Other aspects to the teams’ mentality are equally important, such as confidence and mental strength. I’m not even necessarily talking about confidence generated through recent form either. More the mental strength required to close out games. If you watched Arsenal ten years ago: if they took the lead there was pretty much no going back. The Newcastle game up north last season was one of the biggest capitulations I have ever seen. Why? Because despite what Wenger says he has one of the mentally weakest teams I have ever seen. The consequences of this are not only that their play gets worse but that the opposition’s play improves.
Improvement of lower teams
To say this is only down to the failures of the top teams however would be a gross injustice to the ‘lower’ clubs. If you consider that before Arsene Wenger arrived in England a Scottish manager was considered quite exotic. Therefore because of the high level of foreign managers around the British managers who would have been in charge of the top teams perhaps are now forced to coach smaller clubs. The result? The smaller Premier League teams have better managers, and the better managers make the best out of the players they’ve got.
Ultimately football wouldn’t be football if the top clubs won every game but the nature and frequency of the below par performances from the supposed top teams is something that draws attention. Whether it’s physical fragility like that of Arsenal, the questionable tactics of teams like Spurs or the lack of creativity in teams like Liverpool, the managers are accountable and for some fans certain, unforgivable results seem to be happening slightly too often to be accepted.
The article was written by Hamish Mackay for FootballFancast.com. Make sure to check out the latest news, blogs and podcasts at FFC – ed.
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dont say big teams freeze against small teams.its only liverpool.the reasons are simple.kenny bought poorly in the window.the british only system isnt working.for starters the british nations themselves are not doing well in international soccer and so to want to buy materail in those markets is madness.why buy carol instaed of aguero/llorento for these wouldhave cost the same amount.why buy hendo instead of mvilla/gortzee/marin.why buy downing instead of mata/marin.the reason is simple. these are british but they are not better than the alterernatives mentioned here. fine carol was boughthurriedly with the tores money but we had the rest of the season to assess him.we saw that he was struggling to settle in.wat kenny should have done is to buy llorento so that we win games.right now the reason we are failing to win games is because we bought carola nd then stupidly built a team around him.this is because all the players who were being bought were to provide service to carol.wat happens when he fails to click? there si no plan B.some fans would say kenny should not be criticised,they feel he is immune because he is a legend.but tell me if thiswas roy hodgson who was doing this,wat would be your reaction.sometimes i think with the money kenny got,roy might have bought better players.at least he bought meireles who was tupidly sold by kenny.and kenny says he is close to getting a solution.LIAR.the solution is for him to wake upo in janusry and buy abroad.buy llorento,adam johnson/marin/gortzee.but vertoghen and we are okay.