Arsenal v AFC Bournemouth

YankCherry said:
Not sure I agree. When you have a midfield that’s sketchy at best at possession and stickers/wingers that can’t possess at all it doesn’t matter who you have defending. They will wear down and concede.
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Everyone bleats on about defense and to a degree they have a point, but I dont think anyone really appreciates how much both defense and attack rely on a top class midfield to help in both areas...

If our midfield is just letting players run at our defense for fun (which we do), then the odds will always be that we're going to concede, and the better those players that we let run at us, the more goals they'll score...

Apart fomr the additon of Lerma (currently missing) our midfield has no realy quality when it comes to outplaying PL opposition. We've done will to be where we are, for what looks to be a 5th season, but we need more quality in teh centre of the park to stop shipping so many goals.

It's not all about the back 4...
 
thegazzyb said:
He has 10 minutes to score four goals. Easy !
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billythekid said:
Eddie’s verdict on last night.


From BBC.

"Arsenal did have individuals who played well and they were too good for us. But that mindset takes away ownership of what we delivered with our own team.

"They may have played well but our perspective is clear that we can do so much better and are capable of much more than that.

"We will not kid ourselves and our analysis has to be that it was not acceptable."
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Too many players who can’t be bothered to put the focus and attitude into tude required away from home - Eddie has mentioned it before and he seems to be getting more frustrated each time .
Our away record is appalling and right now Huddersfield looks another nightmare.
 
OLDSKOOL said:
Too many players who can’t be bothered to put the focus and attitude into tude required away from home - Eddie has mentioned it before and he seems to be getting more frustrated each time .
Our away record is appalling and right now Huddersfield looks another nightmare.
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I must admit our "easy" run-in will be a lot less easy if we keep up this away form ! If we are playing away to any of the lower order and they still have something to fight for, I can see us really struggling for points on current form !

Even without all the injuries, we still make the same fatal mistakes we made last night. We are capable of doing exactly the same thing, even with a full strength squad, so we can't just blame these performances on our injury list.

We BADLY need an away win, any away win, I don't care whom it is against. If we don't I think this hoodoo could haunt us for the rest of the season and we'll get nowhere near our best ever finish after our best ever start. That would be immensely disappointing.

I know Eddie has employed trick cyclists to try to improve the players' performance and attitude in the past. I think now is the time to call them in again and a) make sure our players don't develop a fear complex about playing away and b) try to improve their ability to concentrate and focus for 90 minutes at a time.

Something needs to change, that's for sure. We keep repeating the same mistakes again and again. That's not bad luck, that is something that needs to be addressed, one way or another.

At least our goal difference is already so bad that it's not worth protecting. We now need to get through Saturday's game without any new injuries and then focus on a decent finish to our season, where potentially a lot of points could be up for grabs ( if we can perform to our full potential and cut out the suicidal mistakes ).
 
I certainly wouldnt totally disagree with Al on ' Where did the money go Theme ? ' I dont know his sources......so fair enough to get in conflict with him on that if it fits....but that aside my Instincts indicate to me that we are in for some shocks on that front...not from the Russian connection...but from the other direction! As soon as American Investment is mentioned...I go into Freefall Worry mode! Always will.... no facts, no reasoning of any degree...just pure Instinct !
 
bournemouthsufc said:
Don't worry, you will get distracted by the fact that Sam Sturridge said the word 'obviously' 25 times times in his 2.5 minute Solent interview which must be a record along with the number of away defeats.
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Blimey ! Just watched his interview on COWS. Obviously he likes the word "obviously" !
 
simonhpieman said:
In case you didn't see MoTD, Gozzo came out and said "it wasn't good enough and I don't really know why".
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Check out his interview on COWS. I don't think I've ever heard him speak so eloquently and so obviously from the heart. He left the cliche-matic 2000 in the dressing room and spoke with genuine passion about what went wrong. It came across as very genuine and not the usual PR guff we're accustomed to hearing from the players after a heavy defeat. Good stuff, well done Gozzer !
 
redharry said:
First 10 games, 1 against a top 6 side.
Next 18 games, 9 games against top 6 sides and a massive injury pile up.
It ain't rocket science.
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I've tried using those excuses in the thought process.
The injury pile up has only increased the past 4 games.
 
AlGard said:
I've tried using those excuses in the thought process.
The injury pile up has only increased the past 4 games.
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it's been bad for a long while. We lost Adam Smith for 2 months in the Newcastle game early Nov, Gosling for a month the following week, Lewis Cook for the rest of the season in late November and Franno on Boxing day. At the same time we had other minor knocks to Stan, Fraser and Surman. It has got worse - lets hope Brooks coming back is a sign of improvement in fortunes.
 
Talking of injuries I think we have been fairly fortunate the previous 2 seasons. Very few long term knocks in that period. We all know about the first season with Wilson, Gradel and Mings out most of the season but this is our first real test since then.
It is a real test of management when this happens. I remember Roy Hodgson at Palace last season - apart from taking over on the back of 7 straight defeats and cast adrift at the bottom he also had an horrendous injury list to top players all season. He did an absolutely remarkable job to not only keep them up but to finish mid table.
 
AlGard said:
I solemnly believe next season will be our last in the PL this time round.

First 10 games - 20 points
Last 18 games -14 points

An alarming slide, no matter who we have played.
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Not really if of the 18 you quote 9 are traditional top 6 and 3 are the two sides that keep swapping 7th spot.

Need some perspective here. You offfer little convincing rationale with all these claims.

Home form is Europe league and away form is relegation material.

Even with injuries, we have just played Brighton West Ham Chelsea and wolves at home without conceding a goal at home from open play. That’s impressive.

The away form is getting embarrassing. Partly injuries, partly some key players seeming to lack a bit of fight and partly the formation doesn’t help us. Eddie needs a re-think.

I see this season as a major change in personnel with the end of most of the old guard in sight and a further transition in playing style. When this happens there will be hiccups.

Defeats like last night are hard to take but will help to hasten a further evolution in the cherries story. Not expecting europa league but think we will be ok.
 
TrevorMorganFanClub said:
Is it national bed-wetting week or something? Some of the sh17e on here is embarassing.

Our defending was poor, but overall they took their chances and we didn't. I suspect we created more than twice as many chances last night as we did against Chelsea. If we'd taken a couple more would there be the same level of waterworks?

Probably, knowing our "supporters" :slap:
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We had the same number of shots as Arsenal but the quality of our chances was way down. I’m struggling to recall many clear chances we created.

Overall, creating and scoring goals isn’t a problem. We’ll have the odd game where we struggle to create but that happens to everyone. The concern is the defensive record. Yes we had injuries last night but it’s the same old mistakes we keep making. I’m not overreacting to this defeat, but I’m considering the manner of this defeat in the context of our overall defensive record and there’s not much room for optimism.
 
thegazzyb said:
I must admit our "easy" run-in will be a lot less easy if we keep up this away form ! If we are playing away to any of the lower order and they still have something to fight for, I can see us really struggling for points on current form !

Even without all the injuries, we still make the same fatal mistakes we made last night. We are capable of doing exactly the same thing, even with a full strength squad, so we can't just blame these performances on our injury list.

We BADLY need an away win, any away win, I don't care whom it is against. If we don't I think this hoodoo could haunt us for the rest of the season and we'll get nowhere near our best ever finish after our best ever start. That would be immensely disappointing.

I know Eddie has employed trick cyclists to try to improve the players' performance and attitude in the past. I think now is the time to call them in again and a) make sure our players don't develop a fear complex about playing away and b) try to improve their ability to concentrate and focus for 90 minutes at a time.

Something needs to change, that's for sure. We keep repeating the same mistakes again and again. That's not bad luck, that is something that needs to be addressed, one way or another.

At least our goal difference is already so bad that it's not worth protecting. We now need to get through Saturday's game without any new injuries and then focus on a decent finish to our season, where potentially a lot of points could be up for grabs ( if we can perform to our full potential and cut out the suicidal mistakes ).
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:cheers:
 
Listened to the game last night on Solent.

Just watched the highlights on MOTD.

Some moves from Arsenal were just like a knife cutting through butter.

There were so many gaps for the Arsenal players to play through.

Suicidal pass from Adam Smith to their player, but Adam has had some really good games for us as well.

We have had a nightmare run of away games, but we seem a different side at home.
 
Basic U10 level errors were our undoing last night. Namely centre halves-too far apart and never pass across the front of your own penalty area accounted for 3 of the 5 gooner goals
 
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