FanPost

Is the lack of size in this Arsenal team a problem?

In today's press conference Wenger was asked about the Everton away game last year and his responce was interesting.

Wenger :

"We were a bit bullied," he says. "In the quality of our performance – and even more than that in mental resistance, the steel on the day – that was one of our low points."

A recent report also showed that Arsenal is the smallest and lightest team in the premier league.

So clearly Wenger sees this as well, and I myself have thought for a while that this was a huge problem in our side, but considering Arsenal's possesion style of play requires players with intelligence and technique more then physicality or other traits I in a lot of ways have accepted it, yet It's also become my biggest frustration watching Arsenal over the years. I feel like certain teams have for years taken advantage of this and with their style of play It's worked(Stoke/Chelsea). That style of play of course being park the bus, foul everyone that moves without conseeding yellow cards, and hit Arsenal on set pieces or counter attacks (Lack of speed the last few years).

We've definitely improved in these areas the last 2 years though thanks to Steve Bould, Arteta's positional brilliance/passing and Mertesacker of course(& KosSagna aren't to bad tbf). These have been improvements without a doubt. Yet still we where up there in giving up the most goals from set pieces(Or top 5), as well as at times getting completely overrun in midfield( at Chelsea/ & at Man City).

Then you could say where else can we improve? as much as you guys are tired of me mentioning this I believe It's in Arteta's position. Again as great as Arteta has been, against the big teams he struggles battling with the more physical players, part of it is Arsenal's set up but part of it is simply because he's just not as fast/tall/or strong as others.

I mean these quotes from Wenger today couldn't be more telling :

(From Amy Lawrence's great article as always

It was interesting that when Wenger reflected on why his team were perceived as fragile he pondered how the choice of a player of Mikel Arteta’s physique as a holding midfielder might be part of the explanation.

"Maybe because we use more technical players in the middle of the park, especially Arteta," he said. "You always want to improve technically and sometimes when you want to do that you go a bit more for skill, which can be more lightweight."

This for me says that Wenger clearly sees Arteta's strengths and weaknesses, and it seems he is trying to sign a holding midfielder, since he himself mentioned he's still " Open to it ".

*Hopefully Wenger does add someone, or at the very least give Chambers a try there if no one else comes in. Also I often mention the CDM position because personally I think our midfield needs at least one player that's an athlete or with some size and imo It usually works better when he's you're holding midfielder. And I mentioned set pieces earlier because right now there's 2-4 players (Mertesacker/and perhaps Kos and Debuchy) at the most IMO that I believe can defend set pieces/corners well, headers particularly. The other player is Giroud who's become so important on set pieces Wenger will often play him to add balance to the side height wise (Wenger said so himself last year, when asked why Giroud plays so much!).

Anyways I'ld love to know others views on this.

Do you guys think a team this lightweight can win the premier league? (Basically with this team we have now plus say a CB like Manolas or whoever)

Is the fact that we're short and lightweight part of the reason we've struggled on set pieces over the years?