The players have been poor, but tactics play a bigger part...

[One Wilf Copping]

If Mourinho was Arsenal boss (God forbid), he'd have set the team up defensively away from home in a crucial match. He'd want them to be solid, close down the opposition, fight for the 50:50 balls, keep it tight and try - maybe - to nick a goal in the second half.

Wenger tells his team to believe in their ability, that they can win ANY game with their attacking football. Sadly we can't...

In fact we never could. No team can be in that perfect passing groove every game. Sometimes you need different tactics and a different approach.

Most coaches are pragmatists. Wenger used to be at least a little flexible when he first arrived, but isn't now and never will be again... If he'd been more of a pragmatist and varied his tactics we might have won a Champions League with his greatest teams, but we usually fell to 'inferior' teams that were able to vary their tactics - like Chelsea in the quarter-final of the Champions League in 2004.

Sadly this kind of result is probably now a pattern that will repeat itself ad infinitum.

[LadyG -keeping the spirit of the unbeatables alive]

I see you apply them in some games and not others, it then raises questions about your mentality and ability.

Where I feel we fail is that we have become too slow, too predictable and too methodical. There is no room for flair and self expression and there is too much fear and apprehension about making a mistake.

[Bergkamp's Brain]

Simple passes that went all over the place. That isn't tactics, that is shoddy

[One Wilf Copping]

[Peter]

God, every shower of **** in the premier league comes and put up a better showing than this.

There is clearly a tactical problem here in coping with effective pressing. It is bloody obvious.

Better players would help, of course they would. Wouldnt solve the problem though....we need to play these games differently and wenger either doesnt see it or has no way of drumming it into the players.

[ArseMart - Enjoy every sandwich]

[Bergkamp's Brain]

not tactics, just ****e. The rest of the game was a stroll for Chelsea.

[Peter]

Quite a few times in the first couple of minutes we were almost caught.

The team dont know how to handle playing without space. They continue to move ahead of the ball which means the minute you lose possession you sre f**ked. Is bound to keep happening when you are closed down and getting ahead of the play.

You have to play differently and we simply dont do it. Our own sttempts at pressing are ridiculous. One week we do it, next week we dont. Impossible to explain, and we never do it as a team very well.