Mathieu Flamini says Arsenal can only get better given the number of first team players currently out injured.
Unable to call on six first team midfielders for yesterday’s 2-2 draw with Liverpool, the Gunners had little choice but to list the recalled Francis Coquelin and 17-year-old Ainsley Maitland-Niles as midfield back-up.
Asked whether Arsenal can improve their form, the Frenchman told the Evening Standard that thinking anything to the contrary ignores the potential influence of those high calibre treammates currently on the sidelines.
“It would be crazy to think the opposite because we lost so many key players and having them back is very important for the team.
“We definitely need them because in the championship and the last stages of the Champions League, you cannot do it with 11 players. You need 25 so it is important for us to have them back.
“The season is going to be long. We are only arriving at Christmas now. There are still a lot of games to go so we take one game after another and focus on the next matches. I am very confident in the team, very confident in the quality we have because we have a few top players.”
Elsewhere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, forced into action yesterday despite himself struggling with a groin problem, couldn’t hide his frustration at dropping two points so deep into stoppage time.
“It’s really disappointing for us,” he told Arsenal Player. “I don’t think we played that well today, but sometimes you need to win those games when you don’t play well, especially away from home at a hard place at Anfield.
“Liverpool set the tempo in midfield. They closed down really well but we had to expect that. We saw it out until nearly half-time and it was a blow to go 1-0 down but we responded well.
“The manager said that if we came out well in the second half by building on the goal we got late on, that we’d have a good chance of winning the game. To be 2-1 up so late on, we’re really disappointed we weren’t able to see it out.”
emm duuuh!
nevertheless, it does not justify our poor and abysmal performance from last night…sigh..
You’re correct but It’s his turn to do an interview, what else is he supposed to say?
Good point!
*yawn
Need someone to sit in midfield and do their job! Flamini’s average, doubt he’d get into say… Southampton’s midfield so what the fuck is he doing anywhere near ours! oh wait they’re above us in the league.. guess that’s what happens when you stick with mediocrity. A free transfer from the shittest AC Milan team in decades, culpable for more goals than goals prevented, I don’t have stats but I can empirically prove that I’ve seem the flamster flailing his arms about after he’s just made a mistake directly leading to an opposition goal on several occasions. I get it..… Read more »
He’s poo but yesterday wasn’t his fault. Tactics were all wrong he was one man in midfield up against 3 number 10s. Nothing he could do and wasn’t helped by Per sitting about 20 yards too deep because he’s too slow.
100%. he was left to mark too many players and was pulled all over the place. santi or the ox rarely dropped back to help and thus left gapping holes behind them which is why the lama and coutinho had so much time and space on the ball.
Flamini ain’t good enough for me. The fact that a 30-32 year old Arteta is missed so badly is testament to that. This guy was a bought as a stop gap but he’s playing every game. Ridiculous
he was not bought as he was released from his contract with AC Milan since he did not play much anyway, and was surplus to requirments. So it is kind of surprising seeing him playing so regularly for Arsenal when he could no longer cut the mustard at Milan in what has become a pretty mediocre league. However, it is not like Wenger got much choice in the matter atm. Wenger ain`t one to turn away a free signing, and considering he was free, you would have to say we got some decent bang for our buck. But i agree… Read more »
I prefer Arsene’s Coq
Its not just about returning players. We are not consistent even with our best 11. The top teams are matching our form right now so we’re not making any head way. It’s common knowledge that we don’t beat any of our rivals. If you say the top 5 teams(including us) and I refuse to name the spuds, because I truly hate them, that’s 24 points up for grabs. We only beat Liverpool last season and drew with Chelsea, United and City. That’s 6 points from 24, 18 points lost. We were great to a point last season, beating most other… Read more »
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Great post, I think Arsene only wants one leader in the club, himself, surrounded by yes men.
Having our injured players would make very little difference, just not good enough when the chips are down 🙁
Agree 100% on per. Whilst 6ft whatever he is shit in the air. He doesn’t have the aggression either
Watching sterling roll him yesterday was comical
What about two years ago the people that were praising him. Agree about our performances but our fans are shit.
Spot on, it is obvious for everyone except from the WFB’s.
Shitbox acronym.
I can’t remember playing our best 11……. But if we have, how many games was it for?
The last time we had a fully fit starting 11 we beat Barcelona 2-1 at home. (Arshavin)
I think what Flamini is try to say is “we need some of these injured midfielders back, no way I should be starting”. haha.
Deep breath everyone; best part about Christmas is that the games come thick and fast so there’s no time to have a long memory.
3 points against QPR please.
“Flamini states the bleedin’ obvious”
^Fixed your headline for ya!
I wonder what input Steve Bould has is he indeed a defensive coach or not
Well, the claim is he brought in Zonal Marking, so I’d say so.
Zonal marking on corners is not the problem. Players performing their duties in the system is.
I agree. Worked fine for Bould, Adams, Dixon, et. Al.
It is starting to get quite ridiculous when wenger fanboys starts to blame the assistant manager and tries to find a victim elsewhere. Leave Bould out of this, at the end of the day all important decisions are down to the manager.
Put away the juvenile ‘fanboys’ poo. Check up on it. It’ not been said to defend anyone, it’s a comment relaying the information readily available out there to anyone who chooses to have a look.
Or you could always continue with made-up assumptions because they reinforce your views.
Fact is, defense is a shambles, and there are many reasons why. Attempting to pin it all on one party – any one party – is ridiculous.
In sports, the coach is always responsible for what happens on the pitch. Even in individual sports like tennis, players would change their trainers if things do not work for a long time. Coaches get fired (talking in general terms) but they have the power to replace players or keep on the bench any player who does not execute their tactics. For example, Wenger has had the power to keep Podolsky on the bench because he prefers other players, fair enough. At the same time, the buck stops with the manager in the principle and things are well balanced.
Hey, I get that the Manager is the easiest to blame for everything. That’s the easy answer. But are you saying he should not listen to Bould on zonal marking? The comment that started this questioned if Bould has been allowed to have an influence.
“At the End of the Day” if those players want to win the match they might want to go to win that ball. They know it’s there, they know Skrtl is there.
The man has changed personal in a lot of different areas of the club, yet the same problems continues.. The only one to blame for these issues are the manager. We see that there are problems all over the place, yet nothing changes. Will this really have to continue for another 2 and half year? I might just as well put myself down in coma and wait till arsene wenger has left the club. Arsenal atm is like watching a movie you have seen 10 times before, hoping that the movie will end differently this time. But it won’t. We… Read more »
Pretty sure Wenger didn’t say ‘Her Per, could you just duck a little instead of jumping so Skrtel can win the ball freely and score
Pretty sure we have been weak at defending set pieces and have a team comprised of short non physical types. Guess who’s responsible for that?
Premier league is tough and dirty we need all our players in form
If we lower our expectations this is a good point. The problem is, everyone thinks Arsenal is better than 4th place. They’re not. Even AW has said it many times. Considering the mauling received last season, i expected caution. That’s what happened and as a result the almost win ends in a draw. This was the plan for a team that lacks quality all over the pitch. I’m one of those that thinks AW should go but after yesterday, as frustrating as it was to see them playing like that, i think he recognises that we are worse than even… Read more »
Again as on the other thread. What caution? There was no caution at all, if there was the front 3 wouldn’t have been so far up the field as were Cazorla and Ox leaving only Flamini to deal with 3 number 10s. The only person playing with caution was Per who was holding the lone too deep making the high press disjointed.
Again there was no caution, if that Liverpool team had a striker it would have been 22-0
Have a look at last seasons game and this one and you’ll see the cautious approach. We allowed Liverpool to have the ball without much of a challenge. And left the front three to press with Flamini protecting. Last season our fullbacks were pushing high up leaving the centrebacks and Arteta to deal with Liverpool’s attacks. Didn’t see much of that this time.
I don’t think that was a tactic, if it was it was the dumbest tactic ever and the reason why they found all that space.
How much space exactly? Sczeney had one big save from Markovic in the first half. Not saying the tactic was right or wrong but, that is how Arsenal played. Need to realise that this team is not doing well offense or defense for whatever reason. So don’t expect much. When Chelsea went there last year and parked the bus it worked even though i think it’s cowardly, it’s a tactic to achieve a result. Same with yesterday for Arsenal. You get trashed due to a teams pace, you prevent them using that pace. This was why yesterday was so different… Read more »
We can’t high press with per in the team as you need pace at the back. Hence why Germany dropped him in the latter stages of the world cup. Wenger has put his faith in key players to our team And they are not good enough. If he won’t address that he needs to go. We have no spine which has been shown up time and time again. We lose games to teams that are no where near our quality because we are not coached and trained sufficiently. Let’s not forget that we have the third highest wage bill in… Read more »
Why would Per need to be anywhere near the attack?
If we need pace at the back then we need someone other than Per, period, that’s glaringly obvious. What we need are tactics and ‘structural rigour’ – a term used on the podcast to describe Chelsea. Watch Chelsea and see how disciplined Terry and Cahill are to maintain position deep in their half. Almost nobody succeeds against Chelsea via a fast counter attack..
Well arsenal as a club is big enough to be one of the biggest clubs in the world. But Arsene Wenger is the man who is holding us back. So yes, a 4th place is the only target in his head. He are uncapable to beat contenders, so we can never win the league with that man again. Some wenger fanboys are trying to say that Arsene Wenger made this club, he created club history for sure. Some of this club’s greatest moments came during his first years. But the man is no longer successful, but the man that used… Read more »
But it’s never going to happen, not really. This problem with injuries is chronic, and objectively it’s a lot worse at Arsenal than other comparable teams. I remember the 2011 Carling Cup Final fiasco. Yes, we should have beaten a team that went on to be relegated (a mentality problem, which others have touched on elsewhere, I think), but we were without Fabregas and Walcott, and van Persie went off around the 55th minute having scored the goal that got us back in the game. We are not going to challenge consistently when so many crucial players are out all… Read more »
The returning guys will surely help. My only hope is that the returning ones are not replaced on the treatment by others.
If the injuries clear up, we will have a good chance of taking the third spot. Fourth is settled.
The point is he is right. Whilst we were overrun yesterday in midfield just think about who we had there – Santi(CAM), Ox(Blatantly unfit winger playing as CM) and Flamini(average DM at best). Defensively we had 3 Full Backs playing though it is clear as day we need another CB. Who Arsenal really need to sign is someone who can keep the players fit. To draw a parallel Chelsea would be playing Zouma(erratic CB), Mikel(like Flamini), Loftus-Cheek(inexperienced youngster), Salah(waste of money). I’m not excusing yesterday’s loss but panning a cobbled together midfield (an area where we are supposed to have… Read more »
Yes Chelsea may be playing those players but I bet you anything they wouldn’t be anywhere near as shit. And John terry wouldn’t suddenly become a pussy just because Cahill isn’t next to him.
chelsea parallels are not useful on this forums whatsoever.
Yes, because we’re at a completely different level from them. They’re chasing titles, we’re chasing champions league qualification.
Indeed. And also the fact that chelsea is a c*** f***ing club. What pains me the most is that some arsenal fans was not devastated by the losses we have suffered against them lately. They are in a sense a bigger rival than Tottenham, because they are more of a threat. Rivalry with Tottenham is more local. And we are by far a better team than them. People should feel just as devastated to lose to chelsea as they would when they lose to sp*rs. It has now come to such a point where Arsene Wenger no longer has a… Read more »
ah I see – Sorry.
I’m pretty sure the little fella next to Flamini in the picture was supposed to be guarding th near post…not Santi, the other one.
That’s Arsene’s new signing this transfer window. A diminutive number 10.
‘Round and ’round and ’round we go.
No shit Sherlock!
Dear Mathieu, I believe that there isn’t a single Arsenal supporter out there who would disagree with you. Unfortunately, there is not a damn thing any of us can do about it….and even worse….the only thing that is any different than previously is that the injury record seems to get worse each year. Apparently to top it off, nobody in the club seems capable of addressing it and/or preventing it. So we just continue on overplaying players like yourself because there is nobody else. I doubt seriously Ox is better off than he was before the match yesterday. So as… Read more »
The injuries have been a factor for ages, what you need is backup in defence. Something that your great manager failed to do in the summer, and seems rather reluctant to do in January. “If everyone stays fit we won’t sign anyone”. My theory about the injuries? I don’t believe that the injuries comes as an consequence of our players being made of glass. I think the injuries is an effect of a lot of things.: Too hard matching of players and lack of rotation in the squad. Our game style with one-touch football trying to break yourself in to… Read more »
Have to agree to some extent with the idea that not all is on flamster for this. And as much as I hate to say it, Gary Neville analysed well for the beeb. Liverpool out numbered him and he wasn’t given support. Miss Rambo for that. Ox tries but wasn’t on form yesterday (understandably) but is never as good as the Welshman in terms of winning back possession.
Was that gary or the other one?
I like flamini. He never stops and keeps going.
Our problem is per. Never been good enough and now kos is out its highlighting how much he covers for him. He’s meant to be the captain and hes dreadful. Looking at him ducking under that ball is embarrassing. If he had anything about him he would know skertel is the danger at set pieces and would have marked him. But no he hides and then comes out saying we didn’t defend well enough. No per you didn’t and haven’t all season
I may have heard/read this somewhere else, because the likeness seems to be almost TOO genuine – Does anybody else think Flamini looks like a special-needs Tony Montana?
And Alexis was shit. Bench him.
How long has it been since we have won against a Champions League qualified team in the PL? That says a lot about the way we’ve been performing.