The game on Saturday had many talking points – the performances of Ozil and Ramsey, the defending by Koscielny, and the chances missed by Theo.
In the first half, Mesut Ozil played a quite simply sublime through ball into the path of Theo, who shot straight at the goalkeeper. He also had a headed chance (but we know heading isn’t his strength) and two other good opportunities.
It’s an old cliche but at least he is making the right runs and getting into positions to score. While the ball from Ozil was beautiful, it can only be made if Theo makes the right runs.
And in terms of taking chances, we know Theo has improved his finishing greatly over the last 4/5 seasons and you could put Saturday down to a bad day.
If you’ve ever watched Real Madrid with Ozil in the team (or any YouTube clip with Ozil’s assists) you will see that Ronaldo misses a lot of chances. He is a great player, someone who scores a ridiculous amount of goals (in a 2 team league though, it must be mentioned) but he also takes a ridiculous amount of shots.
If you look at the Goals to Shots ratio of the world’s top forwards, then you will see that it is not as impressive as you would think:
Lionel Messi – 27.9%
Cristiano Ronaldo – 12.8 %
Radamel Falcao – 28.6%
Zlatan Ibrahimovic – 20.4%
Robin van Persie – 21.4%
Edinson Cavani – 22.1%
Luis Suarez – 12.4%
And if you watch this YouTube video of Ozil’s assists, you will see that the German playmaker literally puts chances on a plate for Ronaldo with an impressive amount of tap ins from close range.
So Theo isn’t as wasteful as people think. His shots to goals ratio last season was actually 23%.
I take a lot of optimism from Theo’s current lack of goals.We know that he can and we know that he will score.So to be sitting where we are with his contribution definitely coming soon is very exciting news.
Some arsenal fans are quick to jump on people and time otter time our players prove them wrong. We won 3 – 1 and we’re top of the league in spite of our injury and sickness situation. What’s the matter with these people?
Good to read a positive slant on things and of course Theo will start scoring before he’s much older. Hopefully he does take any notice of the negativity which destroys confidence – an essential ingredient in performing well. COYG!
Re Theo.
his performance was poor on Saturday, not just his misses (he should have bagged at least one of those chances), but his all round display.
In general …
Plus points – his pace; defenders scared of his pace and set up their negative strategy around this; his goal scoring – which has definitely improved (not Saturday).
Negative points – he can’t beat a man with skill/trick; he can’t cross or play an incisive pass; when he receives the ball he invariably passes backwards, slowly; he has started to take corners and free kicks (why oh why?) and cannot get beyond the first defender; he is wasteful with the ball; he makes little effort to track back (Giroud ran 60yrds back on Saturday to make a tackle, towards the end of the game, but not Theo, bless him) and when he does he goes no where near the ball/doesn’t tackle/fails to pick up forward running defenders (Blackburn-fac-last season).
Too many negatives, fewer positives. Should’ve sold when we could but politically impossible as we had already sold our best players, all better than Theo.
That said, he would be in our current strongest team but his play is more than a little infuriating. That said, our play is at times more than a little infuriating – can we not shoot more often, we’re actually quite good at it when we try it !!
Enough already
Problem is he wants to score even when there are better options. If he can learn to look up and find those options with good crosses when the angle is against him, then he would be great for the team. A great player is not necessarily one who scores goals. The team must work for one another.
True and agree that C.Ronaldo isn’t that great and the fact that there are only 2 team in Spain had to reminded every time when it come to reflect on any player from Madrid and Barce.
All the players you listed above can not be compared with Theo, Is a shame that you mention that Ronaldo is not that good, when you know deep down that he is magnificent, too sentimental. If he had been an Arsenal player i do not think you will make this remark. Theo is wasteful to say the least and i do not think he deserves all the hype. He can not cross the ball, can not go past the first defender and very selfish. Outside not been able to score he should be able to create goals for others, he had options in all the chances he missed but did not make that pass for easy tap in. With his age and hype and he still misses such chances we need to be honest with ourselves and tell Theo the truth.
The article said that Ronaldo is “a great player” and someone who “scores a ridiculous amount of goals”. So not sure where you got his “not that good” idea from.
Ronaldo is quite rightly regarded as the second best player in the world – he misses a lot of chances but also can create something from nothing. But don’t forget the whole Real Madrid team is based around Ronaldo and his strengths.
POTENTIAL !!!
That’s what we heard when we paid £10M+ years ago…
More potential, when we renewed his contract at rediculous wages last year…
Theo has been almost non existant this season so far (Arsenal and England)… I don’t have time for him and I don’t like seeing the rest of the team ‘carrying’ him.
Enough is enough…