“My worry is to do as well as I can with the team and to get them to play decent football so that people who come and pay for their tickets are not bored. I have watched a lot of games in my life and I think we can have a clear conscience that we do not try to cheat our people. We don’t always manage to do it but people come to the games and we always try to give them something for the money they spend. There is always that ambition and if we do not manage to do it then we are sorry. “ – Arsene Wenger, April 2011
April 2011. Arsenal had lost the League Cup final to Birmingham on 20 February and a hat trick of draws against mid-table teams Sunderland, West Brom, and Blackburn meant that Arsenal had slipped 7 points behind Manchester United into 2nd place on the table. Wenger was under siege from the Arsenal Supporter’s Trust and his response was the quote above; he was here to entertain.
Going into that League Cup final, the mood was lively if reserved. The feeling among the people I traveled with was that Arsenal were going to beat Birmingham and win that coveted “first trophy in six years”. There was no reason not to believe we could beat them, since we had done so 3-0 on New Year’s Day.
We didn’t. They scored their second goal when a giant lump named Zigic won a hopeful header and Szczesny and Koscielny failed defense 101. Obafemi Martins slipped in the goal, did a flip, someone rubbed Koscielny’s head.
I was in the opposite end of the stadium. I couldn’t tell exactly what had happened but I knew that they had scored because the entire blue end erupted in an explosion of joy, unlike anything I’ve seen in a football stadium.
That explosion seemed to ripple out. Our end of the stadium sat down. And then the aftershocks. Waves of frustration, anger, hatred, tears. Grown men tried to rip the chairs out of the concrete. A child cried as his father held him. And as we marched out of the stadium that night, it was like a funeral for the Arsenal.
The repercussions of that loss kept rippling outward. On the day before that final, Arsenal were in 2nd place behind Man U with 56 points and 11 matches left. We ended the season with 68, dropped to 4th place. Arsenal went from 2 points a game in the first 27 matches to a little over 1 point per game in the last 11.
Arsenal picked up just two wins in those last 11 matches. And Wenger was like a plumber, trying to hold the sinking ship together, plugging little holes here and there, when he made the quote at the top of this post.
But the shockwaves from that League Cup final loss would continue to echo. Wenger kept trying to pick the team up, but 8 years later, it looks like the boys had downed tools on him. That summer Arsenal lost Cesc and Nasri.
At the time, the quote above caused quite a bit of controversy. Professional grumps took Wenger’s words as proof that the club lacked ambition. After all, football isn’t about entertainment, it’s about winning things.
Wenger’s gone and we’ve had 8 years distance from that explosion. And now Arsenal have a new manager who is in many ways the opposite of Arsene Wenger. Where Wenger wanted to make life into art, a manager whose philosophy was to give players like Ozil the freedom to express themselves on the pitch even if it meant his team would be weaker in other areas; Emery is very much a technocrat, a man who loves watching videos for 8 hours a day, hands his players USBs filled with information, and drills them ruthlessly to pass the ball to Kolasinac on an overlap.
Ironically, the technocrat can’t seem to get any better performances out of his team than Wenger did. If anything, we are worse to watch. So, I wonder if Wenger’s words about football as entertainment finally ring true? What is football if we aren’t being entertained? I mean what is life at that point? I’m reminded of the scene Paul Weller painted in the song That’s Entertainment,
Waking up at six am on a cool warm morning
Opening the windows and breathing in petrol
An amateur band rehearsing in a nearby yard
Watching the tele and thinking about your holidays
That’s entertainment, that’s entertainment
Waking up from bad dreams and smoking cigarettes
Cuddling a warm girl and smelling stale perfume
A hot summer’s day and sticky black tarmac
Feeding ducks in the park and wishing you were far away
That’s entertainment, that’s entertainment
– The Jam, That’s Entertainment
If I have to spend 162 hours every week breathing in petrol, I’d like it if I could get 4 hours of entertainment.
That League Cup Final day was one of the worst I felt as a gooner. Brilliantly described by someone who was there.
And the first instance I can remember of a truly clownish piece of defending. And we had to keep on hearing the irritating X years without a trophy narrative (why dont Spurs get that?)
Another very bad day was also against Birmingham, in the league in 2008, three seasons earlier. Eduardo’s leg was broken, Clichy tried to play in his own box and lost it, Birmingham scored to draw a game in which we totally outplayed them, and Gallas underlined the meltdown by sitting down on the pitch long after the game had ended — something that infuriated his teammates.
United also broke our hearts that season, we finished 3rd, only 4 points off them, with Chelsea in 2nd. Those were the days. City had just sacked Stuart Pierce, Psycho, Sven Goran Eriksen came in (briefly) and Thomas Cook were their shirt sponsors 🙂
To answer your Spud question, they don’t get the same grief because it’s been SO long since they won a trophy that no one expects them to any more.
OK, it’s not enough that you write my favorite blog, but you’re a fan of The Jam, too? My wife says I have a man crush on you. Hope you’ve seen the documentary about them on Showtime. I drove 5 hours to see them in concert during my high school days.
Beyond the musical reference, the post is so spot on. We’re used to seeing Arsenal play in color, but this season, after showing flashes of psychedelic potential early on, has faded to a dreary gray. It coincides with the disappearance of Ozil and Ramsey, no doubt. Hard work, lots of running and a slew of attempted overlaps with the the occasional pullback are all that’s left of our beautiful game.
“psychedelic potential” nice, especially since there’s that haunting backwards guitar track in That’s Entertainment.
yeah i like The Jam, but I was never so lucky I got to see them play live. Other notable English bands I like: The Boys, The Buzzcocks, The Damned, Madness, the English Beat, Subhumans, uhh… others are escaping me now.
Saw Madness a few times while they were still a pub band also Bad Manners. Their system broke down on one occasion, so Busta spent the evening telling dirty jokes. Both North London bands so perhaps Gooners.
Loved Bad Manners – saw a great show here in LA years ago, Busta was the ultimate showman. My kids don’t think songs like Lorraine “When I find her, I’m gonna kill her” are very funny in the #MeToo age, and I don’t disagree, but I still enjoy their music if only because it takes me back to that time in my life.
Nice one!
i can’t say I’ve seen enough great bands, honestly. My main thing was getting drunk as much as possible. Shows were only possible if I had enough money to get drunk and also go to a show.
Yeah, I had a serious Ska phase at one point. English Beat, Madness, The Specials, and one my faves – Ban Manners. Also liked Squeeze, The Buzzcocks, Generation X – with Billy Idol as lead singer!
That’s Entertainment always felt like a companion song with Wasteland, which had a very similar theme, but offset the bleak lyrics, with the happy sounds of the Recorder, which rendered it hollow and impotent and haunting, just like the backwards guitar in That’s Entertainment.
“And when or if the sun shines
Lighting our once beautiful features
We’ll smile, but only for seconds
For to be caught smiling is to acknowledge life,
A brave but useless show of compassion,
And that is forbidden in this drab and colourless world.”
Keep up the great work, Tim!
My response got moderated, but yes, loved those bands, along with Squeeze, The Specials, Bad Manners and others.
That’s Entertainment always reminded me of their other track Wasteland.
Same bleak world, with the recorder trying so hard to sound happy and have a stiff upper lip in the face of the rubbish that’s everywhere.
Verse 2 that ends with “For to be caught smiling is to acknowledge life, a brave but useless show of compassion, and that is forbidden in this drab and colourless place.”
Seems very post-Wenger bluesy, imo. He was the man who could smile bravely, and now it’s forbidden in the dreary gray world of Raul and Unai.
“He was the man who could smile bravely, and now it’s forbidden in the dreary gray world of Raul and Unai,”
… damn. This was always my fear for post-Wenger. Arsenal needed either greater structure, or better players, that was clear. As a caveat, I remain convinced Wenger wasn’t getting the players he wanted toward the end. In a sense, he hadn’t been for a decade, but the last three-or-so seasons some of the recruitment started to feel really foreign to me. Either way, that notion is potentially made-up, and at the end of his tenure it did seem appropriate he step away. What I never lost sight of, however, was that trying to play to Wenger’s on field ideals gave cover for results, and even while the size of the hope for waned, it was still there for me. We have quality, maybe we can pull this out. So, here we are a-half-season later, we have an attempt at structure, but the audacity has left, and like I knew I would, I miss it.
One could potently argue our squad’s age profile precluded our going with a younger, bolder pick than an Emery. So, it was a tough position for the decision makers on high. Unfortunately, I think a section of the fan-base forgot how important “having a go at it” is for our enjoyment of the damn thing. I see Emery set up his team and think to myself, he doesn’t have it. He won’t last. Maybe, that’s just me, and maybe most never cared about the approach, their preferring pragmatism and results after results became and stayed diminished.
Hard running and constant pressing are en vogue in our data driven world since they are both obvious and measurable. When either is missing the lack there of is easy to point to and blame for poor results, yet despite their efficacy, I still think quality of play wins you more points more often. At minimum, it’s much more fun to fall short having a go, than fall short insipidly playing the over-lapping fullback again-and-again. I’m not done with Emery, that would be too reactionary, and while I understand people’s desire for something new damnit! after years of missing the mark, I wish he would at least try-something, get creative with his selections. Injuries have had a massive-effect, but that is part of being Arsenal manager. We saw Wenger make it work or darn close time-and-again even if he had to pull in a 19-year-old from the academy. Emery seems too cautious for my taste. If we’re going to fall short, then let’s please take more risks and go down swinging.
Excellent.
I recognise this post as a form of mourning that happens when a team loses a beloved coach.
For what it’s worth (in transcripts posted on this very blog) Emery has spoken of the need for the team play with passion and to work at building a connection to the fans in the stadium. But he doesn’t say it in perfect English or seductive French so he’s much easier to denigrate as a “technocrat’.
I have no nostalgic feelings about Wenger or his pretty words. I’m very happy we’re moving on under a different style of coach. As people compare a manager who had 20 years to a coach who’s had 8 months, I think it’s pretty important to keep saying this.
No one cares about how Emery speaks. And I think that most gooners can simultaneously hold the two ideas of, one, loving Wenger… and two, thinking that he stayed on four years too long, and by the end was presiding over a totally dysfunctional operation. Youve been here long enough to know that Tim isn’t mourning Wenger, just showing some love (forgive my presumptuousness, Timothy).
Appreciating Wenger isn’t dissing Emery. Why the sudden gush of ultra-defensive comments about the regime? You seem to take any perceived diss of Unai or Raul awfully, awfully injuredly. Let’s have our Kaius back, man,
I think a few of us are already a bit “up to here” on the hard time the new leadership is being given in such a short time because things aren’t already going wonderfully well. We’ve been over all of this umpteen times so I won’t rehash but that’s what is behind it for me and I suspect kaius as well.
It’s a very curious thing to claim to have “had it up to here” about something…. and then rehash the very thing
Reminds me of the old Caribbean joke about the fella shouting “hold me back” — to no one in particular — while running in the opposite direction of the bemused guy he’s having fisticuffs with 🙂
I thought this was an Indian joke.
Master of deflection, you are.
Thank you, Claude. There’s a lot more nuance than simply ‘you’re with Emery or you’re against him.’ LIke others, I loved the Le Prof, but I was fully on board with his departure. And I’m not calling for Emery’s head. I can, however, see a dispiriting trajectory to his regime, and call it out. And I’m disappointed and concerned that our style of play has deteriorated. Doesn’t mean I’ve given up on him.
Mourning? Hardly. Footballistically Speaking has been a regular column here at 7amkickoff for many many years. Wenger is a keen intellect and i enjoy him as a human being even if i also thought that he finally lost the team and became a victim to the unyielding force of progress, modernity, globalization, and capitalism.
As for Unai. I’ve been watching Unai Emery for more than 8 months. He’s been a coach for a long time. His record is clear. He’s a cup coach. Let’s hope he wins us a cup. But you can’t pretend for a minute that the football we play has any joy to it. From the moment he was hired i expressed my reservations, less publicly than privately, as some of the folks on this forum can attest.
As for the idea that technocrat is a slur, I do mean it that way. Jose Mourinho is the great technocrat. Winning is all. His football is joyless. It’s the ultimate in anti-football. It’s even anti-human in many ways.
But i’ll leave you with three quotes from the greatest Football writer of all time;
“the technocracy of professional sport has managed to impose a soccer of lightning speed and brute strength, a soccer that negates joy, kills fantasy and outlaws daring.”
“What do the businessmen, technocrats, bureaucrats and ideologues of the soccer industry dream about? Theirs is a recurring dream, ever more like reality, in which players imitate robots. Sad sign of the times: the 21st century sanctifies uniformity in the name of efficiency and sacrifices freedom on the altar of success. “You win not because you’re good, rather you’re good because you win.””
“In the old days there was the trainer and nobody paid him much heed. He died without a word when the game stopped being a game and professional soccer required a technocracy to keep the players in line. That was when the manager was born. His mission: to prevent improvisation, restrict freedom, and maximize the productivity of the players, who were now obliged to become disciplined athletes.”
have fun this season.
These don’t read like any Crafton I’ve ever read.
“What do the businessmen, technocrats, bureaucrats and ideologues of the soccer industry dream about? Theirs is a recurring dream, ever more like reality, in which players imitate robots. Sad sign of the times: the 21st century sanctifies uniformity in the name of efficiency and sacrifices freedom on the altar of success. “You win not because you’re good, rather you’re good because you win.””
“In the old days there was the trainer and nobody paid him much heed. He died without a word when the game stopped being a game and professional soccer required a technocracy to keep the players in line. That was when the manager was born. His mission: to prevent improvisation, restrict freedom, and maximize the productivity of the players, who were now obliged to become disciplined athletes.”
This could easily have been written about the US Health care system. We are headed towards increasing levels of automation and standardization on both fronts in order to maximize productivity (i.e. billing) and make/save money for the hospital. Our managers are called CMO’s, chief medical officers, COO’s, chief operating officers, CFO’s (you know that one) and CQO’s (chief quality officers) and that is what they are paid millions to do.
I also bristle at the idea that I’m “against him” because he speaks with a Spanish accent instead of French. I speak Spanish and have publicly lambasted the people (on twitter) who say “good ebening” and “esplayn” to denigrate Unai Emery. Don’t go lumping me in with the new right dark websters, Trumpists, Brexiters, neo fascists, proud boys, and dipshits who think it’s important to argue about whether racism exists.
It wasn’t a personal attack Tim. I’ve praised your anti-racism many times – I know what you stand for.
Put it another way, you defending Emery against attacks on his accent backs up my point.
The “mourning for Wenger” was personal.
“Put it another way, you defending Emery against attacks on his accent backs up my point.”
English Arsenal supporters DESPISED Wenger for being French and there were ridiculous videos on YouTube mocking Wenger’s accent, he was called effete, and he was constantly shit on by the press corpse for being too smart, too erudite, etc. Your whole entire complete full comprehensive argument is wrong and annoys me.
Lol @ press corpse
I don’t know man, I could be wrong.
But it’s odd that we praise Wenger for his multi-lingual charm and erudition, but we’re not allowed to say Emery suffers in comparison. Seems pretty straightforward that one of the two is better able to communicate the type of lofty ideas this column tries to highlight.
In describing Emery’s presser in a comment below Claude talks about his messy handling of the Özil issue and how it “might be a function of his having to communicate an awkward situation in a language he just learned”. A small acceptance that yes, language matters on a basic level, and we don’t need to be bigots to suggest that.
Wenger and Emery differ because Wenger is an abstract thinker and Emery is a concrete thinker. This isn’t about language. I translated Emery’s interview from Spanish into English. http://7amkickoff.com/index.php/2018/07/09/the-full-english-translation-of-marti-perarnaus-interview-with-new-arsenal-boss-unai-emery/
Wenger loves thinking about and talking about lofty ideas: Emery’s mind is more detail oriented. Of course you can find abstract ideas in Emery’s quotes (and concrete ones in Wenger), if you couldn’t I’d be deeply worried. But it’s body of work that they do, the ideas they pass on.
Here’s a quote by Unai from the article linked above, translated from Spanish. It’s about living in the moment:
I have always been centered in the moment. To prepare trainings and watch matches. I have been a ‘devourer’ of live matches. And it is still the same today: my day-by-day is my preparation of the training and the work to be done. My improvement process consists in watching and analyzing our match, tearing it apart and adapting the next few training sessions in function of what was analyzed. I even try to analyze the kick-off play. Why did we do it in that way or the other? And from there I get a lot of information to use in our next tasks. I like to prepare personally all the work to do. I like to read books about motivation and generation of group dynamics, and according to that I try to find answers to questions I ask along the way and try to apply them in my relationship with the players. Sometimes people say to me that I have to talk with an specific player because he is dealing with some issues, but careful, you cannot talk just for talking. You have to know what to say to him. If what I have to say to him won’t help him, maybe I prefer to postpone the talk.
Now here we have a quote from Wenger also about living in the moment (translated from French):
AW: For me it doesn’t represent anything except doing a job that is exclusively turned to the future. Towards the next day. I always live in the future. It’s planned. Tight. My relationship with time is filled with anxiety. I’m always fighting against it. That’s why I ignore what’s in the past.
How is the coming minute a source of anxiety?
AW: I’m always afraid of being late. Of not being ready. Of not being able to accomplish what I’ve planned. My relationship with time is distressing in every way. Going back in time, looking back is just as scary. First of all it’s scary because there’s not as much to come as what has already been lived… The only way to fight time is to not look back too much. If you do, it can make you feel anxious and guilty.
You use the word anxiety to describe both tomorrow and yesterday…
AW: The only possible moment of happiness is the present. The past gives you regrets. And the future uncertainties. Man understood this very fast and created religion. It absolves you of what you’ve done wrong in the past and tells him not to worry about the future, because he’ll go to paradise. It means make the most of the present. Man “self psychoanalysed” himself very quickly through faith.
Emery is a technocrat.
I’ll defer to you on that – Emery can be described as a technocrat.
What I won’t defer to you on, is Emery being a “cup coach”. We don’t accept people diminishing any of Wenger’s achievements so we shouldn’t for Emery.
The man is coming to us with a title win under his belt – Wenger didn’t have that when he arrived (partly due to corrupt Bernard Tapie and OM), plus he has multiple European competition wins – something Wenger couldn’t crack in 20 years of UEFA Cup, Champions League and Europa League football.
The fascinating thing about Wenger’s early years was he didn’t arrive fully formed, but adapted his ideas as Graham’s players were phased out and he was able to build teams from the ground up. His first title winning was good, the second and third were much closer to what we think of as Wengerball.
With that history, it’s kind of a shame to see us belittle Emery instead of giving him room to adapt to the club. Arsenal should be a place where talented people can flourish, not a place where we write them off based on past failures. That’s the story of Vieira, Henry, and Wenger. Emery “the technocrat” deserves that same chance.
And honestly Tim, “mourning for Wenger” was not personal, it was just how I read the post – if anything it was my feeling, and not an insult. I apologise if it read that way.
Schalke ( 2-1) is playing the game and not the reputation. Are you watching, Arsenal players and coach?
They look superbly well drilled defensively. But hey, it’s only the 49th minute.
Superb timing on the jinx claude, they end up conceding 21 shots and 3 goals to a 10 man team.
Did you know Schalke ’04 is basically owned by the Russian Federation via their chief sponsor, Gazprom, which is state owned? Fortunately for Man City, the United Arab Emirates is richer still.
And two pens which would probably never have been called in a PL to boot.
The important thing is whether they were legit. Were they?
Weirdly enough, they played worse with a numerical advantage. Oddly conservative instead of going for it. Two pieces of brilliance from Sane and the goalkeeper decided the game. Got what they deserved in the end.
They’re not owned by Gazprom, the 50+1 rule prohibits it and in Schalke’s case it’s not even a workaround like RB Leipzig. Gazprom is their main sponsor, no more no less.
I know by the letter of the law they have the 50+1 model but ask yourself, if Gazprom says jump, do they say how high? Methinks they do.
I know City have all kinds of talent but I think Pep is too slow in bringing Sane on in far too many games.
If Low omitting Sane in his selection for Germany NT for the World Cup was a shocker , Pep giving him only 2000 minutes in all competitions thus far is a brow raiser for me.
Rousing win by Atleti against Juve. I shudder to think of our current side up against either of these teams.
M8 we can’t beat BATE
Terrible refereeing. Too many cards, too much stoppage time at the end of the first half, and how did Bentancur not get a card after three pretty clear fouls. I’m glad Atleti won, because the calls were mostly going Juve’s way. Also, if such a people exist, Allegri will surprise no one at all when he reveals himself to be a lizard in skin in a tailored suit.
Ok Tim, consider me converted to your way of thinking re VAR.
This Schalke/ City game , on top of a few other ones Ive watched this season is making me change my mind.
These calls aren’t more accurate but just interpreted by another guy making another judgment call.
Even if you decide the Otamendi hand ball was the type “ seen them given” and not in a natural position ( it was) and trying ( kinda) to move it out of the way,
the second pen , for Fernandinho pull back , two Schalke players in the off side position before the ball was put into play, including the player deemed fouled by Fernandinho.
Yep. And not only that but it’s technocracy run amok. There was a two goal reversal in Serie A this weekend. Fiorentina had a borderline missed pen call – you literally only see the foul in the slowest of replays – and then SPAL went down the other end and a minute later, a MINUTE LATER, scored. Ref was signalled. Went over to VAR. Ruled the SPAL goal out, awarded Fiorentina a penalty. And 7 minutes later Fiorentina was up 2-1. Ain’t that some shit? I guess they “got the call right” because there was a foul but man I would hate to be a fan in the stadium that day. When i talk about technocrats sucking all of the joy out of sport in the service of “being right” that’s what I mean.
VAR is the end of football. We are watching football become the NFL.
I oscillate between being an optimist on us finding a good balance with technology, and thinking it will ruin all that makes us great.
But mainly, VAR came up because people don’t trust referees anymore. You can blame high def cameras for that, the match fixing scandals, or just the know it all attitude of ref organisations who refuse to acknowledge they are fallible, which just means they aren’t going to fix anything.
VAR is a response to that. Maybe an OTT reaction, which we’ll curb or figure out how to use it better, like with challenges instead of refs checking everything all the time.
I was, and I think still am, in favour of VAR, but some of the decisions taken with it are embarrassing. We need better refs first and foremost.
This is my view.
Becoming the NFL is a bit hyperbolic.
VAR was called for because there is a clear lack of accountability and qaulity re: referees.
Like our new managerial regime, the VAR Process is still in its early days. And like our new manager, we might *shockingly* find that VAR doesn’t hold all the answers for a perfect game, but that doesn’t mean it can’t improve the game.
The fundamental disconnect is that the laws of the game are not absolute. What’s a handball? It has to be intentional. How do you judge intent? What’s a foul? It too has to be judged by the intent of the player. Even offside, the rule that everyone points to as the one law that is most absolute, has intent right in it: was he going for the ball?
This is the flaw of VAR. We see the replay on television and because we believe that visual data is absolute (which it very is not) we feel like VAR can help us make “correct” judgements but the very laws of the game are not absolute.
So, you either need to change the laws of the game to make them absolute – make it so that any contact in the box is a foul, for example – or you need to accept that the laws of the game are not absolute and are open to interpretation. And if that’s the case, then the referee is literally always right. Even if the referee sees what we think is the exact same in two different ways, he is right. He has more information than we do for one thing, but he also has to judge intent.
There’s two problems in football which make it unique I think. One, as you say, the number of decisions which are not absolute calls. Unlike cricket, or even hockey and rugby. Two, the greater significance of some of these decisions in determining the outcome because it is a low scoring game. Unlike, say basketball.
But what do you do when laws are unclear? You rely on convention. As long as the media is allowed to judge this, there will always be confusion.
If the league is serious they could put up videos of various types of events over the years to create a baseline for how they want calls to be made. What is or isn’t a handball? Here’s 30 videos which will try to show you. Is it a dive even if there’s contact? Well, here’s what some of these have looked like*
It won’t be perfect, but it could increase ‘standardisation’ in ref decisions, and aid public understanding of laws and how they are meant to be applied.
*It would mean accepting past errors, and they won’t do this.
There’s an interesting piece in “The Guardian “ by Barry Glandenning re Ozil situation.
Unless Emery is a two faced liar , he pretty much confirms what some of us have said on here.
From the horse’s mouth , and I’m paraphrasing here but it’s down to Ozil to stay fit and train with the squad and apply himself – suggestions being that he hasn’t.
“He’s working very well this week and I asked him in our conversation to be consistent, to be available for training. I said that when you can train with us consistently you can help us with your best performance in the games. I think this week was good for all the players because we are in a big, important moment for the season. I am looking at him doing the training like we want. I know he wants that but he needs consistency, to be available for training and the matches without injuries, without being sick. Like that, I think we can see the best Mesut.”
meh. not much convincing me of anything either way there.
He said it at a press conference, and it was all over twitter this morning. Hint of stabledoors and horses, don’t you think? Made me chuckle. Bit of a word salad, and it arrived later than Ramsey in the box.
My immediate thought watching (because I saw a video of the presscon first rather than read the words) was that Arsenal PR are finally doing some cm. Emery lit the fire by cack-handedly dealing with the issue in the media in the first place, and he let it consume him with some explainers that ranged from lame to dismissive (which might be a function of his having to communicate an awkward situation in a language he just learned).
And he was notably, at his most unsure and halting when reading (yes reading) the words. Listen again to the whole presscon. It’s not long. Do read the transcript, but also give it an ear.
Oh I didn’t watch the video. I mostly laughed at the quote though. Now that we need to beat BATE or else bye bye CL (probably), Ozil has trained well this week.
A few other players liking Ozil’s post might hint at a player led demand too. I now think Ozil will start. The rest is face saving.
Stillman’s got a good read today about how little we shoot. https://arseblog.com/2019/02/gunners-need-to-shoot-on-sight
This obviously helps explain the stagnant look of our offense. One thing we’re missing is someone who can hit that curler to the far post that Sanchez used to take. Two dribbles toward the middle and bam. When you have someone who threatens with that shot from the wing, defenders have to shut off the dribble to the center. That opens up the overlap opportunity and creates spaces for runners in the box. Neither Mkhi or Iwobi really threaten to shoot from that spot, so the overlap has to be inch precise, and there’s less room for Auba/Laca to run behind as well. If I’m looking for wingers, that’s the move I want. Robben-esque shooter. My guess is that’s what Emery will ask for over the summer, and it will be key to opening up his attack. Also explains why Ozil and Ramsey don’t work well on the wing for Emery. Not their game.
Players who can carry the ball inside from the wing and score reliably tend to be the very best in the world. That’s Neymar, Messi, Salah, Hazard, etc. and yes Robben and prime Sanchez as well… that player is on everyone’s wish list. On the other hand, a player who tries to do that consistently and consistently fails to create goals is one of the worst liabilities in football for my money, especially if he also doesn’t track back.
(Sidetrack: Remembering latter day Alexis Sanchez, that was his game in a nutshell. Teams were so keyed in to his tap tap BAM maneuver he usually had 2-3 players diving in front of every shot. Sometimes he used that to find those beautiful curling assists to the far post but mostly he just tried to take the shot anyway. This is the kind of player we definitively do NOT want, at least not playing in that way.)
So while I totally agree with your opinion that we need that sort of player, it’s going to be really difficult to find someone like that because we can’t blow the bank on a single player and everyone wants goalscoring wide players (and goal scorers in general). The most obvious target in this groove would be Wilf Zaha, but he’s a known quantity and therefor expensive and is far from a risk free investment.
All true Doc. It is a wish list player for every team. And no, those players aren’t a dime a dozen and even the great ones miss a lot of those shots. But Emery needs guys who can shoot period. Iwobi is dreadful and Mkhi is ok to average, and not a threat from any depth. Doesn’t have to be Neymar to provide a modicum of threat. Yes any player who forces shots is a liability, but not shooting at all is even more problematic, as we are discovering. And that’s not to say we don’t need help defensively- which is an even greater priority. Emery has a big job on his hands this summer. Let’s hope he’s up to it.
“What is football if we aren’t being entertained?”
This applies basically to any sport.
Bigger picture makes the daily arguments an ugly joke.
Maybe the daily arguments are us trying to find alternate forms of entertainment. Blogs generally go quieter when things are going well. It’s not because people love to hate or anything, although it can become its own drug. But that our need for something to justify our involvement in this pursuit becomes greater if the entertainment is missing.
Enjoyed the post Tim. Nothing like a spot of reminiscing. I couldn’t help but think ‘The bitterest pill…’ would represent how many fans feel at present. It was said at the time that the song was a metaphor for Weller falling out with Foxton and Buckler and breaking up the band. I think many of us felt that Wenger leaving would be the cathartic boost to get everyone back to simply supporting Arsenal. But the further changes (in fact flux is probably a more accurate term) within the management team are causing a lot of uncertainty and speculation as to the direction of the club. I’d say its still early days and Raul has yet to make his mark. The Sven thing is just one f those things. In all walks of life a certain ratio of ‘hires’ are not going to work our for a multitude of reasons. Its a gamble and its best to be grateful for the ones that work out well.
Back to the music I was fortunate to be a teen in Northern England in the early ’80s. I’ll never forget the first time I heard Baggy Trousers and Ghost Town. Everything is so accessible and immediate these days, kids wouldn’t believe that all we had back then were three TV channels and a once a week 30 minute music program. I recall seeing Pearl Jam a few years back when they played the then newly opened Leeds Arena and Vedder shared how as a kid he grew up listening to Live at Leeds by The Who. And then when I saw them in Manchester he mentioned that they were spending the night with ‘good friend’ Jonny Marr (who can forget The Smiths?). There’s something very humbling and comforting that wherever we grew up, we all listened to the same songs.
I’m rambling, back to Wenger. The man is permanent class. There’s nothing more for me to add or care what other’s opinion of him are. I do miss his press conferences (but not the dumb repetitive questions he faced each week). I wish Emery had an an ounce of charisma. He’s dreadfully anodyne and distant when dealing with the media and its not hard to see that he doesn’t exactly have the same relationship with his players that Klopp, Pep, Poch have. I think those of us that have been around the block a few times know that unless he has a spectacular collapse between now and May, he’ll be around for next year and then we’ll likely get a new Manager in 2020. ‘Lights going out and a kick in the balls’
Pearl Jam. Last Great Rock Band.