We play with five in midfield yet we always seem short when the opposition have the ball. Arsenal are a top side and it’s no disgrace for us to lose to them but the midfield as it’s set up does not work. They don’t defend well and certainly don’t add much going forward, the extra man just seems to confuse us instead of helping.
Connor ended up that deep at times you could say he played midfield. Anyway how open were we for the first goal with such a defensive set up Arteta should never have been allowed so much time and space.
Connor ended up that deep at times you could say he played midfield. Anyway how open were we for the first goal with such a defensive set up Arteta should never have been allowed so much time and space.[/quote]
That was because Gomez decided to start running with him when he started that unchallenged run….away from him !!
A bit of service would help him though – every striker whose played that role has failed to score more than a handful. Its not the striker its the system!
A bit of service would help him though – every striker whose played that role has failed to score more than a handful. Its not the striker its the system!
goodpost Agree i noticed yesterday Salmon everytime he gets the ball He’s on his own?end of day its the managers system if it aint working change it,if He cant change it get someone in who can?or lets just carryon being a laughing stock.
The way we were set up yesterday was completely wrong for a team like Arsenal. We never had an out ball when we were defending. The tactics were clearly to soak up pressure and break quickly when we won the ball. Our issue was we had Sammon following Santos down the left hand side of Arsenals defence. So when we did win the ball we had no one in Arsenals half to fight for the ball and they had wave after wave of attack. I think Martinez wanted to play Gomez because of his good performances in the past 2 games and could not rely on him tracking Santos.
We have to learn to be more adaptable in certain games. We needed to play 2 wingers and a striker yesterday in a 451 formation (unlikely we will play 442.)
To be fair we had settled well into the game for the first 10-15 mins and Arsenal were not causing us a huge threat. THe mistake from Al Habsi changed that with the two quick goals killing us off.