*** Tottenham Hotspur - Arsenal OMT ***

[Robspur12]

Sadly for all the rightful critisism Wenger gets he is still a great manager. They responded well to being beaten by us last March and with the Ozil signing they probably now have the edge this season. Still AvB showed he was a good manager last season so we should give the goons a run for their money again.

 

[milo]

And I thought I was the only one thinking this. Chancer the only reason I don't believe Wenger "set a trap" especially for us is that Arsenal have been playing this way since we beat them in March. Draw teams in by putting 10 men behind the ball then sucker punch them with a quick counter. They usually get 1 goal and then hold on to their lead. They did it in loads of games at the end of last season. Their tactics were not knew hence my disappointment that AVB played into their hands by not playing a more creative midfielder who can play balls behind their defensive line. Hudd would have been perfect - I hope we have replaced his passing with Eriksen.

Cazorla coming inside and making it 4 against 3 in central midfield was a new tactic and not a feature in either of the games last season. It was this that denied us domination jn the centre of the park (which many of us had pinned our hopes on) and in was a Cazorla pass from a central position which lead to the goal.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

I agree with your sentiments - its fairly easy to play against us at the moment. Let us have the ball and when we get into the last third, get the ball and attack em. Everyone is so obsessed with control and possession but that doesnt win games especially when there is no end product or creativity. Hope that changes but if we continue to play Dembele out of position and not where he was last season we won tbe successful. His hold up play was excellent and that allowed players to get into an attacking position, with our more creative talent this season, we would be even better.

Control doesn't win games on it's own but neither does gung ho attack or 10 men behind the ball for 90 minutes. Every strategy has it's advantages and disadvantages. What I will say about control though, is I think only top, or at the very least well drilled teams can play it. You can be gung ho with anyone and you can defend for your lives with anyone, but to play for control you need to be well drilled and have players tactically capable of pulling it off. There is way more to it than simply passing the ball sideways. If it was that easy why can't any team do it?

And why wouldn't they? Control means you play away from your own goal and stop the opposition getting the ball, and it means that any team that does use the strategy of sitting back is taking an almighty risk. Small teams do it because it's their only realistic chance, but for big teams it's a massive risk, because what if we were able to squeeze a pass through? The big teams need to give their own players the ability to create their own chances.

What control does mean, is that you need players capable of threading passes through in tight spaces. We probably didn't have that against Arsenal, but that can come. We have Holtby, Lamela, Siggy and Eriksen that could have all come into the team.

Just not having that controlling a game is some easy thing to pull off with simple sideways passing, as if anyone can turn up to the Emirates and do that.

 

[Pirate55]

DubaiSpur, I'm a bit shocked at your assessment to be honest, but I completely agree with Sandman.

I don't think this was Wenger's tactics at all. We just went to Arsenal's ground and controlled the game. We set the tempo. Did we slice them open at will? No, of course not. But that is never going to happen at the Emirates anyway. I'm not even saying it was a great performance, but to go there and set the tempo like we did is damn impressive. I came away from this game actually feeling pretty happy. Creating chance after chance wasn't there but I think the pieces of the puzzle were to have a really good season.

Under AVB we aren't an 'attacking' team as I feel some commentators lazily point out. We don't play to attack like Harry. We play to control. So that means we don't create chance after chance but leave ourselves exposed. The idea is to create some very good chances and rarely give anything away at the back at all, while probing for openings in possession. The fact that we were able to go to the Emirates and implement this shows how far we have come. I liken this to the Saudi Sportswashing Machine away game last year. Yes they won, but we clearly looked like the better side and it was obvious it would be that way at the end of the season.

The chances we did give away come from a lack of concentration from an individual who probably isn't suited to how we want to go. And unfortunately despite fighting his way back into the plans, Dawson I think is the weak link for me in this team. And today the other problem was that some of the new signings clearly hadn't the time to settle in. Lamela had good touches but it was clear he didn't know exactly which positions to be taking up. But that will come in a couple of weeks, he only had one session.

But other than that - Lloris, class. Walker and Rose, actually pretty good. Dawson and Vertonghen lost concentration for the goal. Midfield was pretty imposing and controlled possession, while up town Chadli and Soldado showed nice touches and Townsend looks like a genuine threat.

The performance today for us looked like the better team unfortunately losing to the plucky mid-table team looking to sit back and hit on the break. So many times we may have beaten Arsenal that way but today it was other way around. We looked like the big dogs and once our signings are integrated, we are going to be very, very hard to stop.

Cazorla coming inside and making it 4 against 3 in central midfield was a new tactic and not a feature in either of the games last season. It was this that denied us domination jn the centre of the park (which many of us had pinned our hopes on) and in was a Cazorla pass from a central position which lead to the goal.

If we would have been tactically astute, this would have been countered with early balls to Townsend and Walker enabling Gibbs to be isolated in a 2v1 situation. The problem was we had no one who could play that pass to them.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Cazorla coming inside and making it 4 against 3 in central midfield was a new tactic and not a feature in either of the games last season. It was this that denied us domination jn the centre of the park (which many of us had pinned our hopes on) and in was a Cazorla pass from a central position which lead to the goal.

Seriously? Carzola coming inside from the left was a new tactic and hadn't been seen last season?

 

[milo]

Seriously? Carzola coming inside from the left was a new tactic and hadn't been seen last season?

Of course he drifts in from the left but that is different from spending more time in the middle than on the left. He effectively took up Arteta's position/role on Sunday which is different to what he has done before.

 

[milo]

If we would have been tactically astute, this would have been countered with early balls to Townsend and Walker enabling Gibbs to be isolated in a 2v1 situation. The problem was we had no one who could play that pass to them.

I agree that we failed to capitalise on the space left by Cazorla when he came inside.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Of course he drifts in from the left but that is different from spending more time in the middle than on the left. He effectively took up Arteta's position/role on Sunday which is different to what he has done before.

Absolutely no way.

 

[stinkfoot]

As much as I dislike seeing a picture of that annoying little midget on this forum, it's nice to see that the mods are abiding by their own rules when it comes to ineffective OMT's/avatar changes.

Fair play Jordinho =D>

 

[milo]

Absolutely no way.

Do you think that he played a more orthodox drifting left midfield position then?