Arsenal - (A) - Post Match

[G]

Peter McDowall @Petermcdowall10 47m
Rodgers: “In every system there is a weakness, if there is in this it is in those wide areas. In the first half we got exploited.” #LFC

Which is a fair point,but it ignores the middle of the park which is clearly lacking too against the more organised better midfields like Swansea,Southampton and Arsenal.I hope he knows this but can't publically acknowledge it until we have better options to change it. Given time and space they can do great things,but in a battle they wilt.

[Sarb]

Think Gary Neville spoke a lot of sense. Any team can lose when two top teams play each other. You have to look at the reaction when you lose ie. go and win your next game. He is spot on

Sorry but I just cant share in the pessimism. I dont think we were that bad today. I think we were lacking an edge attack wise. That happens to every team. Look at Chelsea today. With £30m players they were bang average. I thought Sturridge and Suarez were off it today. Toure was poor too

But our aim is Top 4. We are in a good position for that. We were never gonna be title winners, so this defeat doesnt really hurt me much. I think Arsenal are Giroud injury away from a bad run. And to say we are 3rd due to an easy run of fixtures are rubbish. Cant just write off our good results as being against poor teams.

I'm happy with our position. Hopefully we can pick up 3 points next week going into an international break

[cream]

Who else has scored for us apart from Suarez and Sturridge ?

(Not including penalties)

[Sarb]

Its not like we went out and said "**** it, we can't get a midfielder, we'll grab a couple of centre backs instead".

It wasn't an either or and had no impact on our failing to sign midfielders, it was just another position that needed strengthening.

If Skrtl has started the season gash and Agger had been injured again we had contingencies in place.

Sakho was definitely needed. Ive said this before. I really dont understand why people call a signing as good as him a panic buy. Toure was never the answer to our major CB problems, that saw us bring Carra back for last half of last season. Toure was poor today imo but Sakho looked good to me.

Ilori is a signing i dont quite get though

[Sarb]

Who else has scored for us apart from Suarez and Sturridge ?

(Not including penalties)

Henderson, Moses

[SB]

We looked better in attack once Phil came on & fed some lovely through balls into SAS. neither of our wing backs offered that in the 1st half. We need Johnson & Enrique for that system to work IMO.

[cream]

Henderson, Moses

Is that one goal each ?

We have a chronic lack of goalscorers, midfield isn't contributing ****.

[Sarb]

We looked better in attack once Phil came on & fed some lovely through balls into SAS. neither of our wing backs offered that in the 1st half. We need Johnson & Enrique for that system to work IMO.

I personally dont have an issue with 3-5-2. Johnson makes a massive difference at RWB and I really want to see Coutinho behind Luis and Sturridge. I thought we started the 2nd half well. Ramsey was given too much space for his goal. Toure should have closed him down

But Im thinking I might have watched a different game

[Sarb]

Is that one goal each ?

We have a chronic lack of goalscorers, midfield isn't contributing ****.

I think it depends how your team is geared up. With wing backs and two holding midfielders, your front two will probably be the main contributors to your goals column

[G]

Against the lesser sides,the 3-5-2 as we played against WBA with a 1-2 behind Suarez and Sturridge should provide the midfield with plenty of chances for goals,especially if Phil is one of those 2.

[Sarb]

Against the lesser sides,the 3-5-2 as we played against WBA with a 1-2 behind Suarez and Sturridge should provide the midfield with plenty of chances for goals,especially if Phil is one of those 2.

I'll be honest. I dont analyse football/players/formations much so dont know whether 3-5-2 wouldnt work against top sides. To get 4th I think we need to despatch the lower/mid-table teams and we seem more effective at doing that with 3-5-2. Still fancy us to beat the top teams at home

[G]

I was confident before the game so I'm very disappointed today largely because we didn't press them when they had the ball which is crazy. We did it to good affect last season and should have the most important part of our game plan today but it didn't seem to even be in it. We could have beaten them today,we didn't give ourselves the chance to by letting them have time and space on the ball,even with that they relied on a worldie and a bit of luck with a rebound to beat us.The belief a win today would have given would be massive,instead we face a big test of our ability to bounce back next week,a win and a good performance are imperative before the derby.

[el matador]

The whole game was disappointing bar the final 15 where we should have got a draw. Coutinho looked brilliant when he came on and our play just went up a level.

His brilliance only masks the deficiencies in the middle of the pitch though. As for the late signings of two centre backs they were available all summer yet we left them to the day of the window to do the deals. It doesn't look like a well planned strategy rather panic buying like when we bought dudek and Kirkland together and they both turned out to be ****.

For me one centre back and one midfield player instead of two centrebacks and aspas and Alberto would have represented better business for our squad.

Losing to arsenal is a disappointing but to put in a piss poor performance for the first 75 mins was unforgiveable.

[vonk]

No need to over react, we're over achieving ahead of better teams. once things level out, our realistic goal is 4th. Arsenal were quicker in the pass and more insightful. We were predictable and unfortunately cout was rusty otherwise we could've realistically got back into the game

So who are out rivals for 4th then? I'm assuming City, Chelsea and Manu are pretty much nailed on for top three.

I think it's us Arsenal and Spurs, and to be brutally honest, both are better than us. Our defence is leaky and our midfield is static. Only SAS are performing at a top level.

[TheElephantMan]

I wouldn't expect United to be nailed on for top three or four. I think City and Chelsea are the two top teams and then its any two from four. I think we need United and Spurs to drop points, I think they're the weakest of the top six (ourselves included).