My reflection on game #23...at Arsenal

[Smudge3920]

I would like to put this result down to the "London Curse", but that would be an avoidence of the truth if I did. The truth is the combination of "over correction" due to the loss of one player by our beloved MB (we all have to wear our mistakes) and a certain Arsenal player finding his form (Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang) and scoring a superb hat-trick were the main factors in todays loss.
Our performances of late had shown we had finally found a settled back 4, and our MF pairing of Dallas & Klitch was working extremelly well together. So todays performance begs the question from me to MB: why? When playing Shacks as replacement for KP and adjusting from the bench if necassary as the game developed was IMO all that was needed?... The resulting confusion was mayhem.
I could have lived with it more , if he had played Roberts, Huggins and Costa from the get go, showing a true intent to switch things up. By half time the damage was done, to recover from a 4-0 deficit is too much to ask of any team. The fact we "won" the 2nd half is a testimony to the players efforts and not ever giving up. The "over correcting" caused so many problems and it has to be soley owned by MB, of which I have no doubt he will in his usaul professional and ethical way. Maybe he was trying something new and the team did not quite get it right, but to make so many changes and not change the actual style of play is beyond my laymans brain.
The positive is there is no real effect in standings and no one below us has made any real ground.

I will leave individual comparisons and thoughts to the thrust and parry of the game threads.
Onward and upward MOT.

[Cjay]

I think MB has his pecking order and would rather use his preferred players in a 11 first and thus shuffle around rather than play his less fancied players.

I think he trusts the system and feels his preferred players are better suited to it.

And maybe thats a bit of a blindspot of his? His belief in the system over the individual and because of that he plays his preferred players first in whatever position he can.

He clearly has a pecking order we know he does and maybe that unfortunately at times causes him to make the wrong choice.

He trust the system to much and maybe some players not enough?

Not sure ive explained myself to well here

Basically.

Pecking order.
Only play those lower down in it as a last resort ie if the square pegs round holes of his preferred players doesnt work.