Furlong not good enough .... Yet

Thought he was at fault for both goals and sadly showed his inexperience. Sanchez knew it and made sure he git himself one in one with him. He needs a more experienced centre half by him to encourage him to tackle

 

It was Ramseys fault for playing such an outdated formation. We were virtually 4-2-4 against their five man midfield. Phillips simply refuses to track back and that left poor old Furlong to face sanchez one on one time after time.
Very disappointed with Ramsey.

 

I blame Nico for both goals.

Furlong is a very young lad learning his trade. He has bags of potential. He was targeted by Arsenal and was up against a fine player in Sanchis and one who is very experienced compared to young Furlong. I definitely wouldn't point a finger at the young lad. Other more experienced players let us down far more tonight.

 

Of course he's not experienced enough yet,but that only comes with playing games.He has a fine future ahead of him,and there are a lot of other teams looking at him and ready to make an offer for him.He's out of contract at the end of the season,and if we're serious about changing the way we deal with transfers,we should be offering him a new deal sharpish.Either in the Premier League or the Championship,he is going to be a good asset and a very good player.He has time on his side,which most of our other defenders don't.This is the type of player I want to see the club persist with!

 

I'm
Not finger pointing I'm merely pointing out I think it showed it maybe too soon for him. He needed a centre half who would tell
Him to close down earlier and the centre half cover for him if Sanchez goes past. Good prospect but not ready yet

 

Agreed, we should have expected that to be one of their strength areas. Probably should have used Henry to mark him out of the freedom.

Furlong will hopefully learn from that harsh lesson.

 

Very very frustrating performance. Ramsey certainly has a lot of questions to answer. Playing a young lad right back and leaving him virtually 1v1 with a player such as Sanchez is suicidal for any team, let alone one that's in the middle of a relegation scrap.

 

Was Redknapp right then?

 

I thought Green could have done better on both goals. Near side and below him. Also Furlong was probably unclear when other defenders started turning up around him. Needed a clear instruction.

 

Isla is coming back from injury.....and with his nature (which we have already seen...attacking with limited defensive qualities), he would have done no better.
Thought Furlong OK, whilst the centre back formation of Caulker/Ned with Henry and Sandro in front was working....but Furlong was exposed as that formation disintegrated when Ned went off and Sandro was substituted

This was a game that was made for Danny simpson, now that is Arrys fault, letting him go, and going into the campaign with an unbalanced squad.

Furlong is going to be a good player, and will have learnt much from last night
Even after he had been scalped, and we were 2 nil down...he played with passion.

I like the lad, and think he will be a great asset in the future

 

I completely agree about Furlong. I like him and I think that he looks a very good prospect.
I don't agree that Simpson would have done any better. It would have been just as much carnage against him from Sanchez. We did suffer from Ned going off and then Sandro, but I'm sorry, Ramsey had us set up like a pub team. I was bitterly disappointed with his tactics for this game; they were straight out of the Harry Redknapp book of (non) tactics imo.
Arsenal had a 9' tall centre back and another in Koscielny, when he came on who is excellent in the air. What do we do? Lump it long all game!! Their centre backs are known to be weak against nippy players who trouble them on the ground. We could have played Isla, Vargas and Zarate in behind Austin and given their defence something to worry about, whilst employing Sandro and Henry to sit in front of the back four in a 4-2-3-1.
Dinosaur tactics again and I'm sick of it!

 

Not having any of that
The youngster did brilliantly against one of the best footballing teams in Europe The team themselves did very well first half and stopped Arsenals brilliant game

Unless you counteract the Arsenal game then they will outplay any team in midfield ... It's not a case of matching formations because Arsenal are all about being fluid imo

We took a game to them first half and it worked very well and the chances were there

I cannot understand the blame culture and welcome CR's approach

Already he has shown exactly what a good coach he is by changing the set up to try and stop the top teams

Yes we don't look like we are there yet but far better than Harold imo
At times on the first half we had Arsenal chasing shadows and also mixed it up by playing direct which totally off set the danger of Arsenals midfield

We have a limited set of games to get points I think we can do it

 

Paul..............Ramsey changed nothing in this game, other than pressing higher up the pitch in the first half (this fell off completely in the 2nd half). It could easily have been a Redknapp side that we were watching, except it would have been Ned at right back, which actually, may not have been a bad idea.
No one can blame the young lad Furlong. He was up against a ridiculously quick, World class player in Sanchez, but the set up was all wrong.
I agree that a team like Rangers, where we are now, can't try to outplay that Arsenal 5 in midfield, but we could have set up so much better than 4-4-2 imo.
Even in the first half it was clear that the inability of our wide players, especially Phillips to track back was going to leave the fullbacks terribly exposed. I said at half time that Sanchez continually getting one on one with Furlong was going to be our undoing. How many times did you see Phillips or Hoilett with a one on one? They always had numbers in there to press around our attacking players..............we didn't have the same.
I don't blame the players. They gave their all, which is something that Redknapp couldn't get out of them, but 4-4-****ing-2? I'm sick of it!!

 

So what formation would you have played? It was clear we were set up for two approaches to attack Arsenal; playing direct to Bobby and Austin which worked, and out wide to our wingers to deliver crosses - which worked for our goal. Granted they didn't track back as much but the plan was to play in their half.

If we played 4-5-1 he would have been accused of not trying to win the game, and, if we're playing 4-5-1 then Austin would have to have been dropped as Bobby is a target man.

At home, 4-4-2 works, and it's evident Austin has been learning a lot from Ramsey as his footwork looked much better yesterday and actually turned a man with his back to goal.

The problem came yesterday when Sandro had to go off. He was having a very good game and the introduction of a centre midfielder in a 4-4-2 against a 4-3-3 is always difficult when the game starts to become stretched. Niko wasn't quick enough and he rightly got punished when he lost the ball for their first goal. Ideally, we'd have had a Barton type player to come on instead but obviously he was suspended.

The scathing criticism of Furlong is ridiculous, the young lad was superb in the first half and tired towards the end, but the lad did as well as he could for both goals, he forced the winger wide to the touchline - personally Rob Green shouldn't be getting beaten at the near post from there.

 

I haven't seen any scathing criticism of Furlong. I certainly don't blame him at all. I agree that we missed Sandro when he went off.
I don't agree that playing a different formation would mean that we weren't trying to win the game. I hoped that Ramsey would be a bit more savvy when it comes to tactics, but he just went with a Harry way of playing imo.
Since you asked, I would have played 4-2-3-1 with Vargas in behind Austin and Isla and Zarate each side of him. Isla would have given Furlong some much needed protection and his energy made quite a difference when he came on last night. We were never going to trouble Arsenal by whacking the ball 60 yards up to Bobby. He had some success against Gabriel, but even then his flicks generally didn't lead to anything. I don't think Austin has benefited from playing with BZ for quite a while now.
I do agree that Austin seems to have improved his first touch etc and that should mean that he can play in the formation that I have described, with Vargas giving him close support.
If I want to watch a team lump it forward to a big centre forward all game I can go down to the park on a Sunday morning.

 

In answer to the OP.

Neither goal was caused by Furlong. After an initial difficult five minutes he greq into the game & for the rest of the first half he controlled Sanchez.

In the second half he was given very little protection & Arsenal overloaded on our right hand side. Often it was three against a young inexperienced full back. Another consideration was the movement of the Arsenal players upfront. They make runs all the game that most other sides can't match. These are often runs that create room & psace for others rather than looking to receive the ball.

I doubt that Isla or Simpson would have been able to handle that any better than Furlong did.

The first half was the most intense I have seen from a Rangers team for many a while & we were trying to win the match. I think I can put up with that philosophy!

It was the substitutions that cost us the game. Koschelny (sp) coming on improved Arsenal defensively, allowing them to gradually come into the game.

Then Ned had to be replaced by Hill. This is not having a go at Clint at all, but without Ned's pace we were weakened considerably & Giroud was then able to have a greater impact.

Lastly, after Sandro went off we were over run in midfield. Playing in the middle of a 4-4-2 is not the correct role for Niko, especially when he has chosen that day to have a stinker! I don't know if Doughty is injured, but if not he would have been a far better replacment (yes, I know he wasn't on the bench) as would an unsuspended Barton.

That substitution is the only criticism I would lay on Chris Ramsey. I could have included the inclusion of our non-performing wide left man, but that was a gamble that may have worked.

I'm feeling rather upbeat this morning. It was a joy to watch us playing to win a match against one of the top sides & matching them for a large portion of the game. Whichever division we are in next season our prospects have greatly improved. We are playing for each other & every one of them is giving 100%.

That is something that Redknapp could never achieve. So the answer to Swords is No, Harry didn't have it right! Without a young full back Arsenal destroyed us for most of the game on Boxing Day. As did Tottenham & Manure.

 

Because no one has been outplayed by Sanchez this year..... Silly criticism of a young lad who I thought had a good game against one of the best attackers in the world. We were fine until Sandro went off and we had no one other than Nico to replace him with. He gave the ball away for both their goals and our shape went out the window when we tried to play through our midfield which meant Arsenal could finally play their game, which unsurprisingly cut through us with a fair amount of ease in the second half. The 442 isnt pretty or modern, but for the first 55 minutes we gave the opposition nothing to play with whereas if we had packed the middle and tried to pass our way to victory, we would have been overrun after 10 minutes.. I was at the game and really enjoyed it, its just a shame that after Austin's goal we didn't throw everything at them, we didnt even win a corner, but credit to Arsenal, they are a great side and once again, we've rattled a big team at Loftus Road. Positives for sure, though we NEED four wins from somewhere. I think we will give Spurs a good game on Saturday.

 

I can only presume that Sandro had to come off after 60 minutes because he isn't anywhere near match fit after being out for so long. I don't blame Ramsey for that, plus we'll need Sandro again on Saturday.
We did press well in the first half, but we created so very little all game plating in the Redknapp style of lump it up to BZ. I'm sick of that and hoped Ramsey would give us something a little different to watch. Hopefully he will in our away games.

 

So you'd be dropping Phillips - who has set up our last 4 goals from crosses?

I think we need to all take a step back and let Ramsey do his job - i've certainly seen nothing wrong with his team selections. Onwards.

 

Fair enough. My mood wasn't helped by an horrendous journey to the game, resulting in us getting in 5 minutes after KO.

I'm just a bit sick and tired of watching hoof ball. I'm convinced that we'll go down now, as I just can't see where the points are going to come from added to our injuries and suspensions.
We really miss the creativity to win games imo. Without Austin's goals we would already be down.