Arsenal play Cardiff today in the Premier League but it’s the transfers that are dominating the headlines as Arsenal are reportedly on the verge of signing Denis Suarez, 25 year old midfielder from Barcelona.
I’ve taken a look at Suarez’ numbers and I have to admit the paucity of data makes it difficult to give any sense of the player. The one thing that we can say for certain is that he won the Europa League with Unai Emery at Sevilla. Emery knows this player and feels like he can work with him.
A couple of data points stand out for me. First are the two Champions League sub appearances he’s had this season. One against PSV and the other Tottenham. In both matches he came on and was basically just dispossessed of the ball time and again. That matches up with some reports that he’s a “confidence” player. He’s not been given the confidence of his manager at Barcelona and judging by how much Emery plays Guendouzi despite fans howling for him to be dropped I suspect that Unai will give him 100% belief at Arsenal.
That said, I can’t really tell where he should be deployed. There are a lot of suggestions that he will end up in the #10 spot, where Ramsey has been playing this season. I don’t see why not. In slower leagues he has also been played wide, so that might also be an option.
He may also play deeper in midfield, maybe as cover for Xhaka, who might have to be cover at CB. He could also be deployed in the 2 of Emery’s 4231. He’s a versatile player and can probably play basically almost anywhere in Emery’s preferred midfield five.
He’s also young (for this team’s transfers) and he’s coming in on loan. Both mean this is a test period for Arsenal and Suarez. If he can adapt to the Premier League – specifically overcome what looks like an inability to handle pressure – I guess Arsenal will sign him? I honestly don’t know.
What I do know is that for the vast majority of his career he has been traded for relative peanuts: £2m here, £2m there. He also signed for Man City, Barcelona, and played most of a full season at Villareal. He takes corners and free kicks at Barcelona (which is odd) and given his transfer history, his ability to play in multiple positions in midfield, and teams who have been interested in him there is definitely a whiff that this is a talented youngster. The trick is whether Unai can transform this guy who has been increasingly marginalized for the last three seasons into a top quality MFer.
If not, the loan deal means we aren’t spending much out of pocket.
The Perisic deal is looking stranger every day. Today I read reports from Inter that there has been no Arsenal contact. But multiple sources (including the ORN) have reported that Arsenal are definitely after him. Hang on to your butts, this is going down to the wire. I’m also seeing some guff that Arsenal might try to sign a right back from Napoli – Kevin Malcuit. Those reports are in the Sun and Mail so I would take them with a mountain of salt.
Finally, I have identified the one player I wish that Arsenal would sign – 19 year old Ajax center back Matthijs de Ligt. Go check his profile out – he can pass, tackle, intercept, head the ball away, and he’s already captain of Ajax at 19 years old. Barcelona are reportedly interested so the chances of Arsenal signing him seem awfully small. Plus, I bet he goes for something well north of £60m (to a Premier League team, much less to Barcelona) which puts him out of our range.
Anyway, Arsenal play Cardiff today and they will be bombarding us from corners and free kicks. That’s a problem because Koscienly doesn’t really look 100% fit to jump yet. That means Xhaka will have to help out with heading duties and Leno might have to come out to claim more than he’s comfortable. I do worry about this one. Cardiff will be collapsing all over the pitch under any contact in order to win free kicks. And from every free kick (I would bet even ones in their own half) will look to get some scrambling ugly goals. We haven’t been bad at set play defending this season but that was largely due to Holding and Sokratis (and believe it or not, Mustafi isn’t terrible in the air).
It’s a home game though, and Arsenal have a great home record over the last two seasons. So, we really should win this.
Right, that’s it.
Agree that de Ligt would be ideal, but the chances of us getting him would seem low. He’s got be high on the radar list of all the big name clubs.
And while I understand them not wanting to spend money on a short-term center back solution, they are taking a big risk. Xhaka is OK as an emergency fill-in there. But he’s only slightly faster than Mertesacker was, with much less experience, skill and positional awareness.
de Ligt is on everyone’s radar. Which means we have no chance of ever getting him.
Given it’s Cardiff at home, I can’t believe we’d put Koscielny out there. It will be a back three of Xhaka, Mustafi and Lichtsteiner. Kola and AMN at wing backs, Guendouzi/Torreira the double pivot, Ramsey with Auba/Laca up front.
(and believe it or not, Mustafi isn’t terrible in the air).
No, he is not terrible in the air. He’s consistently our highest rated defender statistically because of how active he is. He “does stuff” though I would argue that’s actually not a good thing for a CB. I want to see my CB win maybe one tackle per game, make a handful of clearances and win maybe 3 aerials. Much more than that and he’s probably playing in an area of the pitch where he is getting exposed by the rest of his team… wait a minute, does that happen at Arsenal??? Also unfortunately for Mustafi, getting it right 90% of the time isn’t enough at this level, and that 10% happens at least once per game which qualifies you to be “error prone” which is a kind of damnation for a CB similar to “unprofessional” in my line of work. Nobody will hire you with that lurking under your name tag.
That’s a nice segue to Denis Suarez. I know almost nothing about him, but the “confidence player” tag gives me sweaty palms, if we are contemplating a permanent deal. Sure, he has rapport with Emery and that’s great, but the last thing we need is another player who nobody is sure is good enough at this level, including himself. That’s what being a “confidence player” is all about: you doubt yourself and that speaks to a lack of internal conviction. I would know, I was the ultimate confidence player as a student. At 25, DS is still a student as well (aren’t we all?) but the difference between me and him is that I can keep practicing until I am 70, and he is already halfway through his professional career.
I’ve always thought Mustafi was our best aerial threat next to Giroud of course.
Not the tallest of PL central defenders but kinda like Otamendi, always willing to stick his head where it might hurt.
He’s actually good in the air, Mustafi. He’s just slippy, slidy and positionally clueless on the ground.
“stuff” stats for almost all players are meaningless, yes. As for playing out of position, I don’t think a lot of tackles, interceptions, or clearances are indicative of any of that. Let me just break some of these down.
Interceptions; Wenger specifically trained his center backs to “step” and try to win the ball on the ground with interceptions. This was a stylistic choice and he often sought players who had the physical attributes to perform that task. Wenger also wanted a center half who could recover and had “pace”. Vermaelen, Toure, and Koscielny are players who fit that profile. He would pair these players with someone who was good in the air, Mertesacker, Sol Campbell, Djourou etc.
Aerial duels; often a deceptive stat, because just because an opponent gets a head on the ball doesn’t mean he could put it where he wants, and also sometimes it’s better to let a guy win headers and go after the second ball (Arsenal do this with guys like Andy Carroll). But overall a CB who wins a high % of aerials is more desirable.
Clearances; VvD is 11th in the League in clearances with 120 this season. This is the king of meaningless stats.
Tackles; I’ve written about this before but I think it needs to be reiterated, tackles and dribbles are brother and sister. Almost all tackles happen when a player dribbles at a defender. So, a high tackles number in your back line just means that that player is being targeted for dribbles. That said, it can also be indicative of a midfield that’s not shielding the back line properly and a low tackles number could be a player who is too slow to catch the opposition. It’s probably not a surprise to learn that Stones and Laporte (combined) have attempted 36 total tackles and been dribbled 6 times. Sokratis alone has 34, been dribbled 6 times and Mustafi has attempted a whopping 43 tackles and been dribbled 7 times. Our CBs aren’t quite at the level of Sol Bamba (73 tackles) or Wily Boly (65 tackles) But Mustafi is 10th in the League for CBs in overall attempted tackles. Like you say, not really what we want.
Fouls: in general, you don’t want your CBs making a lot of fouls either. Sokratis and Mustafi are 3rd and 4th respectively in overall fouls by CBs with 26 and 25 each.
Thanks for that context on Mustafi’s defensive mutton chops, Tim. My biggest beef with the defensive stats we have available is we don’t know how meaningful each activity was. A CB could save his team’s bacon with one crucial tackle and preserve precious points, or win a header against the odds that prevents a goal, but on the stat sheet it would show up the same as a completely meaningless action of the same nature, in other words, a hamberder stat. You’ve often said that Mustafi ducks out of headers and chickens out of challenges. It feels as if Arsenal’s chase for a truly top quality CB is a wild goose chase.
I know next to nothing about Suarez. At 25 he’s not a spring chicken but he somehow feels like one. Did catch the eye in some random game I watched when he was at Villareal.
I read a piece in football365 about him, which said he can play wide, is best as a #10 and when given freedom, has great vision, but struggles with physicality and defending, and I swear I LOLed.
Ajax just got beat 6-2 by Feyenoord a couple of days ago, with our old pal RVP scoring 2. I’m not sure if De Ligt played, though I watched the highlights. Ajax seemed to be all over the place after initially running the game. Anyway, we’ve got no chance with him.
Some rumours that it’s either Perisic or Carrasco (or no one)
The Napoli RB’s agent reportedly said there was interest from some London club (‘Could be’ Arsenal) but that he’s happy at Napoli and no chance he leaves. Make of that what you will (I read it as show me the money!! that Arsenal claim to not have)
It’s been a relatively calm transfer window in terms of noise. Small mercies.
Football tonight, and although it’s only Cardiff, somehow I feel nervous. We’re at home so thats good, but isn’t Mike Dean the ref? I expect a pen against us.
It may sound callous but as beat up as we are right now injury -wise, Cardiff may be the one club with a lower morale right now for the obvious reason.
Players receiving counseling and the manager contemplating retirement leading up to an away game against a top six club is not an ideal week of preparation.
On paper this should be an easy win for Arsenal.
On paper.
Arsenal are one of the most charitable clubs in the country, especially when struggling teams need points or when a struggling striker needs goals.
You could look at Cardiff right now and think ‘vulnerable’…or you could think ‘galvanized’.
I’m never confident of an Arsenal win these days, but boy do we ever need one tonight to offset the three points we’re dropping against City!
Oh, I’m far from confident of a win, but if a broken leg can ruin what looked like a possible title winning season ( Eduardo), it’s hard to imagine Cardiff getting galvanized by the death of Sala, their record signing
This too might sound callous, but how many of the Cardiff players ever even met Sala? I’m sure they’re upset but it seems like it would be less of a personal loss for them than for the people at the club he played at.
I know this will sound like an over-reaction, but I really do believe that the loss of Bellerin put the nail in the coffin for any hopes of finishing in the top four. It’s not necessarily that he is such an amazing player (though he is hugely important, of course), but rather that we have no capable fullbacks to replace him. As it’s also clear that we will not be buying a RB in this window, we can be sure to leak plenty of goals as teams target that side of the pitch.
The injuries have been hugely frustrating this season, as they always are. I simply cannot understand why it is that Arsenal — no matter who is coaching, no matter who is in charge of physio and fitness — year in and year out have the worst or one of the worst injury records of any other team in the Premier League. Have you ever seen another team lose both their starting CB’s in a single game? I never see teams play against us and experience a season-ender. If a player leaves the pitch on a stretcher it’s an Arsenal one every, single f*cking time.
Anyway, I expect because of all the injuries to defenders, we’ll see Emery (you do have to feel sorry for him at this point) revert to a back three out of necessity…a formation I absolutely loathe.
Agreed on Bellerin. His game is hugely important to Emery’s style of play and we have nobody else with that skill set in the squad. It’s going to be a difficult rest of the season. When will Arsenal catch a break on injuries (pun intended?)?
I wonder who plays there tonight. Jenkinson? AMN?
I also venture that if we do sign Perisic, at some point he will be tried at RWB.
I agree that we aren’t making top four. I have us at about a 10% chance after Chelsea bought Higuain. We could still topple Spurs though, and that would be sweeter than a bowl of honey.
Derelicht starts!
Weird to see him and Elneny in the line-up. I love the idea that somehow we’re resting players for City, as if it will matter who plays that game.
Anyway, let’s see what Ozil’s got. If we take this game for granted — especially with that back line — we will drop points.
My cold analysis:
That’s an awful defensive line. They will exploit the lack of pace down the right and the lack of defending down the left. Crosses in won’t be dealt with because we have one guy who can head the ball in there. And there are massive holes in the midfield. Lol. This is a batshite insane lineup.
still, we are at home and I expect a big win.
Hopefully.
I’ll be optimistic and predict a 4-2 scoreline, even though that really is a conservative midfield. Elneny and Guendouzi are masters of running earnestly with no apparent aim and passing for the sake of passing.
Think I’ll need to scrap that prediction. This is dire stuff.
I actually laughed out loud when I saw it. One old saw, one LB out of poistion, one positionally suspect LB, one positionally suspect CB.
And the half goes exactly as you would expect. Probably the single worst half I can remember Arsenal playing this season.
HT: What a sh*tshow from Arsenal, who, in their great charity, have made relegation fodder look quite good, indeed. We didn’t have a single shot on goal for 45 minutes, and they looked the more likely to score throughout. Speaking of 45, that’s Lichtsteiner’s real age, apparently.
Ramsey and Xhaka should come on for Elneny and Guendouzi/Ozil. Also, Lichtsteiner should retire. Play Cech at RB.
It’s easy to pick on the back line but I’m gonna go after El-Neny. It’s obvious based on this half of work why he hasn’t been picked all season. He doesn’t progress the ball when we have it, and he doesn’t play defense with conviction or efficiency. Cardiff are letting him have it all game because all he does is checks back. Meanwhile they absolutely mug Guendouzi every time he goes near the ball.
Also, lost in all of that is that we should’ve had a penalty at the end of the half but Mike Dean.
Somehow we haven’t even mentioned Mesut Ozil who aside from the usual stuff also hasn’t been good in the final 3rd.
Emery yanks El-Neny at halftime…
Halftime.
We are playing very nervously. Talk tactics, personnel, bad ref calls, whatever you like… we are playing like a bunch of guys who fear failure.
It that on the coach? I dont know.
How we are playing is symptomatic of a club that’s ill at ease with… something. But hey, perhaps the players will come out on the second half and make this comment look overheated and over-reactive.
Only Denis Suarez can save us.
Arsenal is supposed to be an entertaining football club and this is anything but that.
Has the feel of a 0-0 or a 0-1 Cardiff win.
MOTM so far is the pitch which is holding up well with the weather.
Will Iwobi provide a threat on the left, TBD.
Jenkinson on for Derelicht. Scraping the barrel.
Finally, Mike Dean has to give us 1/3 PKs.
That goal opens up Cardiff and we look much better considering the competition.
That was a lousy performance, but I’ll take the result!
Good night for us, as United lose to Burnley.
Whoops.
Managed to make that more difficult than it should have been against a relegation-threatened team.
MOTM: Etheridge.
Guendouzi for me. He started as the left sided shuttler and then dropped to the base of the diamond, consistently supplying good passes into dangerous areas and kept putting his body on the line for the team despite repeated assaults (yes, assaults) from Ralls and Arter. I’m pretty sure he was being targeted and still thrived.
Never in doubt, eh?
-Mustafi, much maligned, saved a certain goal in the first half with a trademark lunging block of a shot from Niasse
-Jenkinson was much better than Lichtsteiner. He should be getting backup RB reps over the Swiss
-El-Neny really shouldn’t start games in the PL, yikes he was bad
-Thank god we’ve got Aubazette
-Thank god this was Cardiff and not some club with real forwards
-Can’t wait for City away with this crew minding the back. Over under on goals against?
Better second half. Loved Laca’s injustice-fueled goal. Hit the leather off of ball 🙂
Auba missed the sitter at the end. He’d have a heck of a record if he converde one third of his misses.
Good performance from Kola marred by standing there and letting the Cardiff player shoot on goal… then promptly turning around and ticking off someone else.
Guendouzi superb. When he improves his final third play, he’ll be a heck of a footballer. Metter of time. For the U19s, he looks a real threat offensively.
Heck of a game from Matteo. I didn’t think he would come back in after that last mugging by Ralls, thankfully for Arsenal he did. Skillful and tough. Pretty sure Arters tried to hurt him because he knew he was hurting them.
City just lost… it’s a must-win for them against us now, or the race is going to be conceded to Liverpool. I fear the worst.
I think it’s Liverpool’s title now,Jack .
City are still in four competitions while Klopp can concentrate on the league and CL.
Pool can open up a seven point gap tomorrow and with their stingy defense they should be able to coast the rest of the way.
But I can already see the next week’s talking points after City beats the pants off of our squad.
“Benitez with his relegation bound NCU could beat Pep while Emery still can’t”
I watched that game.
City weren’t at their best but should’ve won that game with ease on chances created.
Understat had City with only 1.34 xG in that game.
Anyone else here a James Ingram fan?
There was no purer and sweeter R&B voice, including Luther Vandross’.
Solo (Just Once)
Duet (Somewhere Out There)
Group collab (We Are The World)
Incomparable.
Hope he hooks up with Aretha.
RIP James Ingram….
I hope he hooks with Aretha too. Even up there, he’ll “Find 100 Ways”.
As smooth a voice as you’ll ever hear. Reminded me a bit of Smokey when I first heard him. Just in how comfortable he seemed with any melody.
Matthijs de Ligt went out of Arsenal’s level more than 6 months back. Elite teams are in. I hope we get a PL defender in his prime for once if we are going to spend big. Which PL CB would you like us to sign from teams outside top 6?
I’m not sure why Guendouzi is the overwhelming favourite for Motm. He ran around a lot, was fouled a lot and didn’t do a whole lot wrong. But we conceded more shots than we …uh…shot… and we didn’t really create anything. I know Ozil is supposed to be the creator, but he was having to drop deep and collect the ball in an effort to try and open up space.
Ok, whatever. This isn’t a crib against young Guendouzi. I like him a lot. I don’t know what I missed there. But for me it has to be Lacazette. He played tirelessly up front, should have had two penalties, and provided the moment of the game with that quality finish for what proved to be the winner. I feel that’s enough reason to name him Motm in what was a pretty turgid match for the most part.
no chance arsenal signs de ligt. too many people know about him. maybe a year or so ago but not now. similar thing i said about leandro paredes. i wanted him a year ago when no one was talking about him. he’s just signed for psg and given the #8 jersey. he could have helped arsenal a ton.
denis suarez is a cute little player but i can’t see him really providing arsenal something they don’t have. like someone already mentioned, he doesn’t do well in the physical challenges, which was my first thought when the rumors started. personally, if i were barcelona, i’d tell arsenal if they weren’t willing to pay for the player to piss off. arsenal are one of the biggest club in the world and their “we’re broke” cry is as fake as the crisis at the u.s. southern border.
the game against cardiff had a bit of the early season games. arsenal did nothing for the first 20-30 minutes, then turned it on. at halftime, i was sure the game would finish in the neighborhood of 3-0. 2-1 is a bit close but you can’t take anything away from the finish by the cardiff player; beautiful strike of the ball.
all of the talk about mustafi, i thought he played well against cardiff and against man united on friday when he came on. the 3rd united goal was ugly. i though maitland-niles did okay, too. glad to see no xhaka in the side. i’m sure he’s a great guy to have around but i really don’t fancy him as a player. he’s a coquelin inverse meaning the two things coquelin were awful at, long passes and shots, are the ONLY things xhaka is good at. personally, i’d rather still have the frenchman, especially considering the money spent.
glad to see jenkinson come on for lichtsteiner. personally, i think he’s better suited as a central defender, long term, than a right back but that’s not my call. we’ll see.
lastly, loved the unassisted goal from lacazette. clearly, mike dean had upset the entire arsenal team but laca just channeled his anger on that goal. he’s not as clinical as van persie or eduardo in their arsenal pomp but he’s pretty darn good; a natural striker if there is such a thing.
an aside, higuain to chelsea is an awful decision. you don’t bring strikers to the premier league in their 30s if they’re not sweedish; meaning the only strikers i’ve seen come in and do well in the premier league at that age are zlatan and henrick larsson. higuain is old and fat and he looks it. he’s not the same player that sarri worked with at napoli. this has shevchenko to chelsea written all over it. more notably, higuain plays for himself.
when chelsea were winning this season, their center forward was the familiar olivier giroud. he didn’t score a lot of goals but with him on the field, chelsea created a lot more chances. it was when he got injured that their chances dried up and they began dropping points. hazard loves playing behind giroud, just like griezmann does. why? because a fit and in form giroud is a force and plays for the team, unlike higuain. giroud led france to a european championship final less than three years ago and led france to a world championship less than a year ago. he’s the real deal. i’ll be watching chelsea burn from afar because sarri believe he’s got all the answers, particularly the decision to publicly criticize hazard (we all know what happens to those coaches) and believing higuain is the answer.
Just read the comment on Higuain above, and remembered that before we signed Laca, we had some consensus here on Morata. I did think Morata has a higher ceiling but that Laca was a more sure thing. I’m glad we managed to get Alexandre Lacazette because I love that guy. Good finisher. Great attitude. He could have sulked after we brought in Auba, but instead they get along swimmingly. He gees up the crowd when he’s subbed off early. He keeps running up front. And I love his quiet determination which showed in the finish yesterday.
Ironically, Morata has ended up at the club Lacazette was headed to if not for their transfer ban.
My love for Alex Lacazette is growing by leaps and bounds and will soon border on full fledged man crush.
I was one who would have preferred Morata to Lacazette two summers ago. Boy, what do I know? That said, I bet you Simeone will light a firecracker up Morata’s *** and he’ll be scoring goals in the Champions League again.
i, too, was one of those clowns who believed morata would be better than lacazette. talent-wise, i don’t think i was wrong. however, lacazette just has more heart; he’s more of a winner than morata and that’s why we can be happy with the direction the club took.
Also, I’ve been seeing a lot of people talking about how Emery hasn’t improved our defense at all. Check out Scott Willis’ by the numbers over on Arseblog regarding the Chelsea match:
https://arseblog.news/2019/01/arsenal-2-0-chelsea-by-the-numbers/
You’ve got to be encouraged by that from a defensive point of view. Sure, it’s one game, but it was a game that really really mattered.
Did you see the fuse Sarri blew after the game. Enough to not even speak in English because he wanted his players to know how bad they were.
I really enjoyed the Chelsea game, but as you say, it was one game. I hope it offers us a blueprint for things going forward, but it’s more likely a false dawn. Like when we’d press fantastically in a big game and think YES!!! WE’VE FINALLY CRACKED IT, and then nothing for a few months.
I don’t think there is such a thing as finally cracking it when it comes to playing great defense, or doing great anything. It comes down to doing lots and lots of little things very well, very consistently, and if you’re not used to that, it takes a lot of time and the right environment to get used to it. Arsenal certainly haven’t been used to that but a game like this tells me maybe they are starting to learn. Compare this game to when we played the same team in August, for instance. There will still be ups and downs but I think what we all want to see is a trend in the right direction and for my money we’ve had that of late.
doc, i agree 100% with your statement. spot on!
If learning how to defend takes a long time, how did Liverpool turn it around so quickly?
I don’t think they turned it around that quickly. Klopp’s first season was a bit of a blood bath for them defensively as I recall. They signed Matip and he instantly became their best CB, while in goal they had to decide which of Karius and Mignolet was less likely to sabotage them that day.
I just looked it up. In 2015, Klopp’s first full season, they shipped a whopping 50 goals and finished 8th.
Alternately, you can always read Tim’s post-match numbers posts over on The Arsenal Review.
https://www.thearsenalreview.com/a/jan2019/article/arsenal-2-0-chelsea-emerys-plan-b-behind-the-numbers
Bournemouth did us a huge favour against Chelsea. Spurs got out of jail (win), as did United yesterday (draw). Nearly the perfect round for us. Spurs can keep winning without Kane, so there’s no way we’ll catch them.
Gives you a little hope though, doesn’t it? A nice reminder that ours is not the only squad with issues.
Yeah, it was good to see. It’s a scrap between us, United, and Chelsea for fourth. Chelsea’s humbling at the hands of Bournemouth gives me some hope, but I also know we’re just as capable of getting soundly beaten by supposedly inferior teams. I expect us to drop a lot of points between now and May, just like Chelsea. Spurs are nailed on for third, unfortunately.
The problem spurs have is they’ve been at this with the same group of players for a few years now, getting plaudits all around but without winning anything, much like the post-Invincible Arsenal. Lots of nice players, several that top clubs would covet, but not enough to get them anywhere meaningful. Attrition will take its toll. How many more years can they hang on doing that before key pieces like Eriksen or Kane, or Pochettino decide they’ve had enough? They’ll probably finish 3rd this season, good for them, but they’ll also finish with no silver and abiding memories of a right thumping at the hands of a rebuilding Arsenal after taking a 2-1 lead. This might sound silly but I wouldn’t trade with them. They have the better squad now, but it’s not a huge gap, and we have by far the better longer term outlook. They, like Wenger, can only keep pulling rabbits out of hats for so long before the financial disparity inevitably tells.