pass and move

[bazza76]

from arsenal yesterday was a joy to watch at times, as much as i hate to admit it, they werent afraid to play football in one of the hardest places to come to in europe.
as soon as they got the ball yesterday they were playing nice passes first time, much like the liverpool of old.
I think we were too hesitant on the ball at times in comparrison.

[einar]

from arsenal yesterday was a joy to watch at times, as much as i hate to admit it, they werent afraid to play football in one of the hardest places to come to in europe.
as soon as they got the ball yesterday they were playing nice passes first time, much like the liverpool of old.
I think we were too hesitant on the ball at times in comparrison.

So true. We need to pass and move.

[CharlieMansonsSquint]

from arsenal yesterday was a joy to watch at times, as much as i hate to admit it, they werent afraid to play football in one of the hardest places to come to in europe.
as soon as they got the ball yesterday they were playing nice passes first time, much like the liverpool of old.
I think we were too hesitant on the ball at times in comparrison.

They've just got more players who are better at it.

Especially in wide areas. The difference between our wide players and theirs in quality of possession and passing is vast.

More quality and pace is needed in wide positions, that includes the full back position. I can see now why Rafa wanted Alves.

We should be going hard after Gareth Bale IMO.

[AFII]

That is what I have been saying a long time and it's also puts a question mark to if Sissoko should be a starting XI player. We need to speed up our game and that means that all the players need to be a good passer and clever on the pitch.

[einar]

They've just got more players who are better at it.

Especially in wide areas. The difference between our wide players and theirs in quality of possession and passing is vast.

More quality and pace is needed in wide positions, that includes the full back position. I can see now why Rafa wanted Alves.

We should be going hard after Gareth Bale IMO.

The Arsenal players dont play like that because they are good players. ( They still are. )

They play this way because they are told to play this way.

Yes Arsenal have better players then we do but our players are still good enough to play this way to.

[bazza76]

The Arsenal players dont play like that because they are good players. ( They still are. )

They play this way because they are told to play this way.

Yes Arsenal have better players then we do but our players are still good enough to play this way to.

I think both are valid points, their attacking players are class and can pass with the best of them. play with no fear. but arsenal clearly have a different training routine and tactics to ourselves.

[einar]

I think both are valid points, their attacking players are class and can pass with the best of them. play with no fear. but arsenal clearly have a different training routine and tactics to ourselves.

[Rosco]

I think both are valid points, their attacking players are class and can pass with the best of them. play with no fear. but arsenal clearly have a different training routine and tactics to ourselves.

Pace is the biggest thing they have over us.

The pace they have all around the team particularly at the back gives them the freedom to bomb forward on the counter playing lots of slick passing football because they all support each other.

They can leave Toure, Gallas etc isolated at the back because they can deal with pace in one on one situations.

We can't. That means even when attacking we have to be ready to protect the back four.

DJS has mentioned a few times about us not getting bodies in the box, others talk about our lack of pass and move etc. I think the big reason why we don't do it is because we play a largely rigid system (we've all heard Rafa go on about our shape) in order to protect the back four. The back four need protecting IMO because of their vulnerability to pace.

Chelsea used to do a similar thing as us, but the difference was they had Robben, Cole and Duff wreaking havoc on defences. We haven't got that quality.

[Kopite_Colin]

I thought we were by far the better side yesterday. We made defensive mistakes that cost us - not Arsenal's brillance. But for Carra's error, it was far more likely we were going to get an equaliser than they were to score again.

The better side lost yesterday imho. Bellamy's pace would have been no use to use yesterday because Arsenal were defending so deep, which is why the winger's crossing quality, and full back support was so important. But we were so heistant about getting MFers into the box becuase we didn't want to get caught on the counter-attack (which happened anyway). I'd much rather we went all out steaming into their box from the off and get 1-0 or 2-0 up and let them worry about us, than us worrying about them at home. You need to get the ball and enough bodies into the box - otherwise you won't score. It's basic stuff, but we seem to fail to do it so often sometimes.

[Red_Polo]

All over the pitch they have players with pace who excel at running with the ball. We have Gerrard and Bellamy that can do that with any consistancy and that's about it. We're not looking to play exactly the same way as them so it's not like we also need the whole team to be like that, but it is something we sorely lack out wide IMO.