As we're unlikely to see terraces again at football, this is the virtual equivalent where you can chat to your hearts content about all football matters and, obviously, Arsenal in particular. This forum encourages all Gooners to visit and contribute so please keep it respectful, clean and topical.
Nos89 wrote:I thought tonights performance was solid in comparison to recent away games. If we had someone on the pitch in the last 15 mins who could deliver a final pass, we would have created 2-3 very good goalscoring opportunities as bayern were very slack and tired. After we scored rosicky had three great opportunities to make that killer pass, on each occasion he made the wrong decision and it cost us.
My main concern is that when we get to this stage of the competition we never have our best players fit to play. Go back over the last 4-5 seasons when we played barca x 2, milan and bayern x 2 we have always had 2-3 of our best players out injured. This season ramsey, walcott, wilshere and gibbs missing. Bayern on the other hand had a fully fit squad. I really can't remember a time we had every player fit and ready to play. In this particular competition you have to field your best eleven players to have a chance to win. It's so frustrating.
But isnt that the crux of the matter ? Last night we played safe - we might have dropped a defensive player (flamoney) and started a more attacking player (podolski) but the reality is that by and large we played with most of our players behind the ball. Now as fans we might have taken the draw beforehand (cos of fear of a walloping) but there is no point in the manager coming out pre match and trying to dress it up as the team going all attacking cos the reality tells a different story It wasnt even a situation where bayern were going full pelt and forcing us back because they were clearly playing within themselves as will no doubt be proven in the future rounds.
Bendtners Drinking Buddy wrote:Thought we played well last night against a team clearly better than we are, i still feel like we are growing as a team / squad - we are moving forward and thats important.
It was important for us to dig in away from home against top class oppo and we did that, hopefully we can use that in the big games to come.
Thought Giroud played well last night, his hold up play is brilliant - but obviously he has limitations as the lone striker which did let us down, but you cannt deny the guy gives everything - its not down to him he is our main striking option and he deserves credit - he never huds.
Ox and Woookash both had very good games and credit to the skipper too who must be rusty to say the least and put in a performance.
The Ozil injury cannot possibly be good news, whilst i agree he isnt playing well - we need players like that for the remaining games. You do wonder just how many points we would have with Ramsey and Walcott fit, whilst im no big fan of the latter his goals / assists cannot be denied - he cant control a football at times but he does have an impact on games.
I thought that he was utter dogshite last night Granted he didnt have much help but I thought that his hold up play, and his first touch in general, were very very poor.
I think he did waste a few opportunities by taking the wrong option, but he runs and runs and runs and he wins headers sometimes that he has no right to win - like i say, i agree he has limitations but i think last night he put in a huge shift and took the pressure of our defence as best he could.
He missed Walcott, if you look at how they have combined over the past 18 months its crazy - without anyone drawing defenders away from him with raw pace he is often left 2v1 and thats tough for any lone forward.
Bendtners Drinking Buddy wrote:I think he did waste a few opportunities by taking the wrong option, but he runs and runs and runs and he wins headers sometimes that he has no right to win - like i say, i agree he has limitations but i think last night he put in a huge shift and took the pressure of our defence as best he could.
He missed Walcott, if you look at how they have combined over the past 18 months its crazy - without anyone drawing defenders away from him with raw pace he is often left 2v1 and thats tough for any lone forward.
We could have had carl lewis on the wings last night and it wouldnt have mattered - there was a HUGE gap between our midfield and giroud and our wingers were basically asked to play as wing backs You can argue that alba might not have pushed on as much if he was facing wally but our gameplan invoved our midfield sitting deep and being hard to break down
I thought our tactics were more or less spot on. There is no point going there, leaving massive gaps and being 2 down by half time. Imagine the stick Wenger would have got if that happened. My concern was that we didn't look like we had much of another gear to go into in the second half and imo a lot of that is down to not having a dynamic striker with pace.
LDB wrote:I thought our tactics were more or less spot on. There is no point going there, leaving massive gaps and being 2 down by half time. Imagine the stick Wenger would have got if that happened. My concern was that we didn't look like we had much of another gear to go into in the second half and imo a lot of that is down to not having a dynamic striker with pace.
If our intention was to avoid a hammering then yes that is what he should do, but if you are going there knowing that you need 3 goals to progress then sitting back makes no sense whatsoever. Wenker claimed that dropping flamoney was an attack minded decision so why ask the rest of the midfielders to sit back ? Why not play flamoney and allow the other midfielders (ozil and cazorla) to do what they do best and that of course is attack ? If the plan was to keep it tight then dont ask (and certainly dont expect) ozil to track alba's runs because that is not what he does. For me last night was another square pegs in round holes....he picked his system and then used the players least suited to that system
LDB wrote:I thought our tactics were more or less spot on. There is no point going there, leaving massive gaps and being 2 down by half time. Imagine the stick Wenger would have got if that happened. My concern was that we didn't look like we had much of another gear to go into in the second half and imo a lot of that is down to not having a dynamic striker with pace.
If our intention was to avoid a hammering then yes that is what he should do, but if you are going there knowing that you need 3 goals to progress then sitting back makes no sense whatsoever. Wenker claimed that dropping flamoney was an attack minded decision so why ask the rest of the midfielders to sit back ? Why not play flamoney and allow the other midfielders (ozil and cazorla) to do what they do best and that of course is attack ? If the plan was to keep it tight then dont ask (and certainly dont expect) ozil to track alba's runs because that is not what he does. For me last night was another square pegs in round holes....he picked his system and then used the players least suited to that system
tactics were correct but we didn't defend well in the first leg and the tie was over.
One point I would say is when Santi and Oxlade were napping and let Sweinsteiger run beyond them is something that other coaches would not tolerate. Is that not why Jose let Mata go, because when you compare the work rate and concentration of players like Oscar and Willian offer you can see the standard of defending you need to win this competition.
We have improved defensively this season but if we are ever to win this thing we will have to improve even more, never mind our attacking issues.
Anyone who is still in town interested in getting together to watch the CL matches tonight? The two options being rumored were the irish place across from Hofbrauhaus or Sports Cafe, but i have no idea where the latter is.
LDB wrote:I thought our tactics were more or less spot on. There is no point going there, leaving massive gaps and being 2 down by half time. Imagine the stick Wenger would have got if that happened. My concern was that we didn't look like we had much of another gear to go into in the second half and imo a lot of that is down to not having a dynamic striker with pace.
Ultimately you just can't leave yourself that much work to do. With the disparity between the two sides all you can do is set up with a solid shape, press cleverly, retain as much ball as possible and hope to nick something on the break, from a set piece or in a brief spell of dominance. Like we did last year. If we'd set up to play any more expansive we would without a doubt have gotten absolutely caned, the tie was buried long before last night. Obviously it would have been nice to cause them more problems going forward but we just haven't got the players.
It wasnt even a situation where bayern were going full pelt and forcing us back because they were clearly playing within themselves as will no doubt be proven in the future rounds.
Granted he didnt have much help but I thought that his hold up play, and his first touch in general, were very very poor.
You can argue that alba might not have pushed on as much if he was facing wally but our gameplan invoved our midfield sitting deep and being hard to break down
Why not play flamoney and allow the other midfielders (ozil and cazorla) to do what they do best and that of course is attack ? If the plan was to keep it tight then dont ask (and certainly dont expect) ozil to track alba's runs because that is not what he does. For me last night was another square pegs in round holes....he picked his system and then used the players least suited to that system 
