So what’s the answer?

[daddylonglegs]

Just now, Strokes said:

Throw it all at a winger, no replacement for Chilwell or mendy then?

I've said throw all the cash we get from Chilwell at a winger. Then said 'invest a high PL finish in the rest of the squad', so would expect a replacement LB to come in with that.

 

Also think Ndidi, Choudhury, Praet, Tielemans, Maddison is enough in terms of the Mendy element.

[Strokes]

Just now, daddylonglegs said:

I've said throw all the cash we get from Chilwell at a winger. Then said 'invest a high PL finish in the rest of the squad', so would expect a replacement LB to come in with that.

 

Also think Ndidi, Choudhury, Praet, Tielemans, Maddison is enough in terms of the Mendy element.

I don’t think high investment is as important as the right investment. Personally I’d keep Chilwell as he is one of the best in the league and gives much more going forwards than his critics realise. Unless the money is stupid it’s really not worth it as his replacement will likely cost a kings ransom too.

We need a winger, I think we need a centre back and we will need to replace Mendy if he doesn’t stay.

Also surely Mendy goes for free doesn’t he?

[Ted Maul]

I think 3 at the back is probably the way to go at the minute.

 

The old system was largely ineffective for 7 months- anonymous wingers, Vardy isolated, huge gaps between forwards and midfield, etc.

 

However, to go with it for the first time from the start last night was bold. For all Arsenal's problems, they're still decent going forward and you could tell our defenders didn't fully know what they were doing. We looked a lot more dangerous going forward at times though.

[Chrysalis]

26 minutes ago, snoopy87 said:

He was right to stick with the same formation, wrong with the personnel in it. Albrighton should have been at RWB, Fuchs on the left, and when Fuchs does tire JJ on in his place. Arsenal had so much joy down our left it was scary. The amount of times Soyuncu got dragged out to the left flank because Kevin had gone walkabouts was ridiculous. Yes Fuchs would've been up against Saka, but he wouldn't have left that much space for him to run around in.

 

How BR didn't see that was a massive area of concern was worrying. Its the same old thing of if plan A doesn't work, do more plan A. Said right from the start to my mates, he's a good manager, but I worry he'll vanish up his own backside and try to be too clever at times and then stick with it until it works.

 

I think I would have supported that change, JJ isnt as good on the right.  Although I prefer Albrighton on the left.

[Ric Flair]

2 hours ago, Nicolo Barella said:

Only thing I would have done differently against Arsenal maybe would be playing Fuchs over Bennett in the back 3, but Bennett was somewhat useful defensively. Honestly I think some different options are required in the transfer market.

Bang on. We did well last night and this system has made us go more direct which is what we've been crying out for as a short term fix.

 

It means we are less compact ourselves in the midfield with Perez pushed up high but given how laborious we looked previously and yet still managed to get exposed ourselves, im happy to take that risk as we look to an alternative method to evoke an improvement in results.

 

Bennett was solid and the only issue was that Soyuncu struggled in the LCB position and therefore Fuchs may have been better but overall it was the right system and team.

 

I swear some of our fans simply cannot overcome the disappointment of the opening 3 league games and the upturn in performances of these last 2 games is lost on them as the chasing pack close us down. I am trying to be positive as we are a huge work in progress with a distinct lack of options in our squad and if we end the season positively then I'll be fully behind them. 

 

If we finish 5th we are likely to still play CL football next season, if that feels a little tainted then get a part time job on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and don't be part of it. Asda's lovely of an evening.

[rachhere]

I think 3-5-2 would have worked better if we had Fuchs in there from the start. I felt Kevin was really exposed and as a result Cags was really uncertain about what he was doing. 

[Raw Dykes]

38 minutes ago, Webbo said:

To read some people's opinions on this forum, all the manager has to do is pick the right tactic, right player and we'll win every game. You have to remember that the other side want to win too. Every tactic will be met with a counter tactic. Some you win some you lose. 

You're right. I think it's easy to assume that if you don't get the win, then picking a different formation or starting XI would have done it. That's not necessarily the case. We could have gone 4-4-2 with Ricardo, Maddison and Chilwell in the team and still not won. We could have played that match 10 times, with a different tactic and lineup in each one, and not won one of them.

[Ric Flair]

14 minutes ago, Ted Maul said:

I think 3 at the back is probably the way to go at the minute.

 

The old system was largely ineffective for 7 months- anonymous wingers, Vardy isolated, huge gaps between forwards and midfield, etc.

 

However, to go with it for the first time from the start last night was bold. For all Arsenal's problems, they're still decent going forward and you could tell our defenders didn't fully know what they were doing. We looked a lot more dangerous going forward at times though.

We created more last night though ourselves, there's still some fine tuning to do in this system and maybe vs the better sides we have to sacrifice Perez playing in the 10 role for someone like Praet. I do like Vardy and Iheanacho together though in this system, it's far more effective than when we play the diamond and have very little space on the pitch to get the ball in to them.

[mozartfox]

1 hour ago, filbertway said:

Wait...what's your point here? The manager basically did that..

I think he was saying BR is crap at Dominoes.

[StriderHiryu]

I've got no problem with the system we used in the last one and a half games. Given our current spate of injuries, I think it's the best way to make our team creative, even if we look shakier at the back. With the 3412, Albrighton, Perez and Nacho all contribute a lot more to the team.

 

But come the end of the season we need to reinforce. We started the season superbly but this calendar year we've dropped off a lot. That's through a combination being worked out but also some players form really falling off a cliff, such as Maddison. I'm not going to have too much of a go because many of our players are young, but right now we don't look like a top 4 team, and I can't see us being top 6 next season based on what we've seen in 2020. That said I am fully behind Rodgers, who has developed a number of players, brought us exciting football and got us moving the right way. Realistically given the Coronavirus situation I can only see a maximum of 2-3 signings and even those probably won't be big money. But some more forward players would improve us a lot. Vardy and Nacho are reliable but the rest of the team are too inconsistent. We did go for Bergwijn in January but Spurs beat us to him, which is a shame because that's exactly the sort of player that would be making a difference for us now. 

 

This forum is still often too doom and gloom. We have thrown away a huge lead over the teams chasing us, but Man U signed a 60m player in January, Arsenal signed one for 72m in the summer. The Premier League is not a fair fight and we are punching well above our weight. 

[bmt]

Realistically if Chilwell was fit we probably would have spanked them. I thought the main issue was them getting space behind our wingbacks and Soyuncu making a few mistakes. Think we played okay and Arsenal currently are a very good team, we just had a dreadful 20 minutes first half - before their goal it was pretty even and first 10 we were the better team by far.

[ajthefox]

I think the issue last night was that we played without wingbacks, with 3 CBs who aren't used to a 3 and it was against two good strikers/an Arsenal team that are in form and improving.

 

For all the criticism Arsenal have had recently, that team last night was significantly better than the team that lost to Brighton, and we will not come up against a front two that compares to Lacazette and Aubameyang very often. Not to mention we're missing our first choice full backs.

 

Albrighton is very useful and I'm sure Brendan loves his adaptability but I don't think he offered as much support to Cags as Chilwell would've done and although I think on the whole our fanbase is pleased with Justin, he is young and you can see that.

 

I think in the past the biggest issues we've had are Vardy being isolated from midfield and not having enough mettle in the middle of the pitch and I do think this combats that, but you rely on your fullbacks getting up and down and providing the support to the 3 when needed and I don't think we will perfect that with Albrighton and JJ.

 

[kingfox]

3 hours ago, Aus Fox said:

Judging by the prematch thread nothing. 
This post by our very own Nostradamus @kingfox was the exact line up down to Barnes coming on in the 60th Minute.

22 people likes or agreed with it, many others had similar in the pre match thread. 
It’s all well and good chatting about what could have been done differently afterwards, but pregame most have us would have picked the exact same line up.

 

You trying to throw me under a bus  

 

After what we produced at the weekend I thought that line up was justified, we finally got ourselves a win, Rodgers finally had the balls to change it, why change a winning team?

 

Many elements of that though failed to work last night, especially in the first half but what was another solution?

 

Go back to 4-2-3-1? That formation recently has stopped working, do we go back to that again and pray that it works again?

 

Our wingers have offered very little in a lot of games this season, Vardy started to become isolated, something definitely needed to change.

 

Yet again last night you saw that our wingers have a better impact coming off the bench, Barnes did the trick against Palace, Gray did the trick last night against Arsenal. Would I start them against Bournemouth, personally no because we’ve seen so many times before, that when we do start them they don’t deliver, especially Gray.

 

I’d like to see us stick with 3-5-2 because I feel that we’re best off with two up front, Nacho has been playing well and deserves to be starting. We could go 4-4-2 but you don’t really see that formation nowadays unless you’re Burnley.

[Aus Fox]

9 minutes ago, kingfox said:

You trying to throw me under a bus  

 

After what we produced at the weekend I thought that line up was justified, we finally got ourselves a win, Rodgers finally had the balls to change it, why change a winning team?

 

Many elements of that though failed to work last night, especially in the first half but what was another solution?

 

Go back to 4-2-3-1? That formation recently has stopped working, do we go back to that again and pray that it works again?

 

Our wingers have offered very little in a lot of games this season, Vardy started to become isolated, something definitely needed to change.

 

Yet again last night you saw that our wingers have a better impact coming off the bench, Barnes did the trick against Palace, Gray did the trick last night against Arsenal. Would I start them against Bournemouth, personally no because we’ve seen so many times before, that when we do start them they don’t deliver, especially Gray.

 

I’d like to see us stick with 3-5-2 because I feel that we’re best off with two up front, Nacho has been playing well and deserves to be starting. We could go 4-4-2 but you don’t really see that formation nowadays unless you’re Burnley.

Sorry not throwing you under, just praising your team selection which many agreed with including BR.

And for the reasons you’ve outlined I feel It was the best line up for the game. It’s easy to see what went wrong after the game, but before a ball was kicked this was the best line up.

We live, learn and hopefully keep improving.

Edited 8 July 2020 by Aus Fox

[filbertway]

The issue is simply players. We don't have enough quality to play the way we want to play and compete with the big teams consistently. Albrighton is just not good enough. Fuchs legs have gone. 2 players that shouldn't be anywhere near the bench, never mind the starting line up. 

 

Vardy is a bit of a passenger and I think that him being on the pitch brings down our overall play because we're effectively playing with 10 men. If we want to play this way, we need players that are comfortable dropping deeper and interchaging. I honestly think Iheanacho is the better striker at this point. 

 

We need a few older heads with a winning personality. We've got a young squad of tidy players, unfortunately they don't seem to have the collective intelligence to know how to play at certain points of the game. So many times at the end of a game it feels like we have the other team on the ropes and then we seem to slack off and let them off. 

 

We need 4 or 5 quality signings to complement what we already have. We also need to get the players off the books that aren't going to contribute to the way we want to play (exceptions being players that seem to be good behind the scenes - Morgan and Fuchs fall into this category).

 

This next 12 months is absolutely huge for us if we do intend to compete with the top 4 for the forseeable future. I think this squad will be good enough to challenge top 8, I don't think we'll be close to the top 4 next season without a lot of quality being added to the squad though.

[Captain...]

When the commentators pointed out that all 3 of our centre backs were right footed I was pretty surprised, Cags was exposed partly because of this, should have been Fuchs at LCB.

 

But we're playing better whilst still lacking a cutting edge, one of the issues we have is there is no time between games to work on things. Switching seemlessly to 3412 after our most creative player and first choice LB join our first choice (and arguably best player) on the injury list was never going to happen. Bennett seems decent but having 3 right footers at the back seems a needless risk.

 

We have 4 days before the next game to fine tune things hopefully we see an improvement again and a comfortable win against Bournemouth.

[honeybradger]

Just because loads of people on this sub thought we should go 3412 doesnt mean rodgers didnt get it wrong. In arsenal's previous game against wolves they attacked the space between the wingback and the centrebacks in the exact same way. It was tactically naive to face an opponent with the same system that they exploited the previous game.

[Ric Flair]

I'm mystified with some of you prats, I really am. We played well against a team who is on form who we never get a result against at their gaff. Schmeichel made 2 other very good saves and a couple of easier saves but other than that we were the better team for the majority of the game. This system will expose us as we have to take more risks but if you cannot see the improvement in how quicker and more direct we are at getting the ball forward ourselves then don't complain about the slow laborious possession football we have all too often witnessed under Puel and Rodgers when we run out of ideas. He has tried to implement a short term improvement which we simply have to do and so far it is working. We have very little margin for error now, probably need to win at least 3 out of the last 4 but I've little argument with the change in approach. What has happened from December through to late June is a different story but what good comes of trying to let that fuel what is happening right now and specifically last night we played well.

[RonnieTodger]

We didn't play well, but our squad depth is poor and injuries show that.

Looking at their line-up which was pretty much an identical shape to ours , it looked significantly better on paper. 

There were things we could've done better, but we were with our two most creative players and like it or not, Chilwell would've stretched them a bit more too.

We went to the Emirates with Justin, Bennett and Albrighton in our starting XI and came away with a point.

[Guest]

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