Arsenal vs. Villarreal - CL quarterfinal discussion thread

Dragões azuis e brancos wrote:The talent level is similar, but you are faster, bigger & stronger than them. That's it really.

The size & strength of an average PL team >>> Arsenal's size & strength >>> the athleticism, size & strength of Villareal & Roma.

No it's not.

We are more athletic in some areas( in defence + Adebayor upfront), but we've got more special players(Cesc, Nasri, RVP etc) than them.

I was most impressed by Song today. Gave him a lot of stick, but today he was pretty good

One down, two more to go (for the week). Are we likely to get Sagna or Djourou back for Saturday?

Sagna should be back surely seeing as it was only a virus.

Sagna could well be. he picked up Nasri's virus. Dunno about Djourou

What a great game to go tonight. Atmosphere was fantastic and team was awesome from the offset. Maybe a few decisions were debatable but we were the better team over the 2 legs.

Bring on United

De Guzman wrote:I was most impressed by Song today. Gave him a lot of stick, but today he was pretty good

And has been for some weeks now.

Song is growing into a beast. Funny how this was a player that I always thought had a crap 1st touch and was a very shit passer(going mainly by what I read on blogs), then I saw him against Gerrard at Anfield(in the CC), and saw him put in one of his best Arsenal performance to date. Craptista got the plaudit that night, but Song was fantastic. I followed his performances for Charlton and Cameroon, and u could see that the talent was there. But I never thought(didn't just mention it here) he had the mobility and quickness in his game to play in a 2 man Midfield. Glad he's proving me wrong

kas wrote:I was going to watch Porto-Man. Utd, but seeing this lineups, I think Villarreal can do it, so I'm definitely watching this to start with

The agendas on here are ridiculous to hilarious at times, but in some ways a wee bit depressing when they tend to come from precisely the people with the outstanding football knowledge. Prof is right - Villarreal don't have Cesc and Robin (not that either was outstanding tonight). It surely can't be just me who was struck by the way such a wonderful side (on the strength of their first half in Spain) looked so headless and "ideenlos", so lacking in their usual midfield fluency, without Senna.

(he looks a bit like the c**t there though )

My screensaver is now 48 dancing Wengers

You is a legend

Hopefully we see the elctric slide next

its not like arsenal played Villarreal of the park, they had two goals of breaks in their half of the field, and had the PACE to take advantage of it and a PK.


it had nothing to do with nasri,rvp and who ever being that much better than their Villarreal counterpart.

It all came down to athleticism, you had it, villarreal didn't.

What clear cut chances did they create again? Ok cool

because they didn't have the pace and strength, so would call it athleticism, to get behind arsenal defense.

The Professor wrote:

kas wrote:

The Professor wrote:They are being taught a footballing lesson TS. Nothing to do with athletism.

It's not all athleticism, but it's a huge part of it. When they get the ball, they are closed down and outmuscled far too quickly for their liking. And in return they just can't keep up with Arsenal. Part of it is due to Arsenal's better ball movement, but part is because they are able to run with the ball easily. Cesc isn't the fastest player around, yet in the first half there was a move when he was just easing past Gonzalo and the Villarreal player fouled him from behind to stop him.

This is the same thing people say about Arsenal when we lose. Villareal's passing movements is brilliant Kas. They've got lots of players who can run with the ball too, see Fernadez, Ibagaza, Rossi, Pires etc so I don't see anything u are trying to prove with the Fabregas example.

We were not great tonight, but we've got simply put overall more quality than them. We are very similar, but they don't have someone in the class of RVP or Cesc for example. There in lies the difference.

They may be able to run with the ball, but are they:

1. fast and strong enough to run past Toure/Song/Eboue, for example?

2. skilful enough to dribble past an opposition player if you can't hit and run?

On 1, definitely not. But for Arsenal, even a relatively slower Cesc can outpace Villarreal's CB easily. Something you don't see Cesc do often, if at all. That's what I was trying to prove with my example.

Note I'm not implying what Pierre often says, that "Arsenal are only good because they run really fast for 90 minutes". I'm only saying that compared to Villarreal, Arsenal were much faster and stronger. Of course when it comes to the other 3 in the English Big 4, Arsenal have to use their technical abilities to win games, rather than their physical abilities.

Also, if you disagree with what all of us are saying, read between the lines of Cesc's post-match comments to Spanish media:

Ya vimos que en El Madrigal ellos bajaron en la segunda mitad y si hoy seguíamos con el mismo ritmo les podía pasar factura

Translation: We saw that in El Madrigal they lowered their game in the 2nd half, so if we continued with the same rhythm today, we would beat them.



On 2, yes they have skill, but this is where the other part of it comes in - as Jaime and I both said during the game, Villarreal were just poor last night. They didn't look like they were giving 100% and even on the few occasions when Arsenal lost their defensive shape and pressing, the Villarreal midfielders still managed to lose possession. This is where Allez's point about them missing Senna also fits in, because their attacking moves looked dull and aimless.

You are right about them not having game-changing players, but post-Riquelme, that's what Villarreal has always based their success on - working hard and showing their collective quality as a team. But last night it wasn't someone like Van Persie who "made the difference" anyway. It was just a combination of Arsenal being better physically, and Villarreal being poor technically.

Of course our/EPL players are stronger & faster, but that doesn't mean you have to play like Villarreal last night. Imo Villarreal just didn't bring their best players, best game & best mental preparation.

Bayern had the same advantage v Barcelona as we had v Villarreal; never was of any use to them, because as van Bommel explained postmatch (after asking the reporter if he had ever played footy himself) -when asked why the Bayern players didn't work harder to close down the Barcelona players - the speed of the ball & their movement (intellgent is more important than pace here ) made that impossible.

It's the speed of the ball which determines the speed of the game (not the speed of the players, running -especially with the ball- in football is overrated). 2 main requirements for upping the speed: technically capable of playing 1 touch & good positional game.

Spain won the European title too.

And really, if your centre backs can get beaten for pace by comfortably the slowest player on our team, then you only have yourselves to blame.

Dragões azuis e brancos wrote:The talent level is similar, but you are faster, bigger & stronger than them. That's it really.

The size & strength of an average PL team >>> Arsenal's size & strength >>> the athleticism, size & strength of Villareal & Roma.

@ Guz's post.

Messiah wrote:because they didn't have the pace and strength, so would call it athleticism, to get behind arsenal defense.

There pace and strength had nothing to do with them getting behind the defence in the first leg.

Messiah wrote:because they didn't have the pace and strength, so would call it athleticism, to get behind arsenal defense.

I find it hilarious people coming up with this sort of excuses. This team is one of the least Athletic under Wenger, and please remind me how our great Atlhetic teams of the past fared against Spanish teams like Deportivo and Valencia? why were we made to look like mugs at times despite our far superior athletic ability?

@ De Guz post

Please have a read Kas.

Good post from Kas, but Guz has it as usual.

Really the to my mind somewhat lazy "pace/athleticism/Powerfußball" labels would be better directed at Chelsea or Liverpool. At some stage you have to give some credit to Ade's wonder goal from the first leg, the sublime blind backheel Cesc gave to Theo (not to mention Theo's exquisite finish), and Robin's vision with the pass for Adebayor. Quite apart from last night's general dominance, "physical" or otherwise, those three moments of inspiration from special players are, statistically at least, precisely what made the difference.

Exactly. But for the football purists you can only truly feel that you deserved the victory if you have at least seven players under 5 foot and if none of your team can run the 100m dash in less than 20 seconds

GabberWenger is hilarious

at Tweedle's remark...

where can I get GabberWenger as an avatar s'il vous plaît?

kas wrote:

The Professor wrote:

kas wrote:

The Professor wrote:They are being taught a footballing lesson TS. Nothing to do with athletism.

It's not all athleticism, but it's a huge part of it. When they get the ball, they are closed down and outmuscled far too quickly for their liking. And in return they just can't keep up with Arsenal. Part of it is due to Arsenal's better ball movement, but part is because they are able to run with the ball easily. Cesc isn't the fastest player around, yet in the first half there was a move when he was just easing past Gonzalo and the Villarreal player fouled him from behind to stop him.

This is the same thing people say about Arsenal when we lose. Villareal's passing movements is brilliant Kas. They've got lots of players who can run with the ball too, see Fernadez, Ibagaza, Rossi, Pires etc so I don't see anything u are trying to prove with the Fabregas example.

We were not great tonight, but we've got simply put overall more quality than them. We are very similar, but they don't have someone in the class of RVP or Cesc for example. There in lies the difference.

They may be able to run with the ball, but are they:

1. fast and strong enough to run past Toure/Song/Eboue, for example?

2. skilful enough to dribble past an opposition player if you can't hit and run?

On 1, definitely not. But for Arsenal, even a relatively slower Cesc can outpace Villarreal's CB easily. Something you don't see Cesc do often, if at all. That's what I was trying to prove with my example.

Note I'm not implying what Pierre often says, that "Arsenal are only good because they run really fast for 90 minutes". I'm only saying that compared to Villarreal, Arsenal were much faster and stronger. Of course when it comes to the other 3 in the English Big 4, Arsenal have to use their technical abilities to win games, rather than their physical abilities.

Also, if you disagree with what all of us are saying, read between the lines of Cesc's post-match comments to Spanish media:

Ya vimos que en El Madrigal ellos bajaron en la segunda mitad y si hoy seguíamos con el mismo ritmo les podía pasar factura

Translation: We saw that in El Madrigal they lowered their game in the 2nd half, so if we continued with the same rhythm today, we would beat them.



On 2, yes they have skill, but this is where the other part of it comes in - as Jaime and I both said during the game, Villarreal were just poor last night. They didn't look like they were giving 100% and even on the few occasions when Arsenal lost their defensive shape and pressing, the Villarreal midfielders still managed to lose possession. This is where Allez's point about them missing Senna also fits in, because their attacking moves looked dull and aimless.

You are right about them not having game-changing players, but post-Riquelme, that's what Villarreal has always based their success on - working hard and showing their collective quality as a team. But last night it wasn't someone like Van Persie who "made the difference" anyway. It was just a combination of Arsenal being better physically, and Villarreal being poor technically.

I also think Villarreal without Senna is a different team because they have no brains in the middle and at the same time he is there to clean up and add the physical side. Bruno/Egueren have never impressed me much so they should start by seeing if they can afford somebody good to play next to Senna. If Raul Garcia doesn't get used by Atletico they should go after him.

from the moment i turn on the tele and saw villarreal's midfield i thought Pellegeni made a mistake with his selection.

Cani should have started in the center of midfield.

Ibagaza should have been in from the start.

Llorente should also have started, just to give them some presence up front, without him Villarreal where just making a shit load of no where passes, because they had no one to lead the line, he would also have allowed the one player in villarreals team with some real pace (rossi) to do what he always does, which is to drop deep and run at defenders.

all that said, they still only lost by making a too many mistakes, arsenal could have gotten 5 goals just of the amount of mistake they were making in midfield and defense.

Pellgrini misses his chair