Well, was it fun for you?
I like these kind of open matches where teams just run at each other and try to outscore their opponent. But only when they don’t matter. Like yesterday. That match didn’t matter, so it was fun. Sort of. There were still some annoyances.
The first annoyance are the people who say “whataboutery” in order to dismiss an argument. I think it’s fair for people to ask if an opinion is consistent and to poke at the edges of someone’s opinion to see if it holds water. People who say “that’s just whataboutery” are as much as admitting that they are wrong. Just argue the argument, don’t try to change the subject, Bucko.
The second annoyance are people who say “oh so you’re a professional coach” or “how many trophies have you won” and “when did you start your football career.” This argument from authority has many flaws. First, look at the professional coaches, players, and managers who have failed. That would be most of them. The vast majority of football professionals are failures. So, authority (badges) doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to have insight or understand the game better than anyone else. Coaches like Guardiola, Mourinho, and Wenger say this kind of thing all the time but it’s not an argument. You have to take on the person’s argument and not the person making the argument. If their argument is weak, you should be able to dispel it without resorting to attacking their credentials.
The third annoyance are these people who say “real fans just support the team no matter what” or some other such nonsense. Managers also like to trot this one out when their team is struggling. This is one of the most annoying, and pernicious, of all the replies people roll out to any criticism. Like the other two above it’s just a dismissal of an argument without looking at the merits of the argument itself. And it’s particularly dumb because I could turn it around and say the same thing “real fans criticize the thing that they love because they want it to be better/more fun/whatever i want to put in here” and I would have the exact same authority that you do. Which is none. Deal with the topic at hand, ok, meathead?
The fourth annoyance was Arsenal’s defending (Giant red arrow plus blinking words: THIS IS WHAT WE ARE ARGUING ABOUT). I don’t expect Arsenal to be perfect and especially not in a match that doesn’t much matter but… Arsenal have a Europa League Cup to win and they need to be more defensively solid if they are going to win it.
The first goal was Mustafi’s fault and this isn’t even remotely the first time we have said this about this player. He was at fault for a similar type of switch-off goal against PSG in September 2016. He was at fault for City’s first goal in the League Cup Final in February. He was at fault for Man United’s 2nd goal in the 3-1 loss to them in December. Those are just three that I can think of off the top of my head. Players make errors, defenders especially, and when they do it costs the team a goal. Mustafi isn’t more error-prone than any other defender but he does have this strange tendency to “check out”. It’s annoying.
The second goal was a combination of faults. Let’s look at it in a little more detail:
This was a set play, taken quickly, from the other side of the field. Arsenal clear at the far post but the ball is kept in play and rolled out to the right back, Cedric. At this point Wilshere goes out to close down space, which is the right thing to do. Digression: note that Southampton have all 10 of their outfield players in the Arsenal final third – a huge gamble by them. If Arsenal win possession they have a free counter attack.
Wilshere closed down space too aggressively and Welbeast isn’t in a good position on Hojbjerg so Cedric makes a simple pass and run. This is attack and defense 101: follow your man. If you see a defender barreling down on you, pass and run into the space he just vacated.
This is a huge problem now. Cedric isn’t a great dribbler (this would be his 6th dribble all season) but he’s now unmarked in the 18 yard box and running at full speed.
He could have passed the ball here and his teammates would have had a good shot but he fakes the pass and Chambers bites. Chambers is burnt.
Cedric walks right past him and crosses the ball for a goal.
Cech can’t do anything other than guard the near post, Wilshere has one of the best seats in the house, and Cedric adds a little nutmeg to this potion: passing the ball between Xhaka’s legs!
Good awareness by Cedric to take on Jack Wilshere, nice fake by Cedric to get past Chambers, and still a little luck to cross the ball between Xhaka’s legs and get the ball to his teammate. The final two moves aren’t annoying, that’s just a player making a great fake and then getting some luck on the nutmeg. It’s an annoying goal because of the way Wilshere closed down space. It was amateurish from Wilshere to say the least and when you let a player run full speed into the box, your team is bound to get punished. Whenever people suggest that Jack Wilshere should be the DM for Arsenal it’s plays like this that make me go, “nah.”
Arsenal’s attack was ok yesterday. Wilshere had a great cross spurned by Welbeck, who probably would have scored if he had used any part of his body other than his foot. I once said that Chamakh would probably score more goals if he had heads installed on his feet and I suspect Welbeck would score more goals if he had shoulders and knees installed on his feet. But hey, players miss chances – I mean that was about an 8.5/10 on the Torres Scale of Blown Chances but it’s not a full 10. But it’s hard to complain when your team scores three goals.
Especially when one of the goals is a Giroud-like flick! How great was that, huh? That’s such a prototypical Arsenal goal, right? Welbeck for the World Cup (I don’t care about the World Cup).
The red card for Elneny was super annoying. Have you ever seen a red card for that? And if that’s a red card, shouldn’t it be four red cards? The video shows three Southampton players doing the exact same thing to Elneny that he got the red card for. I suspect that was a “makeup” call. The referee felt like he punished Stephens harshly (he didn’t) or that he didn’t punish Wilshere harshly enough (he did) so he took the first chance he could to send off an Arsenal player. Such bad refereeing.
And finally, another annoying thing is when people say “you have an agenda” or “it’s clear you have an agenda”. Everyone has “an agenda” or what I would call “a point of view on the world” and “a desire to express their opinion.” So, I will gladly admit my agenda: I’d like it if Arsenal played better defense. That’s all. That’s my whole agenda. Arsenal have allowed 43 goals this season and are just 6 goals short of Wenger’s worst ever defensive season (the 49 goals allowed in the 8-2 season). I hate when Arsenal play crap defense. It makes me physically ill.
That’s it. I’m tired of writing today.
Totally agree about Mustafi. I really hate it when he makes an obvious mistake to allow a goal and then blames anyone/anything he can. Like Belushi in the Blues Brothers, “Locusts, it was locusts. I swear to God it wasn’t my fault.” Very happy for Danny and Iwobi, who both did well. Also very pleased with Xhaka over the recent run of 6 wins, but I look at our opponents and my enthusiasm is tempered. No one has really pressed us. Praying for a quick Mkhitaryan recovery if we are going to have a chance to win Europa.
Xhaka may have the slowest turn time I’ve ever seen in a footballer. Not sure how he can overcome that. The recent matches haven’t been without f*ck ups either. Luckily for him, we have been scoring and Mustafi’s f*ck ups have been more disastrous so Xhaka’s mistakes has been less conspicuous. He had one stupid give away yesterday. Then there was his “clearance” in the CSKA game and then his attempt to “block” Musa’s shot where he was just left flat on his arse. However, I will admit that he has been making more positive contributions as of late but that could just be because our opponents have been poor while simultaneously our attack has improved.
A sign of the times when we applaud Xhaka for fewer glaring gaffes.
Indeed. It’s all about expectations.
Wilshere’s defensive awareness is quite poor at times. There was a moment in the CSKA game which summed it up for me. CSKA has the ball on the right and moving the ball forward. Wilshere is slowly moving towards a defensive position and as the play develops, is in a great spot to make an interception when the CKSA player cuts inside to pass to a teammate. Instead, the ball passes by about 2 feet away from him. If he had a just a little more awareness, he would have seen that pass coming and could have made a great sliding interception which would have then be recovered by Monreal. I was screaming at my screen. I don’t see how he is a starter in any top team. Matches where he puts on a great performance on both ends of the pitch are more of an exception than the norm.
Jack, sparkling for the middle part of the season and early UEFA, has gone beck to being the ponderous, slow thing presence who hangs onto the ball too long. But he’s such an intelligent final third attacker, that he can always make something happen, even when he’s having a poor game. Tim explained one such instance well on Arseblog. That was the pass that Jack supplied for Welbeck’s glaring miss.
But on balance, at the moment, Jack isn’t worth his place in the starting XI.
My guess is he’s exhausted. He’s physically done and that in turn hurts his concentration. Not that he’s too aware to begin with.
Here’s a more recent one, Tim. Game before this one, actually. Mustafi also blooted the ball straight up into the air against Moscow in the first leg last week, and Koscielny made a hash of clearing it. Foul. Free kick. Goal.
On other days, he can be terrific, defensively and on occasion offensively. But you feel there’s always one stupid and costly mistake per game in him.
Something I find very annoying is the number of times we will make short, useless passes between two players, but by the time the return pass is made that player is under pressure and does not want it back. Almost as though it is programmed passing that does not account for what is going on.
THIS!!! My 10 year old and I were discussing the same thing Saturday. It often involves Bellerin and Xhaka or Elneny. The midfielders love to pass it to Hector on the sideline, and when he passes back to them, return it to him with an opponent nearly on top Bellerin, since the defender was coming to close down the first pass. Ugh. And our other favorite is the pass under pressure to a teammate who’s 4 feet away. Even my 10 year old knows better.
Right on the money
…or the backpass to the keeper while he’s being closed down. that’s my favorite; the one pass you should never make.
Careful, Tim. How dare you criticize Arsenal when we’ve won after all?
I am writing this comment because I read every article you write about arsenal. I read them because I enjoy your style of writing and for some time now, enjoy your obsession with stats. Recently however, I have noticed that your articles are mostly negative and it seems to me, that you only emphasize the mistakes. For this game, were there any positives from this game for you? I ask because it seems like all you do is criticize.
I mean, we’re on course to leave Burnley in the dust, right? We just conceded to goals to Southampton who have scored, what, like three goals all season? This season is playing out like every other season or the last 10 years. So, you tell me what are the positives.
See? hahahaha
Anyone who puts Up an argument against a tactic or an issue shud b an example frst.one can’t just say hey ure doin it wrong do it ds other way witout having proof of succeeding at it.at ur job ure experienced dan mi so for mi to convince u to do otherwise I must show u proof of wer it’s worked before or when I dd it mysef
No. People Should encourage open dialog about ideas and if they are sound ideas they will win out.
I’d agree with all of your hates except the first one.
Whataboutery specifically refers to someone who is trying to change the subject by bringing up something unrelated, not the other way around.
The person actually guilty of whataboutery is the person who’s doesn’t have a valid argument.
That’s not to say it isn’t misused by some people at times though.
One of my own personal hates is people who claim to be “just playing devil’s advocate’.
No they aren’t.
What they’re actually doing is trying to pull a “Pontius Pilate” and distance themselves from any responsibility, either from the situation itself, or from any consequences or outcomes of suggested paths of actions.
Personally, if someone comes up with that in any of my meetings, I tell them to leave the room because they’re not adding any value and they don’t have any balls.
…add no value and have no balls. get out! i love that.
In my experience “whataboutery” is used by journalists when they are criticized for having two different opinions about two players from different teams.
For example, John Cross on an Arsenal player diving “it’s a disgrace and he should be dropped from the England team”. Same day drops a puff piece on Dele Alli which allows the player to simply say that he doesn’t dive. I question that. Barry Glendenning dismisses it as “whataboutery”.
Right Tim, I finally get what you mean about ‘whataboutery’ because I think you’ve mentioned it on Twitter as well and I wasn’t clear then.
There’s ‘whataboutery’ which is an effective part of political disinformation and is used to elide all kinds of unethical or dubious activity.
You mean the other thing, when someone uses ‘that’s just whataboutery’ as a deflection when a perfectly legit point is made or when you’re pointing out hypocrisy. The British sports journalists do that a lot, and I agree with you – it’s immature and toxic to the discourse.
“Whataboutery” is basically a contest to see who is the lesser evil. My guy did (y)? Well what about when your guy did (x)? It’s been with us forever, but is getting worse.
Jack definitely not worth his place at the moment.
Defensively we were shambolic. Again. And sadly Chambo and Holding don’t look like the cavalry on the horizon either.
But silver linings: v good from Danny W, much better from Iwobi and what a record from Aubamayang. I realise from the BTN article this is down to a fantastically high conversion rate but maybe EPL defences will allow him a higher rate and maybe this will become the new mean: here’s hoping.
Wenger has a longstanding habit of fielding players who are out of form when there are better options available, so I don’t imagine Wilshere’s place is under any threat whatsoever.
The situation is symptomatic of Wenger’s approach, generally. His lack of ruthlessness (or abundance of loyalty, if you want to look at it that way) is at once endearing and frustrating, and marks him as the opposite of Fergie. For Wenger, the right way to play the game is based on a set of morals that transcend results; for Fergie, the right way to play the game is to win, and to hell with feelings and codes of personal honor. Of course, Wenger would not put it that sharply, maintaining that transcendent values should produce results, which they sometimes do, of course, but not over the long haul.
(As for Mustafi’s place, the sad reality is that there really aren’t any better options available, and his presence, along with a general naivete in our defensive set-up as a whole, pretty much ensure that our Europa campaign will end the minute we encounter a team of any real quality.)
Anyway, if you’ll permit a digression from the topic at hand, I’d like to let you all know of something wonderful that happened in the NHL recently that I fervently hope is mimicked by our manager. A couple of weeks ago, Henrik and Daniel Sedin, the aging legends of the Vancouver Canucks — who were well past their prime, but were still asked to carry the team in many ways — announced that this would be their last season with the team. In an instant, all the moaning about their contribution, place in the team, lack of end product, taking squad places, hindering the rebuild, etc., disappeared, and was replaced with an enormous outpouring of good will that manifested in incredibly emotional scenes in their final three games. Fans, managers, and players on both sides joined together to celebrate these players and their achievements.
Once we have nothing to play for (i.e., as soon as Atletico run us off the park in the Europa League), I would love for Wenger to follow suit.
Wenger will have to be fired and he isn’t go to go out without a fight. Mark my words. The outpouring of love may yet come but not before it gets uglier first I fear.
I mean, imagine if Wenger had announced he was leaving a month ago. There’s no way 20,000 fans would be staying away from every home game. Games like Sundays would’ve had a carnival atmosphere.
I suggested this exact thing for Wenger after that infamous night in Stoke. I still wish he would announce his retirement. But he won’t.
The tricky thing for Wenger’s transcendent values is over the last few years they’ve started to conflict with each other very sharply.
The manager who chose to keep faith with young players when asked about new signings because he “didn’t want to destroy” said player has had to deal with the reality that young players can’t develop in a team that struggles to do the basics. They start looking like bad players in front of a crowd who understand his philosophy but whose patience has worn very thin.
And Bunburyist, did you see what England’s coach Southgate said the other week? He was asked about possible fears of racism at the World Cup and said:
“English football needs to ‘get its own house in order’ over racism before pointing fingers.”
Pretty much what we were saying here a while back. It’s a very good indicator that someone’s serious about the issue as a whole. Very impressed with him.
Agree with every word of your contribution and wouldn’t it be a great moment if Wenger would bow out gracefully. I fear he won’t though. If he doesn’t win the Europa League I’m not even sure the board will offload him at the end of the season but the financial implications of another season without Champions League revenue must surely test their resolve. And despite money in the bank from season ticket sales will the swathes of empty seats begin to tarnish the brand ? We always have a laugh when we see the attendance at 59,000+. The atmosphere at the ground is muted to say the least. Even the exchanges between the Clock End and the North Bank last Sunday were like the distant echo of a previous era.
Sadly, I think it’s going to end ugly. Reading into what Wenger says these days, his tone, he’s carrying some bitterness about how the last several years have gone. Bitter people, in my experience, would rather be fired than quit/retire/walk away because it helps justify their feelings of being hard-done by.
Mustafi’s defensive bloopers are largely down to the ever changing make-up of the back line, be it a back three or a back four, yesterday he had Chambers along side him, in the previous game it was Koscielny and the one before that Monreal.
The defence passed down to Wenger, from George Graham, were drilled as a unit. They knew instinctively where there fellow defenders where and what they could do. Under our present manager there is no such cohesion or continuity. Because of Koscielny’s chronic injury situation he often has to be rotated out of the line-up thus disrupting the unit. Replacing him this coming summer will do much to alleviate the problems. Unfortunately neither Chambers nor Holding have progressed sufficiently to be that replacement.
A better defensive coach would not go amiss.
There is constructive criticism which is fine, but nowadays some fans go overboard with the negativity. I only have an issue with them type. Like the commentator said that day…. about to qualify for a European semi final having won 3 trophies in last 4 years. We all know there is room for improvement but people are going on like we are about to get relegated.
I’m afraid we’ve already been relegated, from a top four club to a top six club. That’s only one step away from mid table obscurity.
Southampton always, always expose us. Ever since Poch was there. I’ll never forget the defeat against them the year Leicester won the title.
18 games in, all our rivals collapsing, and we had the chance to overtake Leicester at the top of the table. But Van Dijk and Wanyama ran the entire game. A 4-0 defeat.
Three years later and defensively we still come bearing too many gifts. Forget Atletico Madrid, even a tie against RB Leipzig looks daunting at this point.
Looks to me like Wilshere is physically done, I have to say. He starts the game looking like he’s already got 90 minutes in his legs. The way he runs you can see how he’s twisting his torso to give him extra push. I still love him as a player but even if you don’t he’s got a big heart and pushes himself very hard, you have to give him that.
By the way, I would call out Welbeck on that goal, not Wilshere. Before your first screenshot, you can see Jack starts over by the penalty spot and is very quick to react to sprint all the way out to block Cedric. Meanwhile Welbeck is standing right next to Hojberg but lets him go and ends up marking nobody. Jack’s entitled to think that somewhere behind him Welbeck is doing his job.
Once Cedric’s gone past Jack there’s nothing more he can do, and he’s perfectly entitled to get straight into space to be ready for the counterattack if Chambers and Welbeck win it.
Pleased that you’ve picked up on the negative cliches Tim. I recently raised this issue on another Arsenal blog ( the really, really negative one) over the “If Arsenal did that” or “if that were Arsenal” asinine comments making the points that it showed lack of original or creative thinking.
And did I get blasted!
If it’s OK with you I’ll reference your article if it ever comes up again, that is if they haven’t red carded me.