SchlandGooner wrote:Callum wrote:Plymöuth Gööner wrote:Great ball in from Podolski too! How many balls did Cazorla put in like that?
Cazorla didn't hang on the peripheries of the game, he was in the middle driving us forward. He was at the heart of everything good we did going forward today and I struggle to see how anyone could not see that. The frustrating thing for us is that when we went forward we only ever had Giroud as an option due to a lack of runners and the fact we were defending deep. Pretty much everyone else could see today what you can't.
Also, if you want to twist the debate into Podolski vs. Cazorla then I'd just like to mention how Cazorla didn't give the ball away for Silva's goal and Cazorla didn't miss the best chance of the match. Podolski had a good game but Cazorla was incredible.
IMO, Cazorla produced nothing at the end, his corners were piss poor, his tiki-taka pretty useless and I don't care how often he runs with the ball horizontal in the middle of the pitch and maybe beat some opposite player who is scared to tackle Cazorla in no man's land cause Santi is well known to "fall down easy enough". He was pretty useless in the final third plus he missed some opportunities to pass the final ball.
So please remind me in which situations he was the heart of everything good ?
- The offside goal, oh wait that was Podolski
- The assist for the 1:1, oh Podolski again
- The 1on1 chance from Podolski, oh indeed Carzola was involved but if you watched it closely his pass was shit plus chest high and at the end a lucky deflection from two ManCity players otherwise Podolski might never have reached the ball in that situation.
If anyone else run behind the defence like that nobody really care that much if the Gunner scored a goal the player (like Ox, Walcott) gets hailed anyway for such an action if Podolski do that the usual suspects here try to talk about the "missing chance" other people could argue that was a great or lucky save from Hart if Szech did that he would be the best keeper of the PL..and btw at least he hit the target unlike Rosicky, Giroud and Ox.
Before the 0:1 Podolski lost the ball but Flamster never should have played a pass to him with the ManCity dude that close behind him and Gibbs waiting for a pass in totally free space. Also I dunno what our defence was doing at that situation Vermalen marked no one while our full-backs watching the scene from distance so why you blame Podolski exclusiv for that.
Im surprised that in all of the above, you failed to mention that podolski was completely missing defensively for the first 20 minutes, leaving gibbs completely overwhelmed many times
He had a really mixed game for me. He f***ked up to set city on the counter for their goal. Regardless if there was a better option for flam to pass to, pod f***ked up a simple dribble and got caught.
Of course though, he assisted for the goal and was denied a stonewall goal due to a worldclass save.
I think his main problem is that he is not naturally one to glide past players. He relies on finding pockets of space and using direct running to make a difference, but right now, the team doesn't have someone with natural athleticism to get the jump on the op from CM, to allow the LW ST AM and or RW to get into space, but be ready to haul arse back to defensive action stations.
, he struggled to penetrate today, but then I think he fell victim to the same issue that giroud and anyone else that broke forward today.
Arteta/flam in general just dont have the legs to effectively play a b2b role, which limits support coming into the final third/counters.
Its such a shame that we have so many out. Ramseys constant running is probably an even bigger miss to our play than missing walcott in a weird way.
Wilshere isnt a slouch either.
CM just seemed too much for Ox to play perfectly like we need, especially v the op we have been against. Maybe he gets another chance v the less disciplined sides we will face?
Rosicky really used his acceleration and close dribbling well today, but at times it was just all for nothing because there was no b2b to give him an option.
Its no wonder that we dominated the second half when flamini started becoming the 3rd runner more after sitting more for most of the 1st half.