Home game against Palace - Season Opener 2014 - 2015

[Humoresque]

the problem is the manager makes players fit into his ridged, stubborn system without flexibility

[Raggy]

I agree that Sanogo was totally useless today but most of our players were shit today including Sanchez. I am a fan of Sanogo, but I am now thinking he is taking forever to find his footing.

Sanchez needs to play it simpler at times. He is trying too hard. No need to try and impress. We all know he is good. His passing was poor.

Arteta is slow and getting slower. WE NEED A HOLDING MID!

Our defence was ok today. Even if Calum plays as a CB, we need another.

Peace

[brucegrove]

why does he insist on playing 451 against the poorest attacking teams in the division ?

there are absolutely no excuses for not whipping palace 3-0 or 4-0 today. none.

AKB's living on "hope" again.

1) I agree that it's baffling why we won't play 4-4-2 against lesser opponents. When Giroud was warming up yesterday i presumed that the ineffectual Cazorla would be taken off and that we'd play Giroud and Sanogo upfront together like in the cup final. Playing 4-5-1 against lower division Bradford and Blackburn in the cups 2 seasons back was bizarre really. If player-for-player everybody in your team is better than the opposition why not show some adventure, open up the midfield space playing 4 instead of 5 and just take them on.

2) As has been pointed out elsewhere, this was our first opening day win since 2009 so i think we shouldn't moan about the style of it. We were the only home team to win in the Prem yesterday and Palace are no mugs, their form in the 2nd half of last season was outstanding and despite being manager less they've got a settled team so there was no big upheaval for them yesterday. I know we scored 4 away to Everton some years back but teams simply don't win big on the opening day, the fitness isn't there and people who expect us to thrash decent opposition and then get wound up when we don't need to be a bit more rational.

3) Wrong thread i know but last season and yesterday i was mightily impressed by Jedynak, he could be a cheap option to take over the Arteta role

[Gunnersaurus]

It was an important win because defeat would have killed any momentum gained over the Summer after the Cup win but it wasn't a great performance.

We still have the same clear weaknesses that need to be addressed, holding midfielder and proper striker, until those come it will be same old same old.

[northbank123]

I think Sanchez is more or less perfectly crafted to play a wide forward role in a 4-5-1 or 4-3-3 how they should generally be played. He's quick, seems to have good movement, great dribbler with plenty of tricks in the locker and can beat men from a standing start, and more than comfortable coming infield and getting involved in build-up. Also seems pretty tenacious and determined, and with a low centre of gravity might be deceptively difficult to knock off the ball.

But when we play with a useless donkey like Sanogo up front who can't contribute anything to build-up and we are so laboured in possession, we are going to get performances like that from Sanchez. How many times was the ball given to him in an area of genuine opportunity? It's not a complete defence because even allowing for that and rustiness, he was still disappointing and put in some awful crosses in the second half. But notice how he actually started popping up when Chamberlain came on and injected a bit of pace and urgency and Palace were slightly stretched?

Monreal is like a rabbit in the headlights and he is permanently scared of his own shadow. I'm not really sure why you are reading so much defensively into our full-backs from yesterday's game Augie when Palace got in our half 3 or 4 times all game. Debuchy chucked in a few decent crosses (although good luck aiming for one statue amongst 4 defenders in the box) and popped up for the goal - hardly a definitive performance but he's made a pretty good start for us I'd say, although he will be tested far more.

[afcforever]

We never played well, but to come from a goal down and win is a good win.
Why Wenger puts eleven players in the box defending a corner, and has no one on either posts, is a joke.

[augie]

The sun newspaper gave chambers a marking of 5 out of 10 yesterday and said that he needs to improve......I know that it is a shit newspaper at times but that is just bizarre He was without doubt one of our 3 best players yesterday (admittedly not hard I know) but to knock the kid after a strong and positive performance is totally ridiculous

In other ratings it gave le postman a marking of 4 and suggested that he will never score a goal at this level

Personally I thought that the ox changed the game yesterday - his energy and direct running upped our tempo hugely and he would nearly always be in my starting 11

[rodders999]

Scezney's distribution was once again dire yesterday. His shit clearance led to the corner we conceded from and was nearly intercepted from another casual pass. The sooner a rocket is put up his hole by Ospina the better for me.

[northbank123]

He just didn't need to come out to clear it in the first place. Keepers being positive is great but the defender was never in any danger of getting beaten to the ball and a keeper with half a brain would have stayed back to offer a backpass option instead of charging out and hacking it straight down the middle of the park. Like Rodders says, so fucking casual with the other pass as well. There was a huge improvement in Szczesny last year and I honestly think we have got a bit of a gem on our hands potentially. But the careless attitude seemed to slip back into his game towards the end of last season and I'd love to see him benched at some point this season.

I thought Chambers did okay yesterday. Hardly the most testing game for him but good to build up experience there. For me, the booking he picked up yesterday and the way he got mugged off by Dzeko and nearly cost us last week show why he shouldn't be our 3rd-choice CB this season - he hasn't had much experience of playing the role at any level being a CM converted to a RB and it showed. Clever forwards in the PL will spot it and keep dragging him out of position and he will continue to panic in the short-term like those occasions.

Of course he's only going to get experience by getting game time there but for me it's a Carling Cup/CL group stage/injury crisis job at the moment, not a primary injury cover/rotational choice. We were lucky with our CBs staying fit last year, can't bank on it again. Thought Koscielny was brilliant yesterday too.

[Theoperator]

If he insists on resting giroud then why not try Campbell and Sanchez as 2 up front? In this sort of match they would have definitely messed their park the bus approach up?

At least we won, but I am v worried that lessons wont be learnt and the same sort of exercise and team will feature against Leicester.

V Toffees I expect to see a stronger side with BFG and Ozil obviously.

[northbank123]

If he insists on resting giroud then why not try Campbell and Sanchez as 2 up front? In this sort of match they would have definitely messed their park the bus approach up?

At least we won, but I am v worried that lessons wont be learnt and the same sort of exercise and team will feature against Leicester.

V Toffees I expect to see a stronger side with BFG and Ozil obviously.

There's your answer.

Last year against Wigan when we went 2 up front and sacrificed our usual style of football to just lump it forward it saved us and the opposition weren't prepared/couldn't cope. Even yesterday, we only won the game because we flooded the box with numbers and won 2 headers. As simplistic as it sounds, we just didn't have the numbers up there yesterday, especially with no AMC.

[Rosicky's Right Boot]

For all the people saying we could only scrape past a managerless Crystal Palace, let's not forget that we haven't got one either.

[Theoperator]

For all the people saying we could only scrape past a managerless Crystal Palace, let's not forget that we haven't got one either.

[StuartL]

For all the people saying we could only scrape past a managerless Crystal Palace, let's not forget that we haven't got one either.

It was only a day or two before the match they became managerless - Pulis would have been drilling them all week on being dour, defensive and hard to beat, the fact he wasn't there won't have changed that one iota.

Not much to say apart from 3 points in the bag from a shit performance - Arsene certainly has certainly had a few lucky escapes recently (Wigan / Hull ) which have no doubt in his mind justified his team selections / tactics (sic)

[Supagoon]

Both Özil and Sánchez were certain starters for Real and Barca respectively.

Ozil was subbed off many times and he wasn't happy about that.

Sanchez didn't always start, that's why they let him go. Their loss our gain.