[Vote] Was Arsene Wenger right not to use any more experience against Manchester City?
Submitted by Steve on December 3, 2009 – 4:00 18 Comments
Tomas Rosicky, Mikael Silvestre and Alex Song were the only three “experienced” players in yesterday’s Arsenal side which was eliminated from the Carling Cup.
Before the game, many believed that Samir Nasri, Theo Walcott, maybe even Cesc Fabregas should have been used to add experience to a young side which had very little chance to go through against a full-strength Manchester City.
What is your opinion?
Vote below and do leave a comment to explain your decision.
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You forgot Eboue…. and if you’re counting Song… then Ramsey counts too.
we had some expereice (above) we couldn’t really risk any more as too many out injured already and too many big gamesc oming up Tottenham fielded fuul team and lost Liverpool lost to us before plus Chelsea lost even though they put on big guns in the end and played a so called easier draw-what if Fab etc had played and were injured?
Experience or not i think its attitude which we luck at this time, because the most experienced player and captain of a national team lost a ball after song had cleared our line. what the hell was rosicky thinking when he lost that ball? the first goal was going to be decisive and who was to blame? experience. Arsene knows vwhat is doing
No he was right with the team he fielded. There is some players who will take a lot out of that game. It is effectively a premier league fixture against a top 6 opposition. We would have been versing untied next anyway its not like it was going to be an easy two remaining fixtures. I would rather take full advantage of this weekend if Chelsea lose or draw we could be only 6 – 5 points off the pace.
I was about to say the same.
It is important we stay within single digits of the EPL leader in January.
…besides, I’ve seen the kids perform better. It was an off game for them; the burden of expectation me thinks.
Arsene, Pls tell us which trophy we are going to win this season…….
Remember people a trophyless season means loss of players to big teams and if Arsene is content in training players so they are snatched up by big European clubs then we are definately on the right track.
There were 4 players who are either 1st-teamers or possess a great deal of experience in the side yesterday, and all bar perhaps silvestre were pretty awful.
In the last round it was a side with a pretty similar makeup except instead of rosicky and song, there were nasri and senderos – both of whom put in very solid performances and, Im sure gave the youngsters a bit of confidence. Rosicky never got into the game yesterday really, and song made a lot of mistakes. Eboue offered additional experience over kerea gilbert, but was poor defensively as well.
I think most of the youngsters did pretty well, but were never going to beat such a strong city side.
Personally I think we should have played at Nasri, Rosicky ( he played ) and Eduardo yesterday. It is true that we have injury problems but you don’t go to war expecting to lose.
And then, injuries or no injuries these players need some game time ( Nasri and Eduardo especially ).
I think Wenger should please tell us all what business Silvestre has with the first team, reserve team, the academy when he will actually find it difficult to play with the ladies under a coach who is not sentimental.
Why was Denilson not playing, he would have protected Song and maybe the guy would have avoided that yellow card he got yesterday.
I Voted Yes BUT I have a question, WOULD IT REALLY HURT WENGER THAT MUCH IF HE WON THE CARLING CUP. If it was me, I would have played Phillipe Senderos in central defence and omitted Song, Song had a good game but the team didn’t need him. Eboue and Rosicky were doing us more harm than good and I would have preffered Nasri & Kerrea Gilbert in those positions——– If there is someone close to Wenger who will read this, please advise him TO STOP playing for a loss, Yesterday’s loss was intentionally designed by Wenger and he did the same thing with the FA Cup 5th round loss of 2008 to Manchester United which he decided that Premier League & Champions League were more important he lost both and FA Cup was won by Portsmouth. You can all see how easily he could have won something——– He has a team good enough to win everything but he is making funny decisions leading to losses. Against Sunderland, he choose not to play Andrei Arshavin, Against Chelsea I expected him to use Mikael Silvestre at Lefback because of his experience and Yesterday, He should have used the same team that beat Liverpool in the previous round for they had the best movements possible.
Not a great game yesterday but very understandable under the circumstances, yes we played a very young team a mixture of young reserve and youth team players and with 6 of the team under the age of 20 we can be proud of the way they tried to play the game.
You also have to remember that the city team was put togather at great cost and looking at the owners face in the stands i recon he feels cheated out of cash.
It also is very apparent from the display of the so called ref that we will never get free kicks or penalties unless the challange is so blatent as to be unavoidable (this must be the eduardo factor) and judging by the standard of the ref it’s true.
I could point out the postions i thought we could have improved during the game and the mistakes by various players players but this would be taking away from the fact that we played city in their own back yard off the park at times, and the three goals scored by city do not tell the full story of the game .
As for the handshake at the end,now way would i shake the hand of a person who had abused me during the game, it’s not sour grapes it’s pride and without it we are nothing!!!
Well done Arsene!!!!!
You should have put a “yes & no” option. Yes, the youngsters need experience. No, we currently have a first team with so many injuries that the amount of new faces has caused a serious loss of on-field cohesion.
Yes it is much better to have a team youngsters lose to Man City than our headless chicken of a first team lose to them, which I have no doubt they would have. 3 defeats in a row for our first team would be disastrous.
No it would have been better for the first team to play and lose in order for Wenger to seriously reconsider his tactics.
It is better that they face a team like Stoke after the run of two epl defeats. Stoke are fantastic defensively this season but not much of a threat up front. Although Stoke are a tough tackling team so we can expect our injury list to grow.
Walcott needs ro start playing from the start of matches, he’s a warm up player, it takes him about 30 minutes to figure out the lay of the match and start making dangerous runs and dribbles. Plus as we saw with Chelsea he pins left backs into their own half, I don’t think I saw cashley make one run forward once he came on the pitch.
We need Diaby to recover soon, he might be a bag of poor decisions, but without him we only have person outside the defence that even has a chance of winning high balls (Song)
Once again Eboué made a really good case for why he should be right back ahead of Sagna he looked dangerous throughout the match. Where Sagna will play the square pass if the door is closed Eboué will cut inside or run at the defender, it doesn’t always work but the unpredictability of his actions means he opens up defences a lot more, Sagna has a tendency to play a great yet useless high cross into the box, when we have no ariel threat at all up front.
Most of all a change of tactics is needed, players like Fabregas, Denilson, Nasri and Rosicky need to start firing shots from outside the box a lot more, we need that threat for defenders to come out because we have no one to recieve high crosses, that means we only have the passing game, through balls and cutting runs in our armoury which makes us far too predictable and easy to snuff out.
Permit me to go off track,we have all refused to comment on Wenger’s embarassing behaviour at city when he refused to shake Hughes.he should please show some class and learn to take defeat with grace.if he needs a break,he should take one.
Did you watch the match? Hughes was in his face the entire match he even left his technical area and entered Arsene’s. Telling him to be quiet and making dismissing gestures towards him when the ref’s decisions didn’t go Arsenals way, which they didn’t through most of the match.
Hughes showed no respect for him during the match and even waved him off at the end.
You wanna back hughes and his disrespectful behaviour towards Arsene then go ahead, but I wouldn’t shake the hand of a man that showed absolutely no courtesy to me.
we could not risk our first team squad in a cup like carling cup.
we must win when chelsea wins and we must win when chelsea looses to win title. and i expect chelsea to drop points.
we must end our trophy drought this season.
Bongo,there’s nothing wrong in being the bigger man.Wenger should learn to lose graciously.this is the 4th or 5th manager he has had problems with.I remember his disgraceful clash with Pardew.a manager must show good example to his players.enough of blaming refs and rough play for our losses.he very well knows what he needs to do to win laurels and there’s nothing wrong with accepting that your decisions were wrong.if Hughes had done this to Wenger,every arsenal fan would have screamed for the world to hear.I don’t support nonsense and that’s what happened that day.