On the subject of Lichsteiner clearly coming to the PL at his age to a team that is abysmal defensively is not helping him.
If heād have joined Spurs, this current Liverpool team and the like he wouldnāt be in such positions but the individual errors heās making are almost unforgiveable considering his pedigree. Heās getting simple defensive actions such as clearances awfully wrong, I suppose heās caught the Arsenal bug good and proper. Well, that or heās just shit now.
Canāt argue with any of your analysis there!
One thing Iām glad you mentioned yesterday was our midfield. Naturally with the defensive calamity on show that it got overlooked by pundits but our midfield in general is atrocious. Thereās a common reason why Aubameyang was not involved and why our defence was more exposed than usual and thatās our midfield. Even in games weāve impressed in this season (such as the NLD) our midfield has never had any control and has been poor in all fundamentals of a midfield (possession, creativity, keeping the shape of the team). Itās probably why Torreira has been such a revelation, as he covers space particularly well and hides some of the basic deficiencies that Xhaka/Guendouzi etc have.
I love these posts.
I want to say something about point 3 though. While I agree it seemed to be a decent enough shape for the game, looking back I think Emery was wrong to play so defensively.
Liverpool dominated the start as we looked to get men behind the ball and not commit forward or take the game to them in any way. Our opener came against the run of play.
When you have a defence as bad as ours, with the propensity for such individual errors, thatās a recipe for disaster.
Playing the game with an increased pressure on our paper thin defence was a bad bad move, and I think is a huge reason we got humped the way we did.
Shades of Barca 6-1 at PSG for me.
I donāt get why we didnāt play Ozil or more realistically Lacazette, to give them something to think about and give the defence some room to breathe like we did the home game.
The mentality was all wrong. Itās something that is worrying because while Iām all on board the Emery train for now, this is a huge problem that has been levelled at him before.
We have two world class strikers we dont need wingers. Play 3 at the back with wingbacks and that solves the winger issue and lets us play our two best attackers every game
If you look at the team Liverpool put out, compared with ours, the difference is clear.
None of our players are good enough to get in their first team.
They have a manager who identifies weaknesses in the team and then buys the best players available to fill them.
They have a board ready to back their manager financially, and they have proved their ambition is as great as his.
But most of all they play as a team and are effective defensively, as well as going forward, and are well organised.
They are playing with confidence because they have world class players in all positions and true leaders like VVD, and others, that we simply donāt have.
We looked flimsy in defence, with weaknesses in all positions and lacking any direction.
Their worst defender would walk into our first team and our best defender wouldnāt even get on their bench.
Itās a disgrace that we are so far behind a club that are less profitable than us and the reason is because our board are lazy, tight and indecisive, with no ambition other than to make money.
In terms of ambition, organisation and decisiveness Liverpool are the opposite of us, we arenāt even in the same league.
Agree with this mostly. However even if the board are only interested in a top 4 spot, even they now know that our policy wont sustain that anymore.
So if it is about making money that will have to change straight away. They may not be good football men but they know how to protect profit margins.
I think our board understand that even if we were mid table we would still fill the stadium.
They know that falling out of the CL isnāt as bad financially as some have said it could have been and that just competing for a CL is good enough.
Itās true that they want to make money from our limited success but realistically they know that just challenging for top four with a few cup runs thrown in is now considered good enough.
As supporters we have been lumbered with a board who a way behind other clubs in terms of ambition.
We canāt even brag we have the biggest stadium in London any more because spurs new stadium will be bigger.
We will have to be satisfied with what we have seen seen in recent seasons and watch all our rivals pull away from us.
Did people actually do this? 
To boast you are the biggest club in London you have to be better than the others or have more support.
We have neither, compared with spurs.
We might be bigger historically but in recent t seasons there has been a definite shift away from us towards them.
I can tolerate not winning the PL or not being in the CL, but to watch that lot overtaking us is unacceptable.
we have to be run better as a club.
Weāve been run like shit, while looking like weāre run well. Itās such a shambles. I donāt know when we will get out of this.
A fan revolt?
Maybe the fans will make a stand after a couple of transfer windows. If it is a question of funds being released (or not being released, rather) then I can maybe see something along the likes of a boycott for 1 or 2 home games next season
Iād like to think that would work, and to a certain extent when it happened the transfer window we bought Ozil, it seemed to have an effect.
But even when we splashed out 42m for him, we had gone several windows seeing our best players leave and it would have been the first season where didnāt have a genuine world class player, so the board were forced into a corner and even Wenger admitted that Ozil wasnāt a player he had been chasing but when the offer came up he said āit was too good to turn down.ā
Also, Kroenke rarely attends matches so any sort of protest or revolt would be pointless and I donāt think Kroenke could care less as he doesnāt support us, or even likes football.
These protests have happened at other clubs like Newcastle but they never seem to make much difference.
Kroenke bought the club because he saw a way of making massive profits with minimal investment and thatās exactly what he is going to continue to do.
^^^ exellent post, have said for a while Kroenke hasnt been stopping anything people are quick to jump on him. It is just sheer stupidity that even with Alexis we were once offered Ā£60m but we rejected it to keep him for 1/2 a season more then swap him for nothing with Mhkiā¦and this shit with ramsey etc all the players we should have binned when we could get something for them. Gross mismanagement.
Youāre talking directly out of your hole now saying we donāt have more support than spurs.
This is total nonsense and you know it. Our fan base is exponentially bigger than Spurs both in London and across the world.
Thatās true.
We have lost Wilshere and Sanchez for a fraction of what we could have got them for and sold Perez for around 3m after only playing just a few cup games when we had bought him for almost a club record, for a striker, at 17m.
It looks like we could also lose Ramsey on a free who was worth around 40m a couple of seasons ago.
Itās amazing the amount of players we want to get rid of but canāt because they are on massive wages, even if they are no good, yet players we want to keep are walking away and weāre getting almost nothing for therm.
Game was predictable unfortunatelyā¦ at least 2-3 calamitously pathetic defensive plays from midfield-back and a day when Pool were up for it. We needed a bad day from them and some massive luck.
In all seriousness, that bumbling bouncing moronic clearance by Lichtsteiner that bounced into perfect path of Firmino kind of sums up our defense.
So onto ratingsā¦
Leno - 6. Donāt recall him doing anything really dumb this week and with that defense in front of him, that is saying something
Lichtsteiner - 2. awful. Should not play for us in prem at all.
Moose - 2.5. Disaster of a signing. That ātackleā on Firmino was hilarious. Had it been inside the box, he would have scythed him down 100%
Papa - 3. Better in second half but just f*ing shambles too
Kola - 3.5. Poor game. Harsh pen but dumb challenge.
AMN - 6.5. Not great but better this week. Gets bonus for our only goal
Xhaka - 5. Midfield was diabolical but he wasnāt mostly to blame
Tory - 3. Worst game from him to date. Contributed to 2 of their goals at least. Looked weak and tired
Ramsey - 4.5. Useless other than occasional run. At least he seemed up for it
Iwobi - 6. Still not convinced, but he came ready to play and took more responsibility. Ok with him on the day. Still need upgrading at wing
Auba - 5. Team was so dysfunctional he was isolated. Still expect more
Koss - 5. Donāt remember him doing anything supremely dumb, but it is over for him with his Achilles. Great servant past it
Guen - 5. Meh at least he is trying but symptomatic of our issue. It used to be that players like Cesc broke into FT now we have AMN, Guen, Iwobiā¦
Laca- 5.5. Needs to play.
Analysis for me boils down to pressing. During our better period we pressed semi- competently. Lately we are back to Wenger pressing, which is to say everyone express yourselfā¦ teams like BHA can pass through us and progress upfield with shocking ease. That is on Emeryā¦ it is controllable. No excuse there, especially if leaving Ozil out is a reason for it