Our wings ALWAYS have 2/3 opposition players marking them. Last night even knowing how dangerous Sane was from the first leg, we only every had 1 person on him when he received the ball.
Bayern had 2 players on Saka and Martinelli and had 2 players on Ode. If you stifle our wings and Ode, you severely restrict our goal scoring options. In the PL, most teams do not have sufficient quality to stifle all 3 consistently and so we get chances.
@Pires is correct - it is not the system, it is the lack of class players who can change games. City have Rodri/Foden/KDB/Silva/Haaland/Grealish/Doku and more. Arsenal really rely on Ode/Saka that can step up consistently up front.
Have you seen Wolves last 3-4 games? A losses to Villa and West Ham and draws against Burnley and Forest
My theory is that Arteta watched that version of the team burn itself out and instead of doubling down on that approach he went all in on control and solidity. I mean how many strikers or forwards have we bought with him in charge? Four? (Willian, Trossard, Jesus, Havertz)
Yes I think we should’ve beaten Bayern (to then probs lose to Madrid anyway), but to even be competing for the title so close again, while handling a much more serious European competition, is fucking great and I’ve enjoyed these last 2 seasons more than any for the past 15 years.
You can’t just expect to win everything, soon we will turn our potential into a reality either in the PL or CL I’m sure.
How we finish this season will weigh very heavily on my mind.
If we collapse down the stretch again and finish in third after losing to Chelsea, Spurs, United then for all the good work in the first two thirds of the season, that’s a problem. That’s three years in a row we’ve run out of gas/ideas in the final third of the season. It all starts to feel a bit Poch at Spurs.
Doesn’t mean we get rid of Arteta or anything like that, but it’s a concern if we get to this time next year and are in the midst of another similar collapse.
I’ve long laughed at this and I think it’s very clear we’re a much better team now, however, having Xhaka for depth around this period would’ve been very useful since Vieira, ESR and Partey have proven to be near useless this season.
I largely concur - however we are missing a clinical goal scorer. As mentioned in one of the threads, Bayern left our CBs with as much time on the ball as they wanted, but blocked their passes into our midfielders. Odegaard had 2 and sometimes 3 players on him - Rice and Jorginho were not able to alleviate that or offer outlets to then progress the attacks (both are more defensively minded).
We need a midfielder who can defend but who can also progress the ball in attack (similar to what Xhaka was starting to achieve - but needing more pace). Kai in that role doesn’t quite work (yet) because he is still looking to pass (safely usually) rather than drive forward/shoot.
Yeah, it would take some convincing to get him out of Leverkusen this summer. With Alonso most likely going to Madrid, I can also imagine him being touted as one of Alonso’s first moves there.
Highly emotive night coupled with the game the previous Sunday.
Maybe as fans we’re expecting too much too soon and with all the media hype and criticism it’s been hard to escape and not get caught up in it all.
Either way, on reflection (and aside from OA a complete media ban), we may well end up trophy less this year again but that’s ok because we are in a better place, regardless, a few more tweaks with the added experience we’ve gained will hopefully see us keep challenging.
As much as it seems shit that we may be tailing off on form, the club has brought us all back together again to be able to make us believe we can win trophies, mostly the fan base seems together and that’s always a positive. The ups and downs will always be there and people (me included) will to some point always have the capacity to be reactionary but it’s good to be supporting Arsenal again, no matter what everyone outside the club would like you to believe.
We all need to get behind the team and play our part in this now aswell come the season end.
If this was two defeats at the beginning or midway in the season I’d agree, but two defeats during crunch time when the margins are extremely tight is different. We all knew we had to win every GSM eto stand a chance of winning trophies, so to call out fan at the crunch part of the season when we’ve list 2 on the bounce isn’t really fair (unless it’s AFTV, they’re cunts.)
