Swansea Post match

There was a stat released the other day that we have conceded more goals from individual mistakes than any other team in the league. We just added two more to that. It's quite frankly unacceptable.

The second goal we conceded today had two errors. Error 1- Ramsey giving the ball away in such a dangerous position, then Song ball watching and just giving Dyer aka messi (we made Dyer look like him today) all the space in the world.

The third goal had so many mistakes in it I can't even begin to explain what happened. Henry giving the ball away as soon as we take the lead then our keepers terrible positioning and hesitation- just a couple of mistakes to name a few from the kick off.

Some very worrying signs. Hopefully the return of a number of our injured players will lift us but at the moment I just can't see us finishing top 4, unfortunately. The just isn't enough quality and we keep making the same mistakes.

I think the 3rd goal was a couple of players switching off after scoring - which is uncondonable considering the experience of some of the players involved. Szczesny was clearly at fault, and we do have to remember his experience of top-flight football is still relatively limited.

But yeah, the personal errors are very irritating. I do think if that a lot of the players we are missing through injury are also the ones who are more assured and less likely to make these errors (Vermaelen, Sagna, Wilshere even).

We lost the ball a lot in midfield. Without Wilshere or Arteta in there, we struggled to gain any control of the ball.

Stephen Mitchell wrote:Szczesny was clearly at fault, and we do have to remember his experience of top-flight football is still relatively limited.

Szczesny has been quite poor of late and I think it's important to remember how young and inexperienced he is. As "assuring" as he is, he still has a lot of work to do.

Chris Chan wrote:We lost the ball a lot in midfield. Without Wilshere or Arteta in there, we struggled to gain any control of the ball.

It was the same last week against Fulham when Arteta was in the team.

Richard Wallace wrote:

Chris Chan wrote:We lost the ball a lot in midfield. Without Wilshere or Arteta in there, we struggled to gain any control of the ball.

It was the same last week against Fulham when Arteta was in the team.

Our entire midfield was shattered in the 2nd half last week. This week, right from the start we had nothing in the middle of the park. I think Arteta makes a big difference in there

Chris Chan wrote:

Our entire midfield was shattered in the 2nd half last week. This week, right from the start we had nothing in the middle of the park. I think Arteta makes a big difference in there

I agree with you, Chris. However, I also think Song and Ramsey's poor form in those matches didn't help. Of course we missed Arteta but I think the underlying problems are deeper than that.

Richard Wallace wrote:

Chris Chan wrote:

Our entire midfield was shattered in the 2nd half last week. This week, right from the start we had nothing in the middle of the park. I think Arteta makes a big difference in there

I agree with you, Chris. However, I also think Song and Ramsey's poor form in those matches didn't help. Of course we missed Arteta but I think the underlying problems are deeper than that.

Yeah I agree, but at the same time, we have to understand that our squad is inexperienced/young/completely depleted due to injuries. Szczesny/Rambo/Jack etc will have poor games from time to time. It is up to the senior players help them through the poor periods, but more often than not they are our worst players (RVP aside)

One thing I noticed before the game was that szczesny seemed to be struggling with his right hand in the warm up, shaking it and clenching it after he made a save with it!

Pretty disappointed with the result, thought ox looked good with the time he got. Not sure what is up with Theo atm, ok he scored but he's really not living up to expectations for me!

I pray to all available gods that kos doesn't get injured atm!

What a long arse day, I do wonder why we put ourselves through this torture sometimes

Walcott is definitely not right in my opinion.

I didn't see him reach top speed once in that game. When there were opportunities to pressure their full backs, he was jogging. Not like him.

Maybe he is still ill.

Arsharvin gave the ball away too much. Djourou and Miquel had bad patches. We missed Arteta greatly.

Jonathan Prendergast wrote:Walcott is definitely not right in my opinion.


Maybe he is still ill.

I thought the same. He barely broke into a sprint all game.

Sue Lee wrote:One thing I noticed before the game was that szczesny seemed to be struggling with his right hand in the warm up, shaking it and clenching it after he made a save with it!

Pretty disappointed with the result, thought ox looked good with the time he got. Not sure what is up with Theo atm, ok he scored but he's really not living up to expectations for me!

I pray to all available gods that kos doesn't get injured atm!

What a long arse day, I do wonder why we put ourselves through this torture sometimes

Sue,

I agree with what you said about Theo. Kos has been very good for us this season.

Right about being a long arse day...

a really uninspired performance from our team. I know Theo didnt play well but Ramsey and Song were very poor.

This is totally unrelated but after Real Madrid played Malaga recently, Jose Mourinho said he would have benched the whole team. Instead he benched Kaka and few others. He has never been afraid to make changes. Wenger should have benched Ramsey & Theo,

Any truth in what John Cross at the Mirror is reporting? that Henry had a run in with an Arsenal fan at Full-time? Apparently the guy said 'where is the heart and desire?" and Henry told him to "stop being negative and support your team". Words were exchanged and Henry apparently gestured before leaving.
Some Arsenal fans that were there said nothing of the sort happened. Just some drunk twat asked Henry for his boots and got insulted when Henry ignored/didn't hear him. That was it. Nothing as sensational as Mr Cross and others are claiming.

Sue you were there weren't you? Can you shed any light on it?

yeah there was something between a fan and Henry, i couldn't see exactly who and what he was saying as he was way to the left of me but Henry was making the yapping gesture with his had at this person and proper staring him down, Henry looked really pissed off i will say!! then he was giving it the come her and say that kind of gesture to the fan, but like i say i couldn't hear what was said just saw the look of thunder on Henry's face as he carried on applauding the fans and walking off
he turned round to this person a good few times as if he didn't want to back down!!

Ah ok. Cheers.

I know emotions were running high but Henry probably really should have walked away and not caused a scene. Unless of course he was specifically singled out and targeted with abuse. Of course the media will do their very best to make it seem like a bigger incident than it probably was.

It was shown on TV too, Henry turned around and made a gesture towards someone but I couldn't tell whether it was a fan or a Swansea player.

Disaster performance for us. I'm really scared now we won't make the CL. 10 points behind Spurs, Chelsea have proven they know how to take care of business, so they will not drop out for sure, meaning we are 4 games at very least off the pace of Spurs (including GD).

Teams that want to win trophies cannot play like this and lose to teams in the bottom or recently promoted.

We have been dropping points to newly promoted teams for years. It is a terrible habit among plenty of others

I'm finally starting to doubt our top 4 credentials this season. I know there is plenty of time left but things aren't looking great.

"Chelsea have proven they know how to take care of business, so they will not drop out for sure, meaning we are 4 games at very least off the pace of Spurs (including GD)."

Bit of an odd statement. Surely Chelsea are no more likely to 'take care of business' than we are? I think saying they will not drop out 'for sure' is a strange overestimation. They have been really poor this year.

I still think it'll be Spurs that finish fifth.

Joey Schwab wrote:I'm finally starting to doubt our top 4 credentials this season. I know there is plenty of time left but things aren't looking great.

If Arsenal win the CL this season, will we be allowed to defend the title next season even if we don't make the top 4. Have UEFA changed the rules after the Liverpool-Everton thing ??

Jenson Pais wrote:

Joey Schwab wrote:I'm finally starting to doubt our top 4 credentials this season. I know there is plenty of time left but things aren't looking great.

If Arsenal win the CL this season, will we be allowed to defend the title next season even if we don't make the top 4. Have UEFA changed the rules after the Liverpool-Everton thing ??

Yes we will qualify as CL winners and 4th place spot would get taken away, but we have no chance of winning the CL

Chris Chan wrote:

Richard Wallace wrote:

Chris Chan wrote:We lost the ball a lot in midfield. Without Wilshere or Arteta in there, we struggled to gain any control of the ball.

It was the same last week against Fulham when Arteta was in the team.

Our entire midfield was shattered in the 2nd half last week. This week, right from the start we had nothing in the middle of the park. I think Arteta makes a big difference in there

I do believe we were poor against Fulham but with Djourou sent off we could not sustain the pressure. At least we kept decent shape in midfield when we didn't have the ball. Against Swansea neither Ramsey nor Benayoun operated alongside Song and there was so much space to pass the ball around Song. Miquel didn't help by not holding the line, though he is not a proper full back. Wenger or Rice should have been barking some orders.

WE cannot afford to play the same way against United. Hoping Vermaelen and Arteta are back for this. Would have been pleased to see Sagna back as well, but that is pushing it I suppose.

Christopher Flanagan wrote:"Chelsea have proven they know how to take care of business, so they will not drop out for sure, meaning we are 4 games at very least off the pace of Spurs (including GD)."

Bit of an odd statement. Surely Chelsea are no more likely to 'take care of business' than we are? I think saying they will not drop out 'for sure' is a strange overestimation. They have been really poor this year.

I still think it'll be Spurs that finish fifth.

Chelsea were horrible last year and still stormed back to finish 2nd, I can see them going back up the table,maybe not 2nd, but I very much doubt 5th.

Spurs have the 4 game cushion over us, and with us losing simple matches like Swansea & MUFC this weekend, it could be 5 match cushion. Are we able to rescue that with games running out? I'm not so sure. It'll take a big blunder from Spurs and a significant push from us which we haven't shown yet.

Jason Morrison wrote:I think we'll lose to united, they're gonna embarrass us again, as usual.

Jesus, get a grip. We're playing United with a better team with before, even with missing fullbacks. And they're not as good as they were during the Old Trafford game. So yeah...calm down.