Arsenal dropped two more points with a 0-0 draw with West Ham. That makes it just 9 points from an available 27 on the road so far this season.
Arsene Wenger’s team selection certainly raised some eyebrows before kickoff, and it’s hard to say it worked particularly well.
Here’s how the players rated tonight.
6.5 for Jack, quite right Blogs.
Like I said elsewhere he was good-ish, not great like some seem to think.
Bollox……. Just pure bollox
He did a lot more than any other player on the field to be combative, take the game to the opposition and create in the final third. It didn’t always come off but I think he was the one shining light tonight in a foggy and muddled performance.
what exactly did he create???
il tell u
sweet fuck all as usual
Wasn’t he the best among a shitty bunch though?
He tried to play faster, was mobile, made runs into the box and often stayed deep to give some protection to Xhaka as well. Had the best pass success rate among the forward players, most tackles and most interceptions after Monreal.
I would blame the manager, he just don’t know what to do anymore, well since 5 yrs ago I guess. A functioning board with true football ambition would hook up Pep, look at his team 🙁
Other big clubs can have a season like this one that we’re having once every now and then. Our problem under Wenger is that it’s practically the same every season for the past 10 ones. Am not asking to change the manager every season, but his time,”s up now.
he was rubbish and missed an absolute sitter
It’s time for the players to down tools and get rid of this manager. We have been living on a life support machine for years now. It is time to cut the cord..
I’m Wenger-out but that’s stupid thing to say. Players duty is to perform to their best abilities day in day out, for the employer (AFC) and not get involved in politics. It’s because of the players getting involved in too much of the politics with each other that we are making teams like Stoke (when Sp@rs – in bad run- put 5 past them), Watford and Southampton (Leicester put 4 past them), look like Barcelona and Bayern Munich. With our Board of Directors having only one target (to increase their profits) even if we get relegated, Wenger will still be… Read more »
Honestly I think if he had scored that chance we would be talking about his game as a whole in a very different way.
Yikes
Koscielny’s last few performances have been really disturbing. He seems to have gone from one of the best CBs in the Premier League to inconsistent and error prone in a matter of weeks…
They’ve definitely been cause for concern, but I’d say a few sub-par performances don’t change anything: he’s still a great defender and we’re lucky to have him. Really the club are doing him no favours playing him week in, week out, on a dodgy achilles. I don’t know the extent of the issues, so I’m only presuming to an extent, but surely common sense would dictate he needs more time off than he’s getting. Whatever happens, we need a CB – again. Mustafi’s very hit and miss; Koscielny’s not getting any younger; Monreal struggles in a back four; and Arsene… Read more »
lol, one of the best left backs in the PL? What drugs are you smoking. He’s bang average and always has been. The amount of rickets this chump drops in big games is horrendous. He’s ok against the garbage teams, but when push comes to shove Koscielny has been found out again and again and again.
He is quality.just the centre midfielders in fro t hang the centre backs out to dry,if we had kante ahead of them kos would look world class.
He is always error prone. Nobody other than we gooners rate him as world class.
He’s one of the best CB in the league. All players are error prone the only problem I see with Kos is that he hasn’t had a fit partner for quite some time now. Of course he is getting older and his achilles isn’t helping him.
Well, apparently not all are error – prone…
Mustafi, Xhaka, Coq, are not tolerated by us fans. Soon as a mistake occurs, we rip them apart…
Against Man Utd, Koscielny was directly culpable for 2 goals and most people on here were tearing Mustafi up and ignoring the fact that Koscielny started the rot and sealed it with the third goal
Clueless. It looks you know nothing about football.
Probably reading too much, but something tells me blog are gone be extra harsh on jack, possibly as an antithesis to love for Ramsey and not liking how some fans are weirdly happy he’s injured.
Its faint praise but jack and AMN were our best players.
They did get high ratings. They deserve it. I would say along with Ozil they were the best but thats it. What is the problem? Always with your conspiracies lol
Need to add rating for team performances with the Bristol Stool chart
https://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/BristolStoolChart.png/370px-BristolStoolChart.png&imgrefurl=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diarrhea&h=223&w=370&tbnid=fE4mczdIBvFqhM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=211&usg=__3akhkd-DDQNjv3d9ziLWnILH3Js%3D&vet=10ahUKEwiT8ce3kIjYAhUI_4MKHfM8Cb0Q9QEIMjAA..i&docid=wXA8LePSSLZXOM&client=firefox-b-ab&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiT8ce3kIjYAhUI_4MKHfM8Cb0Q9QEIMjAA
Should have made changes at half time, was clear Giroud was not going to get a sniff in that game. We were poor last year and now this year our best player in Alexis is playing woeful and our two signings are left out so we can’t expect anything else than these toothless performances.
When was the last time Arsene made a change at half-time?
6.5 for Wilshere is extremely harsh, 7-7.5 at least. That miss was bad but his overrall play was impressive. His quick passing, breaking through midfield pressure was great. He suffered for an end product because it was practically impossible to pick out a good pass with practically no forward movement into the box.
Yeah, agreed. I just can’t understand what is the point of us doing that weird shit in the second half of every game, we put 3+ players standing on our opponents defensive line. It is just so inexplicably stupid. How are you supposed to get through that defensive line which has not 5 opponent players + 3 our own players? How is that supposed to help us? What we just lack is our striker dropping deep and our CM-s making runs behind. Every time we start to do that, we start creating chances. And every now and again we just… Read more »
He gave AW 10/10 for trying by changing to a back four, which made no difference what so ever. Wilshere tries to make something happen, makes no difference and he gets a 6.5…
No shit.. Manager was more like a spectator.. could have brought in Kolasinac to deliver for Giroud.. it’s very frustrating to see our players try to score the perfect goal hitting onto Giroud and for him to flick.. We had no runners and most of the time we played before their back five.. If Sanchez gives up playmaking (what gave him that idea) and runs behind occasionally it would atleast create some space..
Well the only good crosses in the game were from Niles.
Lol right. Take off the best crosser of the game for a guy who is struggling.
Pretty generous ratings to be honest; that was a chore to watch. Only upside was that AMN put in a very respectable performance – probably one of the best crossers of the ball at the club!
Don’t worry. He’ll forget how to cross soon enough.
Yeah.
And what do we do with crossers? play them on their weaker foot of course.
You are being gracious with the 2/10 for the manager on how he did the changes. This was like someone going through the squad and blindly replacing starters with players that “might” be able to play the role. Against a West Ham team which we knew would sit deep, play on the counter and hit long balls, we played with zero width and made it worse by playing the most static of our forwards up top. Then again you can cross to him but our left back was a right footed central midfielder so no early crosses from there. Sanchez… Read more »
This. Nailed it. With all those technicians out there we needed to play “small ball” (apologies for the basketball metaphor) with a mobile technical CF, and lots of clever movement and quick passing, just like we did to repeatedly open up Man United. Instead we play an immobile target man. I’m not Giroud’s biggest fan but it was obvious we needed to play to his strengths with width and crosses. Instead we were as narrow as we’ve been for ages. And our two “wide” forwards, Iwobi and Alexis, have shown in the past that they CAN stay mostly wide and… Read more »
I love that “small ball” metaphor by the way
Exactly. At half time Wenger was too busy picking his nose
I understand why Wenger started with Giroud. Without him, we desperately lack height and West Ham have got some tall players (ie Reid, Antonio etc). That’s not what I berated Wenger for. What annoys me is, that he starts with tall Giroud (arguably the best header in PL) and allowed Sanchez and Iwobi to come inside all the time. Not only that over congested the areas where Giroud operates, but ( and there’s a massive BUT) that takes Giroud out of the game completely. If you don’t cross, what’s the point of playing him, to begin with??? Wenger should have… Read more »
We’re drifting. There is no improvement and there hasn’t been for years. Very sad that an old man with nothing else in his life is too scared to walk away for the good of the club
Great sentiment
Thought Wilshere was decent. A shame that chance fell on his right foot.
I felt we had the same problem we usually have with this formation, no width, everything far too narrow and easy to defend against. Our attacks, unless it’s on the counter, are so predictable and one-dimensional.
Oh and what the hell has happened to Kos? If he’s injured he shouldn’t be out there.
It’s not the formation per se (Man City also play 4-3-3 and their attack’s not suffering from a lack of width at the moment). It’s the personnel and how (if?) they’re instructed to set up. Eg I’ve seen Iwobi function very well in the past as essentially a winger, dribbling at his fullback, but tonight he insisted on coming deep and too central, clogging up the space Ozil and Jack were trying to work in.
0/10 for Wenger bringing on Welbeck before Lacazette.
And keeping our best finisher on the bench for 80minutes.
Exactly what I was thinking when he finally brought on Laca for Sanchez. Why didn’t he just bring him on earlier before Welbeck. I love him for his overall game minus the inability to score consistently but we needed precision at that point with them playing so deep.
The old man can’t seem to find strength to put Sanchez on the bench. No matter how bad he plays, no matter how many counter attacks he initiates for our opponents (by losing possession), no matter how self indulgent tw@t Sanchez is on the pitch…
Wenger always guarantees him a start, and that’s a fact!
The Chilean has become bigger than the club
i hate my life. thanks arsenal
Will agree with Lacazette. Should have been on much earlier. Around the same time Welbeck came on
You mean, instead of Welbeck. Honestly, I would have been happy with Lacazette + pretty much anyone but Welbeck coming on. When you need a goal with 20 minutes remaining, the last thing you do is put on a player who needs about ten presentable chances to score one.
This pro Ramsey anti everyone else agenda on this blog reminds me of the last days of Chemical Ali…….Wilshere was by far the best player on the pitch and deserves a higher mark, better first touch than Ramsey displayed today, better close control, apparently had 34/34 successful passes in the first half to the point where West Ham had to resort to fouling him…Ramsey has been good the last few weeks…but Wilshere is so obviously a class apart
So much of what Arsene’s doing these days just feels plain strange. The lineup, the system (or lack thereof), the substitutions… I didn’t really get the sense at all today that we had a plan.
Biggest issue imo is lack of movement up top and no one getting anywhere close to Giroud when he knocks it down. Best chance came when we finally got players around him but we only managed it once. We also do this strange thing where our wide forwards rarely get in the box and when they do, rarely take shots. I think that’s partly why Sanchez’ form has dipped so much, he’s not doing nearly enough off the ball. Finally, the lack of movement in general is maddening. Everyone was so static and the passes so slow for most of… Read more »
Ozil, Wilshere and AMN were good today. This is when I’m sure all of us wishes Ramsey was healthy. At least he would have made the runs in the box from the Wing position. Unlike Iwobi who would never make the runs in the box, drift in central getting in the way of Wilshere and Ozil. Hardly track back. Why was he even starting?
Tbf I thought Iwobi had a good first half, and I like how he takes people on but he needs to get in the box more. Faded badly in the second which is a concern, the silver lining for him is that Welbeck came on and was somehow worse..
I like how he takes people on too, but he essentially wanted to do it as part of our midfield three whereas we needed him to do it from wide right. Plus little to no combination with Bellerin (what’s happened to Hector??).
Exactly that
Missing a spark like Santi in the team. Need someone to make that cheeky final pass.
No, as much as I love Cazorla and as much as we miss him most games, I don’t think it was down to a lack of skillful midfield players tonight. We had a ton of technical players on the pitch, our buildup play from our third to theirs was actually quite good, Wilshere and Ozil both had good games. The problem was complete ineffectiveness around their box, which wasn’t down to the inability to play a final pass, it was down to not having enough clever runs to pass to. Without Ramsey, with the immobile Giroud instead of Laca, and… Read more »
I was okay with Giroud starting after he’s been on a bit better of a run than Laca has in recent weeks, but with Alexis and Iwobi providing little dynamic to our attack we looked so one dimensional going forward. It was evident we needed runs in behind or some way to stretch their defense but it was never happening. Does anybody else think Alexis and Laca play well together and Welbz and Iwobi seem to play well together? I’ve thought this for most of this season so was confused why we played all of those players, yet not together…
watching that game tonight, the one footed nature of our whole team really stood out. It made us so predictable, show Mesut on his right, show Alexis on his left, Xhaka has no right foot and takes an age to turn and pass backward on his left when his forward option is (easily ) cut off.
Welbeck was just awful.
Oh for a Cazorla!
That was so painful to watch. You could clearly see the team was not functioning properly, side to side slowly going nowhere and still Wenger sat their watching the clock tick tock away. Iwobi looked dead on his feet, sanchez! Even cech started miss punching balls it’s horrible watching the panic attacks that spread throughout this team like kos playing a blind pass across the box again. So many really poor moments spread throughout the team.the only plus for me apart from AMN and jack was somehow keeping a clean sheet.
We are boring arsenal
You’re boring!
You’re delusional.
Should try dropping Bellerin next game and try Niles at RB and put Kolasinac back in. Bellerin in particular should be under huge pressure from Niles..The only thing Bellerin had is pace and Niles looks nearly as quick and from what i have seen better in all other categories of being a footballer. Sanchez looked like one of those key ring trolls with the crazy hair when he was finally put out of his misery and pulled on 80mins..Its 3 games to late but you did it eventually Wenger…You subbed Alexis…Lets see if you can sit him on the bench… Read more »
AMN and Jack were easily the best players on the pitch for Arsenal today. Ozil not far behind.
Need a,goal and put on welbeck rather then our best goal scorer. At least welbeck didn’t trip over the ball or swing and miss so well played to him.
Understand the need to rest but Lacazette could surely have played longer than 8 minutes.
We go to Southampton and make them look like man city. Leicester play them and make them look like Southampton.
We finish 6th or 7th. The rot continues.
Giroud should never have started this game. We’ve seen time and time again that Giroud – Alexis don’t work well together as Alexis likes dropping deep to often and Giroud can’t run in behind.
Why Wenger subbed Alexis off I’d never understand.
We need 2 new CBs. Kos is done as a world class player. He’s been making these mistakes lately but it goes under the radar because it’s him.
Looks like we won’t be making the top 4 again. Hope Wenger gets sacked this time around. Enough of this mediocrity.
Koscielny is never a world class player.
Maybe Kos needs a solid partner? That can help. He is getting up there in age and that achilles doesn’t help.
Yes OG should have started. Its unfortunate that our manager doesn’t emphasize playing through him by whipping crosses into the box for him to take shots or knock downs for other players to take their shots.
Tree Mate.
If you don’t understand why Wenger subbed Alexis (which should be benched until February), then you’re not clued in football. I bet you thought getting rid of Adebayor was wrong!?
Agree with you on Koscielny and Wenger-Out though
Its so weird…. last game sanchez tried about 90 million crosses into the boxes… giroud starts doesnt even attempt 1 …
That’s because he’s a jealous prick!
Exactly!!!
Now we are beginning to figure Sanchez out. He has stopped playing for Arsenal FC since January 2017.
But people are so biased towards him just because he runs (not any different to a fella that runs in the park)
That’s what I noticed last time we had Lacazette in the box, who is short next to Southampton’s defenders and Sanchez kept on crossing the ball then Giroud comes on and he switches to ground crosses except at the very end of the game which allowed him to score. That means he knows what he’s doing! A player of his caliber cannot be unaware of this! I think success has gone to his head and he’s pushing for the club and the fans to be ok with his upcoming departure.
Exactly!!!
WTF is wrong with the team when they make decent crosses when OG isn’t on the pitch but once he enters they forget how to?
Keown said Wenger’s days are numbered. Well.Well. It shd have been years ago.His possession football and patient approach aint going
to work when teams park the bus.
He may have many shots at goal but if you dont score you don’t win.
I am afraid he has been unable to adapt to the changing football
landscape and must ultimately pay the price like so many other managers
who have been sacked.
Uninspired performance from an uninspired team
I don’t understand the number of left footed players complaint. No one complains when they’re mostly right footed.
i think it was the weirdness of the guy playing wide left (AMN) being right footed in a team of left footed players.
So, in a dog fight for fourth with second and third not out of the question with a good second half. And we have the advantage of Europa league qualification for next years champions league. No one but City from our league are going to be european champions. City are winning the premier league in all but the most fantastical of parallel universes (which I daydream about all the time, 15 points back in second place with seven to play and City drop 11 and then face us in our rescheduled penultimate game where we win with a 94th minute… Read more »
More tactically astute manager (and one who’s better in the transfer market).
Wenger started Giroud cos he’s been moaning about wanting to go out on loan in January. Player power is owning Wenger big time. He refuses to drop Sanchez and Ozil, even though we all know they’re leaving anyway. Now he’s playing Wilshere for the same reason. It’s not about football anymore, it’s about a clueless deluded old fart completely lost and out of his depth. A sad end to the Wenger horror show. His history will have to be completely revised, e.g. won a load of trophies due to GG’s back five, bang average middle tier manager for 15 years… Read more »
There is no fire. Not even any smoke! Compared to Mank City or Chelsheat, I see only as warm-up match approach. At least fight to score once, then settle into it like a Serie A side.
Wenger has to be one of the dumbest elite managers in world football when it comes to team selection and in-game personnel/tactical changes. How he does not see that he’s setting his team up to be dysfunctional (when fairly simple alternatives are within reach), I’ll never know. 1. We played 4-3-3, something I’ve wanted us to do for ages now. But, rather than play the quick-footed, skillful, mobile 50m pound striker to lead the line and combine with our lineup of skillful, mobile creative types, Arsene decided to start an extremely static target man who needs crosses, when this formation’s… Read more »
Xhaka showed today he can actually defend decently.
As a team though, FFS when a team parks the bus we need to stop with this dicking around bollocks we do with the ball.. so much possession for sfa opportunities. Try a few shots from outside the box, force a few defenders to come up field a bit more, create that space the team needs.
Throw it wide, down the line, pass it back, switch it. Repeat. Endlessly. This tactic does not work against any team which has every man back in the box.
I have no answers but Bellerin’s reluctance to go to the byline and cross was strange. I thought AMNs crosses looked dangerous, Bellerin should have attempted more.
Way too big on Xhaka. You can count on 2-3 failures of concentration each match.
Join the discussion
Hope we turn the corner sooner than later
A little better in midfield with the extra man and I like the midfield 3 picked for this game. Defense still a mess. AMN played well out of position. Few chances created again.
Look, I’m no zealot for WOB or AKB, but it’s clear this team is way underperforming for the overall talent level.
Arsenal’s problems run deeper than the manager, but IMHO all our solutions begin with his dismissal.
COYG
Interesting match, frustrating result. Some positives, some bad points still to address Thought both Jack and Iwobi did well. Plenty of dynamism and bite, also both turn quickly to move us forward…but generally forward into traffic. The back 4 allowed for the extra player in midfield n But because Alexis and Ozil are more suited to having over lapping wing backs and thus playing in field, we lacked width. AMN again with a decent outing and his reverse right footed crosses decent several times in finding Giroud. When Welbeck and Lacazette came on, again little effort to cut down the… Read more »
Iwobi was playing as a wide forward, not Ozil so he’s the one to blame for the lack of width, while Mesut was part of the midfield 3 (though I may have switched the two of them).
Pain.
Our best player was a centre midfielder making his premier league starting debut at left back. Because unlike the lad on the other side, he can cross a ball. I’d be happy to give him a run at right back and drop Bellerin. He can’t cross and ever since his injury is amazing pace just doesn’t seem to be there.
We tried something new with 4-4-2-romb formation. It was different. Especially in the first half we were too narrow. Iwobi played too deep but he changed that in the 2nd half and showed more awareness. We weren’t that bad but atm we just can’t score. Xhaka was actually very good. Not many see that but he is very important player in the last third to maintain and control that high line. We always lost that when he goes off Defensive wise we weren’t good enough again from the start. I actually understand why he played Monreal as CB infront of… Read more »
Just a thought why not play AMN as a DM with Wilshire an Xhaxa in front! that boy has skills but is in no way a left back….
Imagine how good Welbeck could be if he could play football.
Everyone watching the game could see from the first 30 minutes that we need laca or welbeck upfront instead of giroud.. took wenger 82 minutes to figure that out !!!
When i think about wenger, this qoute comes to mind “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
I thought amn was good id give him a crack in the centre.
I think Alexis is a big problem right now, I would have hooked him before Iwobi last night. Love the guy but he loses the ball a lot by looking to either head straight to goal on his own or find Ozil instead of playing more effective balls to ‘lesser’ players. It really limits our attacking play. He used to make up for it by crafting opportunities for himself or getting on the end of Ozil’s passes, he’s not really doing that now though
This is getting incredibly tedious. Our usual November slump is happening in December but I imagine this might continue into the New Year now. Basically it doesn’t matter what formation a team plays. It really doesn’t. Any top top side could play boring 442 every week and win. It’s the players playing to instruction within a system. It’s having the belief in what they are doing and having “a system” to play in. It’s not WHAT you do but HOW you do it. This team is managerless in every aspect apart from body. We may as well just wheel Wenger… Read more »