Arsenal boss Wenger loathe to go it alone again up front - 6 Nov 2007
Arsene Wenger has hinted that he will abandon Arsenal's lone-striker system and return to a two-pronged strikeforce to give his attack a greater cutting edge.
The Gunners boss was disappointed with the lack of chances his team created during Saturday's 2-2 draw with Manchester United. With Robin van Persie on the sidelines — Wenger says he should be fit for the Wigan game on 24 November — Emmanuel Adebayor has been used as a lone striker in the games against United and Liverpool with Alexander Hleb deployed as a deep-lying support striker.
"We need to re-balance our game a bit going forward to create more chances than that. We looked, sometimes, that Adebayor was a bit too isolated up there on Saturday," said Wenger. "Maybe I could have played [Theo] Walcott up front, or Eduardo or Niklas Bentner. But I went for a different approach. "What I mean, honestly, is that without Van Persie the balance in the final third was not completely alright.
"That's my fault. I'll look at that again. In the final third, we dropped a little bit too much off and that took something out of our game." Arsenal visit Slavia Prague, who they hammered 7-0 three weeks ago, in the Champions League on Wednesday, when a draw should be enough to guarantee qualification for the knockout stages. Despite misgivings about the fluidity of Arsenal's forward play against United, Wenger was delighted with the stamina displayed by his players and is confident they have the physical strength to last the pace in the title race.
William Gallas' injury-time strike against United was, remarkably, the 17th time this season that Arsenal have scored in the final ten minutes — in just 18 games. "These players can run a lot. We don't have the physical impact some bigger players have but we can last in games," explained Wenger. "The conjunction of the technical ability and the stamina we have usually makes a difference in the last few minutes. "The players have natural stamina. For example, [Mathieu] Flamini or [Cesc] Fabregas or [Alexander] Hleb are not sprinters, they're more long-distance runners.
"Adebayor has that combination of stamina, speed and strength. "We lacked that stamina a bit last season but it comes a little bit each year, a little injection at 21 and 22, strength added to stamina. "A player like Fabregas has more capability to resist and penetrate challenges than he did last year." United twice took the lead through a Gallas own goal and a Christiano Ronaldo breakaway strike but Cesc Fabregas, with his 11th goal of the season, and Gallas, two minutes into added time, kept Arsenal at the top of the Premier League with a game in hand.
Wenger believes another last-minute goal for his team could be important in the season's final analysis. He observed: "It convinces my team that, no matter what circumstances they face, they are capable of finding a solution. And that we have the resources. "Players like Denilson, Gilberto, [Abou] Diaby, [Lassana] Diarra didn't play today. They can come in and we'd play exactly at the same level. "It's not a case of us starting well and seeing how long we can last.
They really mean (business). "We were there in the big games last season when we had to show up, but we weren't always there in some of the others. "We have belief and we are ready to fight." Fabregas has been the talisman for Arsenal's never-say-die spirit. He said: "We don't give up and we are very strong physically.
We can run until the last second of the game. With other teams, maybe they can't follow it until the end. "Our opponents are always strong but we always feel there will be one point where they can't stay with you and that is when we can score." |
發表於 2007-11-6 01:57 PM
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