Jeremy Cunnington
1. Our attacking style is too one dimensional
The vast majority of Arsenal’s attacking threat comes through the middle of the pitch, within the width of the penalty area though our narrow intricate one touch passing. When it works it is breath taking to watch (first 25 minutes vs Man City).
Yet this is relatively easy to block out, as all it needs is a couple of solid centre backs and a couple of good defensive midfielders. Thus unless Arsenal players are at their best, much of their attacking threat is negated. This for the most part was what happened on Sunday and was little different from a large number of games this season, especially at home eg West Brom, Newcastle Utd, Leeds and including Birmingham West Ham and Fulham where we managed to scrape wins. Even if Cesc had been playing or Nasri playing in the Cesc roll we would have struggled against a well organised team such as Birmingham.
2. Every team needs a number of experienced players
Young players need help in learning how to win things from experienced players. The young victorious Ajax and Manchester Utd teams of the 1990s had their fair share of experienced winners who helped the young players get over the finish line of winning high pressure matches, such as finals. Arsenal has a dearth of them and it showed on Sunday.
It is all very well our manager and our CEO waxing lyrical about the young age of the squad, the problem is they do not know how to win in pressure situations and while they have all played a large number of games all they have learnt during that time is how to lose, especially big crunch games. This is only likely to continue unless some proper experienced players (this does not include 30 year old never will be French defenders!) are recruited.
Let’s remember our previous successes under Wenger have come from an older team with a core of proven winners (the back five in 98) and the likes of Vieira, Bergkamp, Pires, Gilberto and Henry in 2002 and 2004.
3. We still do not work hard enough on our defending
We continue to concede from set pieces, something that should be relatively easy to drill the defence in. For the first goal some credit has to go to Birmingham for a well worked move but they were helped by poor marking.
The second goal is just awful, not only the mix up between Szczesny and Kicelney (sic) but also the fact that the ball should not have got that far as our defensive line was so deep when the free kick was in the opponents’ half, meaning any knock on (a good possibility with Zigic) was potentially dangerous. That is very bad (or perhaps lack of) defensive coaching and it was not a one off in the last minute. It happened two or three times during the game and in many others previously throughout the season. For free-kicks like that the defensive line should be 5-10 yards further up the pitch.
One should also not forget that Birmingham had a number of good opportunities (the penalty that never was, Szczesny save from Zigic and hitting the post in the second) which happened far too easily against a team that has scored less than a goal a game in the Premiership this season. It is not just down to the defensive but also the lack of midfield cover, but when you lack a proper defensive midfielder in the team what should one expect?
Thus, as I and many other people have been saying for a while a radical restructuring of the playing and coaching staff is needed at the end of the season. If the current manager cannot or will not do it then he should go. Yet radical change with this manager is about as likely as Van Persie staying fit for more than half a season. Improbable. And with the board more likely to give Wenger a pay rise than remove him here’s to another three years of the same!
