Arsene Wenger has bemoaned the goals Arsenal conceded to West Ham as the Gunners went down 2-0 on the opening day of the season.
Poor defending and an error from Petr Cech saw the Hammers take the lead, while a heavy Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain touch and lack of pressure allowed Mauro Zarate to fire home the second.
Speaking after the game, the manager pointed to a team failure – especially in relation to the first goal.
“It was a collective one,” he said. “I think there are many things to say about that. I knew that if the delivery was good, we would be in trouble before the free-kick was taken.
“The concentration and the organisation was not perfect. Positionally we were too far from our goal and gave them too much distance to run into. We killed ourselves.
“We have enough experience at the back. If you look at our back line, I think the youngest age is 30.”
It was obviously a debut to forget for the former Chelsea keeper, but the Arsenal manager wasn’t keen to point the finger at his only summer signing thus far.
“I haven’t spoken to him yet. I can’t see many convincing individual performances today so it’s difficult to single someone out.”
But on the performance in general, Wenger was critical of his team in almost every area.
“I think our performance was not convincing. On the two aspects of our game, going forward and defending. Overall we were punished.
“On top of that, I feel we gave two very cheap goals away. Our passing was not incisive enough. I felt we were a bit nervous and we rushed our game a bit. We didn’t always respect the basics.
“We wanted to be too quick going forward in first half. I don’t think we were too confident, I would rather say too nervous maybe.”
Cheaper than Poundland!
i hate these opening season losses.
next time, we should start by winning 0-0!
I know we lost today. And that’s fucking bad enough, let alone the manner in which we lost. But everyone losing their fucking minds, calling Cech a cunt, mashing the Wenger Out button and writing off the whole season because we’ve lost one game ..its a tad overzealous. Okay, yeah we played like a pack of cunts, but West Ham started their season like 3 weeks ago. And it showed, they were so much sharper than us today all over the pitch. That match fitness and sharpness was all that was lacking today and mix that in with complaceny and… Read more »
I’m sad to say but if we learnt anything from those trophy-less years I’ts … Some people among our fanbase are proper cunts . The goals were both savable and Cech did not cover himself in glory , but Petr only started/played (?) 6 PL games last year so thee is bound to be some ringrust many may not understand or accept this but that’s how it works as any practitioner of elite sports will tell you. Training and practice are very different , so we will probably have to play him into form as for the rest of the… Read more »
One off? Where have you been for the last 11 years? Was it only one off for the last 11 years?.
You making it sound as if Arsene been wining the league and challenging for the CL often!.
I would have used a lot harsher words than that, Arsene.
How could he? It is his fault, he is never harsh on himself it is always someone else fault. He fails to prepare for high pressure games so many times, the player could gain confidence from their manager in high pressure situation like this. I mean look at that Bully Fergie won the league with a team full of Clevely, Nany, Young, Carack, Jones, Smalling, Valnacia, Raffael, Anderson, Evans etc. A man who always short one or two players to have a complete teams for the last 11 years and never thinks he is wrong is something wrong with him.… Read more »
You’re right, our record against West Ham is pathetic #vengaout
Today was down to the players, hopefully it’s proves to be the kick up the arse they needed.
One game guys, let’s not lose the plot
I never talked about our game record against anyone, I just said important game we lose a lot more than we win hence we have been also run for the last 11 years in the league. The difference between me and you, you’re happy with 200 million in the bank with Giroud as striker and Flamini and Arteta in the squad, finishing thrid/fourth and the odd cup. I am not, I want my club to be the best and use every resources they have to be the best, if letting arsene with his socialist idea and sentiment to the players… Read more »
Ah, thank you. Now that the reality of the result has sunk in and options to turn are slim, a jaunty visit from a noisome troll from Twatland is just the tonic to put me back on my (high) horse and on the road to recovery.
I’m glad there are fans like you to make the rest of us realise that we are much better.
Its not that we conceded cheap goals, Cech won’t make those mistakes for the rest of the season, but its the lack of cutting edge upfront. Hardly any chances created, never looked a threat.
Something about the way Koscienly attempted – or lack of – to block the shot bugged me…
I have played as a Centre back for some years and now I still do in sunday league – when you trust your keeper and you see that the shot is poor you sometimes let it go on target. Thus you avoid some unexpected rebound or corner. Laurent’s decision seemed okay for me.
I agree. It was up to the midfielders to press that shot.
Nervous? Why the fuck are they nervous playing against West Ham in a game we should take maximum points relatively easy? It’s just poor preparation as it has been many times before. And if AW is honest with himself this is one time too many for a team who’s supposed to be challenging for the title.
The nervousness was about the sky-high expectations in the media. I believe the team would have been far more focused and switched on if we had met Man City or Man Utd instead of having a sense of entitlement.
Excellent the media pressure got to us ??? So we may aswell give up on the title now if the team can’t deal with being the front runners.
I did have a real fear this was going to happen. All of this talk of winning titles and unbeaten runs, we took our eye off the prize. We were too complacent. That’s the reason we lost that match. We started to believe our own hype, and thought we’d done the job before even getting out on the grass. By the time we realised West Ham were up for it, we were two nil down. It’s not total panic stations yet. But still, you can’t start a season in much worse fashion then that. Against Palace we need to pull… Read more »
Nervous because they just realised they’re playing with a double agent in goal who made us go 2-0 down against West Ham who we have a very good record against. Supposedly Cech was a great communicator that would sort out our defence, and apparently Szczesny was really terrible at such things, which was part of the reason we let him go on loan, and apparently Cech would inspire confidence in our defence. Look at how brilliantly that worked out. Why didn’t Cech tell the defence to move closer for the first goal? Why did he dive behind the striker when… Read more »
Sorry but how old are you, have you ever seen a football match before today?
Stop with the double-agent bullshit, please.
Yes boss.
thanks, we needed that. The double-agent stuff has been pretty annoying.
TL;DR
Wengersnosehair you’re embarrassing yourself
This season is going to be very difficult even when we play well. There arent too many teams which are bad or without a fight in them. we need to convert early chances and know to capitalise good momentum
The first half felt like a pre season game.
This was exactly the type of performance the guys said we needed to avoid this season…. Hopefully we can win the next couple of games and get back on track. We can’t have another “worse start since 1543” type situation.
Conceding those goals was indeed a collective failure – not just down to Cech alone. The other important thing Arsene seems to be overlooking is that we were unable to score any goals ourselves. In other words, even if Cech had pulled out two great saves, best case scenario would have only been a draw. Today’s performance was clear evidence that the team are well short of where we thought they were – both in terms of preparation and personnel. The positive read is that it’s the first game and there’s still time to turn things around. The cynical interpretation… Read more »
After going two behind not only could West Ham park the bus, we had to go more attacking, meaning we had to play Chambo at RB, possibly the worst player on the pitch for that job, which meant once they were in the lead, West Ham had plenty of joy with their counter-attacks, Chambo just wasn’t there to do the defensive job, and they were able to waste a lot of time that way. But yes, our attacking performance just wasn’t good enough either, largely I think because they panicked when they went 2-0 down.
It’s easy enough to figure out what went wrong after the event, the difficulty lies in the preparation – mental & strategic preparation particularly. After all, if nerves were a problem, it’s largely Arsene and the team themselves that generated the expectations that made this a high pressure match. A title contending team should be able to come back from a deficit – even when they are not playing very well. That said, there’s plenty of time to turn things around. I am sure we won’t start as poorly as we did last season but the mental fragility in the… Read more »
Well you can only figure out what went wrong after the event, not before.
Sorry, that came across more snarky than intended! I wasn’t trying to score points at your expense, really just frustrated at the extent to which the team seemed poorly prepared and repeated mistakes that we’ve seen so often in the past.
Sorry, that came across more snarky than intended! I wasn’t trying to score points at your expense, really just frustrated that the team seemed so poorly prepared and that they repeated mistakes we’ve seen so often in the past.
Charity Shield and Pre-Season hangover.
2 points gifted to Chelsea. No undefeated season. LOL.
2 points gifted to Chelsea?
Sorry, but how??
Well, they drew with Swansea and we lost, therefore they are two points ahead of us when we could have been two points clear of them, or level at the very least. These are the kind of losses that really destroyed our season last year. It doesn’t bode well that we played like total dog shit today. I thought a few of our players looked rubbish, like they always do when the heat gets turned on, we go a goal down or are on the back foot. This team has little to no ability to switch the run of play… Read more »
Clearly, the players reacted anxiously to the pressure of the sky-high expectations in the media going into the game and lost team cohesion on the field.
To be fair, these were expectations that the team – and Arsene – helped create. No doubt, the hype got out of hand but we can’t just blame the media for that.
Completely agree. This was exactly the type of performance that many of the players on the pitch prior to today have specifically said we could not afford…& it’s the very first game. Love the guys to bits, but you can’t blame either the fans or the media for the failure today.
Even if there had been 2 world class saves, we never looked likely to score, so as others have pointed out the best result was always going to be nothing better than a draw. This needs to change. COYG!
we have no leaders or characters in the team. why isn’t someone cajoling their team mates telling them to drop deeper on that free kick? if aw saw that why isn’t he up and shouting at them to drop deeper?
cue the wenger out morons.
Whatever. Same shít, different season. Don’t know why I bother reading what they have to say.
Balance in a team equals confidence in a team. Players don’t have to worry about other players, they’re simply focus on their own jobs. When you play Ozil on the wing, the whole team has to work harder because nothing product will come from that position. Ozil is not to blame for the fact that he can’t take on players and track back, his speciality is behind the striker and feeding people. Not only does Wenger not buy players we need(i.e. striker, holding midfielder, centre back etc) but time and time again he puts players in positions that will only… Read more »
I am disappointed when Wenger says he knew we would be in trouble. I vaguely recollect a similar quote from him previously.
This angers / disappoints me the most
Wenger stop arsene about and get your Cech out and sign some good playas
maybe goals were cheap, Mr Wenger, but our tactics even cheaper.
and where goals for Arsenal? No one Arsenal player impressed me today,sadly.
I feel lien Arséne Wenger couldn’t have imagined this from his team today. Whether it was a lack of discipline or pressure is not for me to say, but every player let the manager and the fans down.
“I think our performance was not convincing.”
Translation: We played like sh*te today.
Of that I am convinced.
very frustrated about todays game.. i feel the ox needs to start learning from his mistakes. the second goal came from him losing possession in our own box. he costs us so many goals by himself, with poor control and awareness. Giroud is just absolute rubbish and I’ve always felt he is rubbish. If Benzema does happen then ill be delighted cause he is desperately needed. our strikers are just too poor and not a league winning strike force. Walcott came on and made no difference so he is not the answer either. deep defences will just have Walcott in… Read more »
Do those blaming Cech today realize that without scoring, the best we could have hoped for against West Ham was a draw?
Yeah, who wants a point when you can have none?
Poor Alexis dragged off his Sun bed to try save us.he would think we would be able to deal with hammers and let Alexis ease into season.
Let’s not panic long season ahead.
There’s absolutely no excuse for cechs performance. It was an absolute shambles. It’s very rare to see two goals conceded in one match due to goalkeeping error let alone the proclaimed saviour of that position. Doesn’t mean he won’t redeem himself but i’ll say it as it is like other fans would for sczeny or ospina.
Exactly, if Szczesny have made even one of those goalkeeping errors everyone one here would be saying we need to get rid of him, that he’s the worst keeper in Arsenal’s history etc.
Disagree. The first is down to the line of the defence, it has the wrong shape with poor choices of who defends who and also the line was too high. Cech hade to come out but was met with an excellent cross and was therefor duly overplayed.
For the second goal he could have done better but that was koscielnys corner and his block to make.
Agree totally with you re the first goal. Too many pricks who know fuck all about football come on here and spout utter bollocks. Everyone loved cech last week.
The defending was shambolic for the first goal, Cech was left with no option and had to come out and try to prevent a free header.
Sadly, Coq was to blame – he kept all the Hammers on side.
Is just the beginning of the season, I know how you all fell please pray and hope for the best for the team. That is football for you.
I agree arsene we did concede cheap goals but we also didn’t score any ourselves we shouldn’t lose at the Emirates at all let alone to a mid table side title push my arse
The guys just did not turn up. We will see better displays certainly.
The focus now must be to avoid falling away early. String some wins together and we will be fine.
This is why we haven’t won the league in a decade. There is no lack of quality, effort or discipline. Just performances sometimes that doesn’t say we are good enough. Its all-right going on about the belief in the team in winning the league but when it comes to practice in crucial games, the legs start wobbling, and we start acting like a bunch of school boys way out of our depth. Then Arsene joins in with the panicky substitutions and dismantles the defence to the point that there is no balance or structure to the team. If he thinks… Read more »
Same old Wenger . When trailing he just don’t know what to do ? No plan B !Should at least bring on Rosicky if he’s not injured. Giroud as usual never show up in big games !!! Man, we really need an experience Dm and a proper striker ! and a leader !!!….
West Ham at home isn’t a ‘big’ game. Should be routine.
.
Alternatively, every game in the PL should be considered a “big” game – & we need to turn up for all of them!
Disappointing performance and result but at least we don’t need to worry about the nerves getting to us when we go the next 30 games unbeaten and everybody wondering wether we can go unbeaten again.
It looked like to me that the team rushed too much in trying to get the first goal, and when West Ham scored, they looked shocked. I do feel they were over eager to make an impression thinking that this was a team they could have rolled over. I think there has been too much title talk and a feeling of self-entitlement in this match. In a way this is good, keeps them on their toes. Come on you Gunners, it’s not going to be easy winning that first title in 11 years, but that’s not to say it can’t… Read more »
Am afraid we are going to be out of contention for the league before Christmas even. Look at Liverpool, even they can win playing badly away; Wenger teams can’t win playing badly. And Ozil continues to be totally anonymous.
I think the Ox needs to clear the lines. It’s twice now – when he lost the ball in a dangerous area that led to a goal (the Everton game). He looks good while attacking but needs to be sharper defensively and more protective of the ball in our half.
I feel bad for Alexis Sanchez. The guy hardly had a break and suddenly was called in to try to make something happen. I thought he was 10 days away??
I hope Ospina gets a chance to send a message to P.Cech.
Perhaps we should look at this rationally… Firstly, Wenger HAD to say something…he can’t hide from the media so he has to spin something when all he probably wants to do (at that moment) is maybe smash something up…maybe. But it doesn’t really matter what he says/said after the game… Secondly, I’m somewhat surprised about the reaction to conceding a goal. I’m hoping everyone (including pundits and the media) is aware that Cech conceded goals when her played for Chelsea. He also concedes goals when he plays for Czech Republic…because he’s a fucking goalkeeper. The hysteria because he conceded a… Read more »
‘one of those matches’ have been happening too often in the league for the last 10 years.
Remember it’s not where we start the season but where we finish. Also, remember two years ago we lost our home opener I believe to Aston Villa then came back and led the league till January. We certainly can put together a good string of wins. Also, neither Chelski nor Manu looked very impresive in their gifted draw and win (own goals in their favor saved them). I also think the so-called second tier teams are going to be a lot tougher this year for everyone (Chelski,ManU,ManC, etc.), so let’s not go jumping off bridges.
Lets forget the two and focus on the nil. We’ve seen this game so many times before under aw. Banging our heads off a brick wall. Why does that keep happening? There’s something about the same old tactics people….we never change our shape and funnily enough teams have found out how to play against us. Bilic almost got the better of us with a mediocre besiktas outift. Hes a clever guy…he learns..give him better players and he gets a result. Its not rocket science playing a wenger side.
As I see it we have to many nice technically gifted players but not enough warriors in our squad. Need some grit and hardiness alongside our soft velvet technique.
This not good start but we need Benzema
take some fucking responsibility for the teams you put out. Using “we” again and again is not enough. Say I fucked up and then someone might take you seriously. useless experimentation with the formation at the start of every season just to get all the players you like into the team. Rotate if you want your favorites to play, but ffs don’t take your best passer and pace controller out of the middle simply because you are in love with the Welsh Jesus. No disrespect to Ramsey, but there is no way he controls the game as well as Cazorla… Read more »
We were complacent after wining the summer treble
Not good enough today. As much as I like Giroud, he really needs to take his chances more efficiently now. But a little perspective needed. They played like it was the Emirates Cup (especially the second goal). They’ll realise it soon enough and we’ll be ok. League winning? We’ll get a proper idea come Christmas.
Arsenal had good or very good starts to new seasons in the pre Asian tours era. They usually spent a two-week preparation time in Graz in Austria were they practised and got physical too ( mountain region helped with that ). Their play was fluent and eye catching after that while now every year it just hurts the eyes.
Also – it was in the pre selfies and fancy haircuts time 🙂
Should have started Podolski, he has an excellent scoring record against the Hammers.
Whadaya mean he’s been sold !?
That Poldi, he’s so 1-dimensional. All he can do is score goals…..
For Fucks sake
Better in all departments (with a 16 year old playing as well)
Good luck to the Hammers
Im off to kick the shit out of the cat again
Same players, same fuck-ups. Great to see Cech so quickly embracing playing the Arsenal way. If anyone thinks this ‘nervous’ pack of imposters are going to win the league they’re fooling themselves. We have 1 player with the requisite steel to win the league. The rest, they’ll continue to soil themselves at inopportune times where there is even a hint of pressure implied.
we lost to a team that fielded a 16 year old. it’s ridiculous.
We need to buy a world class goalkeeper…..oh wait..
So much about sport is ‘in the head’ . I suspect that if this first fixture had been against Chelski, City or United – we’d have played better because we’d have been that essential bit more ‘up for it’ than we seemed to be against ‘inferior’ opposition. Teams often lose against sides they ‘should beat’.
We must seriously have to rethink what Oezil brings to this team.