I’ve had a chance to watch a few Eintracht Frankfurt matches this season and while I wouldn’t say I have a good match preview like I’m sure Unai Emery is handing to his players I do have a few observations that I can share with you, dear reader, which might make your match viewing more enjoyable.
Frankfurt almost always deployed three at the back. In fact, they usually start with a 343. Their formation is often also pretty narrow and teams usually try to exploit space behind the wingbacks. Naglesmann countered with a 343 and basically conceded the space in the middle to attack wide. Augsburg played with a 442 and also attacked wide. Whichever formation Unai Emery picks, the real key is pulling the three center backs out and forcing them to cover the fullback areas where, hopefully, Arsenal’s speedy dribblers can cause problems.
Frankfurt usually drop into two holding midfielders mode in their attack but it’s a very fluid team. Rode stays deepest and I’ve seen their center backs advance the ball and him drop into a more sweeper role.His partner is often Kohr and he’s a surprisingly good dribbler. They both impressed me with their close control and the fact that whatever they do, they cover for each other fairly well. They are an organized team but like I said above, wide play really causes them problems. They are also not very strong on set play defense.
Both wide players – Kostic and da Costa – who are in theory wingbacks love to dribble. Da Costa showed a propensity to hold on to the ball too much, I would target him for winning possession back. Filip Kostic was a handful last season, scoring 6 goals and providing 10 assists. He plays wide left and will be looking to run at Maitland-Niles. Maitland-Niles will need help from the Arsenal midfield.
Up top Paciencia is another good dribbler and he’s having a real break out season as main striker after they sold Haller and Jovic this summer. He’s a bit raw still but can score with all of his body parts.
His replacement is often Bas Dost. Bas Dost will score from set pieces if they win any. Paciencia and Kostic running at defenders, and Bas Dost running around like some old bald beast.
Frankfurt aren’t what most Premier League fans think of when they think of Bundesliga sides. They are far more aggressive than you might expect. They aren’t afraid to put in heavy 50-50 challenges, they are smart about tactical fouling, and they give 100% of what they get. They won’t be bullied, not that Arsenal have that gene.
They are also susceptible to counters and they will probably dominate possession against Arsenal. I can’t even begin to guess what Unai Emery will try to do tomorrow or what he will change it into when the first plan does/doesn’t work. I’m sure he’s smarter than me and knows exactly how to unlock Frankfurt and win this game. Maybe set plays? Maybe counters?
Whatever we do, a win here would be very welcome. The crowds at the Commerce Bank Arena are very loud and will make it difficult. I’m going to bed now.
Maybe I’ll be able to write something about the game on Saturday. See you then!
Thanks to this post, I know more about Eintracht than what we would do in tonight’s game 🙂
One trait of Emery has been to prepare well for good opposition (like ManU, Chelsea, Spuds) and struggle against superior (ManC, Pool, etc) and supposedly lesser teams (Watford, Palace, etc).
Wonder what category Emery considers Eintracht to be.
Frankfurt are a tactically astute side that has been playing with a back three for a very long time now. They play a vertical style of football and are very aggressive in their attacks. They used to press very well under Kovac, but that press hasn’t been as good, even though they have not dropped their intensity. I feel as though they will play a 3412, instead of a 343. In game, they played the 3412 formation for most of last season, even though the line up would show them lining up as a 343. Ante Rebic, who is now at AC Milan, was a striker who basically played in the #10 role, but not as creatively as others. His powerful running and dribbling made a lot of space for his strike partners and without him, they are missing something that cant be easily replaced. Jovic and Haller are more easily replaced, and they have Paciencia and Andre Silva to do that job. Their attack is just not as mobile as before and is lacking in the aggression of last season’s frontline.
They prey on sides that can’t play out well and they transition into attack fast and direct. They will push our players’ buttons and test their limits. If Guendouzi cant handle what Watford was doing, Frankfurt are worse.
So how do we beat Frankfurt? Frankly, I do know that we have the better side on paper by far. If we can find a way to dominate the ball in higher areas of the pitch and test out their defenders, who aren’t really that great outside of Hinterreger, we could get a lot of joy. Pepe and Nelson could be our match winners if we can take advantage of their attacking wingbacks, who press really far up the pitch.
I am actually looking forward to this game, to see what tactical reaction Emery will have on what happened during the weekend. I hope I get back from training in time to catch the game though.
i haven’t seen paciencia play yet so i’m looking forward to seeing the threat he poses.
as an aside, who was the last decent center forward germany has produced since klose? maybe mario gomez? ha, an irony there is klose is of polish descent and gomez is of spanish descent.
this was the german’s biggest problem at the last world cup. they don’t have that guy to lead the line but they still played a system that required a center forward. since klose retired, their attack has looked anemic against tough opposition. they tried to get away with playing timo werner at center forward in the last world cup. the problem is first, werner is a baby and second, he’s not a center forward. he had no chance.
it’s really strange, wolfsburg has a very decent center forward but i’m not sure that he’s german. i really don’t know what they’re doing in the dfb where they’re failing to develop any center forwards. before klose, you have to go back to oliver bierhoff or jurgen klinsmann. that’s waaaay back, 20+ years.
In terms of great strikers, they really haven’t been able to develop those. Germany do have some good strikers though, but they do not suit the rest of the team and how they want to play. Its a case of Barcelona not really performing while having Zlatan in the side because, even though he is a great player, just didnt suit the style o play.
In the youth sides that make up the current national team, they used to use Davie Selke, but it showed that he didnt have an international future because he was just a tall player who needed service and offered little else. Right now Timo Werner is more suited to counter attack or transition football, more of what they played at the 2014 world cup. teams started to adjust to that football and now sit back against Germany, so his talents are under utilised. Kevin Volland was a really highly touted forward who is still good and can come up with match winning performances. Lars Stindl plays a bit like Firmino, but for a lesser talented side than Liverpool, so he wont get real acclaim. He is also a bit older, so kinda missed his chance in his earlier years. Max Phillip was meant to be the next striking sensation but failed when he went to Dortmund, ala Fernando Torres to Chelsea.
Their hope for the future is a young talent that i think will make it one day, and that is Jann-Fiete Arp. He is 19 years old,and has just joined Bayern Munich. He along with Abel Ruiz of Spain really impressed me at the u/17 world cup in 2017 and they have kept improving. But football is a cruel beast, they could both end up like Chuba Akpom.
i agree with tim that unai is a very intelligent manager. the problem is his approach often seems too intellectual for the players. emery will thoroughly prepare in an endeavor to out-coach his opponent. that’s fine for him but he seems to try and share every bit of information to his players. as a result, the players are more likely to forget a concept or tactic, especially if emery makes a mistake. some of the players simply aren’t smart enough to handle all of the data he lays on them; such is the nature of many young jocks.
this is the problem with adapting your play based, exclusively, on your opponent as opposed to having an established system. the coach can make an error in planning, not express himself clearly, forgot to make a point, etc.
the players may misunderstand him, fail to study, or in the heat of the game, forget key points, etc. there’s simply too many things that can go wrong.
when granit xhaka said the team was afraid, it wasn’t physical fear, but the combination of being under a new pressure from the opponent coupled with a lack of collective clarity on what they were supposed to do as a team, strategically.
frankfurt has a very good team, much better than watford. they are very well coached and should probably be a champions league team. this game will be difficult for arsenal to win if they lack collective clarity.
Funny thing about Emery being a very intelligent manager. I see it, but for a really successful manager/coach, its kind of not as important as your ability to create drills to entrench your style of football into a players game, and most importantly, your ability to connect with players.
I have been watching the Arsenal training videos, and most coaches won’t want the club to show the world the drills that define their football. But, in those shown on youtube, there is such a variety of drills that do not really impart much into the players performances. I would be surprised if those videos were not the just the warm-up videos, because if those are seriously main parts of the training session, our lack of organisation will definitely be because of those drills.
Watching his side, its pretty clear that he doesn’t have the drills to instill the basic principles of defending that his attack needs. Tactically, how you attack is usually determined by how you defend, and vice-versa. If you are an attacking side that keeps possession a lot, you should be wary of counters e.g. Arsene Wenger, Pep and Klopp. These managers use different ways to avoid counters. Wenger’s sides liked delaying the opposition and by body shape, forcing them to make passes that his teams used to intercept a lot. Pep and Klopp are similar, but differ in that Pep wants to foul or force a long ball by the opposition, and Klopp wants turnovers instead of long balls out. If you play counter attacking football, you will be inviting opposition to test out your side in deep areas, your side should be organised and know how to maintain shape. Mourinho knew what he wanted his sides to do in attack, so he set a defensive structure to sit back, stay organised, maintain shape and force opposition out-wide to play crosses in which his sides defend well (He likes really tall players in his sides). But these are not just told to players, they are drilled into each individual and into the units as well, so that they can be able to minimize chances as much as possible.
Being a coach also needs a charismatic individual. They don’t really have to be the ultimate people’s person, but they should be able to create an environment in the dressing room of accountability, effort and confidence. The players should believe that you know what you are doing, because they are giving you a part of their footballing lives, a part of their physical peak and if they sense that you are wasting that, they turn very quickly.
It was very disappointing but also reflective of what kind of coach he is when I heard him say that you sometimes have to create friction with individuals to get a reaction from them. That convinced me that he doesn’t really have the man management skills necessary for the highest level of football, because he couldn’t analyse the player, his character and his prior experiences before he used that on Ozil. His treatment of Ozil, who was to me, the easiest player to bring on board to your system last summer, a really big indication of his knowledge and his lack of critical analysis on how to use it.
In itself, this technique of friction can work on players, but Emery had a player who had been lambasted in Germany for almost 4 months for a photo, his performances at the World Cup garnered him more hate and then his statement of racism made him public enemy number one. His national teammates turned their backs on him. It became such a farce that even his primary school disowned him, which was funny to me but showed how much he was being pushed away by people in his homeland, Arsenal was basically all he had. Ozil even came back early from the world cup, insisting on cutting his holidays short just to be part of what you are trying to build. And after all of that, Emery thought it was a good idea to introduce friction into the life of such a individual.
So is he intelligent, I think so too. But I don’t see him as an analytical type of individual, I see him as a bank of in-game knowledge, who isn’t socially up to the task of dealing with players. Tactically, I find him to be really basic. outside of changing formations (systems) and approaches (attacking or defending) to a game, I still haven’t seen any clear tactical variation from him since he took over.
All I see is a “Gary Neville”. Someone with a lot of knowledge that he can speak about football, or even give instructions. They could maybe get something out of lesser sides, but at the highest level of football, they will always be found lacking.
“It was very disappointing but also reflective of what kind of coach he is when I heard him say that you sometimes have to create friction with individuals to get a reaction from them. That convinced me that he doesn’t really have the man management skills necessary for the highest level of football, because he couldn’t analyse the player, his character and his prior experiences before he used that on Ozil. His treatment of Ozil, who was to me, the easiest player to bring on board to your system last summer, a really big indication of his knowledge and his lack of critical analysis on how to use it.
In itself, this technique of friction can work on players, but Emery had a player who had been lambasted in Germany for almost 4 months for a photo, his performances at the World Cup garnered him more hate and then his statement of racism made him public enemy number one. His national teammates turned their backs on him. It became such a farce that even his primary school disowned him, which was funny to me but showed how much he was being pushed away by people in his homeland, Arsenal was basically all he had. Ozil even came back early from the world cup, insisting on cutting his holidays short just to be part of what you are trying to build. And after all of that, Emery thought it was a good idea to introduce friction into the life of such a individual.”
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Sorry to quote this back at such length, but this is one of the smartest comments that I’ve ever read on this site.
Emery is under pressure too. He has a short window at Arsenal, and he knows it.
Like Claude, I want to register my praise for this comment.
I agree. Wenger once said that a coach’s first job is to win over the players. Our players aren’t even difficult for the most part, and I feel like they gave Emery every opportunity, and the initial undefeated run helped too. But he threw that away, and has been battling to maintain his grip ever since.
I’ve said before I think he enjoys the theory of the tactics more than executing them in real life, and his frustration with the players comes from them not being robots. It can’t work with top level talent. Especially if he can’t drill a proper defense either.
thanks for the post, I was already looking forwards to a game against a team I had heard of. now I can hope the way frankfurt play will wake a few of our players up from the europa league slumber.
don’t forget the early KO 17.55 uk time.
the three scapegoats start.. mustafi, luiz and xhaka..
what could possibly go wrong?
All 3 were very solid today in helping us keep a clean sheet against the ‘hardest’ team in our at their home ground.
4-3-3. We are Arsenal, so let’s play like we have a pair of cojones. No more effing diamond with square peg players in round hole formations.
Nervy start with players like Torreira leaving too many passes short.
Eintracht attacking Chambers and he is bending but hasn’t broken yet.
Luiz and Mustafi looking composed so far.
Clearly Kolasinac has been told to stay back and let Saka attack up the wing.
I see the problem with our press, we need 20 yo legs of EMR and Saka to make it effective. The press is actually looking coordinated for a change. Shocking.
Martinez is giving up a rebound on every shot. he needs to be a sponge.
I would bring on Guendouzi for Torreira to drive us forward even more.
Saka, nice nutmeg and run to set up Willock who doesn’t defer to Aubumeyang and bingo bango we’ve got an unstoppable goal.
Amazing what happens when we have young players with no fear who are willing to run at teams:” we get draw red cards!
My doctor said: “take 2 Eintracht Frankfurt and call me in the morning.”
Emery needs to rethink his team selection after seeing how well Willock, EMR, and especially Saka played today.
MOTM: Saka.
Torreira wins the Ramsey impersonator award.
Why is chambers not used in EPL,he is a solid defender as he proved at Fulham last season.
was the game shown live in the US?
seems a bit quiet here.
I have a feeling that people have given up. I saw a comment recently where someone said they wouldn’t care about Champions League if i meant Emery stays. That is really bad and shows that most are now emotionally detached from this season, as long as Emery is around.
I believe that we have a very good squad that can really do well in the right set-up, and I hope we play to our potential this season. I also think we will finish third this season, so I am checking if my optimistic prediction is coming true.
Streaming on B/R and live on Univision. Watched the second half on Univision. Couldn’t understand a single, cotton-pickin’ word except “Goooooooooooooooooooooallllllll!” which was awesome 3x. As mentioned above, Saka looked great today. Head scratcher as to Chambers on the right of a back four. I’d like to see him given a shot at CDM given his play there at Fulham. A nice victory and on to Aston Villa.
do the champions league games get shown?
we struggle a bit with premier league games sundays ain’t live on tv.
No. You have to buy a subscription to Bleacher Report in order to watch these games. This weekend may be the same, the game is only available on NBC Gold.
Arsenal still let the opponent 24 shots at goal tonight.
Not every team was as wasteful as Frankfurt.
I don’t think this problem can be solved anytime soon or by our current manager. We just have to hope most teams will be as wasteful as the sides we faced during our unbeaten run last season.
we have to pay a british telecom subscription too for european games on top of the satelite tv one. then extra again to watch about 4 premier league games (sometimes arsenal)
we get a match choice as well not live for all sky games at the weekend.
about £50 a month guessing about $60
That game was strangely similar to Watford for about 45 minutes. The opposition are cutting through midfield, isolating the RB who is overmatched, and abusing their talented left winger to make chance after chance. They also pressed us high and laid traps for the fullbacks and midfielders, not allowing them to turn and progress the ball. Meanwhile Arsenal are hanging on, rope-a-dope style, and using the space behind Frankfurt to find chances of their own primarily through individual skill. As against Watford, despite the stream of one-way traffic, there were relatively few high quality chances from ET and Arsenal scored against the run of play.
The difference was, instead of folding like a cheap suit in the second half, Arsenal showed some substance in the duels and did a better job covering for each other and minding the space between each other. At times the various units were still far too disconnected but overall the system worked better despite arguably higher quality opposition and inferior personnel.
I want to take a minute to praise he Arsenal academy in general and Bukayo Saka in particular, who was deservedly the man of the match despite being the youngest player on show. It’s not every day we see an 18 year old repeatedly take responsibility and make mature decisions in the final 3rd that set his team up with gilt edge chances. It’s even less likely to see one score a meaningful goal in an away match with that sort of calmness and composure. It was a moment to savor after a difficult week. Many more difficult weeks are likely to follow, but at least we can take some comfort in the stable of young players at the club.
Frankfurt is an intense and intimidating atmosphere for visiting teams. They don’t lose often there and we don’t win often in Germany. That said, they are missing 3 forward players who contributed over 50 goals between them them last season and we still gave up a couple of dozen shots to them.
We have a fine academy now, among the best anywhere and it’s thrilling to see these (very) young men take their chances. Saka is an exciting development. and Mustafi was not s%$t, or was he? I couldn’t really tell.
I love the comments here.
I was on a call during the game and couldn’t follow closely. I’ll watch the game today if I can, but my sense was we played much better, even if the 3-0 scoreline flatters us a bit. Hopefully we’ll carry confidence from this into the PL.
Question for the tacticians here.
I just came across a tweet from James Benge saying he asked Emery about Torreira and it appears the plan is he’s going to play higher up the pitch now.
Why do coaches do this? Wenger did it with Coquelin too, which I figured was a way to try and win the ball higher up the field. Was that the logic? Is it the same with Emery and Torreira?
Could be if Emery wants Ceballos to drop deeper and fulfil the role played by Santi previously because Ceballos has excellent technique to keep the ball
I think it’s as simple as every manager would love “complete” midfielders that operate in all areas of the pitch. It gives the opposition more to worry about. The question is, are you trying to make a player into something he is not predisposed to becoming? If so, that’s bad tactics. One should always customize a line-up and instructions to suit the personnel on hand, not shoehorn players into roles they’re uncomfortable with.
Its a not that new of a thing for most coaches to use such players ball winners in further areas. Just because they tackle, people proclaim them to be holding midfielders, but that is wrong. Examples of holding midfielders are Fernandinho, Fabinho, Weigl, Javi Martinez, Casemiro, Busquets and Matic. Last season, Sarri moved Kante into more of a roaming role and he was lambasted for it. What most forget bout Kante at Leicester and Chelsea under Conte was that he always performed that role, it was just implemented to suit a different coach’s methods.
For Leicester, Kante was the ball winning midfielder in a side that didn’t ask him to contribute in the attack as much as most top teams do. It even led to the saying,” 70 percent of the earth is covered by water, and the rest is covered by Ngolo Kante”. The thing is, Kante isn’t a holding midfielder in the Gilberto Silva sense, but was also less capable on the ball to be a Viera type. So he was given a very simple job, cover for the attack and remain an option for a pass, which he was able to do because he has the mobility and stamina to run all day. He was also able to do that because he always had a less mobile partner, whose job was to control possession and dictate play for the side, alongside him.
When Sarri came to Chelsea, he found Kante, who was the only player with the attributes of a player he used so well at Napoli. This player was Allan. He is also considered a defensive midfielder, but played on the right side of a midfield 3. He is better than Kante on the ball and wins the ball a lot.
Mostly these players are in to protect the deep lying playmaker, provide a ball rotational option for the attacking players and to make unmarked runs into the box, which Kante did very well last season and Torreira has been doing for a while now. Coquelin was very good in protecting Santi, but with Xhaka in and Santi out, more was needed from Coquelin and he was unable to deliver. The only thing about Torreira that I think is different from Kante, Allan and Coquelin, is that he is capable of playing as a deep lying playmaker. He is that good on the ball, that he could replace Xhaka and play how he did for Sampdoria.
For me, I still think Xhaka and Torreira are our most compatible and balanced pair in midfield. they complement each other far better than the rest of the other players. If we could get Ozil to play up top with Aubameyang, and get two hardworking midfielders on either side of our midfield pair, it might bring Emery a little bit of a platform to make his variation/deviations tactically.
i almost completely agree with you. a slight variation would be instead of the #8 protecting the #6, the 6 cleans up anything that gets past the 8. i think both are probably somewhat true but it’s not significant.
where i do disagree with you is we don’t know that torreira can operate as a deep-lying playmaker. as a disclaimer, i’ll readily admit that i never watched him play in italy. apparently, he made the transition from being a winger fairly recently so he may lack the experience to play as a true center mid in the premier league and for a team like arsenal.
staying with torreira and emery deploying him higher up, i think thats a move to protect torreira. last summer, when the rumors about torreira to arsenal began, i was immediately opposed to arsenal paying so much for him. i argued that he wouldn’t be able to keep up with his contemporaries who are all simply better athletes than lucas; they are ALL bigger, stronger, faster and more experienced at center mid than torreira. i said not only would he fail to sustain the work rate to keep up with his opponents over an entire season, but that he’d be easily knocked around. how many consecutive games did torreira complete the full 90 minutes last season? look at how easily and frequently he’s been knocked around this season. the decision to sell coquelin for £13 million and buy torreira for twice that amount was predictably foolish. maybe torreira will yet prove me wrong. we’ll see.
The midfield is set up to have a running and defensive #8, alongside a playmaking 6/regista. Forgive me for using these numerical values, I hope you understand what I am trying to imply by using them. I see it this way:
Santi is an 100 level in playmaking and 50 in defending. Coquelin is 100 in defending and 50 in playmaking. The midfield ends up with 150 on both sides of the ball.
Xhaka is a 75 in playmaking and 60 in defending. With Santi injured, Coquelin had to play alongside Xhaka and they ended up with 160 defending, but 125 playmaking.
So our defending improved, but our playmaking went down. Our ability to dominate or play through a press was very low. So how did the club decide to fix this? By buying someone who could balance things a bit more, especially for a side trying to be more ball dominant.
In comes Torreira. He could be described as an 75 in on both sides of the ball. So alongside Xhaka, we get 150 in playmaking and 135 in defending. I think that’s a better balance for a side like Arsenal, or at least for the management at Arsenal.
An issue I have with the midfield is Guendouzi. I can’t classify him or ascertain what kind of player would make a perfect partner for him in the long term. Any ideas guy?
And please excuse any bad english I might have used. Its not my first language.
interesting point/scaling system but i follow.
i would say that torreira is a a coquelin lite. in fact, i often refer to torreira as “mini-me coquelin” from the austin powers fame. the differences in their game would appear to be that torreira is a better finisher where coquelin is a better ball-winner, aerial duels, etc. that’s just because coquelin is physically bigger, stronger and faster than torreira.
also, coquelin is more likely to go by a player dribbling. torreira is a decent player but, because of his stature, i don’t think he’s best suited for the premier league. sure, smaller players have found success, but they had a guile that seems to have alluded torreira.
as for guendouzi, i think he’s suited as a #8 as well. it’s tough to scale him as he’s still so young and inconsistent. however, he’s extraordinarily confident and brash with his play, reminiscent of a young steven gerrard. likewise, he’s intelligent and willing to work hard defensively. he’s not the finished product yet but it’s clear to see that his time is coming and he’ll be a fantastic player in the very near future.
Oh, I am certain that Guendouzi will become a great player. He is a talent that people are afraid of touting too highly. But you can praise a talented young player and still be able to recognise his flaws. He is, to me, probably the best young central midfielder in the Premier League. Others can do some other things better, but I think Guendouzi’s confidence blinds people to the fact that, confidence alone doesn’t make a player dominate a game at 19/20 years old. Yes he is confident, but it is a warranted confidence. He is better on the ball than so many other players in this league.
Here is an example, Queresma and Ronaldo are confident, but only one justifies that confidence by their abilities.
What I was trying to find out is, what kind of player is a perfect partner for him. I see him as our best midfielder currently, but I am still to figure which one of our players, combined with Guendouzi, is better than the Xhaka and Torreira combination.
Any ideas guys?
sorry, devlin. no one currently on the arsenal roster serves as a suitable partner for guendouzi. he’s young and makes mistakes that young players make. what he needs is an experienced campaigner to serve as a mentor and provide him with in-game direction on how to manage a game. i don’t know how old you are but if you’re old enough, you’ll remember how frank rijkaard served as a senior figure for edgar davids and clarence seedorf at ajax. that’s the type of player that guendouzi needs to play with in order to be at his very best.
outside of the current arsenal, i think arteta would have been an excellent choice. another is deschamps when he was a player for chelsea.
Coquelin is/was a limited player with a low ceiling, Torreira is a much better all-round player with a high ceiling — a 21 year old ever-present for a good Uruguay side, a ball winner, knows where the goal is, and good with set pieces. And he’s still only 22. I don’t know why you keep going on about his price…. 22m for that skillset at that age is very good business. He was outstanding in our home game against Liverpool, but his sharpness tailed off as the season went on, because Emery was sometimes starting him 2, 3 games a week at the thick end of the fixture list in early winter
By your own admission you never saw him play in Italy, and for some reason, you appear determined not to give the lad a fair shake.
Was agreeing with most of Devlin’s post till he got to Xhaka. A limited ball player who will soon be overtaken by younger, more mobile midfielders. Guendouzi already has. Xhaka is nota best two anything for Arsenal FC.
my criticism of torreira is that he’s little and i don’t think he can handle the physical beating he’s going to suffer in the premier league over an entire campaign. by virtue of that assessment, i don’t think he was worth the dough arsenal spent on him. that’s my only criticism, full stop.
i haven’t said anything negative about him other than his size. i have given him a fair shake. he certainly struggled with durability last year but i never said he was a bad player. let’s see how he does this year.
saying coquelin is “limited” is such an awful term that has absolutely no value. every player is limited, even messi. to say a player is limited is the most uninformative assessment one could make concerning anything. this is 7am! you’ve got to come better than that.
btw, agree concerning xhaka. i missed the game yesterday but i thought he was uncharacteristically good against watford. we’ll see if he can sustain it.
as far as wenger moving coquelin deeper, i think it was less wenger and more the players. however, it makes perfect sense. you would like you like for your #8 to be the more mobile, kinetic, ball-winning player that coquelin was. likewise, you would want your more experienced leader playing in the cdm role, where they can better control the flow of the game.
Torreira was here, there and everywhere on the right side. He dropped back to support Chambers especially well. Torreira had to be our most fouled player on the day. I was critical of him leaving some passes short at the start of the game but in retrospect, that was probably because he hasn’t played much.
Here’s a thought: Man City buy Mahrez for a zillion, have Sterling, Sane, Bernardo and Guardiola cries that Sancho was’t up for the challenge of trying to get into the first team. Sancho was right to leave. Arsenal on the other hand have promoted Saka, Rowe and Nelson an d we get to keep our money in the bank or buy for need as we see fit.
Arsenal smoked Eintacht Frankfurt and the media go ho hum, that was a nice win. Man U eek out win against Astana and the media were trumpeting this as if a victory in the CL final. Astana might as well be Qarabag as far as I’m concern.
I am not trying to blame Guendouzi and Torriera for our defensive problems because the manager and all of the players share in the blame. However, both Guendouzi and Torriera were here all of last season and played a couple thousand minutes together and there was not even a hint of improvement in the defensive effectiveness of our central midfield. Teams passed thru our midfield with ease and we have been every bit as vulnerable to counter attacks last season and so far this season. Both players are eye catching and fans love to watch them run all over the pitch, however, at least so far eye catching energy has not lead to effectiveness.
Just as an FYI: Arsenal’s defensive frailties (in terms of big chances allowed, etc) coincide with the purchase of Granit Xhaka. I’m not saying it’s all Xhaka’s fault but his defending when he came to us was a liability and certainly hasn’t improved in three years.
Josh, Coquelin IS limited. He can win the ball, but rarely has a good idea what to do with it. He’s found his level at a decent but unexceptional Spanish club. And he’s not going to trouble the France squad selectors. Never has threatened to. Modern midfielders are all rounders. Even DMs/stoppers today are required to be good users of the ball and sometime sources of offence and goals.
It’s kind of funny how someone improves with absence. He briefly had a good run where he was brought back when we were short, but played so well that he displaced Flamini, and was a good complement to Santi. But the keyword here is “briefly”. He’s a nice lad, and I don’t particularly like biffing him, but I happen to recall with some clarity the games I’ve seen him play. And he was limited. Gosh, Guendouzi looks 10 times the player Coq was, and Deschamps seems to agree.
The size debate about Torreira I don’t get. His size was not an issue when he played Fabinho off the park at the Emirates in his debut season. And Leo Messi and Luca Modric arent too shabby.
Saying that 26m is an over-valuation of Torreira given his age and attributes doesn’t add up. Besides, his transfermarkt value is 55m Euro, just about double what we paid. Looks to me like we did excellent business in getting the Uruguayan.
I know that football isnt linear, but man the whipping that City administered on Watford puts Arsenal’s second half into unflattering context. Yes City are miles better than us and were playing at the Etihad, but…
Xhaka is right. We played with fear. Fear of… Wat-frickin-ford.
I’m here to say two things:
1) How we allowed such a useless team like Watford 31 shots is laughable in the context of what I watched today, and I know it’s City. I can stomach a draw away from home against a team rejuvenated with a new manager, but 31 attempts along the way?
2) David Squires’ depiction of Kyle Walker as an ATST this past Tuesday remains one of the best things I’ve seen this year.