Wenger: Drop 3-4-3 Immediately

It's not about the system. We were equally bad with the back-four. The problem is a poor quality squad and an arrogant, senile and clueless manager who should have been sacked many years ago.

Yeah don't forget 4 at the back was responsible for the shambles we saw at Crystal Palace and West Brom away last season. This malaise crept in a long time ago and has nothing to do with formation.

comment by renoog (U4449)
posted 1 minute ago
Yeah don't forget 4 at the back was responsible for the shambles we saw at Crystal Palace and West Brom away last season. This malaise crept in a long time ago and has nothing to do with formation.
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But it hasn't changed it for the better and our attacking has gone. When was the last time when we didn't have an away win so late in October?

But it hasn't changed it for the better and our attacking has gone. When was the last time when we didn't have an away win so late in October?
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Well normally Cazorla is around to play some games at this point of the season before suffering his inevitable season-ending injury in Oct/Nov. It really is grossly incompetent that no-one saw fit to replace him given that they already knew he was going to miss a significant chunk of the season and is winding down his career anyway. Even more so when Ornstein revealed that they actually knew they needed to address CM but only treated it as an afterthought very late in the window.

comment by renoog (U4449)
posted 26 minutes ago
But it hasn't changed it for the better and our attacking has gone. When was the last time when we didn't have an away win so late in October?
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Well normally Cazorla is around to play some games at this point of the season before suffering his inevitable season-ending injury in Oct/Nov. It really is grossly incompetent that no-one saw fit to replace him given that they already knew he was going to miss a significant chunk of the season and is winding down his career anyway. Even more so when Ornstein revealed that they actually knew they needed to address CM but only treated it as an afterthought very late in the window.
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Pep sticks to his philosophy, one creative (silva), one box to box (de bruyne) and 3 fast forwards with movement.

Wenger had something similar his whole life. Not surprised that Pep copied this from wenger. Then last year wenger scrapped it after it was mostly working with alexis as striker.

After 40 years of being so sure why change it? get the players to make it work.

I don't think Wenger is a man who really looks at the system in those terms. I feel he thinks by filling the XI with intelligent and technical players that they'll be able to work out their own patterns of play. Every so often he'll say something in an interview about Walcott's unique running in behind, or Wilshere's ability to transition defence into attack, that makes me think that he appreciates that a club must recruit players of different profiles and have varying threats within the team, but then he goes and undoes it with brainless selections and completely baffling substitutions. I feel Wenger is the kind of manager that thinks to himself "Lacazette is a good goalscorer, but he's not having a good game, so I'll replace him with Giroud, who's also a good goalscorer. Maybe that'll work". Rather than "Lacazette is a pacy player, but this team are sitting deep and denying him space, so I'll bring on Giroud, who can possibly capitalise on our territorial advantage". He is not a manager who sees players as tools and that different game scenarios require different tools to crack. He doesn't seem to have that external perspective and/or the belief that systems are more important than players. For him it's all about the individual quality of a player.

I know you can point to his past successes and try to spot some kind of master planning involving him cherry-picking players of particular moulds and blending them into a perfect system, but often we find that his successful innovations have been by accident. Discovering the Coq-zorla midfield combo a few seasons back. Resorting to Sanchez at CF out of desperation. Stumbling upon Djourou and Wilshere in the 10/11 season after faffing about with Squillaci and Denilson. Messing about with Grimandi/Parlour/Hughes as partner to Vieira after Petit left. The overwhelming feeling I get these days is that he does good stuff by accident rather than design.

Renoog I always used to consider you one of the best posters on the old 606. And I think you are very accurate on this now. Still the best on here. Its been what a decade since those days?

Lets face it, we are all floundering by whats happened. I sort of gave up on Wenger when he stuck with Giroud and Leicester City won the title as a consequence.

I just think if you got to a successful position because you believed in a formula that you were sure off, why change it? If you have lost confidence and you don't know anymore so are experimenting like a new coach then its better to retire.

I didnt see the game today, but the formation hasnt by itself been the problem. We changed to 3-4-3 because we couldnt cope using 4-2-3-1`

I know why. I bet the game was lost in midfield.

Thanks j99, I don't think I'm saying anything particularly insightful, it's just honed from years and years of seeing the same things happen again. So easy to spot the patterns when you have 20 years' worth of games to judge from.