Should have a great player in front of him to bring him through gradually instead of being thrown in and when he inevitably plays poorly is continually selected in the starting XI until he’s burned out, confidence is shot or both.
Says a lot that Iwobi is some kind of near automatic starter here.
Not happy for him, but his two mistakes (one at Paris with his low shot in front of the GK and tonight with the owngoal) cost us the first palce in the group.
It’s never going to come easy as a homegrown starlet at a club like ours, we haven’t had a meteoric rise like his since Wilshere and there’s no-one else with him to share that burden (our most promising area of central midfield and the wider areas will likely have to wait their turn under Wenger whilst Ramsey, Walcott and Chamberlain are still all at the club together, not to mention Iwobi himself).
Wenger should be taking him out of the team after 3 or 4 ineffectual performances and spinning him the line about youth, inconsistency and working to earn his place back. Iwobi clearly loves playing for this club, we don’t want another young guy with his confidence dashed
An attacking midfielder (or a striker) “disappearing”, really is bullshit criticism. Especially when it’s a player like Iwobi, who has got great movement. If he’s not really having a lot of influence in the games, then it’s most likely because the team is terrible and him no longer getting the ball in the right positions. And if he does occasionally receive it in good positions, then he probably doesn’t have enough players around him to link up with. Much like how it is with Özil right now.
Iwobi is just an easy target at the moment. No reason at all to just put this down to “a lack of experience” or call for him to be dropped.
In favour of whom? He’s easily the best option in his position. I’ve just said this in the MDC, but our first-choice XI really should be fucking obvious (down to the fact of how little options we have) to everyone (unfortunately doesn’t seem to include Wenger):
Iwobi-Alexis-Walcott
Özil
Doesn’t really matter whilst Cazorla is out, they’re all shit options (ideally based on opponents and tactics, but, ha, ha, hahaha, hahahaha)
Xhaka
You clearly missed the Özil thread at the weekend. Totally legitimate criticism here.
Not getting the ball in good positions, not having much influence, “disappearing” etc etc. is not the same as having a bad game though. And much of the criticism is at that level. Having a bad game, would probably be more a case of him just being sloppy and giving it away all the time. And even those things, shouldn’t be too separate from the team performance.
Iwobi is the only player in the squad who can do what he does. If you want to be able to drop him, then you should have similar and better options in the squad and not just these bullshit plan B options.
Okay that’s all well and good, but you can’t decide that he didn’t have a bad game simply because he is an advanced forward.
Yes he needs the ball to be passed to him but equally it’s his role to create space and allow opportunities to be fed. If he was unable to handle his marker and couldn’t implement his style or impose himself, then it’s a poor game.
Not like he is an off the ball runner who’s game depends on service.
I share your views on this in principle but seeing as the team has really gone off the boil in recent weeks, i’m happy to change it up and reintroduce Giroud back into the mix.
Everyone knows Ramsey is the Alpha Wengerboy of the moment, and well if that’s going to be the case and he’s in the team then playing Giroud at least heightens his effectiveness, i.e. a player more at home linking up with Giroud’s (generally excellent) hold up play and knockdowns, rather than making intelligent runs off Ozil/Sanchez passes.
I don’t want to base a team around Ramsey either, but if Cazorla is injured and there is a bizarre reluctance to utilise Xhaka at present, then with Ramsey in there i’d team him with Giroud up front and Sanchez back out wide.
Good talent and people are being far too hard on him if you ask me. Young players have good games and bad games but this is why I don’t like to rush my assessment of them because you can never be sure where their career will go after such a limited amount of appearances.