:lol: I set mysself up for that call, well played.

Haha yeh but you know what I mean don't you? Gervinho could have had a bag full all on his own.
At half time I thought Arsenal were cruising to 3 points.

See this part I don't get. Koscielny made 7 unsuccessful passes last night, and only one of them was inside our own half. The rest were all misplaced over halfway, and most of them went to Blackburn defenders. So I'd hardly say that puts a huge amount of pressure back on himself.

I also wouldn't say he's been the common denominator in us shipping 14 goals. Djourou has been at fault for way more goals than Koscielny has.

I also actually liked that Wenger admitted to us having real problems defensively afte the match.

Yeah, but when you score 3 against Blackburn, you'd be expecting to win so you can't really fault us on the goal scoring front last night. Only managing one goal at home to Swansea can get frustrating though.

I'd just like to leap to Arsenal's defence in attack... or something like that, and point out that for the Arteta and Chamakh goals, they produced two sublime build-up manoeuvres, both featuring some awesome interlinking play and some wonderful dribbling by Arteta and Ramsey.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/chalkboards/2KDb38796Ffu1Wu01ZlR

Absolutely wonderful stuff. Let's get this right - no individual player in defence was responsible, except, perhaps, for Mertesacker, who was unconscionably awful when compared to Koscielny and Dos Santos - although Dos Santos still has to get it right, given that he was the loose chain in the back four. Alright, Sagna wasn't great, but given Mertesacker's first half performance compared to Sagna, Wenger took the wrong man off.

I've never seen an Arsenal defence that disorganised. Frankly, it's a fucking mess. Someone tweet Wenger: defenders are supposed to defend.

Dos Santos? :-s

;)

Caught the second half at the Pub after presentation. Bunch of blokes were their in their Spurs jerseys watching the match. Needless to say they were happy.

Sometimes, you just have to laugh.

Worth mentioning that Sagna went off because of an injury, otherwise he would've stayed on. But I agree with you, there isn't really one defender to single out because as a unit they were shocking, which is really annoying after how well they defended as a unit against Dortmund.

Take Yakubu's first goal for example, the defense was in a straight line, just to bad it was a fucking diagonal :lol:

In the end people can suggest all the defenders in the world to buy but personnel is not the problem. We really need someone to come in and just work with only defenders and sort them out, because what we're doing is obviously not working. I suggested it last night but get Keown in and sort them out.

As for our attack, I don't see what everyone is going on about I thought we were good going forward last night, and in that first half showed how good we can be, especially Gervinho. RvP was the only one who you could say had an indifferent night but even he almost scored at the end and put in that delicious cross for Chamakh's goal.

I must have missed that injury. I knew the score and the times scored - admittedly I was just watching for pure schadenfreude. It was really safe to assume that some kind of corrective action was in order, though - it's just a shame he didn't pull Mertesacker off at the same time and take the opportunity to pin someone in front of the back four.

But what about Squillaci? Was he off the bench? It only takes a short look at how much of the burden was placed on Koscielny to show that Mertesacker was a key failure. I mean, if Koscielny is taking the ball forward - he was - then Mertesacker should be organising the line. Which he wasn't. It was a mess. Not that Yakubu's first goal had anything to do with Santos (happy, g4l?) being about 3 metres behind the rest of them because he was onside regardless, but it's discipline. They rack disciprine.

Ramsey was awesome, though. 111 touches and 4 dribbles. Tore the arse out of it. Well above anyone else.

In the first half Song, Arteta and Ramsey were outstanding. Ramsey looked like he was back to pre-Shawcross form, it really was good to see. Song in the first half once again showed just how good he can be.

As for Squillaci, I think it's safe to assume he's not anywhere near Arsene's first team plans, so much so that Ignasi Miquel is even considered ahead of him.

We will be much better for it once Vermaelen is back. We are so much more solid with him at the back. The thing with Mertesacker is once Sagna went off he couldn't take Mertesacker off because our CB sub was playing at RB, and with the way Djourou's been playing I would've rather Mertesacker stay there anyway.

Have to say for all the shit that happened it was good to see Chamakh score again. Will give him a much needed confidence boost. I'd start him on Tuesday against Shrewsbury.

Edited by sydneycroatia58: 18/9/2011 08:22:31 PM

Completely agree with this

if keown doesnt come in then at least give bould free reigns as defensive coach. hell any one but arsene.

Thing is Bould would rather stay as youth coach. Word is he would prefer to stay as U18's coach than just be a defence coach.

Isnt there an offer on the table for Sol Campbell to become a coach? Who would you rather Keown or Campbell as Defensive coach?

All these names thrown around because they were great defenders. Are they great coaches?

A defensive coach isn't going to fix things.

Edited by busbybabe: 19/9/2011 07:04:22 PM

Apparently the team spends nearly no time working on defending from set pieces or defending in general.

Thing is they don't have to be a great all round coach, just helping out with the defence, and who better to do that than Martin Keown.

I agree they only need to point out a few things and pass on their experience and knowledge but they need leaders at the back. You either have it or you don't and Arsenal seem to lack that at the back. It isn't something you can teach.

We've got Vermaelen who's as good a leader as you will find, and I think Mertesacker once he's gelled into the team and with his teammates will become another leader at the back.

The other thing about bringing in a defensive coach is it just brings some fresh ideas and some new blood into the backroom staff, which can't hurt.

Backing Bolton to pull of something special next week and get Wengers head rolling :D

-PB

no more zonal!

it looks funny.

There's a good chance we could play 4-4-2 in the morning. Apparently the lads have been doing a lot of training for it.

Will be good to see, if we do play it, how Chamakh and Park go together.

Good to see some actual thinking here than the usual 'arsene must go'that seems to be popping up everywhere. Losing to sides like Blackburn isn't atypical of Arsenal. We always struggle against the rougher Northern sides like Blackburn and Bolton.

The solution? Bring in Tony Adams or George Graham. Both are proven coaches. Bring Lee Dixon in from the BBC perhaps.

Get some of that old boring, boring Arsenal mentality back into the squad. We need it to compete in England.

See wat happens when Bendtner leaves? We go to the shitter.

Graham won't be coming back, and TA certainly won't be coming back unless it's as manager. Martin Keown is the best choice at the moment. If we were to bring someone in that is.

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/van-persie-ryo-is-everything-fans-look-for

Edited by sanga1: 20/9/2011 10:57:27 PM

Edited by sanga1: 20/9/2011 10:58:01 PM

An interesting squad has been named for Shrewsbury. A lot of young guys.

Chuks Aneke
Yossi Benayoun
Daniel Boateng
Marouane Chamakh
Francis Coquelin
Johan Djourou
Lukasz Fabianski
Emmanuel Frimpong
Kieran Gibbs
Carl Jenkinson
Damian Martinez
Ignasi Miquel
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
Oguzhan Ozyakup
Ju Young Park
Ryo
Sanchez Watt
Nico Yennaris

I'd go 4-4-2 and wouldn't mind seeing something like this



Although I suspect we may see something like this



If Park plays in behind Chamakh it'll be more of a 4-4-1-1 but otherwise the normal 4-2-3-1