Per Mertesacker And Calum Chambers To Blame For Arsenal Defeat

After a 3 game winning streak against Borussia Dortmund, West Brom and Southampton, it seemed that Arsenal had finally turned the corner. The defensive lapses and naivety had seemingly gone and there was a new found confidence in the squad. Arsenal also had Olivier Giroud back from injury, and he could help Danny Welbeck and Alexis Sanchez at the attacking end of the pitch. Mathieu Flamini has slowly improved his defensive game, playing a more mature role and Santi Cazorla, Aaron Ramsey and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain were all finding form at last.

But poor performances from Per Mertesacker and Calum Chambers yesterday threw away all our good work over the last couple of weeks.

You know what you’re going to get when you visit Stoke City. The sad thing was they don’t play long balls as much as they used to under Tony Pulis and under Mark Hughes they play more on the ground. They will still use their height advantage at times but it wasn’t as intense as it was in the good old days. Yet we still gifted them a ridiculous 3 goal lead which was hugely preventable.

For the first goal, it wasn’t even a long, looping ball which usually causes us problems, it was a simple cross from the right hand side which Calum Chambers horribly misjudged and this causes chaos in the box. The ball bounced into the path Peter Crouch who had a simply tap in from 4 yards. It was noticeable that on the initial cross there was no leader ship from Mertesacker, and he was nowhere near the danger or ball. Where the hell was he?

For the second goal, Per Mertesacker who was our captain was once again nowhere to be seen. Another cross found Bojan who slotted in from 7 yards and had no Arsenal player within 5 yards of him. A simple goal which only Arsenal could concede. How one of Stoke’s main strikers wasn’t picked up so far into the penalty area is beyond ridiculous. While in past games you could blame the team or even the manager for our defeats, the defensive lapses from Chambers and Mertesacker cost us dearly here.

We went 3-0 down after Walters rifled in from 2 yards out after Arsenal failed to deal with a  Stoke corner. Per Mertesacker opted to inexplicably leave the ball he could have won while Calum Chambers was nowhere.

So we went into the half time break 3-0 down, conceding some of the most ridiculous goals you’ll ever want to see. Mertesacker and Chambers were being given the run around by someone who is more suited to Basketball and a Barcelona reject.

Whatever Arsene Wenger said at half time seemed to work as Arsenal amazingly found themselves only 3-2 down with a good 25 minutes remaining after Santi Cazorla converted a penalty won by Mathieu Flamini and after Aaron Ramsey scored a rasping volley from a corner.

But then Calum Chambers once again hit the self-destruct button. Arsenal are threadbare at the back after injuries to Mathieu Debuchy, Nacho Monreal and Laurent Koscielny, so getting sent off is idiotic. Added to that, we were well in the game and looked like getting at least a draw but once Chambers got stupidly sent off any chance of a comeback was well and truly over.

A valiant effort by Arsenal which was thrown away by extremely poor performances by two Arsenal players. This is an Arsenal defeat you cannot pin on Arsene Wenger.

 

18 thoughts on “Per Mertesacker And Calum Chambers To Blame For Arsenal Defeat

  1. Yes you can,he signed them ,played them in to the ground,played them out of position and failed to strengthen the defense in the summer.What kind of manager goes head on in to a season of 60 games with only 6 real defenders where one of them is a 19-year old greenhorn only a mad, arrogant deluded ,self serving,stubborn scienist.

     
    • You are so right, have been an Arsenal fanatic since 1979 FA cup, and while I can understand the undertaking that this club took with the new stadium and the pressures that came with that, they are coming out of that era. What scares me is the comments coming from his highness about winning the league within 3 yrs. Scares me that he thinks he’s untouchable and probably is. As for the loss to Stoke, I place entirely on his plate. Everyone knew we needed a centreback before he released Vermaelen to Barcelona, doesn’t matter that he hasn’t played for them yet. Instead we bring in Chambers(who I think will come good) to cover two positions in a club notorious for injuries, plays Monreal out of position constantly. Before anyone complains about Monreal would you rather have the 3 S’s of Silvestre, Squilacci or Santos in his place, all Wenger buys. Gibbs who I rate highly is obviously playing hurt, you could see the way he played yesterday.
      Despite those who can’t forgive Fabregas , he’s going to lead Chelsea to the title, something he couldn’t do while he was here. Think about that, Wenger should have brought him back just for that reason even if he sat him on the bench to be vindictive. I could write a novel about how much that man disgusts me at this moment in time especially when his comments from yesterdays game are looking at the positives. What F%$!@&$^& positives, is he going to singing those positives if we don’t make top four.

       
  2. Wengar can’t be that blind,he must know that he has a load of surplus dross in his sqaud eg rosisky, flaminini,Gibbs ,mertsaker , Montreal,arteta,schesny,diaby all highly paid, but who would buy them in the premier league, say no more.utter dross

     
  3. Once in while somebody says some thing that I totally agree with Peter Pan you know what you are talking about bravo

     
  4. We played way too many games one after the other. It showed in the way the midfield played. Add to it another defensive swap due to kosclieny not being fit, and mertesacker having to play in a position he is not used to made it worse.

    I believe gibbs was also carrying a knock. Of lesser seriousness of the two and hence he was forced to play seeing his backup being a new kid. It was a completly new back arrangement that killed our defense.

    Referee too was siding the stoke team. I dont know how in the world does he keep giving fouls done by midgets in arsenal team while the giants in stoke seem to be doing less serious fouls. Just looking at the yellow cards of alex and chambers it looked so damn silly..

     
  5. Wenger is totally @ fault.
    He picks d team, and when a player isn’t playing well, he doesn’t have d guts 2 remove such a player(s).
    Tactically he is 2 out of date.
    Per is d worst CB I have ever seen on planet earth: no pace, so slow, adds absolutely nothing 2 d team.
    Wenger tnx u, but no tnx. Its time u resigned and let’s have our Arsenal back.

     
  6. i have been an Arsenal supporter since 1970. I feel he same about mertesaker. he does nothing for the Arsenal team, out of position and ball watching most of the and in my opinion has no ball sense. We need a rock at the bak

     
  7. we also need a back 4 like the old days ie Tony Adams & co that are gritty and understand each other. i will always support the team but some of the selections are strange. the defensive midfielder is a must and I feel we are to slow in getting back to defend and counter attack.

     
  8. I have said many times, Mertesacker is Arsenal biggest issue here. This tall giraffe is good for nothing. He was never a good defender when he was in Bremen. I just don’t understand why this French economist would rather turn a blind eye on getting a good defenders? Previously we had Rio Ferdinand who is offering his service to Arsenal before ended up in QPR. Micah Richard, De Jong, Hummel there’s so many!!! And yet this economist is more interested to get in a striker and a winger…how pathetic…

     
  9. Slowtesacker could only manage one game for Germany in the world cup, even Löw realised he was the weakest link & he never played again for Germany in Brazil, Wenger seems to think he can bring the genius out of average players & that’s exactly what is holding us back.

     
  10. To Mr anonymous if you think you know so much about football why don’t you argue the case instead of patronising remarks,yes. Gibbs is an international player so what, so is mertsaker and he ain’t worth two Bob you asshole

     
  11. Pingback: Arsene Wenger MUST Stay At Arsenal! | Arsenal 4 Life Blog | Arsenal News, Match Reports, Previews, Opinions, Fans Forum

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