₦airaland Forum

Roland17:
Baba, I no come even understand again. The example of Barcelona and City should not even suffice. They forget that both teams invested in defenders and goalkeepers for City so they can start their attack from the back. If that does not make the argument then I don't know what does. The most successful Barcelona side in recent times (from 2008) paraded Abidal/Puyol/Pique/Alves. Do you have any idea how many clean sheets that team had? Abeg I go die the matter.

Like I said in my previous post, my compromise will be to allow them to take all the investment and resources in buying new midfielders and attackers, only if we focus on transitioning away from those agabya clowns we parade every game day. I want to see Mari/Saliba/Chamber/Holding battle for the CB while Mustafi/Sok/Luiz/Kolasinac should respectfully find their way out of the team.

I lost hope of any investment in our defence after Luiz was offered an extension. Na so we want take waste money?

Talking about wasting money, why can't the club come clean on the Ozil situation? Instead of saying him missing games because he needed a spa massage, they should just say he is no longer going to play for us. Bale's case in Madrid is even better, at least him dey see bench.

Jodera:
In terms of CBs, it's good if they're done buying them sef. Our cb can be groomed esp without injuries to key players in CBs. Chambers, holding Mari and Saliba can do a good job if groomed well. But you see that midfield and attack. Na injection we need to spark live to that place.
Talk your truth, aside Auba, who are you confidently expecting can score a goal wen we need it?

Please don't get me wrong. The question is not whether we need improvements in our midfield and attack. Off course we do. The question is about which is more priority. And I say that our defense is no where near any thing to be desired and it's in a state of emergency. We can manage our midfield and attack, but we must not take this defense into next season.

Yes actually I believe they can be groomed. But no team goes into a season hoping to finish top four based on grooming young untested defenders. Like I said, I feel our business in that department may have been concluded already, but that goes to show how unambitious our owners are. So we as fans can only HOPE the younger ones turn up.

Mind you, you cannot take away the most important factor in the argument (Aubameyang) and expect anything meaningful. Assuming we don't have Auba, I'd say we get a top stricker first, but then we've got Auba.

Jodera:
Lol . I can also say opposite for man city and barca. Even barca dominance is waning cos they have ageing and poor midfield and attack compared to before.

Lie.

Check the quality of defenders they have at the clubs you mentioned.

Man City= Stones, Otamendi, Laporte, Mendy, Cancelo, Zinchenko
Barcelona= Pique, Umtiti, Alba, Lenglet, Semedo

Don't even try, these clubs invest in their defense. any good coach knows that for your attack to be potent you must have a reliable back line. That was exactly what Klopp did to get his Liverpool to dominate other teams the way they did. all the times we won the league the had an enviable backline. The difference between Rodgers' Liverpool and Klopp's is a reliable defense. A good attack may win you games but if you have a bad defense you will eventually capitulate. Rodgers lost the league after drawing to Crystal palace. The score? 3-3. And that was after they were 3-0 up.

Honestly we shouldn't be arguing this.

Jodera:
how is it not much difference? Aside Auba, I'm not sure laca and pepe will see that attack

Is it because you haven''t seen them play against you? In terms of quality it's the same, they only have numbers to rotate.

In Klopp's set up, when attacking the front three enters the box while the FBs become wingers, then the middle three spreads to protect the CBs.

When defending the back four stays while the middle three joins the front three in pressing. They chase the ball where ever it goes.

Brilliant set up.

Roland17:
Since guys are mentioning Liverpool up and down. Take a look at the attachment and tell me what you see. What is the difference between both teams? 1 team broke scoring records came close but ultimately failed to win the EPL, the other won the title.

Good defense.

There is no argument. If Fergie says so, no one must say otherwise. The man that has won more titles than any other manager should not be argued with.

The thing is it even takes a good defense to have a good attack. Just take a look at Sheffield.

falcon01:
nah I dont wanna be alive with the other 50% wanna be dead with the other 50!!!

Receive my blessing son.

Fkhalifa:
Kane
Son
Alli
Lo celso
Bergwin
Moura.

Mouriho may have turned them defensive, but don't forget those attack got to the UCL final and got top4 in recent years.

They have numbers and experience but not much difference in terms of quality compared to ours.

Fkhalifa:
In as much as they may have a point on defence, the attacking set up is also midtable standard that needs urgent attention.

Below is a fan's opinion last year on the matter.

Let's do something. Let's list the attack of teams around us and compare.

Oya, start with Spurs. Help us.

Realistically, we cannot change the entire team. But if we must start somewhere it should be the defense. Sadly, I believe the club have done their business there after getting Mari and Saliba. We just hope the turn up.

Next is to get a decent DM then a LW according to how Arteta is currently lining up his team. 343. If he is going for a 433, then an AM is needed ahead of the LW.

Will he keep Ceballos, sell Guendouzi? Can't say, but I wish Ceb stays.

Where can I buy a telescope and how much?

falcon01:
Affirmative

I mean the other 50%

Manofvalor1:
Story! story!!.you think corrupt buhari and apc government would do anything to jeopardise their candidate and the interest of their loyalist just prior to the edo state elections? only ignoramus still believes that apc and buhari goverment is not corrupt.and only a fool believes that buhari and apc is fighting corruption.magu's trial is purely political and soon after hes removed from office the whole corruption saga would be swept under the carpet and nothing would be heard from it again.

There are certain facts that must be established here.
1. Those in power now are all thieves. Some are stealing for the President (eg Magu) with hope of cover up.
2. Magu's arrest will expose those he has been covering.
3. Malami is after Magu as Abba Kyari is no longer alive to shield him.
4. Malami's beef with Magu is because of his insubordination, but Magu too will expose Malami, he will also threaten to expose all others like Adams Oshiomole unless an agreement is reached. .
5. Buhari is too ignorant of what is going on in his government. People are running his government for him as he is either too daft or too old to rule.

falcon01:
oh God make it Land in Nigeria please let it Destroy 50 percent or all of Nigeria!

Hope you are among the 50%?

Bigflamie:
There's no call for alarm. 71, 805 km the distance is still very very far

Not true oga. For distances in space, that is very very close. It's not just about the risk of impact but also the energy wave that will result. It can even affect our genetics and seasons.

blexxonmak:
Good morning house.
Is anyone using SRT 497S in the house?
Can it accept keys (bi**, powerv*, etc,) or is it just a basic MyTV decoder??

I am also interested in this. Anyone?

Recent Strong decoder models come with external power packs. I noticed from previous usage that it fries up the motherboard to a state that is unrepairable.

Any advice from gurus in the house?

What's amusing is that Arsenal have already completed their transfer business in the defense department for next season in my view unless something really miraculous happens. The signing of Mari and the return of Saliba does it. We can only hope those two are different from what we already have and that they come with the right mentality. Chambers is another area where hope lies, and Holding has not acted film since I have watched him. As for Luiz, Socratis, and Mustafi I don't know how God will do it. but I don't want them anywhere near Emirates.

Roland17:
Firstly, thank you for the kind words, I am humbled. I am happy to see new handles come through, hopefully, everyone stays because I enjoy the variety of opinions. Shout out to @Spy360 and other handles that have stuck it through thick and thin over the last decade and counting. Please no one should construe this paragraph to mean the level of fandom for every fan on this thread.

Below are excerpts from Arteta, the head coach/ Manager of Arsenal on Saturday, not P. Merson or anyone else trying to exaggerate, the head coach.

“If you want to be successful and you want to win every three days, you have to be very consistent in all the defensive work that you do.

“The more clean sheets you get, the easier it is to win football matches.”
https://www.goal.com/en/news/arteta-address-arsenal-defensive-issues-winning-culture/q1bh51yyimsk1t3peul4v141w

I think we need to be careful with how we compare Arsenal to Liverpool and City or even Manchester United/ Chelsea, Barcelona is a huge stretch. and this is because we are no longer able to compete financially like those teams. That invariably means the path to growth is going to be different.

Trust me, I understand Jodera and Fkhalifa's point of view, my issue is they have chosen to burden the cross of our despicable showings at the back on our midfielders and attackers instead of the clowns we parade weekly at the back. For instance, according to stats, we are currently ranked 7th in goals scored, do you want to know where we rank in goals conceded worth more loses/ draws from winning positions? If we had a stable defense do you think we could have converted some of those losses into draws or wins?

My compromise will be to clear out the agbaya's in clown clothing and transition to the young defenders without buying defenders and then buy forward players that you are all clamoring for. What I refuse to agree to is combining those clowns with the best players upfront will resolve our defensive woes.

Finally, I have watched football for too long, especially Arsenal to know that a good attack wins games but a potent defense wins titles and keeps you competitive.

That's the first law of football management. I guess it was Sir Alex Ferguson that propounded the theory. Case closes here.

Jodera:
Of course the primary goals of defence is to stifle attack. But attack doesn't just appear in front of defence, it passes through the midfield. There's a saying that the first Line of defence is attack. Once a midfield is completely overrun, there's little the defence can do. Yes our defence is comical and we can never use that kinda defence to carry league, but even our attack and midfield is 5th or 6th it can lead us to.

At the bolded you mentioned, most of the matches are both equalisers, except that of Brighton and Tottenham. What does that tell you, that we're scoring only one goal. Does that tell you the kinda attack we have?. See Leicester for example, we spurned so many chances to make it two that the vardy goal in the 80+ min now seems significant. And that's my point. Not every game I expect us to be scoring 2-3 goals, but any team that wants to rely on a goal lead to win games won't go far, except if you've world class defenders in your team.

I respect your view about our defence, but I want you to look deeply into our attack and see our average goals per match and the goal scorers especially in that attack. Exclude auba goals and let's see where our attack and midfield goals would lead us.

Take a look at the league table before posting. It's true that we could do better with midfield and attack, but the priority without a doubt is the defense.

Taking the recent game as case study, one could easily see that our defense undermines the efforts of both midfield and attack and wears them down psychologically. With a good defense, teams like Athletico are where they are. You must make it difficult for teams to score against you first. You don't lose games by not scoring, you lose by conceding goals. And when those goals are majorly due to individual errors, it's not even the manager to blame but the players. Have you not heard of 1-0 to the Arsenal?

Roland17:
There is a lot of misconception about buying good defenders. We all know we are not in any position to compete financially for any of the top names but that is why we pay scouts! I have said this several times, the same scouting system that discovered Martinelli, got Mari, groomed Saka and trained Martinez can be used to find good defenders. Mari is not too shabby, we have not seen Saliba in the EPL but he has looked decent every time he played for St Ettiene and Holding can grow if he gets the chance but when is the chance going to come when we are extending Luiz while parading Mustafi, Sokratis and now Bellerin? What are Holding, Chambers, Mari, and Saliba supposed to learn from those Agbaya clowns? I thought Arteta's ruthlessness would have started from transitioning the backline to the younger players but again, I understand his plight, Chambers is out injured.

I would rather play with the younger defenders at this point than continue to parade clowns who lack the discipline to hold themselves accountable.

Big Points.

Luiz's extention is nothing but disastrous. What ever informed the decision. Right now I am looking at next season and paraying that Mari and Saliba turn good while Chambers and Holding stay out of hospital and be the backups or compete if they can. As for the Ndi Aparis, my prayer is for any club to come and carry them away even for free.

Fkhalifa:
You can't have Auba on the wings and expect us to attack or defend effectively all day same as Pepe.

Sallah and Mane are always comfortable on the ball,causing your defense problems all day and that's why Arnold and Robertson can come forward to support with ease.

Unfortunately this team is full of cowards. When they receive the ball and an opponent is even 5 metres away, the default reaction is to just pass the ball to nearest man, (a case of Majeobaje lowomi)and rid themselves off of any pressure. Xhaka, and Kola are 2 very big culprits of that tiresome and needless backpassing.

Anybody saying we should sort defense is right and I agree, but its a matter of time we see the problems upfront.

Normally you need only three decent forward players in your team and then two others as backup.

We have Auba, Laca, Pepe and then Saka, Martinelli. There is still room for improvement, but I tell you we are above average. Compare this with sides like Chelsea, Sheffield, Wolves, Leicester, even Man Utd, there is not much difference. These other sides have better defense than us and that's the key. Do you know how many games we have drawn or lost from winning positions? It's a league high.

Fkhalifa:
OK nah.
But we kept clean sheet and didn't concede erratic goals since Luiz at city.

Against who? Even then, we only have Martinez to thank for covering well for Leno.

afrodoc2:
If some guys are still arguing over where the main problem is then e get as e be.

Aubameyang is a very good striker.
Lacazette is a decent striker.
Martinelli and Saka have shown great promise.

ALL YOUR CENTREBACKS ARE CLOWNS. None of them is serviceable. Merely looking at them makes most people laugh.

The attack can improve by them training together and maybe putting players in their proper positions in order to help them succeed.
The central defense needs a new set of players entirely. There is no bobo that Luiz and Mustafi can bobo anybody again.

I believe there are one or two that can be serviceable. We have Mari, he is average but looks like he has got potential. There is also Chambers, injury prone and average but he reads well, then Saliba.

Point is I don't see Oga Kroenke splashing cash for a CB, and even if he does I don't see any decent CB willing to join a Europeless club like ours.

Fkhalifa:
I get your point, and I'm not disputing the problems at the back. But if we can kill games off,put opposition on constant pressure as against the insipid pointless possession, we'll be close if not there yet.

Remember the game at city, we didn't concede till 45th minute, but we never looked like scoring all through, maybe its my eyes, we don't look threatening, you won't see dangerous crosses,shots,defense splitting passes, everything is just pass pass and pass.

See the game at wolves, we defended and got lucky not to concede, but going forward, we were slow,weak and dry, until Laca came on, and immediately we scored, everyone became energized.

If we buy the best defenders, I can assure you if the forwards are not making use of the ball effectively, opposition teams will put constant pressure and the world class defenders will look mediocre also.

We need to fix defense just as the attack. If I were to be coach, I'll focus on attack first as we don't concede or make errors every minute.

My brother for me our attack is ready for next season. But with this kind of defense, even Messi leg go weak to score goal mere looking at the clownish displays the defense put up at the back. The psychological torture alone can make the best attack to just wind down.

Roland17:
Let me start by saying welcome to the thread, not sure I have seen this handle before.

Most times, it's not even opponents putting us under pressure. Sometimes our players play into the hands of our opponents, the examples are numerous I have lost count. Do you remember the Watford game where Sokratis had a brain fart? I mean how much worse can it get? That example cost us 3 points! We scored 2 goals, a good defense should be able to see that out but of course, Luiz had to hack a player to make Sokratis's brain fart look easier on the eyes!

The issue with our defense cannot be over-emphasized. The problem is that it will be herculean to get any decent defender seeing that we are not qualifying for Europe, unless we want to pay astronomical salaries, something I will not sanction after seeing what Ozil is doing to us now.

The clowns in the team should be axed (its already nauseating that Luiz got an extention), those average ones like Mari, Holding, Chambers and Saliba should be allowed to play together so that they can at least form a partnership. The rest should just find their way out.

kokaneprodigy:
You can try to deny this but he was part of the problem.
I’ll cut a manager some slacks if I see he’s trapped and got no options to try out. Did Emery ever try a partnership of Xhaka and Ceb for some games other than rotating everyone else with Guen.

If Emery had stayed a lot of players would have left, Emery would play Willock, Guen, Xhaka Nketiah all in midfield while he had Ceb, Torreira glued to the bench and he kept doing it despite a poor run of result. See what Ceb is currently orchestrating in that midfield? But Emery felt Guen/Xhaka partnership was the best we could get.

If I feel we have better options on the bench for CB right now you think I will give Arteta a pat for sticking with Luiz and Mustafi despite their show of shame?

That’s the difference.

I was refering to Wenger not Emery. Emery was his problem. Wenger's was covering for the owners when they were the actual problem. The owners refused to invest, till today the best they could do was to turn our external loans to internal.

If any fan is hoping to see a >50m signing next season is dreaming. We are not going to finish any where to qualify for Europe next season, so no major signing should be expected. Unless Arteta does a Wengerseque signing- an unearthed gem, our hopes lies on our youths and academy.

[quote author=Akinbahm post=91664460][/quote]Your picture even carry glo advert.

If you have ear hear, Xhaka plays DM for us, but he is not a defensive midfielder. Aubameyang is not a winger. Saka is not a LB, he is not even a winger. AMN is not a RB.

Jodera:
Hmm...
In as much everyone is shouting cb cb. I still feel cb or our back line can be managed till we sort the pressing issues at hand. Which are good DM, Am and good attack (wingers) before any cb.

Come to think of it, our midfield was sliced open ystdy anytime spurs were attacking, only ceballos was making meaning tackles and interception(which is why we need good technical and robust dm). Our midfield lacked creativity except also for ceballos who tried to string things (tho xhaka gave an important key pass to bellerin which he flounder). Which is why we need good AM. As for attack, the less said about it the better. Pepe who supposed to be our goto guy for creativity in attack had a very sub par day ystdy and have been underwhelming this season. Auba isn't creative neither is laca. That leaves our creativity in attack blunt as hell.
Once midfield and attack are shorn of creativity what do you expect our Cbs to do? Not alienating our cb tho, but the best form of defence is attack, and until we sort that then we can think of solving the cb issues. Let's take a cue out of klopps team. He first sorted attack and midfield, which yielded them top 4. Then he completed it with the defence which now won the league. And I think that's the best way to go about it.

Order of priority(my opinion)

DM
Wingers
AM
Cbs

Losing to Spurs yesterday is a blessing for me. Since are not going to finish top four this season, so must not finish any where near the Europa places.

That said, it leaves us with less burden as we are no longer tops in England. The earlier fans get used to this the better informed we can be.

Again, we are not going to sign Partey or Upamecano, or any top player. They will be joining the CL sides. The best we can do is to keep our best legs and get some academies up and running.

The likes of Saka, Martinelli, Nelson, AMN, Nketiah, Saliba, etc are our high hopes if they click. They need our full support and prayers and not undue pressure. If they do well, we can make CL next two seasons plus good platform to sign our dream stars. If they fail na another season of of hopes and prayers.

Any fan that assumes Kroenke will bring out 60m to sign any player and pay them big money to compensate not playing in the CL is living in fools paradise.

Zabiboy:

As usual they are waiting for next season ..

Mad man. How you take know?

kokaneprodigy:
no be your MCM sign am?

Left to you Wenger would still be managing this club.

No. When he was done he was done. My problem is blaming him for the club's woes when the Kroenke owners are the actual problem. It's like Guen, I don't fancy him at all, but blaming him for our defensive performances is totally irresponsible.

Fkhalifa:

You see say Ozil sef dey chill, baba no chop blame again,him dey chop money instead.

If to say him play, dem for expect am to track Son to prevent Kola's error from resulting to goal...and blame him for Son scoring.

Omo chop money instead of blame