Why We Lost

[Ashtonian]

I Didn't know where to put this but after coming close yet so far on Saturday it made me thin about ourselves and WHY we lost the game. We matched them for large parts and we can clearly play a little bit so it seems a bit odd that we keep coming up short in these games. However i think i may have come across the answers to these problems.

1. Lack of players. We are a team that is apparently until recently chasing champions league football. Except we have 4 central midfielders to our name and play with 3 on the pitch at any one time. We are now in march and have not brought anyone in to help our midfield. People have been complaining about Barry/Osman for examples performances but is there another team in this league that has so few players in the most important part of the pitch? Of course we are going to lose games at this part of the season! A massive oversight by the club not to bring anyone in but i think it takes us onto my next point.

2. Lack of Ambition from the board. This isn't an Anti Kenwright point, rather a simple clarification. The reason why we don't seem to strengthen when we need to is the lack of ambition of the board. That is why Bill was grinning when he mentioned Martinez was aiming for there, clearly the board will not back us to go there. Admittedly this is how bad the club is run but what bothers me about it is the fact that we get our hopes up every year and the same thing happens and when it does it leaves me with that feeling in the bottom of my stomach that we have just got our hopes up for nothing AGAIN. It also represents our signings in January. They were cheap options, McGeady cost next to nothing and Traore, well clearly we aren't paying him much, and wonderfully it has backfired because neither of them are in a position to make an impact.

3. Now with the above established there is another reason why we lost on Saturday, and in recent weeks, tactics. We play with 2 deep and one attacking midfielder, which is great if you have top class players in those positions, we don't. Two of our midfield have real potential but away from that we cannot keep up the tactics for 90 minutes. At our best we are dominant and we see time and time again when we are doing our job it wins us games. However there is a massive downside to this, we cannot play like that over 90 minutes. Saturday was suicidal because the giant gap it creates in the middle allowed Arsenal to start their plays and go through the motions whilst we couldn't break it up until it was near our box. i am not complaining about our tactics, but watching us pass round the box several times without shooting was highly frustrating. Martinez has no other realistic options which leads me to my summary.

Now onto my summary, why i haven't just gone on a ramble. You see all of the above is connected and it all contributes to our downfall. What good teams can do is switch things around to try and win the game, we can't. We haven't got the players to do that. On Saturday if we have the players to do so, we could have broken arsenal up in the midfield and countered them with pace, except we had no extra central midfielder to play. I use that as an example but you get my drift, the lack of players (point one) to be able to change our tactics (Point 3) and this is because of the lack of ambition (point 2) shown by the club. I am sure Roberto has all the dreams of winning the league as he has led us to believe but without being able to bring any extra players in to compensate then we are NEVEr going to be succesful.

Arsenal going into the game if everyone was fit could play Flamini, Arteta, Wilshire, Ramsey, Ozil, Carzola, Rosicky, to say the least. they have injuries, so that takes them down to 5, with one to come back. We have 4 and if 2 of them were to be injured then we would struggle to play a team. Sure they are richer than us but it shows the difference between a team that has ambition (has players) and one that doesn't.

the sad thing is, This is never going to change. We will keep getting Wigan and arsenal results, dropping out of races in the league and we will still tell ourselves this year will be different. We (including myself) genuinely bought into Martinez and the season ahead when we were doing so well, and now that it looks bleak its heart breaking that we were so close to achieving something.

 

[ijjysmith]

Arsenal were just better than us mate.

We can go over it as much as we want. They played better than us.

 

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

Sure they are richer than us but it shows the difference between a team that has ambition (has players) and one that doesn't.

By 'ambition' you really mean cash. Their first goal scorer cost 4 times what Moyes spent net in 11 years ffs...

That said, we lost on Saturday as we missed 2 gilt edged opportunities to take the lead at 1-1 and then gifted them a penalty, which sealed our fate.

 

[Ashtonian]

I am talking about the bigger picture, Tottenham, Chelsea for examples. its all easy to say 'well they have more expensive plays than us' but you keep doing that and you lose sight of what is actually wrong in the first place. Arsenal were better than us sure, i'll admit that. But would they have been as good over 90 minutes if we had changed our tactics at all? We had noone to do that with, but could arsenal have played with so much ease ala chelsea + city before them if we could do something idfferent on the pitch? Watch us after their second half goals, we proceeded to to the SAME thing after conceding and it didnt work. We are told to pass it so more than once in that game we are passing it outside the box without actually making a chance. Every counter slowed down to do the same thing and the one time someone decided not to do that we scored from it!

Personally i am not attacking Martinez in any way. time will tell if that is justified or not but i don't blame him for doing to same thing if he has no-one to change the team with. That is our biggest downfall, it is why so many teams play much better in the second half, we need to be devastatingly brilliant for 90 minutes or we lose points.

 

[deipnosophist]

After a long (by my standards) fume, I have now moved on from another Cup disappointment. Arsenal won and in now in the box seat to win the FA Cup. We lost, fair and square.

So, onto the Cardiff game....

 

[EFCNIK]

Arsenal are a better side.

 

[Del]

Arsenal have better players

 

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

I am talking about the bigger picture, Tottenham, Chelsea for examples. its all easy to say 'well they have more expensive plays than us' but you keep doing that and you lose sight of what is actually wrong in the first place.

You're kidding yourself if you don't accept that this is what it ultimately comes down to. The sides who spend the most money reside in the top places in the league and generally do better in the Cups. The underdog can sometimes topple the giant (like Wigan yesterday) but over the course of a league season, you generally finish where your finances dictate. We've got used to out performing our budget during the Moyes era, we now expect it, but at some point, unless something changes at the top, our chickens will come home to roost.

 

[Khalekan]

Why we lost?

Lukaku didn't look up and see Barkley in a fantastic position just after we equalised and were in the ascendancy.

Barkley himself missing an open goal when we were looking the likeliest team in the second half.

Barry giving away a soft penalty shortly after.

The margins are paper thin no matter how much Arsenal have overpaid for the players mentioned.

Plus the crazy decision to leave one one the EPL's outstanding goalkeepers sat on the bench whilst playing the strongest team available to us in every other position.

Robles may not have been responsible for any of the goals but his fragility infected the defence all through the game and their confidence was shattered.

There are four contributory factors to yesterday's defeat.

Very little to do with lack of money.....as any Manchester City fan will tell you this morning if you ask him or her why they went out the Cup.

 

[davek]

We started well enough first five minutes, then we lose a simple duel in the centre of the pitch, they race through on a backline that is all over the place with Coleman out of position and Stones simply not proactive enough to get that shot of Ozil's charged down in the way you just know Jagielka would have done. From there, Arsenal ruthlessly played on our very nervous backline, who were all over the place trying to cope with the opposition carrying the ball to our box...a situation not helped by a poor GK performance. The tone was set and though we got on terms we never were in that game from the 6th minute on.

We cant cope with changes against the bigger teams. We need a bigger and quality-wise deeper squad.

 

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

We started well enough first five minutes, then we lose a simple duel in the centre of the pitch, they race through on a backline that is all over the place with Coleman out of position and Stones simply not proactive enough to get that shot of Ozil's charged down in the way you just know Jagielka would have done. From there, Arsenal ruthlessly played on our very nervous backline, who were all over the place trying to cope with the opposition carrying the ball to our box...a situation not helped by a poor GK performance. The tone was set and though we got on terms we never were in that game from the 6th minute on.

We cant cope with changes against the bigger teams. We need a bigger and quality-wise deeper squad.

Nah, don't agree Dave. We were shocking for the first half an hour, but once level we had those 2 fantastic chances to take the lead, which would have buoyed our confidence and made the atmosphere toxic and nervous around the Emirates, we don't know what would have happened had we taken one of those 2 glorious opportunities.

 

[tommye]

they scored 4.
we scored 1.


this is why we lost.

 

[Khalekan]

Nah, don't agree Dave. We were shocking for the first half an hour, but once level we had those 2 fantastic chances to take the lead, which would have buoyed our confidence and made the atmosphere toxic and nervous around the Emirates, we don't know what would have happened had we taken one of those 2 glorious opportunities.

This.

Between the equaliser and the penalty we looked the team most likely to win.

 

[Bungle]

Barkley himself missing an open goal when we were looking the likeliest team in the second half.

When was this mate? I don't remember him missing an open goal at all. I remember him having 2 decent chances, and one of those wasn't easy.

Have I missed something or have you just sensationalised it a bit? Apologies obviously if I missed this open goal effort.

 

[Ashtonian]

We have one team, with one set of tactics. That's it. Funny how we also just lose to chelsea and tottenham?

You know how easy it is to beat a team when you already know what they are going to do? Yes we lost because arsenal were better but were they? We had chances ourselves and could well have made it 2-1 in the second half, that goes in and game finishes that way we are through and all of a sudden we are better than arsenal. Unfortunatly a silly trip (again) by Barry swings it the other way and Giroud (whom i rate as a goalscorer) comes on and wraps the game up.

Except no matter who we would have brought on would not have made a difference in that game. They still would have run the same lines and ended up with similar results.

You look at this as one game, yet it seems to happen every year. You can call it bad luck all you want but the fact of the matter is this, whilst we go through this every year and blame luck or 'just being crap' on the day it still happens. Different manager but same results. Martinez winning the cup would have been a major ask, winning at the emirates would have been a major ask. but is it any different to Wigan, Liverpool, Chelsea x2?

The variables have changed so what is the same every year?