Struggling under pressure

[Furious]

That's both ****ing incredibly **** and hard to believe. Wow. We don't respond in the league, period.

Unless Orbinho means away games, then it's not true, because we beat West Ham in 2013 after trailing at half-time.

Also as @redanddread pointed, we rarely trail at HT and take the lead more often than not, so it's a bit of a questionable stat.

Still **** though of course.

 

[Godwin1]

No because it is lowest common denominator punditry.

I agree it is mate, but this is what makes them more annoying for me. Lazy punditry for the most part, "problem with Arsenal is they try to walk the ball in" etc. But doesn't it make you dislike them more that at the end of the season we don't end up winning and do lack character.

 

[Trilly]

Having a CF who can run is pretty crucial. One ball over the top and all that pressing is for nothing.

As it is- their defence is allowed to push up which constricts the pitch and makes it much easier to press us.

Ramsey has never done well when pressed - he always needs a couple of touches. Although he was still the second most competent player in our front 6 yesterday which says a lot.

Huge actually.

Even Bayern, one of the most possession oriented sides in football simply switched to long over the top balls when Dortmund tried a high press on them.

Jerome Boateng ended up getting two assists in that game, sometimes it's the really simple things that work.

 

[Furious]

This thread came at the wrong time, Mo will salvage all our midfield worries.

 

[TorontoGooner76]

Oh dear...
Mertesacker is the one who sets up our back 4! He organizes, he sets the offside trap, he is almost never out of position.
We already saw what happens when the mighty Gabriel plays, he makes failure after failure - don't even want to mention them all.
Same goes for Koscielny, he is to impulsive and not a leader at all.
You can not remove the most important player of the back 4!
Is that so hard to understand?

Agreed. Per will get a lot of schtick for his lack of pace, but really it is because he is put in this situation lately by poor descisions from Koscielny. Instead of backing off and forcing more time on the ball and thus giving our guys a chance to get make and regain shape a bit, Kos decides to run forward to make a risky tackle or interception and when this doesn't work then it is sure to leave us caught out. He did it a few times against City as well as yesterday.

When we play well at the back it is Per leading and organizing.

 

[MutableEarth]

These days when we go down I never see us winning. That's probably a result of how rarely we do overturn results these days.

Seems like we don't have a game plan for that, or we do but it just doesn't work.

Because when we're losing in games, all composure and all shape goes out the window and it's 'PANIC STATIONS'. All shape goes out the window and we try to force play even more than at 0-0. We play our best football when the game is either tied or completely sown up at like 3-0 or something with 20 mins to go. When Arsenal goes gung ho, we really go gung ho.

One thing that's been bugging me recently is why we defend so deep against inferior opposition. When we're at our best, we're winning the ball back high up the pitch, why do we only see this approach so little?

Because that requires a strong framework and level of organisation that we just don't have at the moment. Wenger seems to be far more capable nowadays of setting the team out to defend space from deep and contain attacks rather than choke teams in the middle and their first third. The latter not only needs that organisation, but it also needs a certain amount of pace and thrust. And when Wenger plays with players going forward like Giroud, Cazorla, Ramsey i.e. players who are not particularly quick, it's difficult to really take advantage of space as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Ramsey to his credit manages to mitigate that through sheer energy.

I think we've got to be more side-way happy at times and tire teams down but Wenger hates that sort of "sterile" possession. Instead we play into their hands by being too direct and pushing too many players ahead of the ball. I think we've more or less found a solution by playing Ramsey wide, Theo upfront and Cazorla at CM(Gabriel can add something too). We still struggled against Sp**s and Liverpool, but that's very different to struggling against WBA, Southampton, Norwich etc.

This is a good point, and I would add that sideways passing only becomes sterile when there is no movement around the ball. This season it actually hasn't been as much of a problem as - apart from the last match - we've created chances at will against nearly every team we have faced, and it is our finishing that initially was letting us down.

Pushing players ahead of the ball is to an extent necessary in order to create chances - Wenger tries to mitigate that by injecting the team with as much recovery pace as possible but at the moment we are missing some players who would help in this regard, particularly in the middle of the park. Elneny's signing makes sense because he supposedly covers an insane amount of distance in game.

 

[Rex Stone]

I agree it is mate, but this is what makes them more annoying for me. Lazy punditry for the most part, "problem with Arsenal is they try to walk the ball in" etc. But doesn't it make you dislike them more that at the end of the season we don't end up winning and do lack character.

No I get what you're saying, and I agree that there's no smoke without fire but it's incredibly simplistic for them to say it the way they are.

I think by and large most of the pundits watch the minimum amount of games and create narratives out of them. In other sports I follow there are other sh*tty pundits who do the same.

Did we have a problem in previous years with trying to walk it in? Yes, players like Hleb and Nasri were particularly shot shy. However we didn't fail to win the league because of it, there were several things wrong with that team. I just hate how modern punditry boils everything down to a simple point.

 

[MutableEarth]

No I get what you're saying, and I agree that there's no smoke without fire but it's incredibly simplistic for them to say it the way they are.

I think by and large most of the pundits watch the minimum amount of games and create narratives out of them. In other sports I follow there are other sh*tty pundits who do the same.

Did we have a problem in previous years with trying to walk it in? Yes, players like Hleb and Nasri were particularly shot shy. However we didn't fail to win the league because of it, there were several things wrong with that team. I just hate how modern punditry boils everything down to a simple point.

Punditry tends to easily fall into false narratives often, regardless of sport or any other kind of commentary. It's an easy crutch and masses who subscribe to groupthink readily will inevitably fall for it.

RE the leadership issue though, the reason why the narrative is irritating is because they don't specify exactly what the leader is supposed to be, they just spout things like "taking games by the scruff of the neck" without actually detailing how he's supposed to do that. Essentially, it falls back into another Arsenal Trope that is tied to the above that will surely raise it's head if the Elneny transfer goes through - "Arsenal haven't replaced Vieira".

Gunnerblog summed this up when yesterday, he tweeted that on first glance of Elneny and our other target Danilo Pereira, he preferred the latter. Why? Danilo is big and black like our former captain . It's probably the reason why people still want us to sign Wanyama, and will probably use last nights game as more fuel even though while his physical presence would be an asset, that's pretty much it.

By default, that's what people think we should be signing. The leader who LOOKS like a leader and physically intimidates and dominates his opponents and even his team-mates alike with his presence. A physical leader.

It's one of my more controversial opinions, but despite his decline and injuries, Arteta is probably the best captain we have had since Vieira. He is the closest we've come to replacing the leadership, and his captaincy IMO is further proof to me that we don't necessarily have to sign the archetypical English football captain - rather one who galvanizes tactically on and off the field, and leads in terms of technique and tactics. Indeed, that is probably one of the most underrated aspects of Vieira's leadership as he himself wasn't just a warrior of a captain, but a psychologically and tactically astute one.

 

[Rex Stone]

@MutableEarth

Agree on everything, especially regarding Vieira. Trying to replace players like for like is impossible, especially when Vieira was one of the best midfielders of all time.

Look at Barca, they sold their dominant physical midfielder Yaya to try and go all in on building around their superstars Iniesta and Xavi. Strong and physical doesn't mean best.

I'm glad we worked with what we have with Cesc and now Özil being the heart of our midfield rather than spending years looking for the next Vieira. It's what the likes of Liverpool did with Henderson for Gerrard.

Think the last couple years have really soured a lot of people on Arteta, he was a quality captain and player for his first 3 years here.

 

[eye4goal]

Pushing players ahead of the ball is to an extent necessary in order to create chances - Wenger tries to mitigate that by injecting the team with as much recovery pace as possible but at the moment we are missing some players who would help in this regard, particularly in the middle of the park. Elneny's signing makes sense because he supposedly covers an insane amount of distance in game.

We tend to push players up before possession is established though. Wenger explained it before when discussing Song(Ramsey plays exactly the same from CM)

Song is high up the pitch because we want him there. ... in the other half of the pitch and, therefore, we have to push our opponents back. My philosophy is not to be in trouble, but to fool the opponent into trouble.

 

[MutableEarth]

We tend to push players up before possession is established though. Wenger explained it before when discussing Song(Ramsey plays exactly the same from CM)

It would probably be easier if we had greater shape when attacking. I find that even offensive movements need a certain level of structure or a plan to complement the "freedom" given.

 

[Prawn Sandwich]

A defeat in the manner of the Southampton one, right after a grudge match, statement-of-intent win is just a team believing it's own hype and thinking the job was done without having to put in any effort.

No. Not in the Premiership.

You could work your way through each Arsenal player in the City game and praise the effort values, the pressing and defending, fighting for every ball and giving the City players nothing. And you could do the same for the Saints' XI the other night.

This is the level of commitment required to play in manner that merited being bookies favourites for the title right after the City game.

We are still in a good place for the League, hopefully this drubbing proves to be nothing more than a timely reminder to keep the heads screwed on and for the players not to rest on their laurels.

 

[bingobob]

You can most certainly bet that we'll **** the bed...Liverpool in a few weeks.

We've very few players in their respective positions that I would consider acceptable when being pressed:

Özil, Alexis, Santi, Wilshere, Coq, Monreal, Kos.

That's it actually, which is extremly few. The rest crumble every time they don't have time to think on the ball, and give it away.

How do we tackle this major problem? Tactics? Walcott up front could give our players some breathing space in these kind of games.

Interesting choice of players. Özil, Cazorla, Wilshere, Koscielny and Monreal all played and started when we were absolutely spanked by a high press against Liverpool. It was utterly embarrassing. Arteta played as well and back then he was fairly decent.

The same also happened against Chelsea albeit a few changes in personnel but even before Gibbs was (wrongly) sent off the game was over.

So I don't think it's a question of having your favourite ambidextrous player, or England's finest midfielder for a generation or even your favourite box to box player who can't dribble on a bib, it's a question of what to do when we aren't given time on the ball regardless of personnel because they all crumble under pressure.

Theo as a long ball is an option, therefore we need a deputy for him, Welbeck potentially but his injury record is near on power with Theos so we may need to outsource that. I also think we need more power in the middle and we know who I think that man is. Having someone who can withstand the pressure physically will give a bit more time to our 'technical' players to find a 60 yard pass onto Theos toe or a Theo light backup.

 

[FreeGlennHelder]

While it was still 0-0 in the last game someone went in for a challenge with one of our players and he squealed so loud the entire stadium heard (or maybe he was just near a mic )

1 min later he was totally fine. Surely when something like this happens the opposition thinks: hey - we can "get at" this lot.

I *know* a lot of players do this in the Prem, but it doesn't give you the feeling that you're watching winners. Things are going to go wrong in games, and you are going to have to overcome adversity to win the title. No squealing!!!

 

[MaraDon]

Having a CF who can run is pretty crucial. One ball over the top and all that pressing is for nothing.

 

[albakos]

While it was still 0-0 in the last game someone went in for a challenge with one of our players and he squealed so loud the entire stadium heard (or maybe he was just near a mic )

1 min later he was totally fine. Surely when something like this happens the opposition thinks: hey - we can "get at" this lot.

I *know* a lot of players do this in the Prem, but it doesn't give you the feeling that you're watching winners. Things are going to go wrong in games, and you are going to have to overcome adversity to win the title. No squealing!!!

Think we all know who that may be.

 

[Maxim]

Unless Orbinho means away games, then it's not true, because we beat West Ham in 2013 after trailing at half-time

West ham scored at the start of the second half. It was 0-0 at half time.

Quite ridiculous but that stat is correct.

 

[Bould14]

Away form has been poor since Coq been out without him we look like 2012 Arsenal.

 

[A_G]

This thread needs resurrecting. I was watching some old Hleb compilations from 2006-2008 and what stood out was not only his composure under pressure, but the other players around him. Compare that to now where you wouldn't trust many of these players when being pressed.

 

[hydrofluoric acid]

This thread needs resurrecting. I was watching some old Hleb compilations from 2006-2008 and what stood out was not only his composure under pressure, but the other players around him. Compare that to now where you wouldn't trust many of these players when being pressed.

Our plan these days is sideway or backward passes until it reach our GK who hoof it forward. What is surprising here is that we rather hoof it forward risking losing the ball instead of keeping possession deeper.