We were in their half but only around their box and not with the direction into the final third.
---------------------------------
What's missing the most from our game is that final pass forward. I know we don't have Cesc anymore to produce a killer pass that would split the defense but still someone should be able to make a forward pass. How hard can it be?

What do you expect when fans call Wilshere the next Cesc when he is far closer to Xavi
-------------------
I guess you mean Xabi Alonso?!

They had little pace so they would drop back and leave no space. Why don't we do this now !
----------------------

a) Because we don't have Vieira to carry the ball from defence to attack.

b) We don't have Pires and Bergkamp to create fast ball to our strikers in space in the final third.

Fecking hell DJ, brilliant stuff. I agree with everything you said.

I'm not blaming the defence only. Midfield should be helping out as well. No-one seems to know what they are doing. That's the problem I see, Down to coaching for me.

_________________

Yeah that's really concern and worries me too.

I guess you mean Xabi Alonso?!
---------------------------

No I mean Xavi who was p|ss poor till mid-20s. In fact we almost bought him for just £7m when he was playing for Rijkaard. Wilshere is far ahead in his development.

Wilshere is a link player like Xavi. He needs a holding player behind and him and a creative player ahead of him. But don't expect him to do a box-to-box role alongside Arteta.

Midfield should be helping out as well.
-----------------------

Who? Who in our midfield is defensively minded?

DJ,

That formation would work with a player like Viera or Yaya. But a partneship of Wilshere/Ramsey ot (even Arteta for that matter) will be "too much" lightweight.

Wenger assembled this squad. He needs to make it work !
---------------------
Thats the crux of our problem. Wenger sold Song to meet his remit of £15m profit from transfers for Kroenke and Gazidis. And was trying to replace him on a free with Sahin. When that failed we were left with Arteta as our holding player. Now no one denies that Arteta is a clever player. But he has no instincts as a holding player and constantly lets players run of him. So to make up for it he sits very deep. But then, because Diaby is not fit, we have no one who can transfer the ball at any pace from back to front. The quality of ball received by Caz and Wilshere is poor. Wilshere doesn't have the spatial awareness anyway to make any cutting passes taking our attackers completely out of the game.

Thats the problem with our balance. You cannot continually sell high quality players who fit a very specific system and replace them with poorer quality and hope to make it work.

System: Radical approach.

Jenko-----Mert---------Kos------Monreal
--------------------Coq/Verm-------------------------
----------Arteta/Wilshere/Ramsey--------
--------------------Caz----------------------
----------Walcott--------Podolski---------
---------------------Giroud-----------------

We played it second half against Reading in the worthless cup and it worked.

Would love to see a 3-5-2 tried,

-----------------Szczesny-------------
-------------Sagna---Kos-----TV--------------
Jenkinson-----------------------------Monreal/Gibbs
----------Wilshere----Arteta/Diaby/Ramsey--------------------
-----------------Cazorla----------------------
------------Walcott----Giroud/Pods------------


______________________

Again DJ, you are talking from my heart. I would love to see that too. Or at least change formation from time to time which would make us more unpredictable.

gt

Just reading through the comments about the decline of the Arsenal board because of the WUMs.

I agree with what you've said, but I have to wonder why you told me not so long ago that I was wrong about henrykamp, and that he's a good poster.

For me he's one of the main reasons here for the current state of the Arsenal board. It's certainly his fault we get all the Celtic tw/ats posting here. Probably the Mancs as well.

This thread will help put the board back on the right track I reckon, (cheers TBOK). Want proof? Check out the Gary Neville WUM threads earlier... there were 8 of them in the end, and between them they 'only' got 24 comments.

If people stop posting comments on WUM threads, eventually the WUMMING will stop. And until then, we've our own thread here to do basically what I'm sure most of us signed up to the original 606 to do in the first place...

Chat about Arsenal and have a bit of a laugh.

Anyway, the missus is out tonight so think I might watch the Man U match after all.

Cheers Lex

Morning!

What a lovely day!

raining here. load of bawls
--------------------------
Have you ever considered moving somewhere else?

5 games without a goal for RVP. His longest drought since 2009. Wenger knows.