NEED FOR SPEED FOR GUNNERS.
Every single Gunner is dejected and deeply depressed about the fact that in 14 days all the hardwork done for months has ended up in vain. Out of 3 competitions and all of a sudden we are heading towards a similar disastrous end to our season as in previous years. Though we are dead and out of these competitions the manner in which we were ousted was more hurtful. The latest defeat being against Manchester United in the FA cup Quarter-Finals. After this defeat i wasn’t as dejected as i was for the exit from Champions League. I wanted to bring to light 3 deficiencies or 3 reasons for our long trophy drought.
FIRST :- Move to the Emirates Stadium.
Well this topic has already been discussed by someone in his blog . He has done a fantastic job and i don’t think i would’ve written about it anyway near to the quality of her blog. So if you haven’t read that go ahead and read it first , here is the link and you’ll know how it affected us.
Now to the second and third reasons..
SECOND :- COUNTER ATTACK
The total domination over Manchester United is pointless if we don’t score. That defaults our finishing standards , but that is different in every game. In one we score 3 and in another we don’t score at all. Manchester United destroyed us with their ability to counter attack. They do it with full speed and hence the chances to catch the opponent team off-guard. When we look at the situation in our team even if we get the ball at half court and the way to the goal is wide open with 2-3 opponent players trying to defend and others rushing to get back to their positions we tend to slow it down for our players to move ahead but it kills all the time and till then the opponent is organised and ready for us. I’ve noticed it so many times that we hold the ball back, slow it down even when there is opportunity to go ahead with full speed. Thats where the Need for Speed arises. With Walcott we get all the speed but we all know how bad our relationship with injuries is. Total dependence on him is not nice because if he is having a bad day team is bound to suffer. There are other players in our team with good pace Nasri, Arshavin, Clichy which we need to utilise.
Earlier during the times of Henry, Ljungberg, Pires, teams used to fear the pace with which we could break them. The times arsenal conceded a corner it was a reason for the opponent to get happy but it wasn’t. After the corner we would hit them for counter attack and score within 10 seconds. This is what we miss. Walcott is the sole player who leads our counter attack in the current team. You would tell that no other player possess similar speed but its about getting ahead and going real quick and not slowing it down.
We have seen the fruits of quick counter attack so many times in our old team. Also in the new team when Walcott plays. The goals at Anfield from Adebayor and Arshavin for the champions league and premier league were due to the staright forward counter attack lead by Walcott. We need to do it more often.
Now to the third :-
The third reason is the second/third player being available. In short its off the ball running. Not a single team in the world has an answer to this technique. Barcelona are very good at it now and hence the best team in the world. We exploited others with this technique when we were INVINCIBLE. This was so fruitful to us then. But the question is why not now.? The answer is simple we don’t have off the ball runs from our players , it has become a rare sight. We pass the ball quickly but our overall play is slow and easy for other teams to predict. Only with the killer runs our quick passing is useful. We have the players who can do it, they have the ability to do it week in week out. They just have to work it out. With Cesc, Nasri, we can have the killer pass always , only the killer runs are missing... We all know the big win against Manchester United when Nasri scored twice. It was the off the ball run from Walcott which created a big opening for Nasri. Thats what we need to have more and more
In the end there are signs of this team completely developing. The speed, counter attacking style and hunger which was all visible in the game against Barcelona at the Emirates. It seems that if we hold up as 1 unit with no players leaving the club we are going to rule the world for a long time.!
