03 Dec 2017 05:12:43
Shocking Arsenal defending with the match lost after 11mins
Wenger should look at how Mourinho set his team out, particularly defensively.
Terrible tackle by Pogba that could easily have damaged Bellerin's knee ligaments. Tackles such as this should be punished by longer term bans than the current 3 matches.
Awful refereeing by the dire Marriner, who missed 3 penalties. In addition to two in the closing stages, there was a third earlier on when Sanchez was pulled over off the ball in the box. Marriner and Atkinson need to be replaced as PL referees.
03 Dec 2017 08:10:50
Kos has been brilliant for us and still has some good games in him but he is making more and more mistakes, he did an identical cross field pass v Huddersfield as he did yesterday the only difference is Utd had the class to take full advantage.
He has been our defensive king pin for years but at 32 age is catching up fast and while I'm not saying get rid right now or even in the summer but he does need replacing as number one top man defender who rescues the rest from their mistakes.
Xhaka continues to lose the ball cheaply on a regular basis, at home against Brighton Newcastle Palace we can probably get away with it with either the opposition not taking advantage or us scoring enough for his mistakes not to count but away from home and against the top teams it's going to always put us in trouble.
When Mesut and Sanchez go our own recklessness will become more and more costly over 90 minutes even at the Emirates.
It's not a case of looking for problems it's simply a case of not pretending they don't exist.
Cech and Kos are not what they use to be as age is catching up Sanchez and Ozil are off that's 4 huge gaps that are about to need fillimg asap while Xhaka and Iwobi continue to look completely out of their depth over 90 minutes and certainly over a season.
We can blame the ref all we want but it didn't do Spurs and Burnley any good so I doubt it will us.
We played very very well yesterday but utd were just to well organised disciplined and extremely clinical for us on the day.
De Gea was unbelievable but to be fair Utd defended extremely well as a team worked very hard broke with fantastic pace and clinical clever efficency, no complaints at all from me it was a great game.
03 Dec 2017 09:20:05
We lost the game in the opening 11 minutes as our shape was all wrong, which meant we had no cover if we did make mistakes, which we did. If we started with the 3 CB's sat deeper, with the 2 wing backs also sitting deeper then in effect we have a back 5 with cover available in all defensive positions, plus 2 defensive CB's. This is exactly what United did and it flattered us as once they were ahead by 2 goals they sat back and hit us on the break. Even when we did break through our players were often under pressure as they shot and they had a world class keeper in top form.
As I have said since the start of the season we need 2 more CB's and this is getting even more desperate as Mertesacker is retiring at the end of the season and Chambers will never be good enough for a team with top four ambitions. Although Monreal has performed well at CB, against top teams he is found out. We should try and sign Van Dijk and Manolas, which would transform our defence.
In midfield N'Zonzi has fallen out with his current manager and has a £30m realease clause, whilst Fellaini is a free agent this summer.
Imagine a defence of Mustafi, Van Dijk and Manolas, protected by N'Zonzi and Fellaini. These taller acquisitions would also provide an offensive threat at set pieces.
We also need replacements for departing Ozil and Sanchez, Fekir and Mahrez or Saha. They are not quite the quality of Ozil and Sanchez, but signing true world class players is extremely difficult.
03 Dec 2017 10:12:17
fellaini and nzonzi? van dijk and manolas? fellaini's still dross regardless of how he has been playing recently and we're not made of money for van dijk and manolas. looking at what must be easily £100m+ for those two.
are we just replacing the whole squad now? because might as well replace cech, bellerin and xhaka well we're at it too.
03 Dec 2017 10:15:53
We lost the game yesterday because of sloppy human error that allowed utd to take control.
We can all play football manager RG mate and say this that the other player would do this or that for us.
The fact is no matter who you buy teams like united will always punish a sloppy pass especially at the back, sloppy has become Xhaka's trade mark since joining us and Kos is slowing down simply because of age, Cech too unfortunately.