was horrendous. This isn't a one off thing - there's literally hundreds of examples.

Our failings begin and end at coaching and tactics (lack thereof). We have a team with enough quality to win this league and have done for around 3 years.

We needed a world class striker while Sanchez was playing for us though.

When people say they need a world class striker what they really mean is that we need more goals in the side. Moving Sanchez didn't fix the problem. Just another example of Wenger's poor use of the transfer window.

Agree with your point about poor coaching though but there's only so much you can coach the likes of Coquelin/Iwobi who simply shouldn't be starting week in week out for a club of our ambitions.

 

[Gooner Zig]

The worry is that for me we're still (bar 3 or 4 games)
playing the same dull, lifeless, devoid of ideas football we've unfortunately become accustomed to in recent years. Were still tactically naive, still lack the nous to unlock a well drilled defence, and worst of all imo, we look even more cowardly and soft than in recent years.

Bazza my friend...found this bit of your post interesting because I think you forget how dire we were last season, especially with Ramsey-Flamini in CM.

We're the second highest scoring team in the PL and one of the highest scorers in the CL group stages. Despite many of the same weaknesses appearing recently, I don't think you can call us "dull" this season.

 

[say yes]

Going to need to put together a Chelsea-esque run.

The good news is that our next six league fixtures are unbelievably easy. You couldn't really pick a better set of fixtures to build up a head of steam with before we go to Chelsea in February.

 

[RUS arsenal]

Watch us win our next two games and let's get the party started again!!

Won't change things much unless Chelsea drop points in both of their next fixtures as well.

 

[RUS arsenal]

Race for title? Come on FFS!

Should be "Mathematically Imaginable Race for the Title..."

 

[Rain Dance]

Should be "Mathematically Imaginable Race for the Title..."

Somehow, everytime we change this thread title from Race for the Fourth to Race for the title, our performance sucks..... coincidence?