Top ten predictions after matchday 6

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1. Prediction is harder than normal with no home crowds. Away wins have gone up from 27.6% of results to 36.9%, at the expense of fewer draws. What that means over a season I don’t know and will leave to wiser stat heads, but I guess it introduces more variance (higher average number of points per game) and therefore more noise / unpredictability?

   I’d put Arsenal somewhere around 7th, but honestly our range of realistic finishes is anywhere from 5th to 11th. So many uncertainties, and a lot depends on how quickly we can see sustained improvements.

2. Smith-Rowe will save us.

   1. the blonde kid

3. Hm, did you forget about Liverpool, or you think they will finish below the 10th position?

   1. I did! lol.

4. It’s still between City and Pool for me, with Spurs , United and Chelsea fighting it out for the remaining top for.
   Everton, Leicester , Arsenal and Wolves in no particular order are next.
   Villa,Leeds,WHam and Saints in the next cluster.
   But if I had to commit:
   City
   Pool
   Spurs
   Chelsea
   United
   Leicester
   Arsenal
   Wolves
   Leeds
   Villa

   1. Yeah, I said 6th was the highest this Arsenal team could finish this season, but probably 7th or 8th is more realistic. I just have to believe that we can outlast the likes of Leeds and Villa, and maybe Wolves, just based purely on the hopes that we have a deeper squad to tap into in a hectic season.

      1. We have 9 cbs and already an injury crisis! Mustafi against Man U…

5. Wow. Quite the predictive table.

   I think we’re better than our suggested position, but I would say that as a gooner, wouldn’t I?

   Auba is the only elite player in our forward line, and I like and believe in Saka a lot. He will be a tremendous player for Arsenal and England. But if Auba gets injured or big time loses form, we will struggle for good results. As you said Tim, Arteta’s method seems to be a low shot ratio that requires high percentage finishing, and without Auba the rest of the team collectively cannot give us that.

   Lacazette is a shell of the player we bought. He looks like an honest toiler out there — a trundler, as we say in cricket. Like someone just learning the rudiments of striker play. Yes, he started with goals in the first 3 games and had a goal chalked off, so you can yell at me, folks. Auba needs help — from midfield, from the flanks, from Lacazette. I honestly hopes the Frenchman shoves my assessment down my throat, and he has a terrific season for us.

   You have Xhaka in your midfield setup. I know that we have little else, but Lord help us. One of the things Arteta was supposed to be good at was in developing players, but yet he shipped off one of our brightest young midfielders to the Bundesliga, and put our expensive young French defender (our Number 4 who we couldn’t wait to get to London) on ice. Really bizarre business with Saliba.

   Tactically? Patience. Winning the FA Cup a few months ago counts for a lot in my book.

   The pick of our youngsters are Saka and Martinelli. The others are not out of the ordinary, and blond kid looks a bit out of his depth at this level. He runs around a lot, though.

6. Ha, Tim forgot Liverpool and I skipped Everton lol

7. Tim we’re closely aligned in our views. Let’s say we have a difficult season and clearly there would be a lot of disappointment but two questions if I may.

   1) Irrespective of coach where do you think our squad would place (I’d hazard a guess at 6th);
   2) if we finish outside the CL and EL spots what would constitute success? I’d be delighted with the Europa trophy but I think this season (sooner the better) we have to see a playing style established and begin to see it bear fruit.

   Apologies if these are topics you plan to cover in future posts.

8. A chastening but entirely realistic assessment. We are still less than the sum of our parts principally because of that practically non-existent link from midfield to the front three. Playing Ceballos, Willian, Partey or Saka at the point of a midfield three might improve that. Lacazette drifting back towards the centre clearly does not. ESR looks talented but has yet to prove he can deliver consistently at PL level. However I do not think any of these players can provide a permanent solution to that problem this season (Saka might long-term as he matures) and we must await a window or two’s activity to acquire a player with the necessary creative skills. Oh for the funds to bring in Grealish.

9. I won’t be surprised if the plan is to just be solid and hard to beat, and rely on individual brilliance from whoever is playing in the front three.

10. Wow, I didn’t realise that there were so many solid sides in the Premier League. If I was asked if we were better than any of those sides on a team by team basis, I would probably say yes to only Villa, and they are currently a better unit than we are. On a player for player comparison though, I think we are better than most sides. We have a top four squad in my opinion, but the use of the entire squad so muddled that it makes too many players look lesser than. An example is Alexandre Lacazette.

    I see a lot of criticism of him as a player and its been quite harsh in my opinion. Laca is a player that has his own skill set and thrives when he is played according to what he is good at and in an environment that suits him, as with every player. It has now been 2 full seasons where Laca has taken on a role that wasn’t his initially and his success in that role during Emery’s first season has made people forget that he is playing an unfamiliar role. what he has been doing for the last 2 seasons is not what he was signed for.

    Laca is a penalty box striker. Has been and was signed with what he did in that role in mind. He thrived at Lyon by not really partaking in too much of the play, instead allowing his nimble footed teammates to combine and cause havoc, then he would be awaiting for the opportunity to arise for him to put the finishing touch to the move. His best moments at Arsenal have also come that way, because that’s where he is most comfortable. Laca would conserve energy during the game, pressing little by little but always looking for spaces in and around the box, he would help in combination play once in a while, but he bursts into life in the penalty box. He has fierce power and great accuracy when he gets a chance to turn and shoot.

    This new role where he has had to start providing for Auba, dropping deep and trying to hold up play is not his natural game. He is doing a job for the team. He is playing for the system and not for his qualities. Should he judged as a bad player for not being good at what isnt natural to him? No, he is just a player doing the best that he can at what he is being told, and he is being asked to do things that are not to his strengths.

    Laca is a very good player, just like most in our squad. There are imbalances in how most of their qualities align. We are also playing them out of position with instructions that are more catered to the system than their strengths.

    Everton has built a side that allows their players to play in their best positions, making use f the qualities they have. They now have a midfield that allows James to be James,Richarlison to be Richarlison and Calvet-Lewin to be the Calvert-Lewin. They faced similar imbalances for a while, just like us. But Ancelotti isn’t a laptop manager, he just sets the team up to its strengths and tries to foster a winning mentality. Look at them now. Below us when both managers arrived, but ahead of us by far right now. They focused on their long term plan, while we are playing each game by itself, and that’s why we keep playing players out of position.

    I had faith in how we managed the FA Cup run and expected a clear vision for the future to starting this season, it feels like a continuation of it. Like we are nothing more than a cup team, and you cant be a cup team for 38 league games. There is no long term success in a team where players are playing out of position. Football is not simple, but it isn’t as complicated as Mikel makes it seem either.

    I was going for a top four finish at the end of last season, but seeing what we are doing with our players, distractions and what everyone else is doing, I agree with your prediction Tim.

    1. I agree with you with regards to Laca. he has his limitations, but many people forget how good he was two seasons ago. The problem is that if his natural role is not part of The System, then he has to adjust. He has an excuse, and we have to recognize it, but the effect nevertheless remains. And here I disagree with you on your assessment of Everton — adjusting The System to the individual qualities of the specific players is not a long term, but short term solution. Finding/retraining players to fit The System should be the long term goal.

       1. On Laca, in terms of possession he has five turnovers per 90, which is worse than average. His game is to turn and carry the ball into contact, move it forwards at all cost. Compare and contrast with Giroud who has 2 turnovers per 90 (better than average), and who links it / passes and moves.

          Laca might be doing better if he had more players closer to him and running off him that he could link up with. So the team could certainly help him out more, and his relative lack of success in that role may be more down to team failure. But I agree that it’s not his natural game, he’s a penalty box striker.

          Interestingly it is much more Willian’s natural game to look after the ball and link play, so I get why Arteta tried him out there. Again I’m not sure if that role is a problem area for us because of personnel in that position or because our midfield is not good enough, probably a bit of both.

       2. It depends on what you term as long term and what you term as short term. If long term is over 7 years, then we can ascertain that adjusting the system to the players is wrong. In such a situation, we would be looking at building in the way that Barcelona did under Cruyff. Build beyond the first team to have the whole club playing according to certain principles and target the skills that will make the team competitive for many years to come.

          But if long term is beyond 3 seasons, then the players should be the main focus. This can even extend in the same way that Juventus, Bayern and Real Madrid have been for the past 10 years. They built squads according to a select few players who constituted the on field and off field spine of the side. Those players even created a template for their successors, but none of these teams have a set system or style that you can say they played over the past 10 years. Juventus started with Chielini, Bonnucci, Barzagli, Lichsteiner, Pirlo, and Marchisio. Bayern had Lahm, Shweinsteiger, Boateng, Robben, Ribery and Muller. Real Had Ramos, Benzema, Ronaldo and Marcelo. All of these players were played predominantly according to their strengths, and their teams thrived off of it.

          So Everton are building for the long term, which in this case is probably the next 4 to 7 years. In the same way that Ferguson and Arsene have done. The Arsenal side from the Arsene’s first season to the invincibles wasn’t built on a single playing style that dictated how the team should play. The big players fostered a winning culture and players were introduced into the team to improve wherever it needed improvement, but it was always built on the qualities of the players. Think of Overmars to Pires, both were played to their strengths in the same position. After the invincibles, a new start was needed, as is the case with such plans. Football changes and teams have to change with football, as Arsene tried after the invincibles. The amount of time is really where I think our issue lies.

          Do you mean long term, as in Barcelona 20 plus years? Or do you mean Arsenal’s 8 to 9 years? Everton are more focused on the Arsenal approach than the Barcelona approach. It is short or long term for you?

          1. Maybe my definition isn’t precise, but as “long term” I had in mind something like 5-6 years. My thought about not building around specific players is that after those players are gone in one form or another, the manager have to start building from scratch. Therefore I find (for example) the approach of Klopp more pragmatic: analyze what is the best way to paly football matches and find players that can fit into that System. That way if some of them need replacement, it can be relatively easily implemented.

11. Is something a distraction when you created it? I mean its quite obvious why he keeps coming up. We keep failing at what he at least brings, every action of his, football or non-football related, becomes a smack in our face.

    Scenario: you are at a restaurant and you are having a three course pumpkin meal.

    The starter is a cream of pumpkin and sage soup, the main course is a beef, pumpkin, chickpea and feta salad, and lastly you will have some pumpkin walnut cake for dessert.

    You are watching your figure so you decide that you will skip dessert.

    You have your cutlery on your table, but it is not the complete set. you have your salad fork, dinner fork, knife, butter knife and lastly, a dessert spoon. No soup spoon. The kitchen has no other soup spoons, so for your meal, but promise that the next time you come to their restaurant, there will be one available. For now, you will have to make do with what you have.

    So when the starter arrives, do you use the forks? knives? Or do you use the dessert spoon? Do you think people seeing you trying to use a fork to consume soup should look at you as sane when there is a spoon on the table? it might not be the one you want, but every time you struggle with your knife or fork on the soup, they will look at the spoon on the table.

    So is it a distraction when the dessert spoon is shining by the side. Or is it just crazy that a spoon is right by your side, and you are using a fork? or knife?

    My point is that he will be a distraction as long as we keep using forks and knives to consume soup. everything that he does, which he has always done will now be looked at in greater detail and make more headlines because we keep using knives and forks to consume soup. He has always done charity work, but all of a sudden it is a bigger deal because Arsenal are using Knives and forks to consume soup. He has always tweeted and played video games, but now it is looked at as a slight to the club because we are using knives and forks to consume soup.

    So he is not a distraction. He is the dessert spoon that wasn’t made for consuming soup, but will do a much better job than the forks and knives we are using. People are not looking at him, they are looking at the person using knives and forks to consume soup, when there is a spoon on the table.

    1. I think in the specific situation he is a dessert spoon, but Arteta didn’t order soup at all.

       1. So why even consume the soup? Even weirder, why consume the soup you didn’t order, with a f*cking fork or knife?

       2. The meal is the meal, in the same way that the season is the season. You deal with what you get, with what you have. You cant complain that teams are sitting back against you, you figure out how to deal with it. You don’t complain about how teams are pressing you, you figure out how to deal with it.

          We have teams serving us soup by sitting back. What do you do?

          1. I thought that by “soup” you mean Arsenal’s way of playing, not opposition’s. In that sense what I tried to say is that at the moment Arteta clearly doesn’t have a place for an attacking/creative central midfielder in his 5-2-3 system. (Although that yesterday against Dundalk he played 4-3-3 and Willock took that role).

             If you meant that the “soup” is the opposition’s two blocks of five approach, then the metaphor assumes that the only way to break that is with such midfielder’s creativity. But I personally see the solution to that in an improved team effort, by quicker and technically more accurate combinations between several players, rather than by relying on one player and waiting for his golden pass.

    2. I love this!

12. Devlin

    The problem when you inherit a team which is completely disjointed the way Emery or Arteta did is different players have different strengths and weaknesses and you can’t build a style of play that is best for each players strengths and weakness because the strengths and weaknesses do not compliment each other. Pep and Klopp had the same problem when they arrived. Pep had almost unlimited resources so he could rebuild the team the way he wanted much faster then Klopp or Arteta.

    When Arteta arrived the first priority finding a way to start winning a few games by making us tough to beat and rebuilding the defense had to be the first option. Resources are limited similar to Klopp’s situation and rebuilding the team in which the strengths and weaknesses of the attacking players compliment each other and playing the attacking football we like is going to take

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