This blog takes a lot of heat for being overly critical, but it is critical for one reason, the team has made the same errors for the past 5 years and not won, so if they make the same ones, they will continue not to win.
Even when Arsenal were scoring freely and beating teams by 2 goals or more margins, I have been critical at how some of the goals let in have happened. Finally,the chickens came home to roost on Tuesday. Let me catalogue the lapses:
1)Saha vs Arsenal, when Arsenal are 6-0 up. A goal the team had no need to concede, even if winning, you cannot let up, you defend with your life to the final whistle. Defending is a collective art, so why when Clichy has to come inside, why doesn't a midfielder take his spot?
2) Kaboul vs Arsenal, when Arsenal are 2-0 up. Again, after storming ahead, Arsenal never crushed Portsmouth, stepped off the gas, and allowed a very soft and preventable goal, and let us not forget, Portsmouth rallied well in the match until Arsenal scored a third.
3) Donati vs Arsenal, when Arsenal are 3-0 up and 5-0 up on aggregate. Again, the team relaxed, knew the tie was off, and decided to coast, and Sagna never applied pressure, Almunia never even tried to save the goal.
4)N'zonzi and Dunn vs Arsenal, when 0-0 and 1-1. Again, lack of dedicated focus, lack on concentration especially on the second, why was Sagna and Clichy both forward and none of Diaby/Fabregas dropping deeper to help Billong? Where was Vermamelen?
5) Bowyer vs Arsenal when 2-0 up. Again, when it looked like Arsenal would smash the opposition, the team relaxed, lost focus and a match that they should have seen out very early, became nervy until the dying embers of the game.
That is 5 preventable matches where Arsenal have shown they lose focus, so it is no surprise they couldn't see out the last game. West Ham may be in bad form, but without full focus, even when ahead, could rouse the team to fight back, putting Arsenal in a position they don't have to be in. This week, Bacary Sagna said the team had to learn to concentrate for the whole game. There were 5 instances already where they never concentrated, and were punished, why didn't they take those lessons? Please learn now, you are all professionals, this is a prerequisite.
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4 comments:
Yes, concentration seems an issue especially during that period before half-time where three of the goals came from. The good thing in a contradictory kind of way is that they are silly goals and therefore in theory easier to iron out than just poor defending.
the side is too eager to attack at most of the time, even against AZ at the end and against Birmingham when they could have been more patient in their approach.
Good point. We've already seen such mistakes failing us.
We could have picked up 3 valuable points at Old Trafford were it not for an error in judgement by Almunia, and a bizzare moment from Abou Diaby - a similar moment occurred against AZ might I add, but we were fortunately saved by the woodwork.
Hopefully, we will see improvements as players become more accustomed to our system, as well as through natural maturity of some of our younger players.
Hey, this is the same john from the arsenalblog commenters
I completely agree that you should be very critical about the defensive performances we've been putting in. I have been for a long time.
A lot of people think that our team can get away with just being great at attacking, but I disagree b/c of the other top teams.
We are not a complete team yet if we cannot defend.
Other good teams kill us in the finals of competitions because of this glaring flaw.
The top teams have beaten us lately simply because we have horrible concentration on defense.
This is why I've been advocating playing Denilson and Song for all games against top teams. Denilson seems to never shut off - and he provides the right balance in going forward and defending with his excellent reading of the game.
Denilson anticipates where he is needed most.
BTW, when Denilson and Song play together away against the top four we average 1.67 pts, but when they don't we average only 1 pt a game.
But alas, he is injured for four more weeks.
Perhaps Diaby could deputize in his place? I hope so, but watching the AZ goal again makes me doubt this.
I'm not sure even the deploying of dedicated defensive midfielders is the answer. If the strikers and creators are not also defensively inclined, then as a collective, we will not defend well enough.
Defending is a collective art, from front to back, everyone should defend, you win as a team, and lose as a team, not just the keeper and defence lose, it is the whole team, and sometimes, you can see that there is a clear line drawn between the defence and the rest of the team.
I also don't get how players like Messi-Eto'o-Gourcuff-heck even old timers like Del Piero and Raul can put in defensive shfts, and at times, the Arsenal players in attack seem to 'refuse' to do some defensive work.
It is amazing, yesterday, Chelsea were 5-0 up, and Terry defended with his life to keep a clean sheet, last week when Inter played Genoa, at 5-0 up and with only 5 mins to go, Lucio put his life on the line to stop a certain goal, we have already seen with Arsenal that no one is desperate enough to prevent a goal, even if we are winning.
That is a very bad habit to get into, as if you are prepared to let in an easy goal, you may not be desperate in other matches.
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