Game two and Tim’s going negative.
HA! Not really. But come on, that wasn’t a great first half from Arsenal, followed by an even less great second half. Maybe you disagree? We’d love to hear from you in the comments. Rescue me from this negativity creeping in!
Ok, so look, I took notes on the game but I have a very simple barometer for judging a performance: did I get bored?
I have several levels to how bored I get watching a football match. Level one is checking twitter. That ramps up to searching twitter. From there, the next step is doing chores: folding laundry is level three, vacuuming the living room is level four, dishes are level five and god forbid if I start a loaf of bread. That’s just one step away from playing video games or something.
About the 60th minute, I got up and emptied the dishwasher. That’s how bad that was yesterday and Arteta agreed!
“I had a sense after about 55 or 65 minutes that we were dropping. I could see the team were a little bit giving up because it was difficult, they were suffering and they were being a threat in two or three moments. I tried to lift them up and suddenly they clicked. I saw a different team in the last 20 minutes, with more belief, much better focus and determination in what we were trying to do. At the end we won the game. We’re going to have games like that. With the amount of games we have to play in this calendar year, it’s going to happen. The most important thing is to find a way to win.”
And statistically you can see this as well: Arsenal took just one shot between the 46th and 84th minute; West Ham took 10. The game state was draw, so there’s no “game state” excuse for those stats. We weren’t trying to hold on to the lead, we were just bad – front to back, bad. Giving the ball away bad. Forced to run 80 yards alone in possession bad. Not playing compact across the middle so that we could spin balls in behind for Auba bad. Playing a 541 in defense bad.
And let’s face it, we were lucky as well. Leno stopped another non-shot big chance early in the second half (cross to Antonio, his touch came off Gabriel, Leno saved). Antonio missed a big chance in the 52nd minute. He also hit the woodwork in the 66th minute. And Gabriel blocked a big chance in the 66th minute after Leno fumbled the ball climbing over Ceballos.
If I’m honest (and why wouldn’t I be) it was a lot like watching Unai Emery’s Arsenal. Arsenal were dominated by a team that sat deep and countered. We weren’t even hard pressed – just 127 pressures against Arsenal, compare to Leeds who have averaged over 200 pressures per game. Arsenal simply looked nervous and kicked the ball out of play too often. Again, Arteta agrees!
“We faced a really difficult opponent. We knew that before the game, the way they play. I think we made it really difficult for ourselves in the first 15 minutes with the number of simple balls that we gave away. There is no structure in the world that can sustain that.
“Then after the goal we had much better periods when we were able to sustain and control them better. They cannot run, a transition moment with one minute to go in the first half.
“In the second half again we had 15, 20 minutes when we struggled, we gave simple balls away, we didn’t have the right organisation. We made some changes and after we improved in the last 20, we managed to score another beautiful goal, and then just man-managed the game for the last five or six minutes.”
It’s refreshing to have a manager who publicly addresses the flaws in the team and tells us what they are working on. It shows that he knows the fans are intelligent, that we see what the problems are, and that he’s addressing them. It feels like a sign of respect.
Anyway, it was bad but it wasn’t all bad. Both goals from Arsenal were good fun. The first started with a Xhaka pass in to Saka. I watched that sequence so many times. Xhaka had been passing up passes to the forwards and then suddenly hits one to Saka, who then just turned into offense and played in Auba who chipped a lovely cross to Laca. Something you might not have noticed about that goal is that Willian makes a run into the box which takes the defenders, giving the space to Lacazette for the goal. And credit to Lacazette as well: he makes a perfect run right to the penalty spot – allowing Auba to just chip the ball in to an area which gives the attackers a good chance. As good as everything else was about that play, it was the movement (of Willian, Auba, and Lacazette) that made the goal.
And the second goal was also a product of great movement. One thing that bothers me about the 343 is that we keep both MFers far too deep. If we have to play a back three (which I think is a bit of a scaredy lineup) then I’d rather play a 352 with a creative MFer in the hole behind two forwards. I know that’s a bit narrow in defense but what we are doing now is often very strange and difficult to watch: Kolasinac or Tierney coming out of defense to play a fullback-ish position with two guys in front of them on the left and then no one coming out of the back on the right because – let’s face it – Roberto Holdinho isn’t great going forward.
But! We saw a bit of a new thing from Arsenal yesterday: Willian was popping up in central areas (where I think he really should be playing) and Ceballos got forward more often (where I think he should be playing if Willian isn’t in that space). And so it was Ceb’s run that created the chance for Arsenal’s second goal. Up till that point we had lacked so much quality in the final third and our final ball into the box was so poor. But Ceballos made an excellent run and Nketiah held his run perfectly so that Ceb could put it on a plate.
It was also fun hearing Arteta on the sideline. You could hear him the whole match but my favorite part was toward the end of the match, Arsenal were winning, Nketiah got the ball and Arteta yelled “EDDIE, EDDIE, CORNER EDDIE.” Then Nketiah passed the ball to Auba inside and Arteta yelled “EDDIE??!!! WHY EDDIE??” That made me laugh.
Anyways, Arsenal have 6 points from two games and that’s huge. We also face Leicester and Liverpool next and that’s going to be an extremely tough run of games over 8 days.
Leicester are a crazy pressing side and Liverpool deploy a high press. Pool just beat Leeds 4-3 and Chelsea 2-0 and they are going to press our back line and force errors. They also have the exact midfielder that Arsenal need – Thiago – plus huge depth in midfield and attack. I expect Arteta will be working on a lot of things to prepare for these two matches but I’m not sure he can get miracles out of this team in the next 8 days. So, I’m setting my expectations very low!
Number of things stuck out:
1. Lots of poor passing yesterday. Not sure why it was so much worse than the first match.
2. Holding is a little slow. He’s smart, works hard, a decent tackler. But a little slow, Definitely needs to be paired with a faster partner, ala BFG and Kos.
3. The drop in class from Tierney to Kolasinac is substantial. A lot of attacks petered out with Kola.
4. Still wonder if maybe we sold the wrong keeper. Leno still doesn’t look great on crosses and corners.
5. And yes, creativity in the midfield is still an issue. Ceballos and Willian help, but I don’t think either is the full solution.
It’s going to be interesting against Liverpool. I actually think our defense is better than Chelsea’s at this point, but still.
I think bad passing can be attributed that Westham were better organized than Fulham(Fulham honestly made it quite easy for us) and clogged the center. This was a similar game to the game v Spurs and Aston Villa: midblock that prevents us from moving ball quickly through the center and more mistakes that led to dangerous moments near our goals. This time we just got away with this one.
I think after 15 minutes I’d started doing other things. What made it an even tougher watch was all the games yesterday leading up to AFC – WHU were fun.
We missed Tierney massively. We’re very dependent on his build-up play.
Thought Gabriel, Auba, Ceballos and Willian all had goodish games.
Agree that Holding isn’t the long term solution. He’s just holding (lol) until Saliba is up to speed.
Damn it’s been said a million times but Xhaka is such a passenger for us. He neither stops their attacks or starts ours. Yesterday was crying out for a leader in the centre of the pitch and that’s what we don’t currently have.
Six points is worth celebrating. Looking ahead we usually play better against the big sides.
Why would your expectations be low? He’s beaten Liverpool the last two meetings and up until his team went down to ten men against Leicester, Arsenal were leading and winning that game. I believe Arsenal’s fans are so scarred by the last ten years that anything resembling an average performance is met with a wave of over analysis and negativity. Arteta has worked wonders in the short few months he’s been in charge including winning two trophies. In 31 games his record is W19D6L6. One of these losses was played with ten men. That’s a 61% win percentage with a tremendously unbalanced and disjointed squad, far less talented than what Lampard and Ole inherited. I think we need to chill on the negativity just a tad.
I’m guessing the negativity is on the squad, not what Arteta can do with this team. I would thing the squad has been over achieving under Arteta and we do have an unbalanced squad.
We need to reduce the number of CBs, as well as upgrade on the midfield to get consistent performance and results.
Spot on observations on our game Tim. It was torture for me rather than boring.
Thank heavens for Saka’s vision and through balls. Even though he struggled for much of the game, he made the decisive contributions. We desperately need a midfielder who will drive the team forward and find the forwards with incisive passes and create opportunities to score. Until we find that player we will continue to struggle against teams that play the low block.
Until we sort out our midfield we won’t be able to control games against teams like the Spammers or go to places like Anfield with optimism. I know we beat the Dippers twice since lockdown but despite the transformation achieved by MA8 so far, we can’t rely on this team producing consistent performances.
Today I watched the Chavs lose to the Dippers and rather wish we had pushed the boat out for Thiago. I do hope we have someone with similar qualities lined up.
I think your low expectations for the next two games are entirely justified.
Why would Thiago come to us? He has been playing with champions. Now not even Man Utd
can attract top players…
I think the flow of the match should have showed Arteta that playing 343 is not sustainable in the long run. As you noted our 2 midfielders are too deep. This also means that our centre backs are also deep. That’s 5 players playing deep. Plus 2 wide players who have to cover the whole length of the pitch along their flanks. Basically this formation means we have 7 out of 10 outfield players who have to be conscious of their defensive roles.
We will not bring back Wengerball this way.
I guess after losses to Spurs and many draws last season, Arteta may be hesitant to go all out attacking against teams we are supposed to be better than but that’s where the hard work has to be.
Ancelloti has found a way to balance Everton’s midfield play after three seasons of mimicking Emery’s version of playing 433 with 3 central midfielders and no creative anchor.
Arsenal has Ozil rotting somewhere but until we bring in creative playmakers, he is our best hope to produce chances for the team.
If Arteta is able to bring in Aouar, will he retain this present formation?
Our problem is not that West Ham played yesterday. Our worry is that Arsenal did not play well.
Another observation I have is that by loading the left side of the pitch, we allow Auba the freedom to be in better scoring positions than Laca who supposed to be our top 9 but who is mostly slated for his lower scoring rate because he often has to come deep and be the extra body in midfield that our buildup often requires. Would Auba be producing this much, if he has to play in the middle in our current system? I don’t know.
I’ve seen Leicester create loads of chances against Burnley today by overloading the midfield with very good ball players. That was Wenger’s strategy in UCL 05/06 when he believed ball possession is the best way to protect your defence. Someone needs to remind Arteta of that.
Worth observing that since his arrival, Arsenal has bought Mari, Gabriel and re-signed David Luiz. All these happened with him knowing that Saliba was also coming in.
That’s 4 investments in the defence in the same period when he has kept Ozil, Torreira and Guendouzi off the team. We were going to be fucked if we didn’t get back Ceballos from Madrid. Even at that, we are now forced to have El-neny as our midfield backup.
All these are laughable decisions.
So for me, the West Ham game is an xray of all the problems we have right now with the squad.
If I were Arteta, I would bring back Ozil and Guendouzi to the team and find a way to ease in Smith-Rowe to the team. We have to be able to play 433 against the likes of West ham, Burnley and co. Otherwise, he will soon be under pressure when teams know that by forcing mistakes from our deep buildups, the team can easily crack. West Ham has showed them the template to use already.
Time was when we couldn’t grind out positive results from playing badly or disjointedly. So I’ll take this. The goals were well taken, and neither was by Auba, on whom we’re overly dependent.
Saka, for such a young fella, sees the field very, very well. His decision making is very mature.
Bathgooner, Thiago wanted to go to Liverpool, however far we pushed the boat out. I’ve got serious transfer envy over that one. And look at the fee!
btw, Tim got the new Son/Kane dynamic spot on in a recent post.
Tim, if you have an extra mortgage spare, I highly recommend a reef tank. It requires constant maintenance and I find the when Arsenal are playing badly, cleaning the skimmer and taking care of coral business is better than pacing behind the couch. It’s less fattening than baking also.
Of all the recommendations I’ve heard on this site…
This has to win for originality. A reef tank! I genuinely thought this was code for a grow-op, but it’s a real thing!
Dude, I love thinking about you hovering assiduously over your tank with cleaning implements at hand. Please tell me you also wear goggles and a rubber apron as well, just to complete the picture of a clandestine serial killer!
Coral business!
I’m crying.
Wet work…
During the Emery era, I had the tidiest reef tank in NJ.
Goggles and rubber apron would be a bit weird. I usually dress like a clown and use a chainsaw when cleaning the tank.
Ha! Nice.
What the game showed is that we still come unstuck, when we’re faced with a team that pack their defence and midfield leaving no space to work in. It’s the template for how to beat Arsenal. The good news is we didn’t actually lose in that scenario, which is what often happened last season. Not convinced with Laca when we’re presented with that. Too static a lot of the time. His movements aren’t sharp enough for my liking. I actually preferred the West Ham bloke (Antonio?). I also think Eddie gives us more of what we need in that regard. A live wire. A lot more “Vardy-like”.
Defensively, we allowed far too many crosses coming in, which we still don’t deal with effectively. We’re going to have a lot more to deal with, facing the Liverpool full backs next week.
Missed Tierney. I’d love to know how players get injured in a warm up, but they do.
I have said it over and over again, Arsenal is now becoming a boring FC to watch and this has been last season. Am amazed why you lot are yet to accept this. Our last watchable game was against the 2-2 draw against CP last. We started out with a 4-3-3, played well first half and collapsed in the next half. Arteta knows that he doesn’t have the quality in the middle to give you all something watchable. So what does he do he makes the team a very systematic machine, gives everybody a role with know free movement albeit one player- Willian. He also becomes highly tactical, now its more about controlling the game without the ball. To him it also important he gets more bodies for our defence incase he is hit with a counter and stronger players wide defensively to stop crosses. He also increased on field discipline and team togetherness. This is the Arteta game for now.
I thought we played more in the WH game than against Fulham. Our two midfielders definitely had more touches in this game than the last. But the question is what they do with their touches and passes. In the first half we had much of the ball and that one rare forward pass from Xhaka led to a goal. Auba and Saka made so many forward runs and the few long passes were bad. Early in the second half Ceba and Xhaka tried more forward passes but somehow our final third passes became seriously flawed. WH equaliser gave them belief coming into the second half and they began to press higher. ARS weren’t creating chances, lost belief and retreated, allowing WH to play while they summoned belief. Alas they summoned it during the last minute and Ceba late forward runs made the diff.
For me watching the game I enjoyed it more than the last game. But I wonder 2 things; how do you have like 6 bodies in the box and still concede the goal or chances we did? And why does Ceballos leave his runs until late in games?
Finally if you know what Arteta is trying to achieve you should enjoy the non-footballing side to our game- like tactics and structure. Plus this is the most tactical game you may watch all season. Big kudos to David Moyes. The quality of individual players in different positions made the big diff between the two teams.
the passing was unusually poor yesterday but i’m not going to lose my hat over that. as i implied, poor passing is untypical of arsenal. likewise, i didn’t care for the all too predictable pass to auba over the top. because the passing was poor, they over-hit some balls and played others too skinny, allowing the keeper to collect.
despite that, arsenal still found a way to win and i’m happy with that. arsenal simply had better players and that was the difference in the game. also, despite his less than stellar passing, ceballos made some big plays.
i’m not a fan of the 3-4-3 and i’m still of the belief that a quality cdm can alleviate many weaknesses arsenal has. the biggest value would be that it would allow arsenal to move to a back 4 and employ a creative midfielder to facilitate the arsenal attack. we saw that missing cam on display yesterday. while i love ozil, he drifts to wide areas a lot. what i like even worse than the 3-4-3 is a 3-5-2. you can do so many things with three up front, both in attack and defense. i’ll always prefer a front 3.
Great post.
Three things bothered me in particular about the game: 1) overall lack of sharpness in our passing game 2) Arteta not feeling confident enough in the team to switch the system on the fly and NOT rely on Kola (he might work in some system somewhere, but not here) and 3) Lacazette scored a nice header, but he passed up or fluffed several chances to shoot – I would love to see him more aggressive in the box.
2 and 3 are the most concerning for me. 1 happens, but 2 and 3 point to personnel issues.
On the topic of personnel, I regularly hear people ask, “but where will *insert a certain creative French midfielder* fit into this system?” The answer, I think, is that he won’t, because Arteta is not wedded to this system but is looking to move the team towards a more sustainable and adaptable way of playing. I can’t believe that Arteta doesn’t see how deep our two midfielders often sit and the problems this causes, but I don’t think he has the personnel he needs to fix this.
Hopefully the club will move to address the personal issues in the upcoming weeks. If not, Arteta will need to find a way to adjust to not always having Tierney in the team (amazing how vital he’s become) and find a way to get some final third creativity from what we’ve got.
Tim – enjoyed the bit about Eddie not going to the corner. I was screaming the same thing during the match. Yes, it was a very dull affair. Since they were sitting back, it put the onus on our guys to create and exploit space. Not our long suit.
Thanks for pointing out the intelligent play by Laca to score. By holding that run, he finds himself all alone. He’s been getting trashed by Arsenal fans lately, and while I understand he has missed opportunities, he’s doing a lot in build up and even tracking back. Did you see the one time he ran the length of the field to help stop a break? Everyone loves to baet him up about missing chances, and yes, he has missed his share, but #narrrative against him is in full force these days. He does a lot for the team, including 2 goals in 2 games. Let’s give him a break.
I am getting worried about how Arteta might be building his team in an attacking sense. I love seeing a clear process, but if it looks like it is heading in the wrong direction, I become worried. There is so much to love about Arteta as a manager and his Arsenal side. He is an amazing communicator, organizes his side well and has an amazing ability to get players on side with what he is trying to do. He also seems to be very good at developing players or at least one-to-one coaching. He has so many positives, but I feel like his weakness might be what seems to be prevalent in most young (30s) coaches.
The new breed of coaches (Laptop coaches) across Europe are very tactically astute, with a clear way of playing and where each player has a particular part to play in every facet of the game. They use statistics very well, positional discipline is very important, every action is according to predetermined plans and have a greater focus on the entire team’s structure in game. They also have a very clear and strict identity to how they want to play in transitioning from defence to attack and from attack to defence, and its easy for their type of players to be identified. They seem to have moulded themselves according to specialist coaches like Pep and Klopp, as opposed the more flexible Arsene, Ferguson, Ancelotti, Allegiri, heynckes and most recently recently Zidane, who are not perfect in any way.
Unfortunately, Pep and Klopp, have their own weaknesses that are masked by the quality in their squads. These young coaches are often too fixated on their plan or their way, that growth becomes hard for them as they aren’t willing to learn or alter beyond their vision. Their devotion to their way, strictness of system and the controlled actions of their players turns their coaching into a physical version of playing a video game. The type of player becomes more important than quality of player, which is fine in certain circumstances (Rugby World Cup winning Springboks), but Burnley have the right players for their side too and they aren’t worth emulating.
I just feel that Arteta’s strengths are going to be his biggest weakness. His ability to organise is going to stop him from creating a proper deadly attack, because creativity does not fall within a structure, it is given a plartform by taking a risk and loosening the structure to allow room for it to thrive. If a chance is created in a pre-planned manner, it is not creative, it is just according to plan, and if a goal is scored from that action, it is an assist in name only. Creativity is about improvisation and a player’s own imagination, and I fear that Arteta’s Arsenal will never be set up as a structure to facilitate such.
Before he left for university, I had a conversation with my younger brother about the whole Ozil situation and we ended up with the same conclusion. Ozil is the best at what he does in the world, but isn’t suited to every kind of team. We tried to come up with any player around that can provide Arsenal with what he brings and came up with nothing. Why is that? because by watching his clips and comparable players, Ozil shows the difference between a final ball and an assist in its truest sense). Kevin Debruyne regularly targets a particular spot, hits a particular run and sometimes plays the amazing pass, but he is a very good technician to do what he does, but most of it isn’t creative, it is pre-planned and leads to the now familiar City tap in at the far post. Kolasinac was supposedly our most creative player under Emery in his first season and Saka in his second, but all they did was play the final ball. Is it creative to do what you have been told or planned in training to do? Is a planned set play creative in game? Do any of those count as assists? they deserve plaudits for being there and playing that final ball, but creativity comes in when set plays don’t work out. Ozil though? he is a very efficient and deliberate player who is very good at matching the improvised/unexpected runs of teammates with equally creative/unexpected passes. In some ways, Ozil’s (whom unlike Kevin can’t do anything by himself) best attribute is that he rewards chaos. His most prolific times as a footballer, he has had players who had the freedom to move in free-form, and was intelligent and technically capable of reading their intentions and rewarding that imaginative movement with an assist. Our big game struggles or the games where we heard players say that they were afraid, were his worst because his teammates had stage fright. If only rosicky could have played with Ozil more, because he was never afraid on the pitch and took risks in any game.
So Ozil’s inability to fit in with Unai, Freddie and Mikel finally made sense to us. They may not be completely similar as coaches or at the same level, but all of them have one thing in common. I remember after the Aston Villa loss last season where we created zero chances, Mikel said that the problem wasn’t in the personnel or any particular type of player, it was just a matter of particular set plays coming off, then I knew where he was heading. The common thing that these three coaches share is that they prefer to be in complete control of their player’s actions on the pitch, which means runs in the final third are set by the coaches and the passes to find them are also set for those designated runs. There is no place for a creative player (runner or passer), there is no place for anything outside of the plan, there is no room for problem solving, there is only Plan A. Arsene also had plan A only, but his plan A was to equip his players with the tools necessary to solve problems on the pitch, and instead of finding a balance, Arteta looks to have gone far the other way and tries to solve problems himself.
Watching Ramsey last night for Juve and seeing how Rabiot and Mkennie found him countless times,but missed or mishit far more of his runs, and then recounting how Ozil constantly found him, Sanchez, Giroud, Theo, Iwobi, Monreal and Kolasinac, I came to the conclusion that we will never see the kind of football we were used to under Arsene because Arteta isn’t that type of coach, and his football doesn’t require those kinds of players.
There will be no creative savior for Arteta’s Arsenal. Ceballos, Willock, Aour, Smith-Rowe, whoever comes will not match or even come close to the creativity offered by Ozil, not even Ozil himself will provide much now, not because they are all bad players, but because the team isn’t set up for that type of player anymore. Is that a good or bad thing? I guess time will tell.
As always, you give us a lot to ponder Devlin. Thanks for this insight! I see how structured Pep’s teams are, and I wonder whether Arteta will try to duplicate this. We do seem set on playing a certain way like it or not. And creativity/improvisation don’t seem to have a role. That may also explain Pepe’s lack of playing time. He tends to freelance and drift a bit. The only player who seems to have some license is Willian, who’s allowed to drift more centrally, and that seems pretty limited. It does take away som eof the magic/brilliance of the beautiful game when everyone’s role is so completely prescribed.
I’m hoping we can find a compromise. When I work with designers, I try to give them very clear guidelines on what’s expected. Boundaries. But I always emphasize ‘flexibility within the framework.’ Giving them ways to interpret and find new wrinkles but staying true to the spirit and style.
My hope is that once he establishes the sructure, Arteta will allow a bit more improv/creativity to allow more creative players to thrive. Right now, we are working with very strict rules. A good coach will relax these once everyone understands the rules and intentions, to let players find new ways to interpret them, responding to situations and options that opponents present. As you say, time will tell.
I think you are right. I hope you are not. Playing systematically, even creating systematically, might look really good, maybe like an orchestra, but it does not provide the same excitement as would freestyle jazz.
It is my preference that I see a team play in creative sync. Maybe Ramsey’s goal against Fulham could be one of the last such goals.
Of course, I also believe that if the players understand and execute the system and develop a deeper understanding of it and of each other (in other words, Arsene’s “automatisms”), the system itself could foster creativity, with the addition of the right players. Thiago at Liverpool, could be a case in point.
Maybe it could one day become – the players fulfill their non-negotiables, and then have fun on top of it.
I think ( and hope) that the reason MA8 has structured and instructed the players
in his way at the moment; is that he is forming the tactics to the skill levels of his current players. I think we all can agree that he is an exceptional communicator and tactician – when he has more technically skilled players at his disposal – he can modify the ‘system’ and allow more free-form play like the Invincibles. At the moment he is caught between earning points and trying to find better squad members. I’m convinced he will do it.
Necessity. Arteta is limited to the players he has at his disposal. If he wants to improve performance then the main tool he has is to work at how they interact ie systems and tactics.
I have a slight problem with this narrative about Arteta doing what he can with what he has for now. I say this because, if he was focused on the short term, the leaving out of his most technical players in a side that seemingly needs better technical players is not logical and is never used for any other facet of the game.
Firstly, our two best creative players last season were Ozil and Pepe. He isn’t starting Pepe and isn’t even considering Ozil for the match-day squad. As he is the coach and knows what he wants from his side on the pitch, he is allowed to do that.
But if your issue as a team was a lack of goals, you would not leave out your top scorers to try and make the team somehow find a way to score without them. You would be lambasted for leaving out Auba if we were struggling to score goals, especially if your main focus is results.
If your plan for playing out from the back needs a goalkeeper who can play with his feet, you do not leave out (Leno), your ball playing keeper and make the team somehow play out with a keeper (Cech) who isn’t good with his feet, it will lead to problems (as Emery found out). Right now, our problem seems to be a lack of creativity,and results are necessary right now, why leave out both your top creators from last season?
From my perspective, players like Ozil and Pepe (I fear similar types too) just aren’t made for Arteta’s football. If we are struggling for creativity with our two best creators not playing, its definitely not out of necessity, they are perfect for the short term, until he gets his players.
I love seeing a long term process finally implemented at the club, but just know that it does not seem like it will incorporate certain types of players. Lazy players? nope, complacent players? nope, Undisciplined players? nope, and unfortunately, creative flair players? nope.
I think I’ve figured out the Ozil/Pepe thing:
There are a lot of different ways to coach teams. Arteta, I think, is more rigid and wants his players to do specific things. He’s also establishing a culture at the club where players work for each other and everyone follows the same rules and shares in the burden. If the players can’t/won’t do those things then they aren’t getting into his team. It doesn’t matter how much they will add in the short term because in the long run, his philosophy will pay back bigger dividends across the entire squad and not just one or two players.
I do think that the problem Arteta has is with undisciplined players. The guys he is leaving out all have a history of doing what they want. Ozil is the king of that. My man got out of road trips constantly, was a poor trainer, and under Wenger was free to just do whatever he wanted on the pitch. Guendouzi is another player who literally runs all over the place and he was dropped after a falling out with Arteta. Ainsley Maitland-Niles was infamous for his poor training habits (which he has changed and he’s been welcomed back).
And Pepe.. well, I actually wonder if Pepe is struggling to understand what’s being asked of him.
Arteta has been very clear since he started that he wanted to establish values for the club (something Wenger was big on). Arteta’s “non-negotiables”. This is the cornerstone of infinite game theory and is explained in this video on Alex Ferguson https://youtu.be/T4T8hJFzULw I think it’s way too premature to make many/any conclusions about Arteta this soon into his tenure and in the middle of a global pandemic.
Uhm Tim, and everyone else actually…
Historically, there have been many supremely talented players who have had problematic attitudes or just not the same level of work rate as other players. These shortcomings were overlooked because of the level they could reach, where a 7/10 for them was akin to a 10/10 for most players. There are examples of players who have been at the top for the last decade and many more in the decade before, who have had certain questionable behaviours associated with them. At Arsenal alone, we have had Van Persie, who had the nerve to draw up a list of players for the team to sign when negotiating a new deal and we know Sanchez was troublesome/an asshole.
Do you think, as a coach, Arteta’s way is accommodating for top talent (we are not rich to pay them whatever) or will we have to make due with the second/third tier of top talent in football for his non-negotiables? and if so, can we be successful?
Aubameyang isn’t 2nd tier talent.
Also, Ozil isn’t a 10/10. I don’t think he’s ever been a 10, more like a 4 in training and a 5 on the pitch some days rising to a 7 occasionally and once or twice he got up to an 8 or 9. He had one good season, actually half a good season (now tell me about how many key passes he made), we need to stop pretending that he was some god. He wouldn’t even have cracked into the first era or second era Wenger teams and I doubt he would have even displaced Cesc in the project youth team. He’s not even in the top 10 footballers I’ve seen in my time as an Arsenal supporter. Maybe top 20?
Arteta is absolutely right to drop him: he’s bad for the team.
Ozil is arguably the most divisive footballer in the world. I loved it when we signed him, I loved it when we re-signed him and now I can’t wait until he leaves the Arsenal. For all that PR spin, even his boot sponsor ditched him. I’d love some prime Ozil at Arsenal, and I’m sure Arteta would find a way to play him and play to his strengths but, it’s time he moves on. His heart is no longer in football and more importantly no longer at the Arsenal (except for his massive wages, he loves pulling a sicky and collecting the cash).
There’s some food for thought here Devlin and time will tell as the season evolves. Interestingly I think many fans and pundits see Arteta as Pep-lite but that’s not the case. If Arteta had David Silva would he play him the same way as Pep? I’m not sure he would. I think as fans we’re just looking for success and this doesn’t have to be delivered in a specific (or Wenger’s) style. Tim and several regular commenters are big Arteta fans and I think you might be a little premature to suggest our coach isn’t mortal 😉
Hey Matt,
I wasn’t suggesting that Arteta’s way is wrong or that his football wont be successful in any way. I don’t think Arsene’s way was perfect in any way and I actually think every way of coaching has its drawbacks.
I just wanted to illustrate that there is nobody that we can sign who could do more for this team creatively than Ozil and Pepe. Under Arteta, we will not rely on an individual player for our creativity and the type of players that may thrive in his system might be less exciting than what we were used, but his team might end up better as a unit.
Maybe if I try using food like Tim to explain, it might help.
My point is that Arteta is serving soup, and creative flair players (Ozil and Pepe) are forks. Useful cutlery, but not fit for what is being served.
emiliano martinez saves a penalty, winning his team two points on his debut…happy for him.
Irony?
Personally I hate it when ex players have a blinder, but then I’m mean spirited!
Qq, is it my browser, or is there another reason why the comments load in such a narrow column of late?
Cheers,
Bb
HAHAH!
It’s probably your browser. There is an issue where the columns get squeezed whtn there are a ton of replies to replies but I thought I solved that.
Interesting discussion. At this time, I don’t think we can accommodate any player who is not prepared to work for the team. Arteta took over a squad that was unbalanced and lacked key roles and a team that was ‘all over the place’ both with and without the ball much like GG did. He has first to re-introduce discipline and a work ethic within the squad and discipline and organisation on the pitch. Anyone, no matter how talented in the past, who is a spanner in those works cannot be accommodated if the team is going to move in a positive direction.
Sadly one of those players is so well rewarded that he will neither put his shoulder to the wheel (he may be incapable of so doing) or leave the premises. In truth Ozil has not been the creative player we need for over two seasons. The new contract fiasco is like a morality tale. Pepe will get lots of starts this season. He just needs to get up to speed.
Once the structure and processes are in place and everyone in the squad is on the same page, creative licence can blossom. Arteta has introduced defensive organisation (the number 1 priority) and he’s now changing the personnel to address the inadequacies in the squad. It’s far, far too early for Arteta to be written off as a robotic manager.
I love your optimism and I have a feeling that Arteta as a manager will be successful. He is a highly intelligent, tactically astute and inspiring coach, and his communication skills are just incredible.
My point on his management style and why I think we aren’t “fixing the defence first, and will later introduce creativity” is because of the way the team started under Arteta, the way the team is currently playing, how it is set-up, the players he is playing and most importantly, the players he isn’t playing.
Firstly, I don’t buy this whole “Ozil and Pepe are lazy” thing. Yes, they don’t run at high pace for everything, but a lack of constant intensity and laziness are two different things. People aren’t the same and our footballing backgrounds aren’t the same. From what I have seen, they are just very bad at reading defensive situations, especially Ozil. Their shortcomings defensively don’t have stats to measure them and aren’t really too visible when watching games, and they are mostly when Arsenal play a deep or mid-block defence.
These two players regularly do not know which runners to track and this can cause overloads against us and also have two players marking one player (especially Ozil). They do not know how to use their cover shadow to block out passing options and force the opposition to divert their attacks to less dangerous positions, this allows easy passes in between our lines and direct attacks towards our central midfielders (Xhaka) or the central defenders (I am sure you all remember times where players ran through the middle of the pitch unchallenged against us). In a team that requires players to cover for each other when one commits, they fail to read these plays and our other attacking players play within themselves in fear of an attack going through the area they vacated (discouraging forward movement and overloads). They also commit rookie mistakes like marking an opponent from the wrong side (Guendouzi does this too) and directing attacks to the middle of the pitch by not recognising when and who to pressure. Ozil is the worst at all of these, which is why his best games under Arteta (and Arsene too) have come when we have pressed high, this gaves him an easy defensive assignment, which was to press high and use body shape (only one because it was on centerbacks only) to force the opposition wide (teammates took care of cover shadow by pushing up too).
This is why, for me, these two players (including Guendouzi and Nelson) will not play under Arteta and why a Willian can come straight in and play ahead of our second best player statistically last season. The indiscipline and other issues may play a part, but I feel like for Arteta, these players bring too many weaknesses into a system where the phases are supposed to support each other.
On the other hand, in a set-up where you are building a defence to be the platform for creative attacking players (Mour*nho’s template), the focus is on the base of the side (Back four and double pivot) and how it protects its goal, how it holds shape and the forward players are used in a slightly more defensive manner, but still with freedom to improvise, so as to find any potential holes that might occur when full freedom is given. That’s why Mour*nho’s teams focus on their shape and structure in the first season, their holes are then ascertained, then he makes signings to plug those gaps in his second and usually only successful year. That means, you need to play creative players, to find out the holes that show up when they are on the pitch,and then find ways (new players) to plug those holes. It not gonna work out for him at Sp*rs, which shows its not a guarantee of success, but it is the way to build for creative players.
Arteta’s side though, are built to transition very smoothly between departments and phases. The way we defend is based on how we attack,and the way that we attack, is based on the way we defend. As a side, the introduction of an Ozil or Pepe, opens too many holes and makes the structure susceptible in both phases of play, but if he wanted such players later, he would play them to find out what holes these type bring to his preferred style. If you watch how our players adjust and move, how we move the ball and how we press, its all a very fluid system which when in full flow, will be like the games against the top sides in the last 4 months and like Fulham against the smaller sides.
So not really robotic, but very much a specialist team in the way that liverpool, City, Liepzig and etc are. These teams are very good and successful, but they do not use certain types of players (from my point of view, creative, imaginative and , for the system, positionally undisciplined players).
Arteta was so clear with the Ceballos and Ainsley situation, but just cant seem to clearly answer Ozil questions, and probably would have a problem when Pepe questions start coming. He is an amazing and clear communicator, but is finding it hard to justify them not playing for his side while his system is lacking creativity because it does not make sense. If it was a lack of hard work, he could have come out a while ago and said “they are definitely needed to solve our creativity problems, but they just need to work harder and I will play them” if that was the case, no?
interesting talk. i understand your frustration, devlin. arteta has talked about changing the culture at the club. does that have something to do with ozil being excluded? possibly, but when arteta first arrived, he played mesut regularly. why the change?
there is also the footballing side. it appears that, during the shutdown, arteta changed the arsenal formation. he wasn’t winning at a high enough percentage because, even with the double pivot in front of the defensive line, arsenal were conceding too many goals. he swapped the cam (mesut) for a third central defender. it’s solidified arsenal’s defense and has helped them win more games, to include a couple of trophies. however, i believe arteta will want to resume playing with a back 4 and re-introduce the cam. we’ll see.
as for pepe, i see him more as a technical phenomenon than a creative player. his technique is exceptional. however, he still holds the ball too long and his play is too predictable. willian is simply a better premier league player than pepe. i expect pepe to be coming into his own around christmas time. once again, we’ll see.
Playing 3 centre backs enables both Tierney and Bellerin to get forward. It needn’t be a negative selection. Judging by the way our midfield was regularly being out run by even ordinary sides, I have no problem at all with having two players sharing the load in the centre of midfield. Having a “number 10”, who is more or less a luxury player? I can live without that. As a matter of interest, how many Premier teams actually play with one nowadays? I’ve asked this question before, but if you had the pick, who would you choose?
Mikel Arteta is in the business of winning football matches. Not much else, to be honest. If he thought for even one second that either Ozil or Pepe would currently help him do that, then he would have no qualms in playing either of them. The simple fact is he doesn’t think that, ergo they are not selected.
Arsenal, do the decent thing and buy Mesut out of the final year of his contract. By instinct, I’m skeptical of all “establishment”, so I’m taking the “training well”, “not training well”, “doing their own thing” arguments with grain of salt. What does any of that even mean? The club shouldn’t insult our intelligence by telling us that he isn’t good enough for an 18 man squad in what is considered to be the fourth tier competition. I’m exhausted by all the pro and con footballing arguments, and accept that Ozil’s face/game doesn’t fit any more, and he’s done at Arsenal. The player is digging in his heels and obviously trying to shame the club by demonstrating application on the training pitch (which you either believe or you dont — his manager says that he is “training well”).
Im going to hear that club is short of cash, and need money for Auaor/Messi/Football Saviour. That’s not Mesut’s problem. You gave him a contract, honour it. If he is flouting the terms of it, tear it up and dare him to sue.
Just end this kabuki dance, please.