Arsenal v Spurs

yeah may be dominating is not the right word to use but we had a lot of possession in their half and did create some promising moves but failed to break their defense down which was frustrating as that has happened all too often this season especially against big teams.

I know this is typically an area of concern for us but this season it has gotten to an altogether different level, almost turning into an inability to break well organised defenses down even when they are not necessarily defending desperately and that is after having bought Giroud, Podolski and Cazorla.

We could have all the possession and dominate....its what we don't do with it that costs us time and time again....things like the 5-2 are a rarely seen....

Alex Hadjicharalampous wrote:I think a lot of people confuse dominating possession with dominating the game. They're completely different. I don't think any team can claim to have dominated yesterday's game, whatever the criteria for that is. Spurs played to their strengths and won, Arsenal did what we usually do, mess around outside the opposition box and create next to nothing of real note.

The thing is, we could have 99% possession and still lose as every team that plays us seems to score with their first shot on goal. So, dominating possession is absolutely meaningless for us.

As for the defending, it was just atrocious. Inexcusable for a team in the Premier League. Vermaelen didn't have a fucking clue what was going on around him for the second goal, it was embarassing. I don't know much about football tactics, coaching, formations and whatnot, but even I can see that something is unbelievably wrong in the way our defenders operate. It's as if they go out there unprepared and hope for the best.

While it's not a direct parallel of our situation ,it's interesting that Barca, the team we seem to try and model our game on are sucking right now as well.
Their confidence is low, they can't score (even with the "best player' in the world, which we don't have) , they are being consistantly beaten by counter attacking , clog the middle type teams. All possession, no end product.
Coaching and tactics mean something. You can't just send a team out there and tell them to "play". Guardiola is gone, Villanova is ill , and their interim manager is not getting the job done. Sort of like Wenger circa 2012/13....

trying to model our game on a team that sets up totally different and in a totally different league was never going to be a winner......

Poor old Carl Jenkinson, Gooner from head to toe and all things in between is pretty naffed off after the weekend:

I’m distraught, to be honest. I know this match’s importance.

In history, we’ve always tended to come out on top but it wasn’t our day. We beat them at home and they beat us at their place. But it’s really disappointing that we haven’t at least picked up a point.

On our day we can beat anyone. I genuinely believe that. When we play to our potential, teams can’t come near us, but we need to do that consistently. If we do that we will be fine, but we just can’t find the consistency at the moment.

We played well against Tottenham in patches but then we’ll have 10 minutes where we’ll drift out of the game a little bit.

There are 10 games left and there are plenty of points to play for. I think in a couple of days’ time, we’ll get our head around this and realise that we’ve bridged a gap like that before and can do it again. Everyone is disappointed we lost.

We will be positive and we will come back from this.

We’ve just got to work our socks off because we need to be in that top four at the bare minimum.

I’m not going to make this into yet another post about ‘getting into the top four’ is all Kroenke and Wenger care about. We all have our views and to be fair they are pretty much the same. Top four really is a trophy!! (NOT)

This is more about Carl Jenkinson, who in my view was one of a few players on Sunday who really wanted to win. I don’t think he put a foot wrong did he? His crossing was the best on display, but sadly and as usual, there was seldom a player in the area to attack any of them.

As much as some believe he’s not yet first team material, I strenuously disagree. Ok, he’s not as experienced or ‘game wise’ as Sagna, but what players like him will do is go that extra yard, push that little bit harder and no doubt, he would actually put his body in front of a ball that looked destined for goal.

I doubt very much we’ll ever see him turn his back on a free kick. Unlike some over the years and still today…

http://highbury-house.com/2013/03/07/so-are-we-jenks-at-least-the-next-lot-know-how-to-spring-a-surprise/