Stewart Robson phoned in to talkSPORT after the 0-0 draw with Liverpool and criticised Arsène Wenger’s side for their “lack of defensive structure,” both in their goalless draw against Liverpool Monday evening and in general. Speaking with Paul Hawksbee and Andy Jacobs, Robson lamented: “I’ve felt it for six or seven years that Arsene Wenger doesn’t deal with the defensive side of the game…” and that on occasions, it “will come back to bite them,” particularly against the Premier League’s top sides.
Robson, a former Arsenal midfielder who came up through the youth ranks (1978-1986), spread his criticism evenly between the players and the boss in his remarks. Robson first claimed that Wenger’s philosophy as a manager intentionally neglects the defensive side of the game.
“He feels that if his team pass it well enough – as that’s his philosophy – that they don’t need to defend too well, that they don’t need to work hard on it in training and they don’t have to have a defensive structure.”
Robson went on to claim that this lack of defensive structure manifests most tellingly in games where they are unable to press effectively: “Arsenal are at their best when they play at a high tempo and win the ball back quickly, but there’s going to be games where they try and press the ball but, because they’ve got no structure, nobody is really sure where they should go.
“That’s where they look so woeful defensively.”
When asked whether Arsenal could be reasonably considered title contenders on the available evidence thus far, Robson responded in the negative. In making the possibly inevitable comparison with José Mourinho’s recent Chelsea teams, he noted: “In the best teams every player on the field does a good defensive job,” and that Arsenal simply “do not possess,” the personnel to put in a solid defensive shift at every position.
In particular, Robson singled out Mesut Özil, Theo Walcott, and Santi Cazorla as players in particular who lacked the will and/or the ability to play solid defensively for a side with title ambitions: “Santi Cazorla is an excellent passer of the ball but he doesn’t have the athleticism, or the desire, or the knowledge to play in the holding midfield role alongside Francis Coquelin – which is where he was meant to be playing against Liverpool and he was too easily bypassed.
“The same goes for Mesut Ozil, not so much Sanchez as Sanchez works hard, but when Theo Walcott came on, he didn’t seem to understand how to close down.”
