Players not working for the manager | The manager not working for the club… he’s working for himself

by & filed under Match report.

Arteta steps up for the second

Well, well. Beaten again. Wenger’s worst points total up until this point in a season ever. It’s getting easier and easier to write these posts because dissecting Arsenal isn’t a challenge anymore. A 14 year old school boy could manage it because our approach to games is so basic, predictable and easy to work around.

Chelsea weren’t particularly impressive yesterday, which made the defeat even tougher to digest. We lined up with the strongest line up we could. Arteta was missing, but he’s hardly been a rock this season. My thinking was that Coquelin would probably suit the game better than the ex-Evertonian because he has the energy and pace which you need to take on a Chelsea midfield packed out with fast moving technically gifted players.

Well, things didn’t really work out how I’d expected. Within a 5 minutes we were a goal down. Giroud was slipped in on goal by Theo, he had found acres of space, took aim and let rip wide of the far right post. A terrible miss for a Premiership striker. It didn’t take long for the ball to make its way down our end, Coquelin managed to pick up possession in the middle of  the park, he went on a bit of a dribble, Ramires crunched his ankle, the ref should have called a foul, the ball made it out wide to Hazard, he looped a ball to Mata who had  ghosted into the box in front of Sagna and behind Mertesacker… the Spaniard stunned the ball with his first touch and roofed it with his second. A real shambolic goal from start to finish… how can two internationals be so unaware of who is around them? Also… notice that two players we should have signed help work the goal?

Both teams failed to get to grips early on, Arsenal had chances, Cazorla fired a swerving shot at Cech but it was tipped wide. Lampard found himself free in our box after a corner, he wrapped his volley against the post but was adjudged offside. He wasn’t offside, once again, the Arsenal players had their minds on other things.

The next major incident came in midfield. Mertesacker played a ball into Diaby, the Frenchman turned into danger and lost the ball to Ramires, he set Torres free… at this point Ramires made his way into the box, Sagna didn’t track his run, Coquelin didn’t look behind him… Torres played the ball to Mata who pass across goal to Ramires, the keeper came bounding out of his box and spread for the block with his legs wide, Ramires fell over him on purpose and the penalty was given.

No one sees Ramires...

Terrible defending. Whether Ramires dived or not is not the point. If you come flying out of your area like that, you open yourself up to that type of trickery. Watch the replay back, when Ramires is played in, the Arsenal players all stand and watch, they pretty much give up, there’s 4 of them all in a bunch like an under 11s bottom division game. Lampard stepped up, struck his penalty the opposite direction of the Chesney dive and made it 2-0 after 15 minutes.

After that, there was no reaction from the Arsenal players. There was no game plan. They had no clue what they were doing or wh0 they were playing for. It was abundantly clear no thought had gone into a game plan. I understand that teams can find themselves a couple of goals down early on, that’s not what bothered me, the total lack of effort to rescue the game is… The worst culprit was Bacary Sagna. I love him as a player, by my oh my how he’s regressed since these botched contract negotiations. He looked like he was sulking at one point, pottering around like an old lady in haberdashery. How many more terrible performances does he have to drop before Jenkinson is given a go?

Our system is supposed to be built upon pressing the opposition off the ball. We don’t do it. So unless my assertions about how our Barca type set up is supposed to work are totally wrong, the players aren’t doing the basics. We literally sit back and let the play come to us. Occassionally if we’re up for it we’ll close down. But again, if no thought has gone into how you press, it’s kind of pointless. I can accept that we don’t have a team dripping in quality, most clubs don’t… what I can’t accept is that you can’t get pretty good players to play with fire in their bellies. You don’t need to be world class to play with passion. That comes from the top. That could come from Steve Bould if he was given responsibility for anything more than picking up the cones and cutting the half time oranges.

The second half, as expected, had a little more about it. Mertesacker fired a shot from the edge of the box straight at Cech. Walcott found space down the right and forced a good save with a low drive. Giroud added to his woes when he missed a pretty good chance to head home from a Sagna cross. Maybe it was a tough chance with all the shoving that was going on, but still, I expected a little more.

Our chance came after some good work from Cazorla in the middle saw the Spaniard slice a beautiful through ball to Theo who took one touch and banged his shot into the top corner. We were back in the game.

We didn’t have enough in the tank after our 15 minutes of fight. Most of the good chances fell to Chelsea. Torres hashed up his afternoon with some terrible finishing and Demba Ba showed  us all how rubbish he is when he rounded Chesney and had his shot saved off the line by Thomas Vermaelen. Giroud summed up our afternoon when he found his way to the byline, he cut back, but no one had the forethought to make their way into the dangerzone.

The tie finished 2-1… Arsene Wenger once again showed himself up…  our squad too good Arsene? Really?

Today  the newspapers and people in the know are saying we’re in for M’Villa and a host of other players. Why does it take a couple of bad results to confirm the obvious? If M’Villa is coming in now, why didn’t we have him this summer? We’re too reactive. If we’d won yesterday, no doubt we wouldn’t be in for anyone. When you’ve got £70m in the bank, you shouldn’t be waiting for the late January sales… especially when so many of the important games have come at the start of the month.

We’re now seriously staring down the barrel of missing out on the top four. I’m not going to get too despondent, this is a poor league this year. Win 5 games on the bounce and I’ve no doubt we’ll be sitting in in the top four. However, this strategy of hoping we’ll improve by being the team to regress the least is utterly ridiculous. There’s no fight in that squad. That’s not because there’s no fight in the players, that’s because we’re a shambles and the manager has lost the faith. People fight for Mourinho, Pep and Ferguson… why aren’t they doing the same for Arsene?

Our bench was embarrassingly poor yesterday. No striker, no midfielder who you could count on. This mess isn’t going to be solved with new players, the problem goes way beyond that. The club is rotting, it’s just such a shame the only way we’ll see an improvement is if the manager leaves… or we get to the end of his current deal. He’s built up too many credit points with Stan Kroenke to lose his job even if he finishes 8th. What a terrible way to run a football club? Arsenal need to be careful they don’t let the rot go too far… without the Champions League you lose appeal which makes it hard to snap up players like Cazorla. Hopefully it won’t come to that, but I can honestly say I’m seriously worried. I’ve never seen a Wenger team so unresponsive. A combination of bad management and average players.

Time is running out on the transfer window and we need a massive kick up the back side. The very fact that Wenger has taken so long to remedy the glaring problems shows you how deeply he’s slipped into power mad arrogance. He’s doing it his way, regardless of how obvious the outcome is…

10 days left to make an impact on the transfer window. Keep them crossed Wenger lucks out and we bring in the type of quality that can work without instruction…

 

 

548 Responses to “Players not working for the manager | The manager not working for the club… he’s working for himself”

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  3. mystic

    BREAKING NEWS: Kaka deal off – Galliani
    AC Milan were in negotiations with Real Madrid over the Brazilian’s return to the club, but have now announced that financial problems have put paid to the deal

    Wenger get your arse in gear.

  4. Keyser

    Jeff – Just trying to help you out mate. Full Stop there to. You’re entire post comes across as a bit deluded, like you think the only thing standing between us and untold success has been and is Wenger. Like I said you’re obessesed, just another AKB.

  9. Jeff

    Whatch out people, Keyser’s on the prowl tonight. He’ll snare one of you and the next thing you know it’s 3am and you haven’t move an inch. LOL.

  11. Keyser

    Jeff types the same thing again and again, doesn’t make much sense, he doesn’t seem to care, yet still keeps on posting.

    What’s weird is that when he’s asked to explain his opinion, he gets upset and wonders why people are asking.

  12. Keyser

    KwikFit – Yeah, Coq keeps popping up on here, but never on newsnow, thought it was just twitter rumour ? Maybe Wenger is going to bring someone in. He needs games really, and I’m not sure we can afford to give him many to get things right, though with Arteta out we don’t have many options either.

  17. goonerjake

    Victory Through Harmony, boys… sticking together in support is the only other way we will accomplish our other motto FORWARD. Forward does not mean neccessarily mean trophies it means working along with the ideals most of us once had…. does anybody remember what we sang at chelski and where they could stick their russian mony? Come on boys we dont want to just buy a trophy. if so you may just as well go down your high street and buy one

  20. Cesc Appeal

    How low we’ve sunk.

    2009…If Wenger sells Adebayor and doesn’t replace him I’ll kill him.

    2011…If Wenger sells Fabregas and doesn’t replace him I’ll kill him.

    2011…If Wenger sells Nasri and doesn’t replace him I’ll kill him.

    2012…If Wenger sells Song and doesn’t replace him I’ll kill him.

    2012…If Wenger sells Van Persie and doesn’t replace him I’ll kill him.

    All the way to…

    2013…If Wenger sends Coquelin out on loan I’ll kill him.

    Mission Accomplished for Arsenal PLC.

  29. Keyser

    fuck that, gambon’s been a mong for a year or so now, he doesn’t really care what he says because the blog kind of mirrors Arsenal now..

    Pedro’s moved sites, supposedly to improve the experience ?, he’s stopped the embedding of video’s, but put in advertising, most of the intelligent posters have moved on frustrated by the lack of real debate, and Pedro’s inability to either police the site or match their ambitions for intelligent discourse.

    What’s left are the Djourou’s and Denilson’s of the world, while the Club/Pedro are happy to draw in the hits from the wider internet viewing public, rather than just those that turn up to the site for matchdays.

    Hopefully if Pedro can secure new commercial deals, he’ll be able to set-up a proper site again, with video embedding for the people that get bored easily, get a moderator in to keep the plebs in check and maybe transfer in some much needed quality, in terms of guests posts.

    Pedro’s done well, he’s a Wenger of the blogging world, took a small page in WordPress and built it into the self-sustaining model you see now, except he needs help in the big bad world of football blogging.

  30. Keyser

    Coquelin’s done alright, except that’s not what we need, we need more, Arteta-Diaby-Cazorla worked at the start of the year, it was far from perfect and they were probably playing a lot closer to their limits.

    Arteta needs someone physical, Diaby needs someone that’s smart enough to work around him and Wilshere just complicates things really, Coquelin doesn’t have the experience to run things and right now we’re desperate for points and you can’t make mistakes.

    It’s like the comparison between the first and second half, we can’t start matches with that tempo because unless we’re spot on, we’ll just tire in the second half leaving us with nowhere to go, and we can’t keep things tight and be cautious because one mistake and it all falls apart.

  33. bergkamp63

    ARSENAL MAKE £4M BID FOR 19 YEAR OLD FLORIAN THAUVIN

    Thank fuck for that, for a minute I thought we were in trouble !!

  34. Cesc Appeal

    Kwik

    Yeah but Le Doof just gave Ramsey a £60 000 a week deal…for sweet FA I might add.

    A la Denilson he now has to play him, no matter how mind numbingly useless he is, he can justify it by saying ‘Ramsey has had 300 games for Arsenal.’

  35. Jamal

    Keyser,

    Thats why we need to get rid of the dross. So we can get the likes of Mvila, Yanga-Mbiwa and others which give us a better squad and also allow us to rest the likes of Arteta, Cazorla and Wilshere.

    We cant expect them to play their best if they are playing every single game without rest.

    Rotation is key.

  37. Royal Bludger

    Wenger and the Board know full well that we pay the player’s wages through our ticket purchases.

    SO WHY THE FUCK DON’T THEY GET ABOUT 1 MILLION A WEEK OF USELESS DROSS OFF OUR WAGE BILL THAT WE PAY FOR?

  38. Rocky87

    I said yesterday I will not believe any rumours until we were linked with a teenager from the French league’s, and “bingo” we have our first true contestant for the January transfer window, Florian Thauvin.

    Congratulations Florian and welcome to Arsenal, will £50k per week be enough sir!

    Mark my words this will be the only signing this January.

    This isn’t even a joke anymore, it’s just one big comedy show, and we ,the fans, are the butt of every joke!

  44. Johnny5

    Fucking bollock who wants this muppet seriously I don’t care if he’s gonna be messi in 5 years time we need players who can make an impact now established quality players not douche bags from the French lower leagues as per usual

  50. Cesc Appeal

    Has Arsene Wenger resorted to tactics he has previously deplored?

    Following around other teams scouts? Especially Newcastle’s it seems.

    M’Bwia closes in on Newcastle deal, Arsenal step in at last moment. Reported.

    Newcastle offer £2 Million for Thauvin, Arsenal offer £4 Million at last minute.

  53. Keyser

    We had a tie-in to Bastia years ago, and M’Bwia plays for the team we’ve bought Giroud off and played in our Champions League group.

  54. Ryan

    If you look at the build up to their second goal, Diaby is busy arguing with someone so he’s not ready for the ball from Mertesacker, which is why he spills possession. It’s little things like that that kill me. Focus on the game and stop whining.

    Gary Neville is very correct on his tactical analysis of us. Too many players want to get behind the ball. No one wants to get in behind, sit in the pockets, we’re quite happy to pass it around the quarter moon of players outside their box.

  56. Incesc

    Mwbwiamlook aggressive an leggy when we played them, wouldn’t mind him tbh as a reserve player

    This thauvin is just pointless

  58. PhilF

    Thauvin, Is this the ‘exceptional’ player that will get us back into a champions league place? Wenger what a fucking useless c**t you are!

  59. Josip Skoblar

    Keyser
    I agree. When I started reading this blog a couple of years ago, there were posters who were incredibly knowledgeable football wise. Most have moved on. I liked the greater variety of posts. There were more comments on European/continental football, more references to AFC history and past glories, more talks about tactics and match analysis. Now, it’s all narrowly Wenger focused so inevitably repetitive and at times depressing. The embedded videos were great as well. This said, I still read excellent comments and some posters make me smile/laugh as well. LG remains a very good blog overall. Pedro does a fine job, but he should publish an article from a guest blogger at least once a week.

  60. Keyser

    Josip Skoblar – The post was a bit tongue in cheek, think people are just frustrated now, or maybe we just a higher concentration of frustrated peoples. I think video embedding will help eleviate that by a fair margin.

    Look at poor Kwikfit there, I never used to have to read his opinions, he was simply the random dude that turned up late at night to post Noddy Holder music videos.

  62. geekpie

    just witnessed the picture of wenger’s office . as an electrical engineer may I point out that the socket in the background is overloaded by too many plugs. May i suggest a 4 way extension lead and a cable tidy. the sparkies at the emirates should be ashamed of themselves or perhaps something is a foot…………….

  63. Cesc Appeal

    Josip

    Don’t think there’s been any degradation of the intelligence of posters nor the value of what they’re saying.

    I think the comments have gone south because people are bored.

    Tired of saying the same things for years now. And it’s spilling over.

    What’s the point in having a debate about Arsenal? We all know exactly what they’re going to do…or not more accurately. Arguing is pointless, aside from on a Fantasy Manager level.

  69. Tryangle Gooner

    Think about it this way:

    We are 22 points from the top and 19 points from the bottom.

    Souper mid-table qawwali dee!

  70. Jeff

    Bergkamp
    January 21, 2013 19:37:28

    I know Bergkamp. You can’t say anything against Wenger with “you know who” around. He gets very upset, bless him, and then away we go into a pointless all-night question and answer session. It’s one of the few pleasures he has left, unfortunately. He’ll probably come back on me for this post. Let’s see.

  73. Toli83

    I remember when Roma fans demanded a high profile signing and the club bought delvecchio in the summer, which was seen as the cheap option by the disgruntled fans. To show the club thier disbelief and disgust the fans boed his evey touch even he scored initially.

    Although it will psychologically ruin him, I think we should all round up on this florian chap in similar style. Pitty to make him the fall guy but fuck him, we need to get our point across.

  80. Goondawg

    Keyser

    fuck that, gambon’s been a mong for a year or so now, he doesn’t really care what he says because the blog kind of mirrors Arsenal now..Pedro’s moved sites, supposedly to improve the experience ?, he’s stopped the embedding of video’s, but put in advertising, most of the intelligent posters have moved on frustrated by the lack of real debate, and Pedro’s inability to either police the site or match their ambitions for intelligent discourse.What’s left are the Djourou’s and Denilson’s of the world, while the Club/Pedro are happy to draw in the hits from the wider internet viewing public, rather than just those that turn up to the site for matchdays.Hopefully if Pedro can secure new commercial deals, he’ll be able to set-up a proper site again, with video embedding for the people that get bored easily, get a moderator in to keep the plebs in check and maybe transfer in some much needed quality, in terms of guests posts.Pedro’s done well, he’s a Wenger of the blogging world, took a small page in WordPress and built it into the self-sustaining model you see now, except he needs help in the big bad world of football blogging.

    ________________________________________________

    LOL . This was a hilarious read. Also I been too busy cutting my wrists at the collapse of Arsene’s tyranny. Did SDE and Gambon really get banned? Comments won’t be the same :(

  81. Royal Bludger

    Harry Wales boasting that he’s killed some Afghani’s from his helicopter gunship.

    What a cunt. He forgot to mention the 440 Brits who died to protect his inheritance.

    Harry Wales – you are, in every respect, a bastard.

  82. Cesc Appeal

    RB

    In a lot of ways there are comparisons with Arsenal’s situation and the Afghan war.

    The people in charge, politicians (Wenger, Gazidis etc in our case) won’t admit that they don’t have a clue what their goals are or what they’re doing. So everyday they just field the same tactics, wheel out the same tired lines. And it’s the poor unfortunate boys they field who have to bare the brunt of their failings.

    Of course I in no way trivialize what our Fighting men and woman go through. Just a good comparison. Heroes to the last in my opinion and I’d like to see all the money MP’s get for their expenses dolled out in pay rises to the Armed Forces.

    The fact a TRAFFIC WARDEN earns more than a Royal Marines Commando on the front-line in Afghanistan is beyond scandalous!

  83. Goondawg

    Lol having skimmed the other pages of comments, I must say I don’t condone racism either so your valiant efforts to stamp this out and keep the integrity of this site must be congratulated Pedro

    Can’t wait to see this florian thauvin guy play

  84. Dannyboy

    Kwik, what is there to pity? she effectively owns half of Arsene’s finances, so she is earning 70k a week for nothing. She doesn’t have to sleep with the man, seeing as she is the wrong age, gender and skin colour to really get him Va Va Vooming.. And she is a WAG, we all wanna be one of those right?

  85. Dannyboy

    and Toli, they would ask for £35 million cash, however they would reluctantly accept £ 40 million + Keyser and Squillaci!

  86. Gunner2301

    Cesc

    I take your point about the troops but there is no justifiable reason to be there. Who’s agenda are they serving exactly? I got wise to that kind of shit and got out long ago.

  87. Gunner2301

    Dortmund looked good tonight we could do with half their team. Nice to see football played intelligently. Klopp is a top manager. He should be on the top of our list.

  88. Dannyboy

    2301, not that i’m one to believe all that twitter shit, but an ITK, who also happens to hate Wenger, reckons the Frenchman is in Germany right now tying up a deal for Mario Gotze. we supposedly met the £30 million release clause on sunday! Great player for sure, but Dortmund seem to have so many that they wouldn’t even miss him at the moment…

  92. Dannyboy

    true Gunner, but you got to think economically, he will have a massive resale value! that’s what football is all about right?……….

  93. gnarleygeorge9

    Blimey it looked cold in London. My new HD upgrade with Foxtel makes it look like I’m at the game watching through a window. Amazing :shock:

    Anyway, Arsenal didn’t look good except in the 2nd half.

    Pedro

    I’m not fussed about top 4, maybe missing will see action taken re the manager. But I’m up for the FA Cup. I think Jack W has that twinkle in his eye for that.

    Arsenal to lift the Cup! Hopefully Old Frenchie doesn’t decide to scuttle all hope by playing a 2nd string 11 in any of the pending fixtures ;)

  97. Cesc Appeal

    Gary C

    I agree, at home they have no need to field their first eleven.

    We’re not a club to be feared.

    I bet they were chuffed when they drew us.

    There are teams like Newcastle who have much, much, much less money than us who are being proactive trying to solve their problems. They got beaten by a large wage offer for Loic Remy, but I think they’ll get Mbwia, they want Haidarra as well and they’re going in for M’Vila.

    What is Wenger doing? What is Ivan Gazidis doing? Is Stan Kroenke even aware the transfer window is open, or what exactly that is in the game of ‘soccer’???

    Worst run club in Europe, have to be.

    We are the Royal Bank of Arsenal.

  98. Cesc Appeal

    Gnarley

    Winning the UCL takes tactical know how.

    So you are quite right, Wenger will never win it.

    He doesn’t change his approach for any team. Same players, same ‘tactics’ (word used very very loosely), same substitutes. Horrible gaffer.

    Jurgen Kloop please.