All aboard the Homey Train!

You are so wide of the mark.

Think like a manager. Who would you let play: unproven youngster or decently performed senior player?  Would you also, let another youngster to overexert and risk injury or let rather well played experienced international to come from bench and steady the play?

Arsene risked with well-scaled decisions, not his fault it backfired, I support
him.

Imagine if Ox had hurt himself, all of you would be screaming how bad Arsene
done by not subbing him.

I think the Yennaris/Djourou decision was a toss-up. He trusts Miquel, why not Yennaris? He seemed to perform at Leeds, and did well once on in this match. So he's doing something right, which must show up in training. But fair enough, and I've gone over my hesitations above. 

As for Arshavin, well, I'm not at all convinced he's done enough this season to demonstrate he can come on and steady the play. The AOC injury thing I think is being overblown by Wenger, but that's an unfounded suspicion that Homey addresses above. 

Well, looking back, I think we can hold our heads high much the same way City could when they lost 2-3 at United despite being a man down all game. To me, this was a much better result than 3-2 Swans or 2-1 Fulham. We put on a good second half show, and can say we deserved something from this game.

The first goal Djourou failed to close down Giggs allowing him to have a clear cross across our goals, he didn't even try a put a foot out to stop the cross. Evra after the game stated that their plan was to attack our flanks as we had two centre backs in there. So can't blame Djourou for everything. Also Where the fuck was Theo to help Djourou? He has two player on him a lot of the time. 

The Second goal was Arshavin failing to close down Valenca, push him down the wing, foul him, punch him in the face, don't open a gap for him to run through! I heard the guys say at half time that Arshavin doesn't want to be here no more, not even in London. If thats the case go home! 

Theo pissed me off today too, what look like a duck to miss RVP cross was atrocious! I think he's getting worse. No respect to wear the Arsenal shirt or heart for the club. Aoc made it seem like he was the senior player in comparison to Theo.

Aoc had a fantastic game, No need to take him off at all. He was full of energy and pushing Arsenal onto the win, or so I believe. RVP was angry at the decision, the entire stadium was angry at it, the liveblog couldn't understand the reasoning. It cost us the game. AOC to get a regular start from now on. The kid is full of confidence and proving to be a play maker too.  

taking a moment to assess everything - this weekend we only lost 1 point and only to chelsea. going back to the match preview, hadn't we written this match off? let's walk away with a thought that with a bunch of fixups we played a better game then 8-2.

Absolutely agree. 

and dont tell me you're never gonna watch an arsenal game again. sometimes i think that 5-6days gaps between the rounds are not so much for the players to rest then for the fans to cool down and start looking forward to the next game. why? because obviously we've got no better thing to do it our lives. whatever you say, sports-watching fills a void.

Another set of excuses from Wenger about calf injury or fatigue. SMH. Ox was playing his ass off and had just made a set of great plays for us before being subbed. I love this kid, he has so much heart, so much zeal, so much fight. I wish he would share some of those qualities with a few of his less ambitious and underperforming team mates. When he did put in Arshavin, it should have easily been for Walcott, who had been a non-factor all day, or just not make any changes at all. Poor, poor decision. Djourou didn't do all that bad in my eyes, he just really needed some help from Walcott, Song, or somebody, anybody, cause he was being eaten alive on the right. I watched Bale play against City earlier, and I watched Ramsey, and believe me, at the current moment there is a world of difference between the two. I know Bale didn't suffer that horrific injury, but at the same time, Ramsey is piss poor right now. His shots are wild, his passes are wayward and inaccurate, his vision is lacking. I hope he gets is shit together soon cause we really need him. I'm not defending Arshavin, he could have done better to close down Valencia, but the defending was a piece of shit in the box. Dark days, Dark days. Not that Wenger gives a shit about me or what I think, but.....Thank You Mr Wenger for helping to build the Arsenal we soo adore, if it weren't for your vision and undying effort we wouldn't be as great as we are today, however, you have led us as far as you can take us. It is time to give Joshua the staff now so he can lead us to Canaan. However this Joshua is. Gunner for Life

I agree with you on Ramsey.  It is actually long overdue, he is the weak link in  our offence.  IMO AOC can replace him easily and become more effective.  Instead of playing him as a wing, he can be put behind RvP as an attacking mid-fid and am sure he will be even more effective because of his pace, dribbling and ability to shoot precisely from 20-30 yards.  ..........but with regard to Wenger, I think we are becoming too judgmental whenever we lose against our foes.  Being a manager of Arsenal with no financial muscles of City/ManU/Chelsi is no joke.  The guy is doing a very good job despite of the deficiencies in the club.

Djourou had a terrible game, sure, but what would your honest pre-match thoughts be about yennaris vs. nani/evra? Second, yes, the bad subbing... if he had subbed the Ox off for a tactical purpose it would have been idiotic. I'm sure his staff had a better idea of Ox's physical condition than we or RvP, or even Ox himself did. 

Exactly, as I've mentioned above. I'm not sure I would have started Yennaris, and subbing Djourou off at the half is pretty proactive. 

EDIT: And I don't even think he had a horrible game. I think he was put out there despite the problems he would have.

So, sub Ox off if he has an ongoing issue with a calf strain, fair enough. But why not Benayoun instead of Arshavin?

If Stats are to go by from the previous game, Arsha had performed better than Benayon.  We just lost the game because the squad we had was not good enough defensively but not because of what Wenger did, lets be honest.

{Insert meaningless platitude about the usefulness of stats}

I like stats a lot, but they only tell half the story. Song, for instance, usually has one of the lower passing rates on the team, and I've used that as a critique, while others point to his defensive work to defend him. 

Ok on the sub being stupid - I'd rather Walcott for Arshavin -, but where exactly did Arshavin give the ball away? Arsenalist has a replay. You may as well blame Koscielny in this episode, or the entire backline that was caught watching the ball. Give me a break

The other problem with Arshavin coming on for AOC was that we then had two flanks exposed rather than just the one. AOC had done a pretty good job of tracking back, certainly better than Theo. Now, to be fair, Arshavin does sometimes defend with intent, but I wouldn't count on it. 

Arshavin: Multiple times, dribbling into pressure or bad passes. 

Did you mean just on the goal? If so, can't see how anyone would defend Arshavin for that. True, others should have done better, but he could have snuffed out the chance out wide. 

Agreed, but the way TV pointed all cameras on Arshavin after the goal is preposterous. This is by no means a one-man fault goal. At least he didn't let Valencia shoot and when Valencia passed into a crowd of men in blue all of them open right behind 4 of our defenders - that's just making a scapegoat out of one player in my opinion.

Once Valencia is past Arshavin the defence is going to panic slightly. Any skilled player like Valencia is going to freeze defenders slightly, and once he's in close anything can happen. But Arshavin could very easily have forced him wide, jockeyed him outside, tried to put the ball out for a throw, or even fouled him if necessary. Once Valencia went by Arshavin it opened up a world of possibilities; before he did it wasn't clear that it would be a scoring chance. Certainly not all Arshavin's fault, but he's the one player that very clearly could have done something to stop the attack before it got going. 

Ok, but he didn't exactly stroll along Valencia. At this point I'm not sure if you really watched the replay of this goal. He fell for a fake cross attempt (only a true defender wouldn't imho) and slid on the ground, but then when Valencia ran into the box weren't there like Song and Kos, and Arsha blocking the goal side? Our defenders met Valencia right at the line of the box. Arshavin then followed Valencia to the goal and took his attempt to kick the ball from Valencia's feet. I'm just saying at least he was the one covering one player. The pass went through the defender and the ball went into the goal then. Otherwise Valencia could have scored himself. The only point I agree is that Arshavin can be made the main man only by Cpt. Obvious TV.

I've watched the goal multiple times, thanks. Part of our jobs here, you might guess. I really do appreciate you going to the trouble to describe it for me, though. Even the part that I find irrelevant, as I've indicated. Once Valencia is past Arshavin, whatever happens is beyond what criticism I have of Arshavin. If you blow a check/mark and you make it up, fair enough. But he didn't, not quite. He tried his damnedest, true. But the part that I have a problem with, as I've written, is the first part, which you give him a pass for for not being a defender. 

Falling for a fake like that was a schoolboy mistake Arshavin is always poor defensively (overall tbh) and you can't rely on him to have much impact but he looked like he didnt care much he didnt even manage to prevent the 1-2 pass leading to the goal and the attempt to kick the ball from Valencia was ridiculous

Valencia is AML so his direct oposition is Vermalen not Arshavin, where he was? Russian did well to cover, stop blaming him.

He actually did very poor in his coverage. I think what you meant is that he deserves applause for even trying to cover. 

At first place it should be Vermaelen who should get bashing. But no he is Verminator therefore it's not his fault, isn't it?

Arshavin did rather well covering and not allowing to shoot. Defenders should have done better.

Not at all. I blame Vermaelen for the first goal more than Djourou. 

But again, Arshavin did not do the first part of his job at all. The second bit, coming back to try to make up for the first blown check, he did fairly well. 

We are joining very thin margins club here...

Anyway, it seems we won't agree on the 2nd goal issue. I still think it was more of Verminator fault, if his position would have been correct Valencia's run could been stoped.

We pretty much agree. I don't think the goal was solely Arshavin's fault, just that he was best positioned to do something about it before it became a real threat.

how do you always know if the player "didn't care"? are you on the staff?
 

I recognize that there are mitigating circumstances to both of those decisions. Wenger has said that AOC had a calf-strain and that Arshavin is the captain of the Russian national team. And Yennaris is still very untested and I don't know that I would have trusted him to start either.

Ramsey had another mare of a game.

I have several thoughts from this one, but I'll share one now.  Look at who was on the bench for each team.  Granted, we had a lot of players out through injury, but they had several out as well. 
For Man Utd, this was their bench: De Gea, Scholes, Fabio, Rafael, Hernandez, Park, and Berbatov.
For Arsenal, the bench was: Almunia, Benayoun, Arshavin, Squillaci, Miquel, Park (the lesser one), and Yennaris. 
Wow, that says a lot right there. 

Not sure it does, really. De Gea will be better than Amunia, clearly, but right now he's making the same mistakes Almunia does. Fabio and Rafael are not proving themselves to be ready for the Premier League, and right now I don't think they're much better than Yennaris and Miquel. Scholes scored the other game, but that doesn't mean he's better than Benayoun. Chicharito is struggling, like Arshavin. Park is better than Park, true, and Berbatov is clearly better than Squillaci. United's bench edges it for sure, but I don't think by as wide a margin as you imply. 

Looking forward to Wenger post-game interview and whinning against the referee. Mike Dean is a joke of a referee but still Arsenal played like shit and Arsahvin is shit only Wenger believes in him not wonder why he's constantly outplayed by Fergie

The moment he took chamberlain off we switched off the TV . Thats it ..his last chance , one of the worst decisions ever , even Van persie could not beleive it

Choo choo!

wenger needs to change his ways fast . we need a defensive coach fast to sort out the defence and to buy premier league players who have experience 

More knee jerk reactions from the 'faithful'..

Are you new? This has been an ongoing discussion here since June or so. I'm not sure you have a working understanding of what the term "knee-jerk" means.

Bull.  I might agree that the talk since June was to find better players than Djourou and Arshavin, but it was NOT Yennaris and AOC (not even on the team in June) who should be replacing them.

Most people weren't even predicting Yennaris to make the bench, much less start, when Vermaelen was going to play.  And it's funny how a player who had barely played 90 minutes cumulative in the Premier League for Arsenal (and had never started) is suddenly an automatic 90 minute starter (until AOC gets hurt and AW is accused, as he has been with Wilshere, of overusing a young player).

Speaking of automatic, "knee jerk" means an automatic and predictable response.  Next time Arsenal loses, I predict to read on this site an automatic bashing of Wenger.  I can even predict who...

Then I think perhaps your reading of our writings is flawed. Between the four of us, I think there is a wide range of opinion on Wenger. Homey (no longer working here) was obviously the most critical, but I don't think that anyone here is uncritically supportive or uncritically negative. Homey's criticisms, if you haven't read, were always thoughtful and considerate.

I am a coach and long-time player, and I commonly critique defensive lapses or breakdowns and coaching decisions. And as I've written below, in both of the original criticisms there are mitigating circumstances. As I wrote: "Yennaris is still very untested and I don't know that I would have trusted him to start either."

That said, Yennaris was very good as a replacement for Coquelin against Leeds, while Djourou has been merely vaguely solid in his appearances at right back.

I think "guest" was just commenting on how after a loss, many people predictably search for things that Wenger did wrong, sometimes to the point of absurdity.  Taking off an injured player who has played 90 minutes twice all season (meaningless match vs Olympiacos and vs Shrewsbury in Wenger's favourite competition, the League Cup) was one of Wenger's "worst decisions ever"?  Seriously?

Even you have said you likely would have made the same "very poor decision" of not starting Yennaris.  Sure, Yennaris did well as a sub against Leeds, but came on only because of injury to Coquelin.  You would also agree, ManU is a much larger defensive challenge than Leeds.

AOC may have very well needed to come off.  Even van Persie said as much: "Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain had a calf injury.  We did not know that but the boss did." 

You made two very tenuous criticisms in your original post, to the point
where you softened your stance a bit after giving it some more
thought.  (or was my reading flawed again?)

Kudos to you for giving it a more reasoned look after some consideration, but do not be surprised when your initial post (along with many other's comments) is labeled "knee jerk".

You'd have to ask the person who called it one of Wenger's "worst decisions ever" whether he was serious.

Also, this is a fan-site. We're fans. We react. Sometimes we overreact. Sometimes when we write up well thought-out arguments for a position, people accuse us of overreacting. I don't think I've read any better critique of Wenger than the stuff Homey has written, yet he gets accused of being a gloryhunter, not being a true fan, of knee-jerk reactions, etc. Sometimes we can't win no matter what we write.

Regardless, we always appreciate the feedback, and I love passionate discussion. So give us your weak arguments, your poor analogies, your indigent transfer rumours... etc.

Jesus, nobody in this little thread has mentioned Homey but you.  Nobody
in this thread is attacking Homey.  So why do you keep defending him
from a non-existent attack?

A guest, a fan, suggests that some people are overreacting, some are
criticizing just to criticize.  Is that a false accusation?  People
write something and later soften their stance because of mitigating
circumstances.  That is an admitted proof of a rush to judgement. 

How dare this guest, this so-called fan, show some frustration toward some of the negativity found here?  Hindsight is 20-20 and it's amazing how many people here know exactly what Wenger should have done after every match! 

Appreciate the feedback, my arse.  Clearly only certain people are welcome to vent certain frustrations...

If you've been reading this site for a while, you'll know that most of us have been quite supportive of Wenger and his moves in the transfer market, his coaching, his record, etc. I don't think any of the four of us current writers are prone to negativity, or criticizing just to criticize. So when you write "the negativity found here", are you just referring to this one post? If you're referring to a pattern of supposed negativity, I have to assume you mean the writing that Homey has done over the past while, as I don't believe there is that pattern amongst the current writers. 

Never claimed it was you who said that.

I was on record with the "Homey Train" last August.

The Homey train rolls. Even that cellphone tapping moron Piers Morgan is on it. Wenger cost us that game. The Arsha for Oxman sub was as Moronic as Piers' comments that Rosicky did nothing. Rosicky played his ass off. Shava cost us that second goal. Turning his back on Valencia and letting him waltz into the penalty area unchallenged was the game. And Shava offered us nothing going forward while Oxman was dangerous all day. His speed caused United problems and Wenger takes him off. Oxman stays on the pitch and we tie that game at worst and have a chance to win. How about we fire Wenger and let him have Piers' job on CNN. This way Piers can go to the games and bitch about how we will not make the Champions League this year. Either that or Wenger revokes Piers 20 year season ticket as a penalty for spying on all those cellphones when he was an Editor at the Mirror. Either way, we're screwed. 

wenger  wont spend??? we are doomed

II'll agreed with u....