Im comparing utd away with city away.

Is it possible that cesc, for all his brilliance comes at a steep price? Does he need to be protected to such an extent that we lose too much in terms of shape, power, coverage and so on in order to give him the platform he needs?

Sure he can kill a team with a pass, and when playing well is good value for - say - half a dozen clear cut chances and maybe a goal too. But if he is playing badly he wastes posession and can even go missing. the price you pay is having the team organise around him in order to protect him, recover the ball when his pass doesnt come off etc.

We used to organise around Vieira, but he was more consistent and a powerful player in his own right. Cesc is not as 'complete' a package and never will be - he is much more specialised.

PS this is not an anti cescc thread. Im just wondering whether building a team around him is flawed. Last season was a work in progress, Im looking more at the relative solidity of the team (esp midfield) in the two manchester matches recently.

It looks like we are trying to build a MF around Cesc, and to date, it just hasn't worked.

The building a team around Cesc, is flawed because yes he needs strong players around him , to protect him so that he can cause his mayhem.

Problem is the players used to do that job are either not up to it, or are too weak themselves.

Therefore the formation is flawed, when we come up against quality or aggression. Whe we come up against neither we have no problems.

For me if the midfield 3 was say Cesc, Nasri and a player like Flamini, or Diarra or Melo for example..the whole situation would change.

It isn't and therefore our midfield is exposed.

If Cesc leaves and Nasri replaces, him or Rosicky or Ramsey the problem still exists because the other two players are not strong enough to merit starting places in a top 8 European team.

Then add the fact that the keeper is prone to errors, and the full backs attack without care and the problems are easy to see.


So yes building around Cesc is dangerous but its because of all 3 midfielders not just Cesc on his own.

the facts speak for themselves.

as soon as we started building around the boy we stopped winning things.

what if the player to replace him is a more conventional CM (eg. melo, inler) and therefore takes some of the physical burden off the others?

I am not sure if he unbalances the team but he certainly slows it down a lot, you can see the difference in speed of play between when he plays and when he doesnt.

The counter attacking football we used to play went out the window when he became more prevalentn in the team and why is he so shit at set pieces? (Although so are the rest of our team)

He needs to stop pirouetting when he gets teh ball and needs to learn to play one time passes, brilliant player but FFS man, hurry up

I'm beginning to think that maybe that is the only way we'll change.

If Cesc goes and his replacement is Nasri, already we are faster and a little more aggressive, then if Nasri's replacement is a player you mentioned then the strength begins to shine through.

Rosicky...Nasri.....Inler...



I'm sold sell Cesc to Barca 40 million and buy 2 beasts for the midfield.

Im trying to look at the whole picture indeed.

if we dont have the right players to ge the most out of cesc while not comprimisingg the team when he has an off day then isnt it time to call it quits?

The fact is AW is trying to build a midfield with no agression, he's been trying for years and it just does not work.

I don't think he's ever going to get it though, Cesc isn't the problem so to speak it's the fact he needs some tough tacklers alongside him.

Frankly what we have right now just doesn't cut it, not enough desire, the workrate is too low and they can't really tackle. Song has played well and is the only one who's done OK IMO.

The thing is though, denilson/diaby/song looked very good vs man utd. The actaully complement each other very well.

Its not beyond the realsm of possiblity that using those three as the engine room and then having a more efficient attaccking trio in front could - in general - yield more than the various formations picked to suit cesc.

example - cesc+1 in midfield needs someonee with songs strength, denilson's skill, flaminis graft and gilberto's reading of the game. It also needs wingers who can both retain the ball and drive into space, like say hleb or rossicky.

we have wingers but we dont have patrick vieira at his peak, and essien, mascerano type players are too expensive to buy

next summer, I wonder if the sqaud will hav moved on to succh an extent that wenger will be ttoying with the idea of going back to the drawing board and taking whatever money is on offer for cesc.

I am not sure thats true dude, we just dont have agressive personnel is all.

It's all about anti-anti-football...

I thought the midfield was poor against Man U, I don't think they complement each other well at all, in fact when all three play we often struggle to create and never look at our best.

You're right we don't have any agressive midfielders because he refuses to buy any.

You're also right about anti football, anyone who can tackle and show a bit of desire is anti-football....Vieira must have been one of the most anti-footballers around.

Thought they created a fair amount against a strong midfield. Utd arent mugs

We have obviously changed tactics to make him more space to go forward, imagine what its like for Song and Denilson, they are now basically Cescs lackies.

Personbally i am always looking for something more from him, he claims to want to be like Paul Scholes yet Scholes can impose himself on a game a lot more and knows when to play quick and when to slow it down.

But he is still young so lets hope his brain can improve, he also needs to watch the petulance, getting very lippy is young Cesc

No but I thought it wasn't the midfield who performed that well, on the whole they were average bar Song (and some decent running from Diaby from time to time).

That combination though I really hate, whenever they play I get the feeling we'll lose, we often do when all 3 feature.

well if their job is to shore things up and let cescc do his thing then fair enough if cesc does his part. However it means we have switched the team around and have one less body in the final third.

If cesc doeesnt deliver (and to be be fair, if the strikers dont cconvert what he provides) it means we then have to upset the shape of the team in order to look for goals - which is why you get fullbacks and DCMs caught upfield out of position.

This isnt news.

He's lazy. He's weak. When you dont have the ball, you're playing with ten men. What's new?

Its the 5 and 5 rule mate, the centre backs and DM's always stay back as does one of the two FB's.

The front 3, cesc and the otehr full back then attack. Arsene knows we arent the fastest team and by playing this we can press and harry further up the pitch.

The way it falls down is that our fb's cant pass teh ball and constantly give away possesion, particularly Sagna this leads to one sided counter attacks and leaves us short.

:good:

Cesc isn't a traditional player for this league... at the moment he's not really good enough defensively to hold his own alongside another partner and two wingers that are half decent at defending.

Either we should improve the quality of the team, and change his position so that he's playing deeper, or we should get rid and get in someone more... 'box to box' a la Vieira, Gerrard etc.

I think it's good to have a player like him in the team because he can do things that most of the midfielders in the league can't do, but he's a hindrance as much as an asset if played wrongly / not given the right partners.

there is only one candidate for box-to-box midfielder at the club, assuming the other is a gilberto type partner to clean up around him.

and that is diaby.

denilson/song is becoming an either/or

Ramsey as well, you watch in the CCC this year i bet Ramsey starts in Cescs role but with the nod to go "full length"

havent seen enough to think he is ready but yeah good point

:goodpost:

thats exactly what i have been thinking for some time now, since he came into the team not only do we no longer have someone with the power of Viera, he can neither run with the ball like he could.

some may point out his passing ability, but he takes way too long to release the ball sometimes, IMO his first time/long passing is inferior to Petit and Edu who both helped our counter attacking style by being so quick with their passes up field, even if they didnt have the power/pace to fun the full length of the pitch.

We are now playing a 3 man midfield to try and do the same job that 2 men couldnt manage last year, with Denilson and Cesc taking on about half the defensive work and Song being left with the other half, but between them Cesc and Denilson arent different enough to really force the play in an attacking sense. I am really hoping Rosicky gets fit, and can have pretty much a full season next to Cesc in the middle because he is pure class, as well as having the grit to get stuck in.

Meanwhile this has left us with 3 forwards doing the work of 4 men and they are struggling for it. Bendtner out wide is insane, sure tell him to drift out there when we will pump a long ball forward as he has more chance of beating a full back in the air, but the lad needs to play in the center, he is more about team play than Van Persie, he holds the ball up better and, when more confident has the ability to play some good through balls. Whereas VP should be told to play out wide and do what he does best, beat the man cut inside and have a shot.

Feel better for getting that off my chest!

I just he has the engine to do it, he isnt anywhere near as talented as Cesc but works a lot harder to make up.

I am intrigued by the CCC this year and how we will set up and with who playing. Wenger believss in all his teams playing the same tactics so they are 1st team ready if needed, this goes from the youth academy right up through the reserves so the kids that come in should know what they are doing.

Will be interesting to see where Vela plays in the 4-3-3. You would think he would start as the leftie with Bendy in the middle but we shall see.

Also who will play at Centre half? Will it be Senderos and Tweety? With Gibbs and Eboue on either side? Where will Traore play?

As much as I admire Cesc.

I feel a return to fast counter attacking football with box to box Central Midfielders, who tackle and create attacks at pace from nothing is where we need to go.

Nasri with a maturer Coquelin would be great from what I've seen.

Using Arshavin and Theo on the wings for example.



Of course Coquelin is not ready but we do blood them young.

THing is that those kind of players are gold dust and we have no money to attract them.

:goodpost: Man City did it on Saturday and frankly ripped us apart, it wasn't till Rosicky came on to inject some pace we looked more dangerous.

Nothing can compete with pace really, if we had more pace we'd be so much better....AW has settled for this slow, laborius style which just doesn't work and never will IMO.

It's ironic, everything which use to make us successful AW has abandoned.....physical strength, aggression, pace (counter attacking), height, positional discipline, leadership.

I think it's quite sad and points to a manager who no longer really knows how to build a winning team, he's building a team based on fantasy football....however reality is often very different.

Some of you will laugh but after watching a few Fulham games this and last season its not Hangelaand we should be after its Etuhu. Big, hard, fast, can run with the ball and mops up well. Plus he can give a Neville a bloody good whack

Cesc needs a lot of space to play, he'll recieve the ball, take one look up, keep dribbling, take another look up, then release the ball. He's probably the slowest player in the team too so that doesn't help his cause. His performances are quite sporadic, even when he had Flamini who helped him play to his strengths he still fell off the radar from December onwards in 07/08.

Those kind of players dont exist anymore.

Just a little word of warning....

You'll miss him when he's gone.

probably he will be correctly slotted into a sexy football barca team which doenst need to be rebuilt around him and he will win lot more.

which is fine if we (a0 develop better and (b) get a large pile of cash for him

Would be nice if he wins something here first of course

Hmm, I'm pretty sure it's Wenger that uinbalances the team with playing Diaby out wide. In the rest of the games this season, our midfield has worked well, with Cesc contributing all round and the midfield generally ticking over nicely. Cesc not being the quickest of players is the least of our worries, he slows things down but as long as we have players running and creating and finding space (especially out wide) it's not an issue.

Ofc the other option is we try and find another Bergkamp/Pires/Henry/Vieira from somewhere and I'd suggest that Pires is the only guy we can ciome close to replacing quality-wise so that's out.

I still reckon that a midfield three of
-a sitter
-a neat and tidy 'interceptor' for lack of a better word
-a maverick box to box player / spare man

...provides a fine platform for two forwards and a targetman to do their stuff. Especially if it allows fullbacks to go forward in the hope that they can find someone with a cross :)

However, the midfield three need to be happy to just get on with it and leave the fancy stuff in general to the forwards.

fabregas doesnt have the toolbox to be the rampaging mavrick, and paying him in either of the other two roles is nonsense. If in addition he were to have his head turned we'd have a team built for him in which he would just be a passenger.

Its a worry

Nicely put.

Citeh tore us a new one by doing what we used to do - counter attack so quickly that we didn't know what had happened.

Cesc was not at fault for this (Clichy was the main culprit), but the contrast in the 2 teams made it obvious what we are missing. Playing high up the pitch, with FB's who can't actually deliver killer balls, is a massive risk - and for those teams who have the balls to go for it, there are wide spaces for them to exploit.

Slowing play down, which is what Cesc tends to do, exacerbates this problem.

And I would tend to agree with CMR that since Xmas 2007, Cesc has looked lacksidaisical a lot of the time - not putting in the tackles, not running back, not busting a gut. Whether this is because of injury/exhaustion/lack of fitness/lack of engine, or mental, I don't know. But without some variation in his play/upping his effort, he may be becoming a luxury we can ill afford.

Still, lets give it a few more games to pass judgment.

He slows our play down because Wenger is playing him in the wrong position.

maybe he is the next adebayor...

I hope not - because I don;t think he is a total c***. But I fear that he is beginning to fall into the AW player model of being a bit over pampered and taking his position for granted.

:goodpost:

well I dont think he is as nasty or as stupid of course.
But I do wonder if he will sulk for a season and agitate for a move