Fenice wrote:Free flowing football works until it doesn't is one of the realist things I've seen on this forum. When we are on our game, and the other side hasn't adjusted or prepared properly, we are one of the most beautiful clubs in the world to watch. However we've been found out by too many now and it isn't working. We either need to throw 100's of millions of quid at this team, or stop being stubborn and create a damned plan B. Remember when we were chasing a game and we'd end up basically having all our forwards on the pitch? In the past 6 or 7 years how often has that happened?
I can't recall many occasions like that over the last six or seven seasons. It's actually a bit startling to notice that, considering that the last ten years or so we've seen a more detailed approach to management where managers emphasize individual games and even situations in these games more than ever before. It seems we're not keeping up with time.
Anyway, I think us being good in possession is a myth. Far too often we don't work off the ball to create pathways for passes or space for teammates. Thus, we'll keep the ball but we don't do anything of substance with it - possession for the sake of possession. Then we'll hope that an individual moment of magic bail us out.
Keeping the possession is something we revert to so often is, I think, due to nothing else really being practiced at Colney - and even that is done poorly as the above observations suggest. Arsenal have lost their Way, and they need to find it very soon.
In other words, before looking for a plan B, we should get good at executing plan A first.