On LDB/armchair/clockender's discussion my own opinion has always been it's both at the same time – yet another one of those ridiculous contradictions we've been littered with for years now.
Clearly we go out without any sort of tactical game plan or preparation whatsoever, and more often than not there's no real structure to our play at all either. And there's been various quotes saying Wenger likes the players to
"figure things out for themselves" when they're struggling
, individually or collectively. But at the same time I don't think it's a case of the players being told (or even allowed) to express themselves either. Invariably all of them get turned into Wengerball zombies sooner or later, drilled into submission to always look for the same pass or make the same off the ball run in any given situation. That's partly why our subs rarely make a difference; the incoming robot does pretty much exactly the same things as the guy he's replaced – best case scenario he just does it a bit more effectively. Spontaneity and any kind of maverick off-the-cuff flashes of individuality seem to be frowned upon. Everyone has to act out the same monotonous passages of play, hence why we're so predictable and so easily neutered by inferior opposition.
As a result we seem to be the least prepared, most disorganised team around whilst simultaneously also being the most rigid and most inhibited at the same time. As LDB said, a bit of creative license to "express themselves" would actually be a step in the right direction. At least then a moment of individual brilliance might pull something out the bag when we're as shite as we were today.
As I said we've been littered with a shitload of these sorts of contradictions in recent years. A club that harks on about unsustainable wage policies and refuses to pay anything close to the going rate to/for quality players but pays well above the going rate to a manager without a trophy in 4/5ths of a decade, a bald CEO with more hair on his head than accomplishments in football and countless shite squad players . A team that "attacks" with it's striker completely isolated yet somehow gets hit on the break with players caught out ahead of the ball when those moves break down as if there's some kind of Bermuda triangle anyone in an Arsenal shirt disappears into 6 or 7 times a game. And so on. We seem to be chock-full of these worst of both worlds paradoxes.
And then there's Gervinho.
Probably all three!! 
I genuinely wish it was as simple as you say but alas it's not. The truth is that nearly all our defenders don't have a clue how to do their jobs or just don't have the ability befitting of a top side. Little Southampton, with hardly a premiership quality player in their side, were exposing the space time and again, be it the flanks or even through the middle, and the panic they caused our so called International defenders was embarrassing to see!! Thank fuck the saints didn't have any half decent forwards or we would have lost this game!! 
