Players must take share of blame
Sagna First
By Boris Mellor
March 25 2008
Unless someone has a tape of Wenger telling the team that he wanted them to go one nil up, and then play like a load of twats, then it is a fair bet that the team are largely to blame for their own misfortune.For 60 minutes the team gave as good as it got until it found itself one nil up, it then proceeded to lose its grip, throwing away what could have been an historic victory.
They were well placed to win the game, true the injury to Sagna disrupted the rhythm of the team, but they were beginning to lose it before he went off. Things got even worse when Grant put Anelka alongside Drogba, this proved far more deadly than Joe Cole and Drogba, and it was the centre of Arsenal's defence that couldn't cope. Perhaps it demonstrates how dependant Toure is on Sagna for cover, but certainly for the next 20 minutes he and Gallas did a fair impression of the Chuckle Brothers.
Wenger was moved to criticise the defence as a unit, but he couldn't have meant the magnificent Clichy and Sagna. I know it's popular to criticise Eboue, and he does some stupid things, but on the wing he had a good game, and his partnership with Sagna created havoc in the Chelsea ranks. However his presence in defence was less certain, and, perhaps, because of it the defence as a unit began to buckle. Certainly he and Walcott did not have the impact of his partnership with Sagna, it also meant Arsenal lost width just as Chelsea started to funnel everything down the middle, mainly with over the top hopeful hoofs.
It was this bombardment that seemed to put the centre of the Gunners defence into a state of chaos. Earlier in the game they had defended as a team and kept out everything thrown at them. Clichy had kept a tight grip on Cole, and still found time for threatening runs.
Chelsea, from 70 minutes on had two deadly strikers, by 76 minutes the rusty van Persie had departed. As Chelsea became more powerful up front Arsenal seemed to become more lightweight. Contrary to some knee jerk responses written by disgruntled Gooners, and believe me my gruntle is as dissed as anyone's, Hleb was the best midfielder for the Arsenal.
Hleb worked tirelessly, but one feature of his game grates, that is his condition of scoreophobia. The man breaks into a sweat at the thought of scoring; a fear of flying is far less disabling for a footballer. If our most effective midfielder cannot score, then there is not a lot of hope in making up a deficit. Certainly Fab and Flam were no better in that department.
Adebayor has hit a lean spell, and van Persie has come back too late, by the time he finds the net our season will be finished. Just imagine what Eduardo might have done, for him fat English bastards are like a red rag to bull.
It probably all went wrong when Eduardo was wasted at Birmingham, and the boy Robin took far longer to recover than expected. Walcott might have replaced Eduardo after his two great goals at Brum, but immediately afterwards he was injured.
Distractions
Now we can blame Wenger all we like, his failure to predict in January that Eduardo would be injured in late February particularly rankles with some, but shouldn't the players take some of the blame? Birmingham was forgivable, it was exceptional and harrowing, and Birmingham cheated for their two goals. The following game was understandable, the team still hadn't got the injury out of their head, but two more draws and a defeat just isn't good enough. There must be distractions here, Flamini wavering on his contract, Hleb going out for ice cream before a big game. Fabregas carping on that he can do more for Spain, if I was you Cesc I would try and do more for Arsenal, like scoring a goal in the Premiership, before our season goes down the toilet.
That the squad is stretched and tired no longer washes as an excuse, the decks were cleared by exiting the cups, and they have been on a game a week, for the last few weeks. With a load of shyte Internationals coming up, and three games in a row in six days against Liverpool what can we expect? They were only 14 games away from glory and now they have 10 games to salvage something from the wreckage. A fish rots from the head, and on this occasion it is the heads of the players that has gone.
Just contrast their performances in August & September when they were underdogs, everybody wrote 'em off; and they played without fears, without hangups of expecting to win.
C'mon Febraurya dn MArch, they were the favorites and WERE EXPECTED TO WIN EVERY GAMES!!!
And it got to their heads..and they just collapsed mentality.
San Siro?
One off as they were also written off and WERE NOT EXPECTED TO WIN!!!
Evey pundits predicted the "slaughtering of the lambs" at San Siro.
What do you know? No expectation to win, underdogs, no hangups and pressure to win......
Yup, rot started from the heads....
Cesc, Helb and Ade needed rest....he'll burn Cesc out....
The bloke was a grade A c*nt. I'm glad he's f*cked off.
if we had seasoned players challneging in the first team we could rest some of our 'first team' players. instead cesc, adebayor, flamini, gallas etc are playing every single match in which they are not injured. Man Utd and Chelsea have shown that in the last few seasons with the increased competitiveness of the EPL you need to have a squad with stamina to last the whole season- and that means resting players, which in turn means you need a big squad.
Oh well, water beneath the bridge...
anelka- no one would have predicted eduardos horrific injury
True it would be better if Gilbs had gone and Diarra stayed, now Wenger got Diarra on the very cheap, but he got quality.
What quality would be available at Xmas and at what cost?
Then you spend £20million on quality by what time do they become good? It took six monts to get diarra up to speed and the p rick fecked off.
Whats point of crying over spilt milk?
As for Woodgate what a relief wenger didnt buy him, I know some fans who would have been extremely upset if he played for Arsenal, he has a nasty personal record, should we not care about that? Didnt do Leeds a lot of good do it?
To pass on woodgate because of his injury proneness makes sense but not because he was involved in a racial incident nearly ten years ago.
The players must take the blame for bad performances but the manager must also show the strength to drop out of form players and trust in our reserves no matter what their age. If players such as Barazite are classed as reserve players then they should be used when the first team members are either out through injury or form. If they are not used then they are not reserves.
We are patently short a few players to substitute the quality of Fabergas, Ade, Helb etc....
Chelsea have it, United have it.....we don't and it has cost us yet again!!
I think he has Giggs and Scholes replacements in the making in Nani and Anderson.....and has them playing out of their skins for their places....
The problem exists now- United invested last season but might only reap the full rewards NEXT season and if they buy one or two good signings who have Torres like adjustment to the EPL we will be playing catch u yet again.