luthersfarm

No midfiel Very rarely is a goal ever just one person's fault and in my opinion there's a real issue on here every time we concede with people desperate to pin it on one individual. VK played a lazy ball, midfield was non-existent, Faes turned his back, Mads could have done better.

My thoughts on VK are that while I'm not knocking his effort or work rate, it seems a bit naive to just run yourself into the ground every game at this level. Lots of running does not a good player make. Players at this level should be more thoughtful about picking their moments to do the running, and as we're obviously not playing a high intensity pressing system his running is all on his own so won't accomplish much. Again, not blaming him, I think it's obviously lack of direction from the manager. You can't just have 11 players on a pitch doing their own thing. If the manager wants people pressing and breaking away at pace, that needs to happen as a team and it obviously isn't Ruud's plan. If he has an experienced leader playing next to him to shout instructions at him that would help so much, but at the moment he's just left to his own judgement and he's not got the experience at this level to do that. He's still young and there's lots of room for improvement and I think he has attributes to be a decent full back, but I think he needs a rest and Thomas is good enough to rotate in more often. Would benefit both, and the team.

I think it's more that people are in agreement about Faes and Vesty, there's not much debate to be had whereas with VK there's more disagreement.

He had tactics?

We go again 💪🏼

Awful Buanonotte. I almost don't blame Vestergaard as it's not his fault he can't play at this level but keeps getting picked

I don't know if he is but strange he's not even on the bench, so he might have a knock Either that or RvN just doesn't rate him whatsoever, he was terrible against Brentford but so was everyone

If Woyo is injured what are the odds we're rushing Justin back from his injury to cover too 🙄

Would have preferred Daka

What site is this?

Ruud is the walking embodiment of the quote: "I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas."

I wonder if he put Vestergaard on because he hopes it means the Danish players for Brentford will feel sorry for him and Mads and take it easy on us haha

RVN obviously has no faith in Woyo whatsoever. Why buy him? There's no joined up thinking, no plan, no philosophy. Make it up as you go along football club management.

This has been the story all season. Defense (deservedly) looks awful in the goal replays but what you don't see is that every time the other team come forward there's no resistance from the midfield, it's relentless on the defense because there's no midfield or wider defensive structure.

At least limping implies we're still on our feet haha

Just back now and a few things were pretty obvious to me - Ndidi changes this team so much and adds so much more than Winks, JJ and Woyo both had good games and both look so much better than VK in my opinion, thought VK looking at Merino constantly but doing nothing about it for their second was incredibly naive, Daka needs to start and Vards needs to be used as an earlier sub against more tired opposition. Hope JJ's not injured seriously as I think Woyo right back and JJ on the left might be our best fullbacks, Faes and Okoli look like our best CBs even if Faes isn't very popular a the moment and I just think Ruud needs to work out what he's doing with his wingers.

Team for arsenal: Mads Woyo Justin Faes Okoli Coady Vestergaard Thomas VK Soumare Ndidi

Not even the worst performance this week

The free kick itself is the answer to this, ref gave it because of fan pressure. Cowardice.

Just looks raw. Might be okay at some point when he settles but won't help this season coming into the mess we have at the moment. You could put Cafu next to Faes and I don't think it'd make much difference.

I feel like a huge problem we have is that as soon as we get the ball up the pitch it comes straight back. No hold up or anything. No wonder the defence looks so shot sometimes, as soon as they get it up the pitch it comes back immediately. No respite. I wonder if this is why Ayew is kept on as he sometimes can hold it up?

Need to get back to talking about United

Yeah maybe not the best wording. Thought his movement in the first half created good space for others and had the defenders a bit uncomfortable at times is what I was thinking of

Better teams will get better results. Very insightful.