It was so bizarre, I have serious concerns about Wenger's sanity.
Welbeck instead of Lacazette Holding who he dropped down to the U23s only a week ago instead of Mustafi Bellerin at LWB instead of Kolasinac Chamberlain even being in the team
They aren't even debatable ones either, they're ****ing mental.
Last edited by Billy Goat Sverige; 08-28-2017 at 07:45 AM.
It was so bizarre, I have serious concerns about Wenger's sanity.
The perseverance with an out of position Chamberlain, and the enforced resultant knock-on across the defence is just baffling.
He has allegedly said he does not want to stay and continue to play for the club, whatever about his professional attitude to his last 12 months but that is the crux of it. He is not such a good player – as one could argue with the other two – as to continue this stance of playing him in the hope that he suddenly thinks differently, which surely is what is happening.
You buy two assets to strengthen your team, both of whom have started their careers very promisingly, and then you leave them out for the first major top 6 clash – having hooked both of them last week when things were going wrong at Stoke. They weren’t even going that wrong, we just contrived to fúck up a game we should have won.
The midfield. Now forget individual opinions on the qualities or otherwise of the two players, but at some point you have to ask what managerial tactical instruction they are being given. Ramsey doesn’t just decide on his own will to charge into the most forward position in the team so early in matches, if he does he is told to stop, if he does not do so the manager acts. Bringing Coquelin from the bench is not the answer either, he is not good enough, he would not make the starting 11 of any side we are allegedly in competition with.
Ramsey is (correctly) getting abuse for having his back to play when the move for the first goal developed. He was talking to the bench. Now I assume he wasn’t asking for opinions on the finale of GOT so what was going on, tactical instructions, injury … whatever it was who on the bench thought it appropriate to have that chat as play went on behind them. Meanwhile Chamberlain was just walking away, in his own world.
It was a fúcking shambles really. Maybe not the worst in my ever but certainly the worst I can recall. Very good footballers looking like pub players, not one bar Cech has a shred of credit.
And now I expect we will sell our 35m German international defender in the next few days, the player we spent weeks chasing only 12 months ago.
I just don’t get it.
Last edited by SWv2; 08-28-2017 at 08:27 AM.
We will sell him and Chamberlain and get maybe £60m back. If we don't sign anyone this week (not that it will make a difference but we need a CB and CM) then we are well and truly ****ed. We'll probably end up with Draxler or Mahrez as a "make everyone happy for a week" panic buy.
What do you think the reasons that Wenger didn't want to discuss are?
Asked what went wrong Wenger said: “Everything. From the first to the last minute, not physically, not technically not mentally we were not at the level and we were punished. It was a tough day. You can analyse the chances we gave away but overall the performance was not at the requested level.”
Pushed on why, Wenger added: “That is very difficult to answer after the game. There are some reasons but I don’t think I have too much to comment on that now.
No manager is going to lay his soul bare and be 100% open and honest in a post-game interview. It’s all about generic statements to get the enforced interview over.
I thought he was quite open and damning really and he is not so stupid as to know his statements incriminated himself and his staff. Players clearly have to take the brunt here, but then if players are telling the club they don’t want to stay but are still being selected ahead of others then the manager is perhaps badly mis-judging the situation.
He appears muddled to me also. Any set back in a match and almost his first reaction is to drop the tactical set-up of 3 across the back. It works when the correct personnel are in place or when the players selected carry out the tactical instruction.
Indeed.
When almost every watching football expert / pundit has a very clear view and the only contrary view appears to be Wenger then you have to question his current state of mind.
Reacting this week and bringing in whatever new players will only be seen now as an act of desperation in light of a humiliating performance, similar to the reaction to the defeat at OT all those years ago. Not a plan of any sort just a panic.