Burnley 0-0 Arsenal: the 7amkickoff Index

  • 372 passes for Arsenal
  • 78 final third passes for Arsenal
  • 7 passes in the penalty area for Arsenal
  • 13 shots for Arsenal
    • 2 shots on goal
    • 1 shot on goal in prime
    • 3 misses in prime, all headers
    • 4 big chances created
    • 2 Big chance headers
  • 5 big chances for Arsenal according to Understat
  • 2 Arsenal big chances adjusted down by Opta after the match (removed the two headed big chances)
  • 2.15 expected goals for Arsenal – by my formula, if there were 4 big chances
  • 1.45 expected goals for Arsenal – by my formula, removing the two headers which I agree weren’t really that big of chances
  • 90 percent pass completion by Xhaka
  • 1 Big chance created by Xhaka
  • 73 percent pass completion by Mustafi (6/13 long)
  • 71 percent pass completion by David Luiz (4/12 long balls)
  • 1 big chances created by David Luiz
  • 41 touches by Martinelli
  • 17 turnovers by Martinelli (led Arsenal)
  • 3 Uncounted big chances (according to Understat.com) created by Torreira (for Lacazette’s shot 81st minute) Auba (for Lacazette’s header) and Lacazette (for Auba’s header)

After the match Arteta said:

“The conditions were difficult, the grass was long, they didn’t put any water on it and that is not a very helpful thing to play football,” said the Gunners boss.

“Absolutely ( I expected the conditions) I didn’t water the pitch yesterday at the training ground. 

“I expected it but it doesn’t make it easy to play.

“It is their gave, they do really well what they do, it is their strength and you are allowed to do it so we had to adapt. 

“We adapted really well in some moments but it is not the grass it is the quality and what they (Burnley) do they do really well and we could not cope with that in the right way.”

Much is being made of this quote, claiming Arteta is losing it, etc. But he literally just points out what Sean Dyche has said on several occasions: they try to adjust the ground conditions to slow teams like Arsenal down. I actually credit Arteta for trying to prepare his team, it shows a tremendous eye for detail. It’s also notable that he specifically says that he doesn’t blame the grass.

Also, we are 7 games into the Arteta era and Arsenal’s attack is still very poor. We havent seen any improvement in xG since Arteta took over, we are still producing about 1.2 per game. Worse, Arsenal have conceded nearly 5 xG in the last two matches and the club are back into negative xG territory once again.

Burnley – to their credit – created a legit 4 big chances against Arsenal and ended the match with 2.54 xG. That’s nearly the same xG that Chelsea created against Arsenal, playing with 10 men. I’m not criticizing Arteta. I don’t think we are anywhere near the same team that we were under Emery. I’m just showing how much work Arteta still has left to do. Arsenal’s attack is atrocious, the midfield cannot hold possession, and the defense is comically bad at times.

The “winter” break couldn’t come at a better time. Arteta really needs to get this team back on the rails. And that’s what’s going to have to happen here folks. For those who want a full rebuild, there’s no money coming in. I feel strongly they we aren’t finishing top 6, which means even less money in the summer. Arteta is going to have to pull a Wenger and make this team better than its component parts.

Qq

40 comments

  1. Starting with the positives, hats off to our defence for a gritty performance against a tough aerial attack. Also a big shout for Xhaka playing two roles admirably.

    God we’re a team with no balance. Today we were strong at the back yet flimsy in the centre and MIA in attack. We can control a game for maybe 25 minutes and then just cede leadership to the opposition.

    Comfortably our rookie coach’s worse game and we’re all allowed them. But he needs to establish some semblance of balance over the mini break.

    We were never going to make top 4 and while top 6 is achievable I don’t see it as realistic. Neither do I see a team or manager that can win either cup competition this season.

    13 league games to go. Time for the coach to improve players (it’s the job description) and figure out who stays for next season. But we’re definitely losing Auba and probably Ozil so possibly a junior roster in 20/21.

    Question for you Tim? Do you think Arteta will get us back into the top 4 by the end of next season?

  2. I think what this game shows is that the problem was always considerably larger than Emery. Arteta has – to be honest – made just modest improvements to the side. Some players have improved and we’ve been a bit better defensively.

    The fundamental problem was and continues to be the midfield. I think in particular Ozil is a huge problem – he doesn’t provide end product any more and doesn’t play deep enough to contest for the ball and get touches that help our build up from deeper. He was just invisible today – I felt we clearly improved in terms of our ability to control the game when Willock came on (who I don’t think is that great), as we actually had an extra body in the engine room if nothing else . If there is one place of the field I would spend money, it would be there.

    I don’t know why we don’t try Ceballos there either – I know he isn’t a “10”, but at least he’d be more combative and have more touches in deeper positions.

    1. Why always ozil.its criminal to rely solely on ozil for chances created.we should have options with major guy not just wait on ozil.guendozi xhaka others should also be creators

    2. Ozil is obvious and continues to divide opinions.

      I would add Xhaka to that. I know many credit his strong come back. However, I think in his job as the midfield link, he is not someone who can turn his man and move the play forward ala Santi. Its that problem that Arteta has tried to solve by dropping him deeper and moving Saka higher up. It was a brilliant tactic by Arteta that improved on the strengths of the players – Xhaka, Saka and Martinelli. Xhaka needn’t turn as much, instead can look for medium to long passes. Saka could carry the ball and Martinelli running the channels.

  3. If arteta is going to be true to his word then ozil and laca should both be benched for the next game. Ozil is far too inconsistent and yet again failed to deliver away from home. Like it or not his job is you create, he’s paid a small fortune to do so and isn’t. I know there’s the argument of playing laca through his poor form but we can’t keep doing it. Maybe he needs a little tough love?

    I like artetas post game honesty too

    1. Agreed.
      Both Laca and Ozil were completely ineffective. PEA should have gone straight back into the side in the centre. Wasted on the left. Martinelli equally wasted on the right. They are our two most likely players to score. Why play people out of position, if the object of the exercise is to give an obviously out of form striker (Laca) a game?
      What that performance lacked most of all was energy and pace. Our play went downhill at about the same time as Saka went off and he’s just a kid.

  4. I am not suggesting that Emery was doing good job and I am 100% convinced he needed to be sacked. The team had lost its will to compete and needed a new manager. Full credit to Arteta for getting the team reenergized on the defensive side of the equation. However, I think its clear that Emery’s tactics were not the only problem and not even the biggest problem. The real issue is we don’t have the talent to compete for the top 4 and we may not even make to the top 6 this season. Fingers crossed for a deep run in the Europa league and perhaps we can get lucky with the teams we draw and find a run of good form at the right time

    A manager can sometimes find a way to get a team to play with more energy and focus and play as a team which is more then the sum of its individual parts. Brendan Rogers seems to have done that with Leicester this season. When that happens a rising tide raises all ships. Every player looks better when the team is in good form. However, I think the idea that a manager can somehow significantly improve individual players abilities is over rated. Realistically how can any manager have the time to spend with individual players working on their technique.

  5. That middle 45 mins was probably the worst I have seen us under Arteta but I dont want to make too much out of it. As soon as Saka got injured, his movement was limited. There was a moment in the first half when the ball came to him as we were trying to build out of the back and he just passed it back instead of pushing forward with it as he was doing previously. His next action was to just stand still instead of moving to the space in front of him. I knew then his injury was bad and was not surprised to see him hauled at half time. I think that was a big loss because not only it severely weakened our attacking impetus on the left but we also lost control in midfield as Xhaka moved to left back. Matters weren’t helped by Ozil backing away from almost every 50-50 challenge. How much of that was down to his yellow, I don’t know, but we have seen him do this before without having been booked so it wasn’t encouraging – to put it mildly. We looked a bit better after Willock came on but he isn’t ready to be in the starting XI for a top 4 side.

    A word on Lacazette. I get that you are supposed to play through your dry spell but at some point we have to ask ourselves if his fight is making up for his lack of goals. It’s not just his lack of goals. He also seems to drift offside a lot and his passing at times makes me want to hide under my bed. We may be better off selling him and Ozil in the summer and getting a CM and an AM. The midfield badly needs an upgrade.

  6. I thought it was a solid performance, and that saka’s injury left auba isolated. Was Ozil playing badly? I didn’t think Willock improved things (but I missed the first 20 mins of the second half), and I like guendozi but he needs to release the ball quicker.

  7. is it that Ozil isn’t creating or are the strikers not getting into positions for him to create for?
    there is also a lack of interaction between the midfielders to break the two rows of four to help Ozil get into a position for that final ball.
    yesterday Bellerin had the left back to beat on several occasions yet he took the easy back pass, is the pressure of losing possesion and a poor defence hindering our attack because we are playing safe percentage balls?

  8. Laca has been consistently off for a long time now. Feel playing him regardless will blow off all confidence in self
    Saka and Martinelli combine. Still Arteta played Auba and Martinelli in their less effective positions. So again Saka and Martinelli we’re away from each other.
    89 minute substitution in this game…for what purpose ?

    1. Laca has certainly been out of form this season. He was a prolific scorer in France but we have now have multiple examples of players who can’t match the production they have in France when they move to England. However, based on his past couple of season we should expect and we desperately need low teens in league goals from him and it doesn’t look like that is going to happen this season. The rest of his game has suffered also. He still looks like he is working hard and putting in the effort but unless you have overwhelming goal scoring firepower in the rest of the squad you need production and goals from your CF. Ozil had a short lived new manager bounce but that has faded. I saw somewhere that his last assist in a PL away game was January 2018. He has 4 total PL assists and 0 assists in away games since he signed the big contract 2 years ago. We want to hope Arteta can somehow improve these key players but there is only so much a manager can do. Its not a surprise that we struggle on the attacking end when your CF and your creator in chief and attacking midfielder are giving you zero production. Auba missed a couple a decent chances yesterday and Martinelli looked like an 18 year old and neither could rescue us.

  9. I know it isn’t great, but I do not worry as much about the attack as I do with the defence. I liked the decision to bring Arteta in as soon as our season was lost so that he had time to prepare his foundation for his Arsenal side.

    This time that he has right now is akin to what Emery was given in his first season and Arteta seems to be avoiding what Emery did. Instead of a complete overhaul of what the team was doing, he focused on the weaknesses that existed in the foundation of the team (the defence) and is trying to build a defence that works in the EPL. The Arsenal women’s coach, Joe Montemurro, showed the blueprint of how a team should be built. He signed on mid-season and focused on solidifying the defence and then shooting on from the confidence borne out of knowing the team is capable of keeping any team out.

    A lot of times, when you focus on the defence and work on the solidity of the team’s structure, you will likely lose out on forward work. When that happens, coaches usually favour playing their best/biggest players. These players might be off form or just unsuited to the system but its done that way because sometimes coaches play the odds. Example, Eddie might play better than Lacazette right now, but if there is a great chance in game, who between the two do you trust to take it?

    I don’t think Arteta will be playing a 4231 (3313 in possession) next season, it doesn’t allow proper progression of the ball and is more easily pressed. The team’s attack will be more confident knowing that they don’t have to score many goals to win and chances will be created in a better way, we have so many talented attacking players who offer all-rounded attacking play in Nelson (needs more confidence), Pepe (needs better decision making. Mahrez should be the template for him), Nketiah (needs more games), Saka (nothing really to say) and Martinelli (Nothing really to say)

    Midfield might need some work. I don’t think we have bad players here, just a badly assembled composition talented midfielders. Individually they are good players, as a competitive collective, the fit is hard to figure out.

    Otherwise, I don’t think we should be too worried about the attack. I trust that if we fix our defence, it will give us a great foundation to shoot from.

  10. Ozil’s time has been up for a while and he is sitting on a pay-cheque that should fit about 7 professional players in their early 20’s. I feel Arteta can progress in the EUROPA league, but the premiership will remain difficult.

    I don’t know why Ceballos won’t get game time, but he and Pepe could have been more effective yesterday. We are in need of bodies in the middle of the park.

  11. Guendouzi was really poor. Don’t want see him near the first eleven for some time.

    Maybe it was the grass. Don’t think I’ve seen him misplace so many passes?

    Thanks Tim for your work. Sorry I haven’t contributed before. Almost like taking all the time and effort that goes in to a post for granted. That is not the case and I thought you should know.

    1. Thanks man! It wasn’t just that he completed a low percentage it was that the passes were REALLY off. It was weird. I wonder if the crowd got into his head.

      1. Yea, could have been the crowd, the grass or maybe he’s just 20 and a tad too young for that position.

        I dont mind seeing him away from starting eleven, match squad and even maybe u23 for some time?

    2. I think yesterday we saw that Arteta is a young manager, still early on the learning curve.

      Guendouzi is technically not strong enough to play the type of fast paced possession based football where the ball zips around with short (and long) accurate passes. He takes too many touches and his passing accuracy and weighting is very average. Torreira needs to start every game until we get ourselves a comparable player.

      I also didn’t understand the delay to take off Saka and the late Nketiah substitution – both should have been done earlier. Bellerin at this point should be an every-other-game RB until his form returns – AMN would have provided a bit more control in midfield against a robust Burnley side.

      And Martinelli is still too young and green to start on the road against Burnley – I’d have rather we went with Pepe on the right to keep some consistency.

      All said, Burnley have beat some pretty good teams this year. It was an OK point. 2 steps forwards, 1 step back, 1 step sideways, 3 steps forward… and on and on. This was never ever going to be a straight line progression upwards.

      1. Bringing Nketiah on in the 89th minute was ridiculous. What exactly was the point? Laca had been doing nothing all match. Running down the clock? Against Burnley? What ambition!
        Martinelli would probably have been ok if he’d have started on the left hand side. Why make things awkward for him by sticking him on the right wing?
        I’m not sure Torreira for Guendouzi would have changed the performance much. I can envisage him getting completely muscled out of it.
        Burnley are very difficult to beat. Good delivery into the box and very strong in the air. They’re always liable to nick a goal and really should have done. How did that not go in?

  12. On balance, I didn’t think we were that bad; I just don’t think our roster is that amazing right now. Burnley, Sheffield, etc, are physical, mature, well-organized teams. While our fellow mid-table teams lack outrageous skill and talent… so do Arsenal. We have one standout solo player, often capable of fabulous feats of football (Auba) and… a pretty darn decent squad of players, many with a high ceiling/potential, but none are established bosses of the game.

    Not to jinx it, but it feels like we’re evolving away from being the comedy club of late Wenger/Emery (yikes) into… an O.K. team that could still make a cup run and be set up to benefit from smart investment this summer (okay… comedy).

  13. I’ve been a general supporter of Ozil. And he does seem to be working pretty hard. But he also seems to have lost some of his ability to change the game through passes. I’m not thinking we can count on him ever to be back where he was a couple years ago(basically before the big new contract).
    Laca is a big worry. If he’s not scoring, then hustling isn’t enough. He’s not big enough/strong enough to be a classic English hold-up forward. Nor is his layoff passing good enough. He doesn’t give an outlet for aerial balls.
    Liverpool and City are good enough to mostly play with smaller forwards as their smaller forwards all score. We’re not.
    I think we need to give Arteta at least another season. Some mistakes yesterday, but I’d be surprised if he didn’t learn from them.

  14. Unfortunately we don’t have any confident midfield or attacking player’s. Meaning, all of them are static and are not showing for the ball. If player’s are static and they are low on confidence and don’t want to show for the ball. That points to issues in the dressing room. Clearly a blame culture, rather than a nurturing culture and this is Arteta’s biggest problem. I believe this blame culture is being fostered by those senior player’s in the squad. The likes of Ozil, Auba, Laca, Xhaka and Luiz. Yes I am suggesting that all of these player’s need to go. Sheffield Utd are simply better than us because they are a cohesive unit, who are playing for one another. Maximum work rate, organisation and unity as a team. Everything we lack. Is Arteta strong enough to drop these player’s!? Also credit to Xhaka for being adaptive, but if any of you are deluded enough to think this player is good enough. The amount of games he’s got a yellow for just taking the player out, rather than play the ball. He’s very static and risk adverse and yet still gives possession away cheaply. Ozil shouldn’t be anywhere near the first team. Plain and simple. Why do you all keep persisting with a player, who just isn’t interested, I’ll never know.

    1. You’re spot on about the lack of confidence issue but I’ve heard lots of positive role model comments regarding Luiz and Auba encouraging the youngsters. The culture and management style should be a top-down thing coming from the coach. Irrespective of the current results this is Arteta’s greatest challenge and may well be the sword by which he succeeds or fails. He’s making the right noises to the media so time will tell. I think he needs a strong team around him to enforce the changes.

  15. Actually, I don’t want to lump Martinelli in with my previous comment. Does more than Auba, Laca and Ozil put together. He just doesn’t have the player’s around him to provide him with any real service. Why wasn’t Soares ready for this game? Both Utd and the Spuds put their new signing’s straight in. In my opinion this would have been a better option than putting Xhaka at LB. Not sure what Arteta was thinking, playing Ozil, Laca, Auba and Martinelli. Why didn’t he play Pepe!?

    1. Soares is hurt. He won’t be ready to play for 3-4 weeks. His loan signing makes NO sense, but, maybe we’re owed a favor now by J. Mendes in the summer.

    2. Pepe is an enigma it seems.
      No one can figure out this guy apparently.
      Could we have used his trickery in the last 15 minutes? Probably.
      However, he might turn out to be another Ozil-like type who needs the right conditions to flourish.
      If the pitch was patchy and grass too tall then it made perfect sense to keep Pepe on the bench for this one.
      His close quarters dribbling style and $hit pitch don’t mix.

  16. We could have done a lot worse than have Pepe on the pitch for set pieces.
    I couldn’t see us scoring any other way.

  17. Last free kick in a promising area Arsenal were awarded was taken by Lacazette with Pepe looking in.
    It’s one of these tings coaches don’t like to interfere with leaving it up to the players to sort it out.
    Anything left of center taken by a right footed player, anything right of center taken by a left footed player.
    Unless someone can prove otherwise , for my money, Pepe should be taking all direct free kicks , such is the quality of his delivery. So yea, I agree with you there.

    1. Corners likewise. He’s the nearest thing we’ve got to a dead ball specialist.
      In tight games where we are creating very little, it can make all the difference.
      On the day, Burnley looked far better with their delivery, despite the fact that they don’t have the benefit of highly paid, internationals, in their squad.

    2. The other point worth noting is that having someone who can score from set pieces, keeps the opposition defenders “honest”.

  18. Guendouzi was abysmal to watch. Slow, too many touches, very poor passing. The number of times he received the ball, jogged forward two steps, stopped, slowly turned around, and then slowly passed the ball backwards or sideways was too many to count. Ozil, predictably, has gotten plenty of flack, but he wasn’t even close to being our worst player yesterday. The inability to advance the ball out of our own half unless ozil drops deep is a problem stemming from the base of our midfield. Xhaka lacks athleticism, though he’s a fine passer, and Guendouzi lacks athleticism and is a very poor passer. I’d much rather partner xhaka with torreira. He’s obviously a bit small, but his technique is superb, he’s progressive with his passing, and he doesn’t slow play down so much.

  19. There was a lot of discussion and debate last season and earlier this season regarding why our attacking strategy seemed to be focused on the wide areas of the pitch especially on the left rather. However, I think its clear now that might not necessarily have been the preferred tactical choice of the manager as much as it was option B or C and born out of necessity. Its pretty clear that even with a different manager and different none of our central midfielders are adept at creating openings for high percentage chances down the middle of the pitch and the wide areas have been by far our best option in terms of making something positive happen on the attacking end.

  20. We may not have liked the way it looked but we were a much better attacking team last season. This season we are on pace to score 48 goals while last season we were the 3rd best in the league at scoring goals with 73. The difference last year was Auba was superb and Laca was playing well and they were creating openings for each other. This year that has not been happening nearly as much.

    Last year a significant percentage of the positive things that happened when we were moving the ball from back to front came from Kolasinac bombing down the left wing. Players recognize what the teams best option is and naturally they will end up looking to get the ball down the wide areas of the pitch. For better or worse I think they often tried to force feed the ball down the left wing because nothing else worked very well.

  21. i think you guys are over-reacting. arteta’s approach seemed to be to first solidify the defense. bottom line, he has. did arsenal concede a ton of chances the other day? yes. that’s down to burnley’s style. they remind me of fat sam’s bolton wanderers the way they keep the ball alive on set plays. they’ve got some big boys and some very decent talent so they’re tough to defend for anyone.

    in attack, arsenal had their chances. however, it’s not lacazette and ozil who are the biggest culprits minimizing the attack. it’s more on arteta. if arsenal are playing with inverted wings, there’s no reason to play a double-pivot as well. it’s redundant but i think the redundancy is deliberate with arteta’s “solidify defense first” approach. arsenal needs one more player, a proper #8, to more regularly join the attack. i think that would work wonders where ozil wouldn’t have to drop so deep, meaning that lacazette wouldn’t have to drop so deep either. right now, ozil is playing as a 10/8 with laca playing as a 9/10. give them a break.

    1. A proper #8 would be nice. We’ve just lost one. Ramsey?
      Assuming we had one, who do you leave out?
      What we really need is 12 players on the pitch!

  22. Josh

    I don’t think the problem is tactical and I don’t think our struggles on the attacking end can be solved with different tactics. The idea that one player such as a better #8 would change everything seems like quite a stretch. How many times have we heard over the years that we are 1 players short of greatness. Unfortunately that player never showed up. Even if your idea of a #8 changing everything is correct where do we get that player? Ramsey could never stay healthy for more the a month at a time and whenever he hit a run of good form he pulled a muscle. He was with us for the entire decade and even when he was healthy he was never that final puzzle piece

  23. Arteta confused me with his team selection. First off, where was Toreira?
    He’s been our best midfielder last few games. He starts Ozil, away to Burnley. That’s like starting him away to fat Sam’s Bolton in the day. Not the player you want there. Martinelli on the right wing, he plays left. Meanwhile, Pepe is sitting on the bench. Our inform striker is put on the left wing, whilst our out of form striker gets the striker position. I dont think Guendozi should be starting for Arsenal. He’s very young, has potential, but we will see. Hopefully Arteta will get it going. Just stop playing players out of position, unless its forced on you.

  24. I think if it was me and we were playing Burnley away, I’d either play Laca or I’d play Ozil, but I wouldn’t play both. Put an extra body in midfield to make forward runs?

  25. I’m clutching at straws. What we’re talking about here is rank bad recruitment, which has gone on for more years that we like to think about. There doesn’t ever seem to be a plan. Let’s buy player X because we can and then let’s see if we can shoehorn him into the side somehow. Despite spending a small fortune, the team is completely unbalanced and we even get shown up by teams like Burnley, who despite being limited financially make the most of their resources.
    Have you ever been to Burnley? It was probably quite prosperous during the industrial revolution, but it’s been downhill ever since. There’s no money there. The main street is all thrift shops and pound stores. Turf Moor is like a throw back to the 1960s. Executive suites? I don’t think so. Good luck to them, but how on earth has it come to this?

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