I get really annoyed when Giroud is labelled underrated, if anything he is overrated. He had 6 chances, 3 of which were very clear big chances and he skied them all. He is an above-average big man, the French Rickie Lambert if I'm being generous. The only thing he can do is give the ball back where it came from, he can't turn someone or run past someone so he is so easy to predict. He can't create any chances himself, his teammates have to give the perfect ball to him.
Second rant is at Mertesacker and I've kept quiet all season but he has been very poor; in fact all of our defeats this season have come from Mertesacker's mistakes. He has somehow developed a habit for striding forward into the opposition half but he doesn't do it on the ball - he does it off the ball! He just randomly charges forward, doesn't receive the ball or make a tackle, leaves the space he was occupying completely open and Koscielny is left looking at two players he's now supposed to defend against... I honestly don't know what he's thinking. The defeat against Man U was because of this, the defeat against Swansea, and the defeat against Southampton are all because Mertesacker spent the entire time randomly charging forward at random times leaving Koscielny exposed all match. I think I've figured out that while he's great at anticipating what's in front of him, he doesn't sense danger behind him. The third Monaco goal was Mertesacker's fault too because as soon as the ball is lost, Mertesacker should have noticed that Koscielny is not in his position so he has to spot that Carrasco was level with him and wanting the ball played through so he has to start sprinting back to cover. But no he just stares at the play until the inevitable through ball sets Carrasco away and then he starts running and he was never gonna get close.
Apart from those two poor performances though, it wasn't actually too bad. Monaco started the game pretty much with 4-6-0, Berbatov didn't touch the ball anywhere near the box in the first half while they only had one player manage a touch in our box. They scored a deflected shot which I can't blame Mertesacker for, he did the right thing and I'd be happy to concede from pot shots like that and we were comfortable in the game. We had lots of chances and looked very dangerous going forward. Walcott especially didn't actually have too many touches but he was practically on the shoulder of the left back the whole time when he came on, just behind him where he can't see, and the centre back had to cover several times because Walcott was racing clear. Monaco doubled up on Walcott soon after by sending on another left back. It was just horrific individual errors in defending yet again. For the defeat Wenger has to take blame too because he had no natural midfielders at all on the bench. Wilshere was left behind and he ended the game with Oxlade Chamberlain and Rosicky in central midfield and they were never gonna be bothered to defend. It was naive and I think Wenger got a bit cocky with his selection and tactics tonight.
In summary: sorry for the long post.
