The Arsenal Thread XXV

Arsenal's CB scoring an overhead kick while ours provides the perfect assist to the opposing ST...

Equal in the league - looks to be between Arsenal, Liverpool, Everton and Spurs for 4th.

It's like a trophy.

It's gonna be a huge battle tbh.

Arsenal are 4th place specialists but are riding their luck at times.

Liverpool are poor defensively but look stupidly good going forward and have had some awful fixtures.

Spurs have an extremely solid defence and have the best full backs in the league who really add to their attack.

Everton....are surprising. They could go 2nd/3rd tomorrow with a win, although I can't say they've been properly tested as yet.

Meh, I don't buy the hype with Utd. I think City will walk the title but I will reserve my judgment on the rest of the table until I see the 19 other teams got head to head. Remember everyone else was downplaying Pep and KDB until yesterday so I will trust my judgment on this one.

Given how good Pep is, I think 2nd place is like a trophy in this league.

You don't think Chelsea can challenge them? Despite our pretty average defence we've actually looked good defensively while City ain't kept a clean sheet this season. Both our sides have goals in them and very strong midfields and while defensively they could do with small tweaks, our managers actually pick players based on form rather than reputation unlike other title challenging managers.

Peps philosophy is to score more than the other team? Groundbreaking stuff. Stopped reading at that point

Also regarding the problem with Walcott and Chamberlain, they are good athletes but they are not good footballers. I would rather have Nasri back honestly because he had the guile of a proper Arsenal attacking player.

Also regarding us, I just get so pissed off whenever I see Ozil have to drop back and help transition the ball into the final third of the pitch. Because we lack great ball carriers, we are stuck often in the middle third, in the opponent's half, playing far too many passes than is necessary. I do think Cazorla greatly reduces this problem as he has a decent enough passing range but he also has deficiencies in his game which leave a lot to be desired. I think its why Cazorla and Coquelin worked well, as it was defensive enough and Cazorla could move the ball quicker than the others up to the final third where Ozil is at his most effective.

Having Ozil in the middle third is just not really utilising his strengths. I think that is what Xhaka was meant to be for, tbh, as his passing cuts out the need for all that intricate *******s whereby an opposition team can easily just press the ball away from us.

This really, although you failed to make the link that Coquelin and Cazorla's individual jobs should be done by one player (e.g.Xhaka), so that way we can make the most of Ramsey.

Our best midfield trio is:

Xhaka Ramsey
Ozil.

Agreed. We shouldn't really even need an out and out DM like Coquelin to play if the defence is good and the CM's are not pushovers. People forget that Makelele himself was a good all round midfielder, something that Coquelin is not.

Yeah exactly, Coquelin is just a ball winner, Tiote mark 2.

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