Arsenal Vs Everton | Premiership 09/01/10

[Myrmedus]

But we didn't win.

We could've won it if we didn't concede a 2nd, and we conceded a 2nd because we needed to put so much manpower into attack as we only have one style of attack.

You can argue we also conceded the 2nd because of no Song but that again falls back on reliance on a single player, which is why we need another DM IMO.

My entire point here isn't to slate our players, or the team today. Rather, it's that we need to be active in the xfer window, to get those 3 players I mentioned so we have a more well-rounded team/squad which will make it easier to win games like today.

[niko197]

This match just shows that we need a proven goalscorer up front. Wenger needs to blow the cash on a high calibre player such as Villa or Dzeko. I don't want to rely on Walcott, who should be sold for a packet of crisps.

you haven't watch the game mate, if you had you would know that the midfield was disgrace today, we hardly even came in position to score.

we have to be honest, without song and fabregas, with disappointing ramsey, denilson and nasri we can't beat anyone. everton was better team and we're lucky with the one point.

Of course but this is the point. All teams have areas of their team which play badly on occasion, it's why you need to have strength all over the field to compensate.

When your attack isn't playing well you need a good defence.

When your defence is having an off day you need a good attack.

If your midfield isn't playing well you need a good attack and defence to 'steal' a game for you.

In the rarest of occasions you have more than one component of the team playing badly and these are the games you usually lose, but you shouldn't lose games (apart from against rivals) on the basis of one component playing badly. If you do then you lack personnel. We need a striker to give us an extra dimension to compensate for the odd games where our midfielders don't play like kings.

Just take a look across at Chelsea. There have been so many games where their midfield played badly, sometimes their defence aswell, but because Drogba (and even Anelka) are so good they dragged the team through the dirt and stole the game. If we had that kind of offensive power (which we do when RvP is around to be fair) we would've won this game today even if we did play b adly.

sorry mate, but today we didn't have "one component of the team playing badly", almunia, whole defence, whole midfield except diaby were disgrace!! eddie and arshavin had to make chances for them, first goal was created by arshavin and eduardo, if you haven't seen they were all over the pitch, how many times i saw eduardo on our corner line watching traore's back (and btw, traore is awfull full back), so i would say that arsh and eddie were the best on the pitch today.

I'm not slating Arshavin or Eduardo for their performance, it's just that no matter how well they play they don't grow an inch for every good deed they do!

My point is about improving the capabilities of the team. No matter how well we play we're a weak aerial team - I'd like to see that weakness removed for example. I constantly recite Chelsea's games because it's a perfect example of what I mean. They play shit, their attackers play shit but because of the capabilities of a player like Drogba they just grab a completely undeserved goal out of nowhere due to raw strength and ability.

i understand what you're trying to say, but we are nowhere near like chelsea, they play physical football, and we play quick, tehnical football, we don't have strong players like chelsea, and most important, we don't have so many good subs like they do.

and drogba is one of the best strikers in last 5-6 years, so you can't compare him with eduardo or arshavin.

[dunkdafunk]

The way we played on the day is quite irrelevant to me though, because then if we played every game poorly you could argue it'd be favourable to draw every game.

Also did you actually watch or listen to the games Chelsea won before playing us? They weren't on fire at all. A perfect example was the Bolton (A) game - Chelsea beat them 4-0. Now if you only looked up the result I can definitely see how you'd think they were on fire but they weren't, they were actually quite poor.

For the first 40 minutes Bolton were the dominant team, they hit the post and had an effort cleared off the line whilst Chelsea offered next to nothing in response. Then, Lampard scores out of the blue and Chelsea steam roll it with Drogba producing yet another commanding display. However, as a team, they were poor even though they won 4-0.

This is the difference. What I'm talking about is that one contigent of your team, when it's THAT good, can pull out results for you that often actually flatter you. Or, they don't even have to be that 'good' but have multiple dimensions to them. Arsenal can't play well every game but we still need to win games where we don't and to do that you need as many strengths to your team as possible that give you random goals out of the blue.

We're definitely better than last season, of course, but I still think we're a bit off title-winners unless we reinfornce.

When we play we have to rely on a bit of luck for us to get the 1st goal in befor half time.
Eg the last 3 freekicks, and we never score freekicks.
We need this so the opposition has to chace the game, after that our atticking tactics work better cos there is more space behind the defence. And so we end up slotting one or 2 in.

Its a shame that we have to rely on luck, id rather we relied on the talent of our star players, who can get a goal out of nothing, like a Lampard, Gerard strike, or some solid Striker play, like Henry's or adebayor's quick flick shot.

[Forest]

can you count dzeko as a proven goal scorer though? i know he had that good season but i dont know alot about other seasons plus change of leagues and wolfsburg play 442 diamond i think

[Myrmedus]

This match just shows that we need a proven goalscorer up front. Wenger needs to blow the cash on a high calibre player such as Villa or Dzeko. I don't want to rely on Walcott, who should be sold for a packet of crisps.

you haven't watch the game mate, if you had you would know that the midfield was disgrace today, we hardly even came in position to score.

we have to be honest, without song and fabregas, with disappointing ramsey, denilson and nasri we can't beat anyone. everton was better team and we're lucky with the one point.

Of course but this is the point. All teams have areas of their team which play badly on occasion, it's why you need to have strength all over the field to compensate.

When your attack isn't playing well you need a good defence.

When your defence is having an off day you need a good attack.

If your midfield isn't playing well you need a good attack and defence to 'steal' a game for you.

In the rarest of occasions you have more than one component of the team playing badly and these are the games you usually lose, but you shouldn't lose games (apart from against rivals) on the basis of one component playing badly. If you do then you lack personnel. We need a striker to give us an extra dimension to compensate for the odd games where our midfielders don't play like kings.

Just take a look across at Chelsea. There have been so many games where their midfield played badly, sometimes their defence aswell, but because Drogba (and even Anelka) are so good they dragged the team through the dirt and stole the game. If we had that kind of offensive power (which we do when RvP is around to be fair) we would've won this game today even if we did play b adly.

sorry mate, but today we didn't have "one component of the team playing badly", almunia, whole defence, whole midfield except diaby were disgrace!! eddie and arshavin had to make chances for them, first goal was created by arshavin and eduardo, if you haven't seen they were all over the pitch, how many times i saw eduardo on our corner line watching traore's back (and btw, traore is awfull full back), so i would say that arsh and eddie were the best on the pitch today.

I'm not slating Arshavin or Eduardo for their performance, it's just that no matter how well they play they don't grow an inch for every good deed they do!

My point is about improving the capabilities of the team. No matter how well we play we're a weak aerial team - I'd like to see that weakness removed for example. I constantly recite Chelsea's games because it's a perfect example of what I mean. They play shit, their attackers play shit but because of the capabilities of a player like Drogba they just grab a completely undeserved goal out of nowhere due to raw strength and ability.

i understand what you're trying to say, but we are nowhere near like chelsea, they play physical football, and we play quick, tehnical football, we don't have strong players like chelsea, and most important, we don't have so many good subs like they do.

and drogba is one of the best strikers in last 5-6 years, so you can't compare him with eduardo or arshavin.

I only use Drogba as an example because of the type of player he is. I can use Adebayor instead if you want

Basically, I'm not asking for us to become a physical side, just that we don't place all of our eggs in one basket. Chelsea are a physical side yet they can still play crisp football when they need but the reverse isn't true for Arsenal - we play crisp football, that's our motto, but we can't call on some strength when we need it, or at least not in attacking positions.

All I want to see is a striker that gives us that physical edge and gives opponents a dilemma how to defend against us:

Do we defend deep and narrow to stop them getting in behind us with crisp passing?

Wait, if we do that then they can get balls in to <Striker Signing> and he can hurt us.

Well, we'll just have to risk it.

In the game we're getting lots of crossing opportunities and <Striker Signing> is getting on the end of a few of them, maybe even scores, so the opposition have to reconsider their defensive tactics:

We need to cut the supply to him, we'll push the defensive line up a little and try to stop their wing backs from attacking.

Great! Then that means there's more space in behind them and through them because their defense is more sparse. That means we can play our normal game of threading in balls again!

Having an extra method of attack not only gives you that extra dimension but also makes your existing dimensions more effective due to defensive dilemmas you give the opposition. You can counter every defensive tactic they use whereas right now we don't have that capability - it's either pass the ball into the net or pass the ball into the net.

Of course, if we had a little more tactical acuity we could isolate players on the edge of the box for pot-shots at goal which would have the same effect but we never do, heh.

[gzagee]

Play poorly yet still win 4-0? Sign of a decent team wouldn't you think?

EXACTLY.

Yet how often do we destroy teams like that when we play poorly? We win some games when we play poorly but they're often hair-line victories.

This is my precise point. Chelsea play like shit but can still cut out victories alot of the time because their team is more 'well-rounded' than ours - if one type of attack isn't working they can use another. If their midfield is shit their defence can hold for it. They're strong in each department AND in multiple ways. We need to 'round' our team off with some additional capability and that's why I want to see those 3 players brought in Jan....

Yes, and for a team that are that far ahead of us in terms of squad can you tell me how many points more they have than us?
Cos if I think by your reckoning then we must be 10-15 behind them, such is the gulf in quality, performances and results this season.

For what it's worth I think we all agree we'd like more additions.

[Myrmedus]

Play poorly yet still win 4-0? Sign of a decent team wouldn't you think?

EXACTLY.

Yet how often do we destroy teams like that when we play poorly? We win some games when we play poorly but they're often hair-line victories.

This is my precise point. Chelsea play like shit but can still cut out victories alot of the time because their team is more 'well-rounded' than ours - if one type of attack isn't working they can use another. If their midfield is shit their defence can hold for it. They're strong in each department AND in multiple ways. We need to 'round' our team off with some additional capability and that's why I want to see those 3 players brought in Jan....

Yes, and for a team that are that far ahead of us in terms of squad can you tell me how many points more they have than us?
Cos if I think by your reckoning then we must be 10-15 behind them, such is the gulf in quality, performances and results this season.

For what it's worth I think we all agree we'd like more additions.

Are you not reading what I've written, because I think I quite pointedly argued it wasn't about performances or quality. In my opinion, in terms of pure quality and performances we've been SUPERIOR to Chelski this year which is WHY we're not 10-15 pts behind them. Man U are a good example too: they've been utter shit this season yet they're still above us.

My point is about 'capabilities' of the team which is far different from quality or form. If Chelsea need to lump it up, they can and it'll be effective; if we need to, it's ineffectual. This is just one example of a capability difference. Another example is pace. All of these things aren't necessarily qualitative they're just physical capabilities of the players in your team and right now we not only have a low amount of physical or aerial 'strength' but in attack we literally have "none". Because of that it means teams we play never have to worry about us in that way, allowing them to create defensive tactics designed purely to stifle our passing play and not having to worry about the potential weaknesses of such tactical plays because we're unable to exploit them. So not only does having "no" aerial strength weaken the team in obvious ways but indirectly it actually makes it harder to play in the way we want.

That's what I wanna see remedied and if it is then I think we take the league, presuming that new player isn't a numpty xD.

[GunnGunn]

What i think Mermaid is trying to say, is that Chelsea have a lot more variety in their attack, we only have one way of attacking.

Thus Chelsea are better equipped to deal with whatever they go up against, which IMO, is completely true.

[Myrmedus]

Rofl I've already gotten a nickname by the looks of things!

And yes, thanks that's essentially what I was trying to say and I think it's such an issue in certain games that we need to fix it. It just makes us much easier to defend against and much more prone to attack aswell.

I so wish Adebarndoor hadn't been such an ass (*nudge* Get it? Barn door and Ass? Get it?)

(.... )

[gzagee]

Play poorly yet still win 4-0? Sign of a decent team wouldn't you think?

EXACTLY.

Yet how often do we destroy teams like that when we play poorly? We win some games when we play poorly but they're often hair-line victories.

This is my precise point. Chelsea play like shit but can still cut out victories alot of the time because their team is more 'well-rounded' than ours - if one type of attack isn't working they can use another. If their midfield is shit their defence can hold for it. They're strong in each department AND in multiple ways. We need to 'round' our team off with some additional capability and that's why I want to see those 3 players brought in Jan....

Yes, and for a team that are that far ahead of us in terms of squad can you tell me how many points more they have than us?
Cos if I think by your reckoning then we must be 10-15 behind them, such is the gulf in quality, performances and results this season.

For what it's worth I think we all agree we'd like more additions.

Are you not reading what I've written, because I think I quite pointedly argued it wasn't about performances or quality. In my opinion, in terms of pure quality and performances we've been SUPERIOR to Chelski this year which is WHY we're not 10-15 pts behind them. Man U are a good example too: they've been utter shit this season yet they're still above us.

My point is about 'capabilities' of the team which is far different from quality or form. If Chelsea need to lump it up, they can and it'll be effective; if we need to, it's ineffectual. This is just one example of a capability difference. Another example is pace. All of these things aren't necessarily qualitative they're just physical capabilities of the players in your team and right now we not only have a low amount of physical or aerial 'strength' but in attack we literally have "none".

That's what I wanna see remedied and if it is then I think we take the league, presuming that new player isn't a numpty xD.

Okay, I think you're getting a little exasperated now. So I'll quit but you highlighted the Chavs performance against Bolton as a case-in-point (for want of a better phrase).

But again I reiterate that I agree reinforcements are required to increase the capabilities of the squad.
The way we played today was awful. But I admire the spirit of the team for coming back to grab a draw. A point that might prove useful.
We should've got nothing. An argument a Blue Dippers fan could easily come on here and make.

[Myrmedus]

Play poorly yet still win 4-0? Sign of a decent team wouldn't you think?

EXACTLY.

Yet how often do we destroy teams like that when we play poorly? We win some games when we play poorly but they're often hair-line victories.

This is my precise point. Chelsea play like shit but can still cut out victories alot of the time because their team is more 'well-rounded' than ours - if one type of attack isn't working they can use another. If their midfield is shit their defence can hold for it. They're strong in each department AND in multiple ways. We need to 'round' our team off with some additional capability and that's why I want to see those 3 players brought in Jan....

Yes, and for a team that are that far ahead of us in terms of squad can you tell me how many points more they have than us?
Cos if I think by your reckoning then we must be 10-15 behind them, such is the gulf in quality, performances and results this season.

For what it's worth I think we all agree we'd like more additions.

Are you not reading what I've written, because I think I quite pointedly argued it wasn't about performances or quality. In my opinion, in terms of pure quality and performances we've been SUPERIOR to Chelski this year which is WHY we're not 10-15 pts behind them. Man U are a good example too: they've been utter shit this season yet they're still above us.

My point is about 'capabilities' of the team which is far different from quality or form. If Chelsea need to lump it up, they can and it'll be effective; if we need to, it's ineffectual. This is just one example of a capability difference. Another example is pace. All of these things aren't necessarily qualitative they're just physical capabilities of the players in your team and right now we not only have a low amount of physical or aerial 'strength' but in attack we literally have "none".

That's what I wanna see remedied and if it is then I think we take the league, presuming that new player isn't a numpty xD.

Okay, I think you're getting a little exasperated now. So I'll quit but you highlighted the Chavs performance against Bolton as a case-in-point (for want of a better phrase).

But again I reiterate that I agree reinforcements are required to increase the capabilities of the squad.
The way we played today was awful. But I admire the spirit of the team for coming back to grab a draw. A point that might prove useful.
We should've got nothing. An argument a Blue Dippers fan could easily come on here and make.

Then I think we've probably been arguing PAST each other haha, probably mostly due to my frustration from today's game. The reason I felt capabilities were relevant to the game today is that if we had more 'strings to our bow' we would've won the game basically.

I don't fault the spirit of the team, definitely not. Even though I think a draw is a crap result the ability to pull it back when and how we did was the stuff of champions...I just hope our squad gets the improvements it needs to truly BE champions

[niko197]

What i think Mermaid is trying to say, is that Chelsea have a lot more variety in their attack, we only have one way of attacking.

Thus Chelsea are better equipped to deal with whatever they go up against, which IMO, is completely true.

i know what he's trying to say but chelsea have a lot more options than any other PL team.

[gzagee]

What i think Mermaid is trying to say, is that Chelsea have a lot more variety in their attack, we only have one way of attacking.

Thus Chelsea are better equipped to deal with whatever they go up against, which IMO, is completely true.

I completely understand his point but what I'm trying to say is that for all the quality at their disposal they're only a point ahead of us. One point.
Despite our lack of resources.
Hopefully (and I'm confident AW will spend) that will be rectified.
But let's not get all gloom n doom for only getting a point at home to Everton. When we lost at home to H*ll last season. With a better line-up!!

[Always_a_gooner]

man utd are losing at the moment...yayyy =]

[Myrmedus]

What i think Mermaid is trying to say, is that Chelsea have a lot more variety in their attack, we only have one way of attacking.

Thus Chelsea are better equipped to deal with whatever they go up against, which IMO, is completely true.

i know what he's trying to say but chelsea have a lot more options than any other PL team.

They do but they're the competition. I know they're rich so we may not be able to acquire as many options as they have but there's no excuse for us to have 1 option. One.