The 7amkickoff Index: Leicester 2-0 Arsenal

Stats don’t tell the whole story but sometimes stats tell almost all of the story and even rarer, one stat can be used as a stand in for most of the story. In this article, there is one stat which tells most of the story: failed passes.

First, here’s Leicester.

18 – Failed passes by Leicester in their own half

I’m counting just the passes originating in the Leicester half with that stat. If I count the times they made a bad pass that ended in their own half it was just 8.

54 – Failed passes by Arsenal in their own half

Again, I’m only counting the failed passes originating in the Arsenal half. Now let’s dig a little deeper into this.

Arsenal made 77 unsuccessful passes in the game. If 54 of them were in their own half, that means 70% of their failed passes were in their own half.

33 of those failed passes by Arsenal were in the first 45 minutes. Arsenal made 171 of 212 passes in the first 45 minutes, that means that Arsenal only had 7 failed passes in the Leicester half in the first half of the game.

And if we count the passes that ended in our own half, Arsenal gave the ball up 18 times to Leicester, inside their own half in the first half. 10 more times than Leicester did in the whole match. This is what Arsenal’s first half failed passes map looked like:

Leicester pressed Arsenal high up the pitch in that first 45 minutes, trying to exploit a well-known weakness in Emery’s “play it out the back” plan.

In the second period Rodgers actually let Leicester sit deeper and invited Arsenal to attack. In the tweets I said that it looked like he was roping himself a dope. He wanted to create space for Vardy and Madison to get scoring chances. As a result, the failed passes stat changed a bit

Arsenal had just 21 failed passes in their own half in the 2nd period, which was just 58% of the failed passes in that period! Woo hoo! Victory! And! Double victory! Arsenal only had 9 failed passes in their own half which ended up giving possession back to Leicester in their own half! Which was still more than Leicester had in the entire game..

Rodgers showed off his team’s tactical flexibility, shifting from high press to low box fluidly throughout the second half playing a brilliant game of cat and mouse with Emery. And if there’s any rule about cat and mouse, it’s don’t be the mouse.

And Rodgers’ big plan worked extremely well. Arsenal only took two shots from the 27th minute until the end of the game. And the shooters in those attempts were Bellerin and David Luiz…

Total xG for those two shots was calculated at 0.06.

And if I look at all the stats, they show Emery completely dominated by Rodgers:

  • Shots: 19-8
  • Shots on target: 7-1
  • Corners (Emery’s favorite stat): 5-4
  • Big chances: 2-1
  • Shots in the box: 9-5
  • Successful passes: 419-386
  • Crosses: 7-2
  • Dribbles: 9-10
  • Possessions lost: 110-130 (this is kind of incredible)
  • Interceptions: 11-7
  • Goals: 2-0

Qq

56 comments

  1. Players play better in a coherent system. If wenger didnt do tactics… what can be said of this….clearly those two goals were created to fit their system of play and strength….we seems clueless

    1. Arsene Wenger is one of the greatest tactical minds of all time, even in his later days. Unfortunately for him, the term tactical has been made synonymous with reactive tactics only. Tactics that react to the opposition rather than tactics that make your own side better than the sum of its parts.

      I know so many coaches from around the world who have tried to get their sides to play Wengerball, there has been a lot of development coaches in South African academies who have been trying (for years now) to apply some of the principles of Wengerball for their teams and its been tough, so most have just tried to apply what I can and put more effort into defensive shape.

      We may have not succeeded the way we might have wanted, and that is down to Arsene’s stubbornness, but many of the really purist managers rarely do. They usually change the perception of their colleagues and inspire the next generation of coaches. Arsene will always be regarded as one of the most influential tactical minds the game has ever seen, because unlike his great friend and rival, he persued a vision of football rather than the short-term successes that most (Mourinho) cherish so much.

      Arsene will be named amongst coaches like Bielsa, Cruyff, Zagallo, Rinus Michels, Aragones, Happel and Sacchi. These are coaches whose tactics have bred many different young coaches preaching variations of their style, like how Semione and Guardiola are disciples of Bielsa, and yet their styles are so different. Arsene is that level, that type, that sort of genius in his vision. To the point that it blinded him to his own weaknesses, and someone will succeed with Wengerball, just wait and see.

      Oh……. and on Emery, at this level he is a bad coach. In that, he is bad at coaching a team. He is bad on the training ground. How do I know if I am not there? His side has not had a coherent way of playing from the first competitive game he took charge of. If you have been around coaches and training grounds, there were too many red flags around his Arsenal team to see things going any other way.

      1. Complete revisionist garbage. Wenger was a great coach, but comparable to Cryuff, Sacchi, Bielsa et al? Nice try. Read a Wenger biography or two.

        I think we’re in danger of getting romantic about Wenger, really he needed to go in 2014, we all saw he was a man out of time at the end.

        1. Unfortunately I wasn’t speaking about anything outside of his tactics my friend. The same way that the Dutch total football system is probably the most influential system in modern football, and yet they have never won a World Cup. Leicester doesn’t have to win the league for us to see that they are a very well coached side. Pochetino does not have a single trophy as a coach, but I think we can all agree that he is a good coach based on his tactics.

          Nowhere in my comment did I say Wenger was perfect, never made mistakes or that his tactics were unbeatable. Maybe in a few years we will talk, because many are just starting out with their coaching careers, but such philosophy based approaches to tactics are what young managers/coaches are looking up to or looking to extract the aspects of the tactics that they liked.

          This is not a WOB or AKB comment, I am neither of those two and if that’s where your comment was headed, then I will stop replying here. If you have something constructive though, I am all ears. Or is it all eyes for things you read?

  2. Excellent analysis as usual. It’s worrying how our play out from the back disintegrates under even light pressing. For a while in the first half Luiz looked good bringing the ball out through the centre in a back three, but Holding today was notoriously shaky in possession on the left of the three.

    Midfielders had a day to forget. What wouldn’t we give for an Ndidi (who should have opened the scoring) who went through his own man in his determination to clear the ball.

    Auba didnt have a shot. That is incredible.

    I did say on the last thread that the players were also responsible. The first goal was nicely worked, but one pass took 3 players out of the game and the resultant give-and-go between Maddison and Tielemans took out the rest of the back line, plus Torreira. That’s good offensive play, but we had THREE players on hand to block the initial pass into the box. That’s not on Emery… that is on those 3 players.

    The analysis speaks for itself, but my eyes saw a listlessness to Arsenal’s play… generally, and on the goals especially. They (a) do not seem how to know to play cohesively and (b) even when you dont have cohesion, you still need to do the basics right. Like block crosses and passes into the box. Everyone — including Lacazette who had jogged onto the scene — stopped playing as Gray, Tielemans, the excellent Maddison and Vardy exchanged passes.

    This team seems to me (based solely on the eye test and and decades of watching and covering sport) to have lost faith in the manager’s methods. It’s our worst performance at this stage since 1982 — 37 years. And, despite having one of the best strikers in the world, we are overall in deficit by a goal, which is staggering in its own right.

  3. Interesting post Tim

    The problem with your analysis is the fact that neither Emery or Rogers completed or misplayed even a single one of those passes. There are not any tactical changes a manager can make and there is nothing he can do if his players are not execute their passes or executing their game plan

    The idea that Rogers has somehow suddenly turned into a brilliant tactical manager seems every bit as hard for me to accept as suggesting Ranieri suddenly became the worlds best manager for 1 season when Leicester won the league in 15/16. Its simply a matter of Leicester players were executing in 15/16 and somehow maintained their form for a whole season and their players are executing 19/20 and ours are not.

    1. Any manager or coach can set their team up in such a way to achieve what their vision is. This isn’t just a soccer’centric ideology. Personally I watch an incredible amount of ice hockey and soccer. In the NHL the churn of coaches is probably much higher than that in the Prem, however from the perspective of ‘the coach didn’t misplace the pass’ is negligent imo. Tim and many other bloggers, writers, and various analytical bodies have questioned the player spacing. Simply put a 10ft pass is easier to make than a 20, 30, or 40 foot pass. This Arsenal team does not have easy passes available to them. When they do they are sterile between the CB passes.

      I bring up the NHL because I have seen coaches kill hall of fame level talents. Just look at what Adam Oates or Dale Hunter did to Alex Ovechkin. Mike Johnston to Sidney Crosby or Geno Malkin (specifically their 3rd year under his reign). Even what Dave Hakstol did to the Flyers and is currently doing to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

      To say the Arsenal players ‘aren’t executing’ confounds me. If you can explain what these players are supposed to be executing by all means….I honestly would like to know what Emery is trying to achieve with this squad.

    2. Getting the players to execute any plan or tactical is the main part of the job though, isn’t it? Managing a football team is about motivating players and creating an enviroment where they can thrive. If you can’t get the players to trust your plans enough to execute it, you failed your job.

    3. This is nonsense. Emery sets the team up such that there are no good passing options. The fluid one touch passing that has been Arsenal’s signature for two decades has disappeared. I think it’s pretty disingenuous to say that this isn’t on emery because after all he’s not on the field. If that’s a fair excuse then no coach should ever be fired, because after all, according to you they have very little impact on the game. Ludicrous.

  4. Yes. Two things stood out to me.
    1. Starting to look like the players are losing motivation. Not closing down, tackling or hustling. Losing many of the 50-50s. Hard to see past them losing confidence in the manager and themselves.
    2. Guend and Torriera were awful. Not sure I want to count the times they had the ball in Leicester’s half, and under no particular pressure, turned around and played it back. And then it went back to Leno, and we ended up under pressure. I don’t think either is a bad player, but the mid-field system is completely broken.

    2.5 Full credit to Leicester. They played well, are good to watch, and have a coach that knows what he’s doing. It could have been several more goals for them.

  5. I am 100% on the Emery out bandwagon at this point. Our form has slid into a really bad spot for most of this season and the situation seems to have become irretrievable. We need to move in different direction

    1. This doesn’t make any sense given your previous comment that the manager can’t do anything for his team. It’s often hard to tell what your point is other than “the players suck”.

      Managers can have a profound effect both positive and negative on a team. If it weren’t the case, we’d still have Arsene Wenger.

  6. Don’t know where you find the motivation to pour over the data but kudos to you.

    Apparently based on the last twenty games we’re on course to finish on 48 points. There’s nothing more to say about that.

    If anything the disappointment is that we kept the score level through 2/3 of the game and it wasn’t a start to finish ass whooping. After the match Emery went through the kitchen sink of excuses.

    It all comes down to whether Raul and Edu give credence to those excuses and allow him more time. If he’s still in position by close of play Monday I’d advise everyone to either suck it up or walk away. Stick or twist time.

  7. Arsene used to say the team was playing with the handbrake on whenever the players were not executing his strategy. We saw the handbrake being on more and more often as time went on and it became the norm in the last couple of Arsene’s seasons. Same thing is happening now. Pretty much every game has become a handbrake game. The team is hopelessly out of form and clearly needs a big shake up. You can’t sack the whole team and the only realistic way to shake things up is to change managers. Perhaps we will get bounce similar to ManU last season when Mourinho was fired and Ole Gunner Solskjaer took over

  8. Man, I don’t feel great about the fact that I’m glad we lost.

    I genuinely don’t know if it’s partly about being so used to Arsene that I feel a disconnect with the club right now, or if I’m just getting old, but I just don’t feel any connection with this team.

    I haven’t watched a single game since the change of manager and I genuinely don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything by not watching.

    🙁

    1. For most of last season I was excited to watch games. Different manager and a team in transition you could maybe tell yourself they just needed time and patience to execute the ‘vision’. After about the 3rd week this season I’m dreading having to watch this team play. Every performance is somehow more disjointed and convoluted than the last. If you could pick out a cohesive strategy and ‘plan’ that the team was building towards then maybe, but it is becoming more and more difficult to begin to give a shit this season.

      It is blindingly apparent change is needed. Whatever Emery is trying to do isn’t working and if there is one thing that will make the board take notice it is anything that jeopardizes the bottom line. Already there are massive smatterings of empty seats at the Emirates even for most of the Prem games and all the feuding with players will also continue to hurt whatever $$$$$ they might have thought they could get for players. Top that all off wit Laca and Auba being able to walk away on frees and lmao you’re talking about easily hundred million dollars/euros/pounds literally squandered. Which would be hilariously impressive if it were someone else.

    2. You’re not missing out on anything, except frustration and anger. I’m for the first time as an Arsenal fan considering taking a break from following the club so closely. It is no longer a source of joy for me. I much prefer watching neutral matches this season.

  9. 🎵 I gotta admit that I’m a little bit confused
    Sometimes it seems to me as if I’m just being used
    Gotta stay awake, gotta try and shake off this creeping malaise
    If I don’t stand my own ground, how can I find my way out of this maze?
    Deaf, dumb, and blind, you just keep on pretending… 🎵

    ~Pink Floyd/Animals/Dogs 1977

  10. Tim

    Managers are responsible for the overall teams for but he can’t control the form of individual players. Holding on to the ball in your own end of the pitch is a basic part of football at the PL level and the team is going to be in trouble if your players are constantly losing the ball. If players at this level are struggling to complete passes in the their own end of the pitch then a manager’s options for what he can do are extremely limited.

    In the last game against Wolves we had 58% of the ball possession, completed 537 passes with an accuracy of 86%. Wolves had 42% possession completed only 393 passes and had an accuracy of only 79%. Does that mean Emery’s tactics were much better then our opponents in that game?

  11. I am not sure what tactical changes a manager can make if his players are struggling to move the ball quickly and effectively out of their own end. The only real option is to start hoofing over the top and hope. I really don’t think we have the players who would be best suited for that tactic.

    1. I think you do not know the scope of a coach’s responsibilities with regards to his job. It seems like you are stuck on the “video game” version of management/coaching.

      There are many more things that a coach can do to get his side to play the way he wants them to. We all know that many, if not all, would like to make their sides play like Man City or Liverpool. These sides have quality, but what they have above all else is an identity that is brought by a coach who is very good at drilling it on the training ground. Movements in game are not decided by players, they are drilled into them. Passes are not merely decided by the players, they are drilled into them. Anything that occurs on a consistent basis that you see in a side, is either an instruction from the coach being done or a weakness in the tactical system.

      The training ground is the place where you establish your way, the pitch is where you put it into action. So the lack of options and variation in movement you see on a game by game basis, that’s the positioning problem of how you coach them on the training ground.

      Individual form will only determine whether players put your instructions into practice, effectively or not. Form does not give players new instructions and there are coaches who give out instructions based on form. The entire starting XI could be in form, but if your system is flawed, they will perform your flawed tactics perfectly and you will still lose.

      Defending a coach for not being the one to play out there, is a really childish way to avoid placing responsibility on the real issue. The way a team plays is more a reflection of their coach, than the players.

    2. Are you schizophrenic? On the one hand you want to fire Emery and on the other you say it’s the players. It’s the manager buddy. Even I can see that you can’t make passes when everyone is so spread out and there are no short options. How many one touch passing combinations do you see in our half? None? Because they’re all super spread out? Our midfielders run with the ball way more than City, Liverpool or Chelsea – that’s because they have to move the ball closer to their target. That takes time and slows the game down. Learn about soccer pal.

      1. Great point about the spacing.

        For what it’s worth though, schizophrenia, despite how the term is usually bandied about, has nothing to do with having multiple personalities. It’s mostly about a sense of paranoia and having difficulty telling the difference between what’s happening ‘in your head’ and what’s happening ‘in reality.’

        Multiple personality disorder is the one with multiple personalities.

        So true Jeremy. Well said.

  12. Great comment Devlin. It looks like our players dwell on the ball and make decisions on their own, because there are no drilled schemes to make the passing quicker and effective. We seem not to create any triangles involving mid central fluidity with quick change of the side of the field if crowded – our game involves wide areas of the pitch where we are easy to defend against, because we don’t create movements to widen gaps between opposition players. Even if we deliver the ball to the penalty area, often it looks like yesterday where Chambers didn’t look just put the cross to nobody which was easily cleared by the first defender.

    I am not an expert but it looks like players don’t practice the moves to create advantage in crowded areas. Something which Liverpool exceles. There is no much time to make decisions in Premier League and having not drilled movements and poor tactics to use wide areas of the pitch made our players look lost and the team dysfunctional.

    Ornstein announced the board is 100% behind Emery and he will get time. Well, we are fucked

  13. You were wrong Tim.you gave Emery till december.you failed.november seems to be the correct month.december would be hell☹️

  14. The board is 100% behind Emery, according to Ornstein, and committed to keeping Emery until the summer. Dreadful.

    1. Of course the board will be 100% behind Emery… right upto the moment he gets sacked. I wouldn’t sweat this too much. What else are they going to say? That they are not totally behind him? I don’t think that would help matters while they are planning their next move.

      1. I think I would find that more believable had Ornstein not reported “until the summer.” It’s one thing to say “we’re 100% behind him,” that’s expected, but to put that time period on it at the end…that scares me.

        1. Emery still has 2 years left. I don’t think the club wants to spend x amount to pay off Emery and his staff plus the y amount needed to get in a new guy and his staff. They literally just got the club’s finances on track by cutting £40m from wages and another £10m getting out from under Wenger’s contract. Lol, a new manager erases a lot of those gains!

          The only thing I could see forcing their hand is if players start demanding to leave (Torreira, Bellerin, Auba, Lacazette, Pepe, etc.) and for cut rate prices.

          I also think it’s going to be difficult to get in a new manager who will work under the conditions set out by this club. Unless he’s someone new to management like Arteta or Freddie, I doubt a seasoned coach would take the Arsenal job right now. It’s a poisoned chalice.

    2. Unbelievable. Woke up this morning and read that athletic story while City and Liverpool were out showing how real big clubs play. Threw up in my mouth a little bit. The Kroenke’s don’t and won’t care unless we start losing money.

    3. Every club says this when a manager is in distress. It amounts to a kiss of death.

      The worrying thing is that Ornstein is used as a back-door conduit for the club to disseminate information to the “smart” public, the one that’s tuned in online. So this amounts to the club trying to set the stage for Emery staying put for at least a few more weeks (if not months).

      I interpret it as they don’t have a replacement. Enrique apparently isn’t ready to come back to managing (understandable). Allegri is probably holding out for a “bigger” job. Mourinho’s appointment would cause riots. After those three, who’s out there that isn’t employed right now? Consider that if you were, to hypothetically strip, say Rafa Benitez from China, the club would have to pay his current club. Potentially the firing of Emery then could cost Emery and staff’s severance (10m+) and then a transfer fee for a manager (7-8m). There’s little chance of that happening.

  15. “The board is 100% behind Emery, according to Ornstein, and committed to keeping Emery until the summer.”

    This was my sense of things before Orstein’s reporting. Dreadful indeed. A relegation battle may move the board to act sooner but I wouldn’t bet on it.

  16. Public assurances from the board at this point mean little. They are public utterances for PR purposes.

    There is no way that Emery will remain in situ no matter what. He is under tremendous pressure, and has to deliver improved results soon. If games are running out — say February and we are moored in 6th or 8th — I promise you he’ll be gone.

    Arsenal cannot afford to cement the perception that it is a Europa League club. We will certainly lose Aubameyang, and won’t be able to recruit the calibre of player that we need. Look at the player that Fabinho has become for Liverpool. He would not have gone to Anfield if they were a Europe league club.

    Playing in Europa is a professional humiliation for elite players. And Dortmund’s chief has taunted Auba about that. His best friend outside of Arsenal, Ousmane Dembele, is kicking ball with Messi.

    That is the big picture. The Arsenal board knows that this is a make or break season, and Emery will be dropped like a stone if he does not look like placing us in Europe’s top tier.

    1. Be that as it may, if the board wait till February I expect that will be far too late to salvage champions League qualification. It might already be. Chelsea don’t look like being caught, Leicester are decent and there are better performing teams about to overtake us in the chase to catch them. Emery should have been sacked in the summer and every game that the board delay his departure puts another nail into this season’s coffin. It’s telling that many fans are already focusing on Aubameyang’s contract – this year feels like a right-off and its only November.

    2. And if, by dint of divinity– we end up in the CL?
      No one will be happy about the thrashings we’re dealt by the top of group residents– or the indignation of finishing below the Slavias, Lokomotivs, and Zenits in any given group either.

      ONLY– reason to fathom why we might stick with The Unaibomber till next Summer– more numerous choices for his replacement.

    3. When we say, ‘the board’ who are we talking about? Far as I can tell it is Josh Kroenke’s show. It all comes down to whether he and his man Raul, are prepared to admit they got it wrong.

      They’ve lost players. They’re now paying ‘what it takes’ to bring in players. They’ve jettisoned members of staff. All of this has cost money. All to back their decision to appoint, and then keep Emery. If they weren’t prepared to admit to a mistake after the end of last season, why would they be now?

      If Auba and Laca leave, guess what, that’s money we sell them for. Then we can add a few cheaper players, and say Martinelli and Nketiah are the future and we must rebuild again.

      Feb is too late to act. If they do it it’s got to be before the transfer window in January. Actually ought to be now. The players surely aren’t buying in. There’s no upside to keeping him. The results are bad, the performances are bad, the atmosphere is bad. And if last season is anything to go by, Unai is incapable of turning it around when things start to go bad (only when they start to go well)

  17. That’s a good point.

    Nearly every sacking is proceeded by a statement of full confidence and support. At this stage, once a board is talking about how much confidence they have in a manager in trouble it’s nearly always a sign they’re on the way out.

    1. The dreaded vote of confidence. Unai must already be thinking about what he’ll do with his severance pay.

    2. I don’t think they’d use Ornstein for a back-channel messaging to the fans if they weren’t trying to set the stage for him being around for a while more.

      There’s just nobody they want and can replace Emery right now, without it costing not only Emery’s severance (+ his staff) and a sizeable transfer fee for whatever manager we try to scoop from their current job.

  18. I had been planning a trip across the pond to catch some arsenal games in the spring. Definitely holding off on those plans. If the board doesn’t give a toss about the fans and continues to allow this miserable fool to run the club into the ground while playing painfully awful football, I’m certainly not going to spend thousands of dollars and vacation time to be served up this tripe.

    1. Playa del Carmen and Tulum are warm, fun, and beautiful in the Spring.
      Hedge your bet against misery, friend.

  19. E can only assume that the board are content to fall out of the European places for next season. With Saliba joining us on a permanent basis then and the blooding of young midfield players now they must feel that ‘the process’ is on course, if behind schedule. They are not grasping that this head couch is just not able to deliver it. Given that the ‘process’ is a club product it is surely independent of whoever is our coach. Their remit is to find the man who can implement it. That is clearly NOT Emery. The question then is, for what or whom are they waiting?

  20. I predict that Ornstein’s message was a deliberate attempt to douse expectations that we’ll get a new manager soon. The club will ride with Emery as long as we’re progressing in the Europa league. As soon as we’re out he’ll be fired and Freddie will be an interim appointment, and then we’ll get a new manager in early June. Any dreams of Mourinho, Allegri, Enrique, et al… not going to happen.

    1. Have never considered using ‘Mourinho’ and ‘dream’ in the same sentence.
      (Think this is a nightmare?)

  21. No to Mourinho, obviously, and I never thought I’d say this , but the first order of business in appointing the new coach should probably be testing his language skills.

    Football may or may not be an easy game but talking about football is. especially in a presser settings where coaches never divulge any deep tactical secrets.

    All coaches ever say in these silly things is some vague platitudes anyone should be able to learn in any language in under a month.
    The fact Emery still can’t even do that is beyond worrying.

    On another note , wouldn’t be hilarious if City failed to make top four this season.
    Looks like Pep is ready to take on PGMO and Mike Riley lol.
    There can only be one winner there. Wenger could tell him all about it.
    Pool might’ve got the marginal calls but whatever happened to playing to the whistle mr “I’m so proud of my players”?

  22. happy veteran’s day to tim, lonestar gooner, and the few others on the forum that have willingly volunteered to commit acts of violence all over the world on behalf of the american people, thereby granting us the liberty to discuss nonsensical issues concerning a london-based soccer club. “give war a chance!”

    i would have been surprised if enrique were interested in any coaching job so soon after his family tragedy. i think i even said so last week when his name began being suggested. that doesn’t mean he’s not paying attention to what’s going on at arsenal but i believe he’d go back to the spain team before moving to london. we’ll see.

    i was out of town this weekend so i’ve just watched the game this morning. prophetically, arsenal maintained the back 3 and played kola and hector, as they’re arsenal’s two best wing backs. likewise, with his back against the wall, emery played ozil, who had a very decent game. the highlight, for me, was david luiz.

    for years, i’ve said that it doesn’t matter who arsenal sign if granit xhaka is playing at the base of the arsenal midfield. all top teams have top notch cdms. fabinho and fernandinho are a pair of brazilians that have held it down for their clubs just like gilberto did for the invincibles. it only makes sense for arsenal to introduce yet another experienced brazilian there. david luiz was employed in a hybridized center half/dm role similar to the one wenger used with elneny when he first tried to hide xhaka and flirted with a back three. luiz being activated that way was like a breath of fresh air for two reasons. first, he was lively, positive, kinetic, and helped arsenal advance the ball. second, he wasn’t in the backline, dropping off unnecessarily, making a bigger gap between the backline and the midfield.

    xhaka says he’s “ready to play again for arsenal”. what a weakling. i say drop his forever…especially after the luiz performance on saturday. we’ll see.

    1. i didn’t have a problem with seeing what emery was trying to do on saturday. that may be the first time i’v ever said that. while arsenal still lost, it was refreshing to see what he was at least trying to do.

    2. I think that could work. Luiz also looked superb in a back 3. As did Chambers, up until the moment he switched off and lost Vardy (after containing him well for an hour). Holding — a player I like and have high hopes for — was the weak link. To compound things, he was patrolling the left flank with Kolasinac, who while he has clearly worked hard on his defending (it shows), is still weak defensively.

      btw, Coach Josh, we got caught out a few times on defensive ball watching… losing a runner, or someone who has good movement. What’s up with that?

      And on Saturday, our best stealth player (Auba) was building play from out wide. Was was it that Bill was saying about coaching not mattering much? 🙂 Player error certainly led to the first goal, but we are clearly not a well-coached or a well set up team.

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