Another smashing at home to Chelsea, last season, 4-1, this season 3-0, not even a goal to celebrate? The true value of Arsenal was shown last evening, to win championships, you need to show you can derail your opponents. Instead, Chelsea have shown us where we need to get to if we ever want to be champions again, especially in the short-medium term. Ashley Cole must have thoroughly enjoyed this, two assists, and Drogba put the icing on the cake with a thunderous freekick.
1) Solidarity.
Chelsea had easy pickings yesterday, they were all united in what they wanted to achieve, they attacked as one, the defended as one, no weak links, and when Obi did mess up, even Anelka would come back to help. Contrast that to Arsenal, the whole team never operated as a single unit, clear divisions in how the midfield, attack and defence play, no synergy at all. When facing a formidable opponent, you need to be one, otherwise you will fail.
2) Tactics.
This is something that needs to be addressed. prior to the game, Fabregas and Wenger said, "we'll play our game and see how it goes," compare that to Ancelotti who said after the game, "We knew that Arsenal like to play in the opponents half and we prepared very well our defensive positions, keep control of zones." Is it any wonder why Chelsea knew exactly how to win, and we never? You can't stick to 1 scheme in every single game, it is easy to plan for. We never prepare for the opposition, and only ever had 1 striker on the pitch at a time, so where will the goals come from? And since when did random crosses become a method of playing? We may be a small sized team, but with the right tactics, we can negate that deficiency.
3) Champion mentality.
Once we go behind, we never come back, especially against such big teams. The team feebly tried to come back by running hard and applying pressure, but they had no method in that madness, Chelsea are ready for high impact, you need to be intellectual to open them up, we sent in crosses for Eduardo, thinking Terry and Carvalho are short..... The team needs to react quickly, once the first went in, we should react, not after 2 goals have gone in. And this business of giving up after 70 mins sucks, Liverpool and Man Utd have shown in the Champions League that nothing is ever a lost cause. We need to stop giving up, and give our all for 95mins, I thought the players said they had learned to concentrate for a whole game after the Liege, AZ and West Ham games?
Player Ratings
Almunia 3: One good save, after that, the rest he could have at least reacted. The Drogba free-kick was because he decided to move and not be confident.
Sagna 2: Rotten crosses as usual, and two goals came from his side. Once upon a time, Sagna was a rock at the back, what has happened to him?
Gallas 3: Costly errors for the first two goals, couldn't handle the Chelsea attack.
Vermaelen 3: Latest Arsenal defender to fail to contain the Drog. Own goal and awful defending for the first goal.
Traore 3: Sent spiralling by Drogba when they fought for the ball, and Ivanovic did a similar thing to him. Got forward but with no quality.
Song-Billong 3: Carried the ball well and compressed space, only had 45mins, injury or tactical?
Fabregas 3: No invention, and as captain, gave up very easily again, becoming a ritual. In tough times, the captain should stand up tall.
Denilson 3: No passing, not much defensive work either, what value did he add?
Nasri 3: Not a winger, but still played there, why? Not able to unlock the doors for his team. He is best behind strikers, not on the flank.
Arshavin 2: Much is expected from him, but not on the same wavelength as his team mates.
Eduardo 1: No confidence, not a lead striker, got nothing from Terry and Carvalho.
Walcott 1: No technique or intelligence, very very very predictable, Cole and Ferreira had an easy time with him. Speed is not everything.
Vela 2: No right foot, and runs into blind alleys, never let off any shots, what was the point?
Rosicky 1: Made a few nice passes, but cowardly kicks on Obi, if he had shown as much ambition in his attacking play as those kicks, we may have actually scored.
Trainer Rating
Wenger 1: His marriage to one formation is killing the team yet again. Never deployed his players where they are best, Eduardo is not a lead striker, Nasri is not a winger, and why keep Rosicky on the bench for so long, he is one of our most intelligent players with experience against big opponents.
No tactical variation, Chelsea knew exactly what was coming,and he never changed it. Why not use 3 defenders and have two strikers on? Instead we kept with a 4-3-3 with inadequate players for it for 90 mins. Does he also approve of aimless crosses? He never told them to stop it, if he approves, he needs to stop this tactic, it doesn't work.
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3 comments:
I think you're being very simplistic about this. You seem to believe that because the team played poorly, everyone within it must have done so also.
Fabregas was very inventive and drove ('ghosted' seems to be the more popular term) through the Chelsea ranks on a number of occassions.
Our deficiency was Eduardo up-front. With such a lack of strength and willingness to link-up, we always fell at the final hurdle (the final third).
Honestly, I don't think the game was the horrorshow the scoreline suggested. I truly believe that had Bendtner been fit and played instead of Eduardo, it would have been a very close game.
We can always say 'if', we have been for nearly 5 years now, it is time to do.
What use is it Fabregas ghosting in when the crosses suck, and he will have seen the crosses suck, he should have made shorter options, did he expect to outjump Carvalho-Terry-Ivanovic, especially when they defended very deep?
The deficiencies in my view were all across the team, if any player thinks they played well, they should be dropped because you can never play well when you are comprehensively beaten, if Fabregas played well, why didn't he help out the defence? If Sagna played well, why didn't he play in one cross that Eduardo could get?
And I will maintain my criticism on Wenger not being tactical enough, no 2 games are the same, you need to adjust everytime.
We're looking at an isolated game, so the fact I suggest if one player had been fit, it would have been different, is pertinent and does add weight to the idea the game wasn't quite the horrorshow you make it out to be.
Who were these shorter options for Fabregas? This all comes down to Eduardo's inability to play the creative focal-point.
And Fabregas did help out the defence - he made a number of tackles in midfield, and covered space effectively.
And I didn't say Sagna played well - I concede his crossing was poor and he was partly to blame for 1 of the goals.
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