Incredibly depressing, but not surprising. Doesn't hurt as much as the 1-0 loss against Ireland in 2001, as we could see this one coming all the way. Reasons we didn't qualify in my opinion: Hiddink Appointment - Has failed in his last 3-4 jobs, completely past it. Even the Hiddink of old would not have fit with this group, as he's the type of coach that excels with great players and managing egos. He's not one to create something better than the sum of the parts. Blind Appointment - Couldn't believe when they appointed him the successor for 2018 when Hiddink was named coach. Who does that? I've never had confidence in this guy. Was coach for 1 season at Ajax and wasn't great. Also not someone who comes across well in interviews etc (doesn't count for much I guess, just makes it all more annoying considering the failure) Injuries - It has to be said that our best players haven't been available throughout. Vlaar (our best defender, I guess that says enough about our back line), Robben (played 3 full matches out 10), Strootman (best midfielder now, out since 2014), and a bunch of smaller injuries throughout the process like Janmaat, Willems, Clasie. Considering our overall talent pool, it makes a huge difference when you're missing 2-3 starting players. Selection - Not really sure why Blind or Hiddink didn't pick van Dijk earlier (okay, he had a bad game yesterday but so did everyone), Nigel de Jong (Blind says we only need him for tournaments as we should dominate lower opposition. Er, right). Also hate that other good players from foreign leagues didn't get picked like Pieters, for example. Instead we used a bunch of inexperienced youngsters from Ajax who failed miserably in the CL and Europa League. Top Players Too Old - Can't rely on the old guard anymore. As great as they were, that generation is pretty much done. vd Vaart is out of the picture and hasn't been good/fit in 2 years+, Sneijder is still good but no longer world class really, v Persie is done (bench in Turkey), Robben is our only top player now and he won't make 2018 with his current level. No good players 25-30 range - Our promising youngsters are either too inexperienced or not in good form (see Memphis). There's a huge gap between our up and coming generation and decent senior players. The Babel, Drenthe, Emmanuelson, Anita, Donk, Maduro generation never quite cut it at the top level. They should be helping the old guys carry the new generation, but they're not even good enough to make the team. Defensive Frailty - Goes with the other point about selecting young inexperience players. We had Tete and Riedewald playing, two Ajax players who have only played a handful of matches (I think less than 30 league games between them). Can't rely on these young players in top games. Our more experienced defenders like de Vrij and Martins Indi are only 23/24 and they made terrible mistakes as well. Martins Indi in particular has been awful. The organisation at the back has been dire, which has exposed our mediocre individual qualities. van Marwijk and van Gaal could see this and ensured we had defensive midfielders protecting the back 4 or playing the 5 at the back system. We barely conceded back then even though we had someone like Heitinga at the back. Also think Mathijsen was underrated. His positional sense was great.
Spoiler <iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fad40k_9hfY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I am curious how many NBA fans would recognize this face of AS Rom without looking it up Spoiler Daniele De Rossi
Kloppo with a draw. Pressing was pretty good, although it died down later when players got fatigued. Finishing is horrid. No creativity and not enough composure.
Im happy with the draw. He loses 3 players to injury in a week, I didnt expect a win tbh,but his influence will grow on the squad this season im for sure. Sakho needs a consistent CB partner. Our attack and Midfield definitely a upgrade with talent/depth. Brendan really screwed this squad this season
As he said, don't expect too much early. Klopp needs players that fit exactly in his system, so it'll take at least until next year, before the team looks the way he wants to. Also expect him to bring german (speaking) players over. Subotic comes to my mind, maybe also a keeper: Weidenfeller? Karius?
At least Klopp got it right and disremembers that Lovren ever existed. I have to agree with Krizzle, Rodgers really ****ed this team up real good. I hope he fails wherever he goes after LFC. Klopp really has to fix that front line after the season. Sturridge makes MerGady look healthy and Origi is very, very raw. Not convinced Benteke is anything more than an above average forward. I watched parts of the game against Spurs and it seemed like our midfield and forward got outplayed by theirs.
Typical Arsenal CL performance. Lose to nobodies and then win against a good team. Wenger is usually slow when it comes to tactics but he was spot on today. Gave up possession (very un-Arsenal like) and then hit them hard on counter attack. BTW, if Wenger takes credit for this game, he should also take full criticsm for his squad selection in the previous two games. Cezh on bench with Ospina playing LOL.... The Walcott-Alexis-Ozil counter attack can be a pain....has been working very well in EPL and showed in today's game as well. BM had problems with it today. No one really talks about it but Bellerin has been very impressive this season. I expect big clubs to go after him.
arsenal is a big club. they have a 192m pound wage bill and don't need the money. if they don't need the money and can pay similar wages then the player isn't going anywhere. there was a time when arsenal were sorting out their stadium where they had to sell their best players but they are done with that and it will be back to the henry-vieira-pires days where they kept those players for their best years and only let them go when they were old and past their best. i'll bet you that bellerin is an arsenal player 8 years (consecutive years) from now.
