Following his error against Watford which handed the Hornets their opening goal, Sokratis has made an apology to fans after the Gunners 2-2 draw at Vicarage Road.
The Greek international’s pass from a goal kick was intercepted by Gerard Deulofeu, then spanked into the net by Tom Cleverly, and after that Arsenal went to pieces and were lucky to hang on for a point.
Having led 2-0 at the break, the mistake came at a most inopportune moment, and this evening the former Borussia Dortmund man held his hands up via social media.
“Today’s result is not good for us,” he said via Twitter.
“I feel responsible for this result, so I would like to apologise to all of you. I don’t like to hide, and I will keep working hard in order to achieve our goals.”
There’s no excusing a player of that experience doing something so fundamentally wrong, but at least he’s owned up to it.
We also have to look at the team’s insistence at playing it short from goal kicks all the time, something which invited pressure and which Watford looked to exploit.
It was something their players specifically referenced in the post-game interview, and when asked about it afterwards, Unai Emery sounded as if this was something he was keen to continue.
“After their goal we tried once more and we broke their lines and we get into the attacking third with space,” he said.
“We didn’t achieve good chances in less moments we did that, but we need to repeat and we need also to have the capacity and to improve with be able to break when the teams want to press us like today, Watford was doing that.”
So there you go.
Well at least he has manned up and apologised. Please though, bring Chambers in and drop sideshow Bob for the love of god.
Yeah it was an awful mistake but he owned it. Maybe playing both Luiz and Sokratis is a bit too much brutality .. might be time to brake the pairing although I think they are well suited to games like this and more physical opponents we need to do something to cut down the mistakes. .
Honestly, i wouldn’t like to see anyone running freely at chambers any more than Luiz and I wouldn’t like to see him recriving the ball in such a crowded area from goal kicks either. There are fundamental team issues in terms of structure and players asked to fill certain roles which are better suited to others. We don’t protect the back line although the players are in the squad to do it. And we also create excesive pressure on players who are ordinarily very secure on the ball.
Exactly right, neither would he be any good at RB as he is slow and is not agile, remember montero against him 2-3 yrs back….delofeu is a far better player. At what point do we blame the manager and put our hands up when it comes to the players. The manager should look at the finer details and ensure if we are going to pass it short, pass it to our best passer (Luiz) etc…these small details can change games. I thought he was detail oriented so it begs the question why you would pass it out short every time… Read more »
Yeah, we’re just too locked into this “play-it-out-from-the-back-at-all-costs” mentality, that comes back to the coach. It showed against Liverpool and it showed here. Wenger’s biggest weakness at the end is that he wasn’t adjusting to what the opposition was doing enough. Seems like it’s happening all over again. Defending the same players over and over for repeated mistakes and overusing the same tactics to the point of insanity and predictability. Players will make mistakes, that is going to happen, but when you allow the opposition to read what you are doing by telegraphing your intent then those mistakes will happen… Read more »
Yes, the back four ain’t protected. We need a proper defensive middle fielder. Xhaka can’t do it
manned up and apologised, lol if it was mustafi most would have him burnt at the stake, an abysmal pass for any professional footballer,
basically both centre backs are shite, mustafi is about the same – and emery is deluded if he cant see that they cant play out from the back-
id rather take arsene then this load of shit
Look, Unai seems like a nice guy and all, but I think most of us can agree that we aren’t progressing as a team under his management. I would prefer he be relieved of his position and we give someone else a go.
I don’t want to jump on bandwagons or be overly sensational. But there was a point in today’s match when I just thought – Nah, this guy just isn’t the right fit.
The tinkering, micro management, chameleon approach isn’t used with big clubs. It might have worked with Seville but they aren’t Arsenal. Now we have Klopp, Poch, Pep… These guys have a philosophy and they play it regardless of opposition.
We shouldn’t be adjusting our formation dramatically to play Watford. They should be working out how the fuck to cope with us.
He’s just trying to be too clever.. i don’t see Pool or city changing their system every week. Just pick a system and stick with it so the players know their job and get use to it. Minor tinkering is fine but changing the system entirely every week is just too much. No wonder players look clueless.
Pep has such a philosophy that he can stick any player in those positions and they play the same. He had no left back for about 2 seasons.
City give up very few goals overall, one of the best defensive teams in the league, and they have Walker, Stones and Otamendi, some of the worst defenders around.
Did you watch City this weekend?!! Horrendous defensive errors cost them against Norwich!! All from Pep’s love of playing it out from the back…what we’re learning here is that because Barcelona can do that doesn’t mean it works in the EPL..unai take note before you get done in by this obsession…!
Pep out!
I’d like to accrue some downvotes by saying I totally get the point of playing from the back and inviting the opposition closer to our goal. If/when it works, it creates spaces through which we can advance more easily and dictate our rhythm. But it does need practice and it is a very dangerous tactic. High risk, high reward.
It’s a great tactic…AT TIMES. But we overuse it and that becomes predictable. Liverpool countered it to perfection in one of the most ruthlessly prefect exhibits of team, tactical pressing I’ve ever seen. They controlled exactly where we had to pass the ball – forcing it into the corners and then into tough passes back through a packed middle every time. I’m not even sure Emery realised Klopp was controlling him even after the game. I’m just not sure he is THAT level of manager. Sure he’s a good manager, but we need more than that. We need great or… Read more »
Hahahaaa so funny that just a few years back fans were having 99 problems with Arsene Wenger for not adapting tactics and playing the same philosophy against every opponent… now Arsene is gone and fans want “identity” back.
It isn’t a binary choice between never changing the system and never keeping it the same. There’s a massive middle ground between the naive, optimistic and arrogant approach from latter day Wenger and the overthought, pessimistic and cowardly approach from Emery.
The Arsene Wenger that made himself a legend here married flair with pragmatism, technique with physicality, and adjusted our setup for tough games subtly but not wholesale.
We had a french guy earlier who had a amazing philosophy which was praised all around but we ran him out of our club
A valid point. I feel like there’s probably a happy medium. Wenger just put us out time and time again like lambs to the slaughter, refusing to drop players or react during matches.
Emery meanwhile changes it up so often that we don’t really seem to know what he’s doing and the players seem confused too.
Surely methodology in the middle exists where we can play ‘Arsenal football’ while being aware of the opponents threats and tactics.
It’s not even REAL tinkering he just changes the formation and basically does the same thing. That is the problem for me. We have only one pace at a time, there is so little tolerance for adaption. We MUST play it out and teams know that and are waiting for us – of course that is going to get undone. When we change formation it just means players are in slightly different positions on the pitch – that might work for a moment, but it’s easy to counter. There are so many more subtleties to use – look at Klopp.… Read more »
He’s culpable but so is Emery. We need to see improvement on the field this year or else it’s time to move on. And let’s start Chambers and Holding together as soon as possible.
I think if Sokratis had not made that mistake, it is very likely that we would have won the game. Obviously, that would have been much better than what happened. But, it would have disguised the deeper problems that would inevitably cost us over the cost of the season. Which is exactly what happened with our remarkable early-season results–but NOT form–last year.
This dudes ok. Emery is the issue.
they’re both shit.
Rinse and repeat. Who’s it gonna be next week?
My hovercraft is full of eels
Take a bow
For those down voting, I refer you to Senor Emery: “We didn’t achieve good chances in less moments we did that, but we need to repeat and we need also to have the capacity and to improve with be able to break when the teams want to press us like today, Watford was doing that.”
Seriously, language difficulties aside, utter pish, poppycock and balderdash
So mine ,copycat.
That first Watford goal was criminal but who cozches them to take such a short goal kick
This bloke isn’t good enough…
Him and Luiz are both a mistake waiting to happen – who doesn’t agree, don’t watch football?
Xhaka: I made mistakes but I’m not sorry, shit happens
Sokratis: I made mistakes and I’m sorry
David Luiz: What do you mean I made mistakes? It’s VARs fault, they make football shirts too big
Mustafi: ???
At least Sokratis has the least annoying post-fuck up speech out of the 4 of them. Still wish they’d all shut the fuck up and apologize by just not doing the same thing before we have time to forgive the last one.
Bollocks.
They’ve all apologized (besides Sideshowbob)
Doesn’t make a difference.
+no Mustafi same issue.
This is the second penalty conceded by the great signing on deadline day called panic buy. And it isn’t Granit.
Shite defender. I never liked his signing in the first place because I knew he couldn’t cut and was too impulsive and lacked intelligence which is a must for a CB. And don’t get me started about that Brazilian who’s career highlight is being on the end of a 7-1 Spanking by Germany in his home country in the WC. Absolute shit signing
Sokratis has been by far our best and most consistent CB back since he arrived, so I don’t want to know what you think of the others
Our CBs aren’t brilliant by any means, but they’re being overexposed by the tactics we use. Except Mustafi who would be a liability in any setup
Sokratis is mostly ok, I don’t have much of a problem with him. Luiz in the other hand has been an accident waiting to happen his whole career. No better than Mustafi in my opinion. Possibly worse. Get him out of the team.
Agree on Luiz. Thought it might work out, but hell no, this is awful.
Get Chambers back in there and let’s see what we’ve got. When Holding’s fit, throw him into the mix. Ideally, Sokratis would be third choice CB.
I think I’ve had enough now. That’s just one pathetic capitulation to a mid-order team too many. It’s not Sokratis fault he is only trying to carry out what his coaches have told him to do. Sure you can play out from the back if your opposition are heading back to the half way line but with 4 surly hornets standing at the edge of the 18 yard box it is plain stupidity. Under those circumstances implement plan B and hoof it! We all agree that we have defensive issues but it is becoming apparent it is not only at… Read more »
It was a shocking mistake, but Emery has to own it as well. Everyone is putting 4, 5 men on the edge of our box so they can knick the cheapest goals you’ll ever see in professional football. The league has us sussed!
…and yet we still do it…if I see Leno tippy tap a pass to the edge of the six yard box again I’m going to scream…hoof the fkn thing upfield you arsehole!
No need for it when we have a comfortable 2 goal lead.
Only concern is there wasn’t really anyone on the pitch good at taking and holding a long ball. After the mistake Leno started going long and mostly Watford had the physicality to win those balls.
Isn’t there a pass between a short one to a defender and a long ball down the other end of the pitch?
Stop apologising and stop being shit. Not just Sokratis, all of you! Stop being shit!!!
Reading emery’s interview transcripts makes me feel like its 5am post all night fuelled bender. I take 5 mins to read one paragraph and still understand nothing. Maybe bec it was too hot today
It will be interesting to see if Emery has the courage to drop certain players based on performances like Xhaka, Luis and Sokratis and give chances to other players regardless of their age. If he keeps picking them in the starting eleven despite their repetitive mistakes then blame should be directed also towards him.
These continued apologies are complete bollocks. If they were really sorry they would donate their unearned enormous wages to the fans to reduce the cost of watching them. Absolutely no chance of that is there Mr Ozil. So shut the fuck up and perform to the level you are paid to perform
Yes! Courage. I doubt he does, check klopp or pep, they tell a player to the face if they fuck up
And how do you know that? I heard Pep praise his team and the way it played after losing to a depleted Championship side at Norwich.
And I have never heard Klopp criticize a player publicly. After Adrien did something as stupid as Sokratis did for us, Klopp laughed and said something like “well, now he’s really a Liverpool keeper,” because Ederson had done the same when he was new in the team.
Thanks, Sokratis, for that massive brain fart.
Thanks, Emery, for the insistence to play it out from the back.
We have 6 Cbacks. Sokratis – Likes Greco-Romand grab the opponent by his privates tussle him to the ground in the box. Luiz (AKA Sideshowbob)- Clown who has conceded two penalties now this season and made 4 unforced errors not to mention gets pass by like he”s the statue on the mountain in Rio. Chambers – The gaffer doesn’t seem to trust him for some reason. Maybe its positional awareness. Two goals let in pre season from balls lofted in. Holding. The great hope. Convinced last season but in a back 3 before injury. Mavropanos – May as well try… Read more »
The only apology I want to hear is players saying to Emery, sorry boss but we’re not going to play that stupid fucking tactic anymore.
More blinkered people making excuses today. Truth is we have NOT resolved our issues at CBACK even without Mustafi. As predicted, more mistakes. Unforced error from Sokratis. Poor for an experienced player. Our all too predictable play out from the back, put both Cbacks around our D flanking Leno so everyone knows our intention tactic plainly ludicrous. BUT even so, this is the 4th unforced error from band aid bob. Yet some preferred to believe we were getting anything other than a Squillacci deal from Chelsea. Imagine if it was Graniti. This is the SECOND penalty conceded by Sideshowbob….an older… Read more »
Just hoof the fucking ball. At least they wont have a shot at goal in those few seconds it takes for it to land. A pass like that when leading 2-0…..m
adness.
Bringing on the young kids at a juncture when the game was crying out for leadership was a coach’s gaffe. Nelson / willock brought nothing and the lack of shape on the field 2nd half was inscrutable as Emery’s demeanor. Both looked lost.
My wife who is a Brasilian knows I have never been a fan of Luiz and she came in early in the second half and asked jokingly how my favorite player was doing and I said “no major screw ups yet, but there is still time and he inevitably will do something stupid that will cost us”. Sure enough about 10 minutes later there he goes.
Yes he gave a goal away. We tried to give a few goals away earlier but watford are so bad they did nothing with it. The bigger problem is that after giving the ball away we imploded. And then the manager made things worse with his subs. Basically, other than Auba and Laca and probably ceballos the players aren’t very good. Guendozi will be one day if he has a proper manager and wilock and Nelson might, as well. But our four defenders are awful. Torreria is overrated. Xhaka is xhaka. And ozil is a shadow of what he once… Read more »
Please leave Xhaka
What has CHAMBERS done wrong? AMN needs to be benched, he has been playing poor for quite some time now, the carelessness in his passes is really starting to irk me out. Even though we have three first choice defenders coming in it doesn’t look like we have any system in place. The things we try to do from back can only work with better passing players (not sideways passing) who are comfortable with ball on their feet. Ceballos, willock, guendouzi, torreira are all good with that but not the defenders. I have hardly seen any Wenger ball moments from… Read more »
City gave the ball away playing from the back too, and are the team most known for playing from the back.
And yet, they still mix it up, going long when the opportunity calls for it, like when they exposed Mustafi and went long to Aguero against us.
Adaptability was an issue with Wenger. Emery’s initial tinkering made it seem like he was an adaptive man, but maybe he isn’t but at all but also a coach without any playing philosophy, bar playing from the back and fullback overlap.
We do not need his apologies. I honestly do not think he is well.
I hope these errors would not come to hunt us as last season
How the fuck do we let a 2 goal lead slip against Watford! Its like Christmas come early everytime a teams playing against us.
Surely Emery indicating that he plans to continue asking the defence to play out from the back is a point of pride at this point, and he doesn’t want to admit he’s been wrong this whole time. Based on all the evidence, our defence can’t cope with the pressure so we’d be better off with a 50-50 ball into opposition territory and high pressure if we concede possession. Auba made lots of decent ball recoveries yesterday, while our defence was shambolic escaping from deep pressure. P.S. worst performance under Emery
We don’t have the players to play out from the back… If all our midfielders could turn out of trouble like Ceballos can then it would be less of a risk but Guendouzi and Xhaka just don’t have that ability
Arseblog proffers apology after spelling error
Arseblog will never apologise or admit to errors.
I’m not prepared to blame a defence that is left with no protection every game. Watford had them under siege for the whole second half, virtually without respite because we had no midfield. It was a continuous bombardment because our primary school teacher/tactical obsessive had taken off the only functioning midfielders we had. Our defenders are making silly mistakes, but when they are under wave after wave of attacks this is eventually going to happen, they also did a lot of difficult work out there. Hopefully our primary school teacher/tactical obsessive is sacked soon and we can get a coach… Read more »
I realize this is a Sokratis page, but: Sokratis effed up, true. And he’s not good w/the ball at his feet. Luiz is. Why on earth did Leno pass it to sokratis knowing this? Luiz covered; no other outlet? Then boot it. This is an organizational eff up. Sokratis is a good/decent defender. He’s no world beater but he’s not total crap. Luiz made a comment (somewhere) yesterday: at chelsea he made 3 mistakes in 160 games. At arsenal, he’s made 2 mistakes in 5. Now, we can all blame sokratis and luiz, but the basic problems with team balance… Read more »
He’s had over a year and we’re still making the same fuck ups week in, week out.
Question: How long should he be given?
Hey Blogs, why is nobody even uttering a word about how VAR completely failed to do a simple routine check (which i believe the VAR team has to do for every goal scored) over the deulofeu infringement at the time of play being restarted??
I mean i understand we botched up, but shouldn’t they be brought to task or at least admit they were wrong in letting the goal stand?
Apparently VAR does not adjudicate on those incidents
From the FIFA site “The role of the VAR is to assist the referee to determine whether there was an infringement that means a goal should not be awarded. As the ball has crossed the line, play is interrupted so there is no direct impact on the game.”
Doesn’t this incident tick all the boxes for a simple VAR check?