Pre-season came in like a lion and went out like.. well like Arsenal in perfect mid-season form, playing well for long stretches before losing to a better team because the defense blew up. And it’s no coincidence that the defense showed the same problems as it did last year, the manager is still forced to play players out of position, he’s still playing with players who aren’t good enough, and he’s still tinkering with systems.
I am not one who believes all problems can be solved in the transfer market. I’m a bit Wengerish in that way. I think a great manager develops players, makes them better than they were before, imparts new wisdom, new skills, and plays systems which help minimize a player’s faults and highlights their abilities.
I did say I’m only a bit, I’m not entirely Wengerish. I wouldn’t “buy just Petr Cech because I wanted to prove a point and then lose the League because my team didn’t have enough backups”. I do believe some problems require transfers. And Arsenal have problems which require transfers.
Is it even worth it going over the problems? Not really, we all know what they are (RB, CB, LB). And if you’ve come here to complain about signing Nicolas Pepe “instead of a defender” you’ll find I’m not sympathetic to your cause.
I heard someone yesterday complaining that attacking players are so common that they are “a dime a dozen”. And I was blown away by the sheer ignorance of the entire rant that he was working up to. If attacking players are more common, then there should be a lot of 20+ goal scorers (there were 14 in all top 5 leagues) and it should be easier to find them scoring from the wide positions (it isn’t, there were only three players who scored 20+ goals from wide and only 4 players who scored 12 or more goals from open play while playing wide), and if they are plentiful, they should be cheap (they aren’t).
The other logical flaw is that Arsenal should have “just bought a CB”. The £85m transfer of Harry Maguire should put that argument to bed. Maguire is an alright CB, commanding in the air for sure but also prone to Mustafi-like mistakes at the back where he just lets people run right past him. He’s made that error a number of times in big games both for Leicester and England. He’s also not a good passer. I remember last year or two years ago when some Arsenal supporters wanted Arsenal to buy Maguire and I thought it a hilarious idea, because the man’s crap. I still think he’s (mostly) crap and somewhat alright. But £85m worth? This is a huge coup, for Leicester.
And reports surfaced (on Arseblog) that Arsenal have had a 60m Euros bid rejected for RB Leipzig CB Dayot Upamecano. This is a player who has conceded 5 penalties in just 43 matches over the last two years. He’s big and physical for sure, his tackling is pretty good as well, and he’s fast, but he also takes chances in the penalty box. What Arsenal need is the opposite of this, we need someone who doesn’t take chances in the penalty box.
But that is the state of things. There are no great center backs available, so clubs are paying well over the odds for mediocre ones.
The good news is that Arsenal are in the market. The bad news is that the market is all bruised veggies.
Arsenal have just a few days to sort this out. If they don’t, I can’t see Arsenal making top four this season. There has been no structural change to the midfield – they can’t keep possession and turn the ball over a lot – and there are all the same problems in defense with certain personnel.
Who would you suggest we get in the cb role.. As you are not convinced by dayot upamecano
I would like to see Jonathan Tah, but if Maguire costs more than 80, the he will be above 100.
Alessio Romagnoli is a born leader and a very good defender too, but again with today’s prices, he would be over 100.
Matthias Gunter was on our radar for a while before he went to Dortmund, but now he is excelling at Monchengladbach, and he would cost less than Dayot I would think.
My favourite though, is Niklas Stark of Hertha Berlin. He is a tall, physically imposing player who is good on the ball, has good recovery pace and he can play in midfield too. Statistically, he has more blocks, clearances, and only behind Koscielny for interceptions when put up against our defenders for last season. He is only behind Sokratis for tackles but concedes less fouls. He would be cheaper than the 60 or 70 quoted for Dayot.
I’d like Salif Sane. I think the only real defensive anchor we’ve had in the past 10 was Mertesacker and we should try to replicate that.
Unfortunately we seem obsessed with these aggressive ‘front-foot’ defenders.
Anyway, if we do get Upamecano, I can appreciate the intent to invest and hope Emery coaches him to hold the line.
The bruised veggies image was awesome. Thanks for that.
I’ve heard really good things about Upamecano, actually. I don’t watch the Bundesliga, so I won’t pretend to know how those penalties were conceded, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard him described as reckless. I don’t know. Based on most of the other reports I’ve read, I’d take him.
The main thing, though, is that the size of the bid tells us that Arsenal didn’t prioritize Pepe financially at the expense of CB. Nearly equal funds have been put aside or earmarked for both priorities, and that’s good to see. Whether we ever reach a deal for one remains to be seen, but I’d be very, very surprised if we didn’t sign a CB week, either on loan (Rugani?) while we wait for a prime target (Upamecano?) to become available, or a prime target right now.
I agree that the market for CB’s does seem quite weak at the moment, so it means that the few available who are of good quality will come at a much higher cost. Not all the veggies are bruised!
We didn’t bid, according to the Guardian. We asked how much and they said £70m.
If you watch his highlights reel you can see why he gives away so many penalties: he’s a very aggressive ball winner.
https://youtu.be/MPIo5n9Pyq4
Bild says a ‘bid’ was made, but RB wanted more (£70m). Guardian says an ‘offer’ was made, but says this isn’t the same thing as an official bid. Regardless, it seems to indicate what we are / were willing to pay for him. I find that encouraging, i.e., it raises my hopes that we’ll get a CB deal done before Thursday… HOPES!
“Reports in Germany have claimed that a €60m (£55m) offer was rejected by RB over the weekend, although it is believed that Arsenal have yet to submit an official bid for the 20-year-old central defender, who moved to Germany as a teenager in 2015 from Valenciennes having rejected an approach from Manchester United.”
From here: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/aug/05/arsenal-target-dayot-upamecano-or-daniele-rugani-to-improve-defence
Guardian is saying no bid.
I feel like the Brian Trust are working hard to get us a CB. Hope they also find a RB, LB, and DM*.
*Not really, but we’ve been saying this so long I figure we need to keep saying it.
I see we’re after a LB and CB, but I haven’t seen any links to a RB. I mean, obviously we’re willing to spend more this window than any of us thought, but there’s a limit. I’d be surprised to see three new players join before Thursday.
How optimistic are you that we’ll sign Tierney? Celtic seem to evaluate him really highly, but his injury worries me. I hear he has the dreaded ‘history’ with injuries, but this could be exaggerated.
I’m mostly joking about RB. We aren’t getting a RB this year.
I heard today that Tierney is still injured. This gives me the jitters. But I wonder if we are using that to leverage a few bucks off his transfer? That’s the hope. Celtic’s boss thinks we will make a third offer soon. I’m sorry but that’s all I got on that one.
I bet we only do the CB deal.
I also think you’re right that Emery isn’t going to be fired this year. I don’t think it will matter what the record is. They won’t want to just throw away his salary. I also think this is a long-term project. We are clearly not buying to win the League this year but rather (with guys like Saliba) the plan is long term.
I still don’t trust Josh Kroenke. He’s done nothing to earn his job other than be a billionaire’s failson.
Lewis Dunk at Brighton would be good.
Yep, let’s just bypass Leicester making £80m off him and buy him now for £15m.
Found this:
https://www.bundesliga.com/en/bundesliga/news/dayot-upamecano-ibrahima-konate-rb-leipzig-france-future-in-defence-rangnick-5202
Konate also sounds like the real deal, but he just signed a new contract running to 2023, thus making him (I assume) ‘more’ unavailable on the market?
Not much between them in terms of passing and tackles.
I agree dunk is a solid cb, he enjoys defending and is definitely an upgrade on what we have and he’s got prem experience
How has Calum Chambers looked to those of you who have seen our pre-season matches? Is he ready? Is he an answer?
Chambers looks to me a better option than Mustafi, but maybe not quite as good as Holding/Sokratis.
But I’d certainly keep him and have him as a backup for both CB and CDM.
And yeah, if Maguire is worth that much, Van Dijk is worth double that now from a comparable skills standpoint.
I’d agree with this. Chambers is ok as a fourth choice at the back. I watched him pretty closely in the Barcelona game, since I’m pretty sure we’ll be starting the season with a Sokratis-Chambers partnership, and I thought he did…fine. There was one really bad moment when his shoddy footwork put the ball on a plate for a Barcelona forward to score (think it hit Leno’s face, but it was flukey that he didn’t score), and some have said he was to blame for the Suarez goal. To me, neither he nor Mustafi looked great for that goal, but it was a very skillful finish from Bitey.
But yes, I think so long as Chambers as paired with Sokratis, he should be an ok stop-gap until Holding is fit, or (hopefully) we bring in a new signing. I must say, I’m worried about the first few games of the season.
After Bitey’s goal, the way Chambers looked over at Mustafi in the replays and said “Musti?” more out of sadness than anger, instantly won my affection and also tells you all you need to know about trust, confidence and communication in the back line.
Does it, though? I’m still not convinced that goal was entirely Mustafi’s fault. And let’s not forget that Chambers is a) fully aware the cameras are on, b) he wants Mustafi’s place, and c) he’s no doubt aware that the tide is against Mustafi, so fans will readily buy into anything that assigns blame to him.
Not saying Mustafi is better than Chambers…though I think you could make that case (and what are we basing our judgment on besides feeling?)…but Chambers’ blame game did nothing for me.
i agree, bun. it was more chambers as he saw suarez make a simple diagonal run behind mustafi. he should have said “musti” when suarez made the run, not when they were picking the ball out of the net.
He looks ok and that’s without significant game time. Game time will improve confidence. I would like to see him and Holding forming a partnership.
I have been critical of Emery and I still do believe that he will most likely be his own worst enemy, by changing systems and tactics away from what is working just to adjust to teams that we should be beating. But, I actually liked what I saw from Arsenal against Barcelona.
I thought he did well by playing Ozil as a second striker and not a midfielder, because if Ozil senses a problem with our picking the ball from deep, he will drop. So instead, we had Ozil and Auba playing off the shoulders of the defence, and creating hesitation in the Barca defence.
He did play a similar system, with fairly identical tactics last season against Fulham, in what I think was one of our best performance and then never used it again all season. He also has a tendency of doing well in games where his team is the underdog, so his might just be a one off. If it is, I will be incredibly disappointed, but not surprised.
I too come from the school of thought that a good coach has very basic principles, and works very hard on them because I the end, football isn’t as complicated as many make it seem to be. I think a coach should always solve the defence first upon arrival at a new side and how he plans on his team playing. This will determine the level of freedom his attacking players will get and also help identify who doesn’t fit into the team’s way of playing.
I still think he is not that good at coaching a defence, not just at Arsenal but everywhere he has been. I hope he doesn’t play Ozil out wide, we will be exposed even if Ozil tries his best because he is just bad defensively. I hope he has a plan to set us up well for our home games, because any remaining fear that teams had from Arsene’s team at the Emirates from the past 5 to 7 seasons, is now gone and we will have to build it up again.
I liked what I saw and I actually have Faith that a player like Dinos can become a competent enough player if he ever gets over his injury issues and stays fit for a sustained period of time. I like Chambers too, he did well and could play in a ball dominant side easily.
I’ve read and heard that Emery typically prefers a back four, which allows us to get the best use out of someone like Ozil (and our other personnel, of course). I’ve also read that the reason Emery switched to a back three at times was because of injuries and form concerns with respect to our defenders and central midfielders, especially away from home.
In pre-season , we’ve seen Emery going back to his preferred set-up (I think we tried a back three once?). However, that’s pre-season. Much will depend on whether we can do business for a CB this week, because Emery still doesn’t trust Mustafi, and I can’t imagine he has full faith in Chambers, either.
We’ve been trying to get rid of Mustafi in every window since he signed. Is that true? I can’t believe he’s still at the club. Well, I can. Nobody wants him. But still…
I get the changes in formations, I really do. They do not mean as much as most make them seem to be. When I coach youth sides, I normally play a back 4, but if we are playing on a pitch that is big in terms of width, I change to a back three to have greater cover across the defence and midfield.
I don’t mind the formation changes, I worry about the tactics that are implemented into the systems he chooses. An example is the way we played away to Fulham and away to Leicester. Same formation, but different tactics.
Emery’s changing of formations doesn’t really mean much and isn’t really a sign of a great tactical mind. I liked what the team was doing against Barca because I could see how we were transitioning from defence to attack, attack to defence and the positional movements in relation to the actions on the pitch. It wasn’t amazing, but it was good.
I just hope we do not experience what we did against Crystal Palace, Wolves and Leicester. This sequence of games showed me that it wasn’t really form or injuries that dictated his changes, because in the space of a week, we played 3 different ways without any injuries or form issues. Had a close share of possession with Palace, dominated Wolves and played the most defensive football I have ever seen in my life against Leicester.
That’s not someone with a plan being disrupted by external factors, that’s someone just dealing with things in isolation, as they come.
In saying that, I still have hope.
Thanks for this insightful comment. If you ever want to collaborate on some tactical pieces, let me know. 7amkickoff at gmail
Agreed. And that tactical debate he and kaius had the other day was a pleasure to read!
If Holding and Saliba are the future and if we are losing Kos who is a leader and an experienced head, it seems to me we should bring in another experienced defender – perhaps someone who compliments the rabid dog style of Socrates. So while it’s great that we are interested in another young, up and coming defender I think it would be wiser to either explore the loan market for an experienced CB or buy someone about the same age as Socrates – preferably a good reader of the game who can bring some calmness to the defensive line so that Socrates can go and do his thing.
I agree 4th is going to be tough with this defense. It takes only one goal for this team to fall apart. This has been the case going back to the Wenger days. We need a systematic improvement in defense in addition to upgrading our defenders but I think it has to start with finding a midfielder who reads the game well. Because if you read the game well, you can sense dangerous situations and position yourself to protect the defense. To that extent, I would love to see Torreira and Willock strike up a good midfield partnership between them this season because I have pretty much written off Xhaka being able to do that.
Very perceptive comment, nyc. We have firefighter-style central defenders, with the possible exception of Holding. Sokratis, Mustafi and Chambers absolutely do not complement each other, in terms of playing as a defensive unit, in the way that Mertesacker and Koscielny did. They are all reactive defenders. The likes of John Stones, Varane and VVD all play the game a couple of plays ahead. Per, in fact, was a terribly under-appreciated player for us. The lazy, easy narrative was that he was slow. So what? He rarely found himself in a last-ditch foot race with the centre forward.
I hear very little mention of Mavropanos. Is he that bad?
7amkickoff, what do you think of Rugani? Seems very composed, but not sure how he will match up physically in the PL. Curious to hear your thoughts.
Sorry. I didn’t watch Juventus much last season and I don’t remember him playing for them.
I see that he has zero pens and goals from errors in 15 games last season.
I know that Juventus and Italy produce fine footballers. He is tall. Not sure about much else, dough!
Ahh ok. Thanks!
I wonder whether the market is polarised between solid ‘meat and two veg’ defenders like Dunk, and our famous back four, and the more elegant, brittle ‘play it out from the back types’? Rio Ferdinand managed to be both, imagine what he would cost now!
I still think that the main issue is that our lot don’t play like a unit, they often seem like strangers on the pitch. I’m prepared to take the consequences of a season of Chambers; he needs game time and he needs to build a partnership with someone. I know Socratis is a little feisty but he’s a wily old fox and he reads the game well, mostly, his legs just can’t get him to right place in time. If he could pass on this knowledge to Callum, then Saliba would have someone to learn from next year. I also totally agree that defence is not only about chucking money at it, it’s about building an ecosystem.
We should also use the word process more often, it’s very trendy.
I think we’re well past the whole Mustafi thing. He should not be playing in the Premier League, even at Arsenal, shite as we are defensively. That he is, is down to us, not him.
We need mere competence in someone who is healthy and is currently playing CB at a reasonable level somewhere in Europe. Is it really that big an ask? Is there no one who fits that description we can close in the next couple of days?
We have a couple of days left and after year after year of woeful defending the Arsenal bar ‘aint that high. We need someone merely competent, in good health who is playing CB in Europe on a reasonably good team in a reasonably good division of football.
Not asking for Varane or van Dijk here, just someone who can play the position and stays vertical doing it!
Valid point on the verticality. Defending is so much easier when on two feet.
In the Arsenal playbook there’s the MSTFT, pronounced “misfit”:
The Mustafi Sliding Two Foot Tackle.
You could always squeeze the words imprecise and ill-judged into this acronym.
Oh, and for anyone who missed the brilliant David Squires in The Guardian today, you’re in for a treat:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2019/aug/06/david-squires-on-what-to-expect-in-the-new-premier-league-season
Kos is gone. I think we’re stuck with Mustafi. I get the feeling our spending is done. I would not be shocked if we come for Tierney in January again, but to spend a reported 27m on a guy who will be out until mid-October seems a risk. And everyone needs a decent CB apparently.
I can’t wait until next summer when Rob Holding is worth 90m to City.
Yes, the club were clearly hoping Koscielny (rather than Mustafi) would stick around as back-up, so I’m guessing Mustafi stays for now.
I still think we’re buying a CB this week, though.
weren’t arsenal liked with that young guy who plays for wolves?
listen, arsenal need a midfield that can screen a defense. without that, it doesn’t’ matter who arsenal sign.
This
Interesting about Coutinho. With the L’Equipe story, I thought this was happening, even if crazy, but it looks like we were never interested, and that Spurs are taking him.
He was outstanding in the Premier League, and I don’t see why he couldn’t replicate that, particularly with a coach / system that suits.
Should be an interesting couple of days! And by interesting, I mean when we see that new CB holding an Arsenal shirt! [tears welling in fervent hope]
Didn’t Barca want a 25m euros fee for a Coutinho loan? That’s absurd. I never understood that rumour linking him to Arsenal.
I didn’t either, until it kind of blew up today. But the more recent stories are reporting that we were never interested. Clearly his agent is working hard to get the player out of Barca this summer…but yes, a €25m loan fee is absurd.
Llisten, arsenal need a midfield that can screen a defense. without that, it doesn’t’ matter who arsenal sign.”
I don’t necessarily disagree with the need to upgrade the mid but our defense is so subpar that any improvement on Mustafi, Chambers , Jenko and AMN would be a net positive.
Starting the season with a Xhaka ahead of Chambers , with AMN in close proximity at RB makes my butthole pucker just at the thought of it.
I wanted AMN to succeed so desperately but I can see now his mentality will prevent that from happening, no matter what position he plays in.
That boy switches off more often and easier than the clap on clap off clapper.
Chambers is a back up to a starter at best , while Xhaka is just as bad as Mustafi and can blow $hit up at any time even when not under pressure but apparently Emery sees him as the bedrock of his midfield, god helps us all.
I guess what I’m saying is that if Xhaka isn’t going anywhere , which apparently is a fact, than we need all the improvements to the defense we can get.
That first half against Barcelona, AMN was outstanding. But yeah, the switching off for the own goal in the second half looked really bad. If we get first-half-Barca AMN more often than not, I think we’ll have a very useful back-up RB on our hands. Regardless, he’s who we have, as we’re clearly not in the market for a RB.
conor coady is the kid from wolves i was thinking about. weren’t arsenal linked with a move for him last season? he’s a strong central defender. transfermarkt has him valued at 10 million euros. seems like a player arsenal could have gone after.
…also, arsenal should have signed abdoulaye dacoure from watford and sold xhaka to a team in italy.
hey, i know just the guy to screen the arsenal defense. he’s reads the game well, allowing him to win a ton of interceptions. if he can’t win the interception, he can tackle. he can also go by a would-be defender.
…sorry about the link mess. the player’s name is francis coquelin.
hey, do you think valencia will give him back to arsenal in a trade for torreira? i know torreira is a miniature-sized coquelin, but he’s gonna grow, right? if you feed him and water him, he should grow to be a full-size coquelin.