After a nights sleep, and after what ended up as a very competitive match the 3.3 score line looked to be a fair result. Arsenal being 2 goals up at one stage, was looking like we would take all the points. Arsenal have had spells throughout the season where the beautiful game we used to play has been seen in short spells.
We realise that form and injury has had a detrimental effect on our season, if we are unable to play our best players, then we have to realise that we have to tighten up our side as to not give other sides opportunities to exploit us. Arsenal have a system they work to, and that system never seems to change. Any side who study us will see that we do have weaknesses, and that those weaknesses can be exploited.
Our back line that we played yesterday, would possibly be our best . Per Merts was left out in favour of Gabriel, and I doubt many would have been unhappy as Per has a problem with pace. Up front we had our players who have been showing good form, Giroud and Walcott on the bench where most supporters would have wanted them. Middle of the park we had Coquelin and Elneny with the out of form Ramsey on the bench , Sanchez and Iwobi on the flanks have both been showing better form. The only player most supporters would have changed was perhaps the goalkeeper. Petr Cech, for Ospina, but as Ospina has been in place since Cech was injured and we have had wins, he was the choice of the day.
Looking at the line up, one would have thought that we had enough talent to play even the best side in the league, so what went wrong. Fundamental faults of Arsenal that have been exposed for every game this season and last. Faults that every team in the league can watch and exploit. Those faults are Zonal Marking.
Arsenal play Zonal marking, players protect zones and train to protect certain spots on the field of play., Zonal marking played in the right way, and taking into consideration your opponents players, can be effective, but with all sides, certain players need policing, and in yesterdays match that player was Andy Carrol, 6 feet six tall and a very physical player, likes to come in from the side, away from the taller central defenders. He was unmarked for all of his 3 goals, and scored very easily.
Zonal marking seems to allow attacking players to venture a lot further than the orthodox way of defending, as defenders just back off rather than lose their position. It is that fault of Zonal marking that leaves defences exposed for free kicks and corners, and that seems to be where we are punished the most..
Not every team has an Andy Carrol, but they will all have strikers that will try and drag a player out of position, every opponent needs careful planning, as zonal marking does leave you exposed. Arsenal seem only to have an A plan for defending and sadly that has cost us many matches.
Written by Stevepalmer1
GunnersoreArse 
Good morning bum shafters
I took Steves comment from this morning to publish as the match report, thank you Steve 😀
I woulkd agree about Zonal marking, for us it doesn’t work and yesterday Andy Carroll took full advantage of it.
However, Carroll should have been red carded for his foul on Kos, so the scoreline would have been different and we would have got the 3 points.
Steve
Your report is balanced and fair, mine would have been much more scathing. Comfortably winning 2-0 until just before half time and then a lapse in concentration and appalling marking left us going into the dressing room 2-2. Fucking amazing and apparently Wenger said after the match that he didn’t know Andy Carroll was playing…… doesn’t bare thinking about!
After the first 2 Carroll goals, at half time Wenger should have made a change and put on Mert for Gabriel and given Mert instructions to man mark Carroll at set pieces, it is so fucking simple.
Morning all, No i don’t mind at all NB, 🙂
We all have our own views on our team, and i would like to hear how others feel as well. Got to say i was gutted after the game, even an old Doomer like me, has beliefs of miracles, Yesterday sadly was not one of them, but a draw is still better than a loss. Speaking the truth i looked at our start of the season, and had a nagging thought that groundhog day would again come around, I was of course hoping groundhog day would also include the FA cup but we just do not have the staff.
Painfully i watched our season disintegrating., Firstly was our exit of the silly cup, Not really soul destroying, but still a cup never the less. Saving players for other games has never gone down well with me. If you buy the talent that’s out there, when you need it, and replace injured with the same standard of player, and you should be able to play a same strength side in every game.
Saying that one competition is more important than another, seems to make no sense at all when you end up with nothing. And that is exactly where we find ourselves now.
I have now come to the conclusion that Arsenal are what others have called us experts in failure, as the club don’t seem to have ambition, the Manager buys for the future leaving the here and now exposed. Many millions reported and we stick as we are. Yes this season we are failures again, Wenger may save his embarrassment with a top 4 trophy so he continues his fine record. Sadly that doesn’t make me feel any better.
I see Kelsey is making waves on the other side….. they don’t like his Wenger out stance.
Kelsey see’s it as it is, and we all know that with the other side, its their way or the highway.
As we get older, i believe we start to see things a little clearer, Maybe years and years of disappointments makes you realise that keep telling somebody how well they are doing, makes them afraid to actually change things. Kelsey is a supporter who has seen it all good times bad times and indifferent times, he understands that to be successfull in some eyes is all about how much money you have and that that money gives power.
I honestly think that Donald Trump has that kind of money and power, but what he lacks is an insight into how normal people live. I doubt he cares as he has a lifestyle that mere mortals will never have, but still he craves more power.
Arsene Wenger has had a reasonable successful career, Of course if things had turned out diferently he may of even bettered Old Red Nose, But he has had the ultimate say at Arsenal. He has the power to hire and fire and he knows what we have to spend but feels he can make a silk purse out of a sows ear.
Now of course we can all be a Magical Manager, and we can all change what is wrong but could we do it for as long and as well as our present Manager. A normal supporter would say of course he could, just spend and buy the talent needed and then all the jigsaw pieces fall into play, Not so my fine friends, even some of the best have been moved on by spending fortunes and then failed.
I feel that what Kelsey is feeling is that fundamentally the club is doing well but the actual team is not.. I believe that is because Wengers priority is not just about the team it is about Arsenal itself, He s more obsessed with leaving a legacy of a club worth as much as the best clubs and success as far as trophys will come along later.
I believe we have a problem with a manager who has his fingers in too many pies, balance the side and then make sure the books are right, far too many jobs for one man. Wenger has done his best, but now his best is not good enough, He i believe is too old to change and i don’t feel he would, so what is needed is a manager who is only interested in the team and nothing else, all he needs to be told is how much money he can spend for a season, and then build by buying and selling.
Many Managers have started at new clubs and had those options not many have turned Habitual losers into champions. Money talks the more money a club has makes new Managers spend silly amounts, for mediocre players. Try to find a manager who understands this, is not always that easy, after all its not his money. Is there one out there, obviously Kelsey and me do, but lots of others are frightened of change.
Kango……………….I think your last comment was better than the post and should be the post !……………….I agree with nearly all of it apart from the fact that any new manager will not have the funds to match Chavs, Mansour City, Manshafter Std and ……………………….W Ham ( from next year they will have massive funds thanks to a peppercorn rent ! ) due to our majority shareholder………………….Kroenke Kunt !.
Bonjour Soixante-Neuf and Steve, thanks for the post/comment Steve, it seemed to me that we had trained to cope with their dead ball, Deadeyed Dick but failed to realise what a problem Andy Carroll is.
Maybe we would have been better with Chambers instead of Le Coq, with instructions to shadow the big lump and get in his face, he is, after all, easy to wind up and always ripe for a red card as long as the ref has the guts to flash it.
Still that’s all with the benefit of hindsight and too much for Wenger to get his head round.
We didn’t start that well 69er, but for the linesman’s flag we would have been 2 Nil down before anyone had broken sweat.
The one thing to be said about this group of players, they are learning not to let their heads drop when things go wrong, getting a draw after losing a two goal lead and going 3 – 2 down takes some doing.
Morning Cockie and Norfolk
Whooooo, everyones getting all fucking positive on here all of a sudden, well I’m fucking not…. I’ve got the hump 🙂 we deserved a win and Norfolk, those two disallowed goals were offside mate.
Only one of them was 69er. But Carroll should have been off before he scored.
I don’t think it was Norfolk…. but you’re right about Carroll, the first foul on Kos should have been a red, but then the elbow on Paul Easter should have been a second yellow. It was a brilliant game though, great for the neutrals.
Some zonal marking is needed !.
https://cdn1.lockerdome.com/uploads/acf1fa85ce4679dd81389138542aa8a1882a464175ac3f8c170c230806c824fd_large
13 points behind Leicester now ! …………………..dont get too over confident though Foxes, we have a game in hand !.
The pain of not winning the easiest EPL since it began is out weighed by the hope that The Spud Cunts will not win it !
Leicester are only 3 wins from being crowned Champions !…….something we will never see whilst Kroenke is in charge !.
Expect the Spud Cunts to win as that looks an average Manshafter side to me…….although still good enough to beat us recently !.
Afternoon all, Leicester win with two Vardy goals, both goals came from over the top passes, and Vardy was hungry enough to latch onto both of them and finish in style. Leicester go 10 points ahead at the top.
Scrappy game at the North London Slum.
I really couldn’t care less who wins the title if we don’t, good luck to either Leicester or Spurs. We haven’t played well enough and certainly haven’t been consistent enough to win it so we can only say we got what we deserved.
I’m much more concerned that we maintain third place in order to avoid the preliminary rounds of the Champions League.
We’re unlikely to catch either of the top two, so I suppose I’ll be happier if Spurs put one over on United this afternoon.
OUTRAGEOUS NG !!!
Blaspheming twice in one comment !…….I`m not even going to let him off for the mitigating circumstances of having a Spud wife !……………he needs punishing for some outrageous Spud talk !………………….barbed wire stuffed up his rectum and pushed down a slippery hill would be a light punishment !
Any other ideas on punishment ?.
Does `69er have a naughty step torture chamber for such behaviour ?
Piers at it again !………….I particuarly like the Kroenke stuff….surprise surprise !
“I’ve said for eight years now that Arsene Wenger had run his course at Arsenal.
“He had a spectacular first eight, nine years [as Arsenal manager], culminating in that extraordinary invincible season.
“I watch Leicester and I’m watching a team with real determination, with focus, with no big stars, with no super, fancy stadium. They’re just a regular team who are being managed to play out of their skins.
“At Arsenal I see a bunch of spoilt prima donnas with Lamborghinis in the car park, who don’t have anything like the drive and hunger of this Leicester team.
“But more importantly I see a manager who’s earning four or five times what [Leicester manager Claudio] Ranieri is – £8m-a-year Wenger gets – presiding over season tickets which are the highest in European football, a man who has not won the Premier League for 11 years, a man who’s constantly boasted of his European record, yet he’s never won the Champions League – he’s only reached one final and two semi-finals – and for the last six consecutive years Arsenal have gone out in the last 16.
“This, by any yard stick of a way of judging a supposed big team manager, would have led to Wenger going years ago.
“I simply ask Arsenal fans who still cling to the wreckage of what used to be Arsene Wenger as a world class manager, what more does he have to do in terms of under-delivery and under-performance, to warrant his dismissal?”
When asked if Arsenal are more concerned with finishing in the top four and making money than winning the title, Morgan tore into the club’s majority shareholder, American Stan Kroenke.
“We have a foreign billionaire, Stan Kroenke, who’s never at the games. I see more of him in Los Angeles, where he’s now got a big development to bring an NFL team to LA, I bump into him, I see him walking around LA more than I do at the Emirates.
“This is a man who has zero interest in winning major trophies, is very happy for Wenger to tick along, to bank the cash, to make his money; he wouldn’t know one end of the Emirates pitch to the other.”
Morgan also believes sticking with Wenger will end up costing Arsenal their place among the Champions League qualifiers, despite the Frenchman’s record of qualifying for the competition every year since 1998.
“Wenger was an extraordinary manager, he’s an extraordinary man – I’ve got great respect for him personally – but at what point does his own self-respect and pride kick in and he stand aside for the good of the club?” asked Morgan.
“I look at Jurgen Klopp, and the way he is slowly but surely transforming Liverpool. He’s 20 years younger, he’s got incredible dynamism, wonderful charisma, but he’s obviously a brilliant coach.
“I look at Guardiola coming in to Man City and we have to assume Mourinho is going to Man United; where will Arsenal be next season with Arsene Wenger yet again? I’ll tell you where we will be: we’ll be out of the top four. It’s not going to get better, it’s going to get worse.
“Wenger now is not the man to drive Arsenal forward.
“Every single excuse he’s come out with for the last 11 years of Premier League failure has now been exposed by Leicester and Ranieri, and that incredible team of players, with their team spirit and desire, as a complete and utter sham.
I feel sick !………..Spuds 3-0 up !………………..only NG`s torture will make me feel any better !
There’s no torture in Spurs beating United as far as I’m concerned Cockie, I’m happy that they’ve been given a hiding. It will make it less likely that they’ll catch us so we should retain third place and avoid the preliminary rounds of the Champions League. There’s little chance of us overtaking either of the top two so who actually wins the title is immaterial to me.
Neither Wenger or Silent Stan are going to quit, and no amount of hot air on the internet is going too make the slightest bit of difference to their decisions.
It’s worth remembering that new owners and new managers come with no guarantees of success.
NG
Stan probably wants us to get 4th !…..so we can make an extra £3m in gate receipts for the CL qualifier !
Personally I dont give a toss about CL, we may have won the EPL this and other years without being in the CL !….less games , less injuries !……and I dont believe in the …”If we dont get CL, we wont attract the players” bullshit, it hasn`t stopped Manshafter Std recruiting players !
Both of the likely EPL winners have not had a CL run to ruin their chances and Liverpool had their best chance when they wasn`t in the CL ! ( the year they threw it away more than we have this year ! ).
I`m still worried the Spud cunts will win it as they have (on paper) an easier run in than Leicester !……………………That would be a dark day indeed !………nearly up there with losing familly members imo !………..enough to put a damper on our lives for years to come……….time to phone The Samaritans……………god I hate them cunts !.
Evening, NG, believe it or not, i feel very much the same as you, i always like to see United beaten, I know Cocky would probably kango my nuts but Spuds have deserved their spot above us, although i would have loved us to have pipped them on the last game.
Morgan is no friend of mine, but he has got a point. Our Manager knew our team was lacking but only spent 15 million he made a mistake and he has for quite a few years. Time for him to step asside as he is holding one of the richest clubs in the world back. I would be prepared to take the gamble as i feel we will only get the same as we always have with Wenger and no supporter wants that.
Nice and fucking early…….. there is a NEW POST