After two Europa League matches, Molde are tied with Arsenal in our group on 6 points. So, while you might think this should be an easy tie, I get the sense that they are a dangerous team who play a similar style to Arsenal and could give us heaps of trouble.
Molde lead all teams in the EL in progressive passes per game and are 4th in progressive passing distance. However, notably, they are far down the list in final third entries (Arsenal are 2nd) but are 4th again in Passes in the Penalty area (Arsenal are first). What I take from this is that they are a deep progressive team who probably play a similar system to Arsenal but they’ve been missing a key forward who helps bring their attack together.
But while Arsenal like to use center backs and wingbacks to get the ball forward, Molde’s two central midfielders – Magnus Wolff Eikrem and Fredrik Aursnes – lead the EL in progressive passing and lead all “non-defenders” in passing distance. Arteta will surely want to mark them or press them and prevent Molde from having a free range of passing from midfield.
Eikrem is their danger man in terms of creativity. He leads Molde in key passes, final third entries, progressive passes, progressive distance, and passes in the penalty. He is 30 years old and playing a younger, more aggressive midfielder on him might be all that’s needed to keep him quiet.
Ohi Omoijuanfo is their leading scorer in the Europa League this season with 2 goals but over the last two seasons it’s been Nigerian born Leke James who has been their golden boot. He’s just coming back from a muscle strain but was quoted saying that Molde will be raring to go tonight against Arsenal. James will not be afraid to attack Arsenal’s back line and will look to link up with Ohi on counters and exploit space if Arsenal give it.
Defensively, they are an eerily similar team to Arsenal. Like in the Premier League, Arsenal tend to have a very passive defense (selectively aggressive, passive aggressive!) in the Europa League but Molde joins them at the bottom of the table for tackles, interceptions, blocked passes, and pressures. It’s difficult to tell from the data whether that’s because Molde share a stylistic similarity to Arsenal or whether they just didn’t need to play defense because of their opposition. Either way Molde’s 25 year old center half Stian Gregersen just earned a call up to the Norwegian national team so they must be doing something right.
Statistically this feels like a match where both teams are trying to play a similar type of football. In that case, I would love to see Arteta start a number of younger players (Nelson, Nketiah, and Willock) and deploy a high press. In midfield, we need someone active to shut down space for Eikrem which will probably have to be Willock (playing in a sort of advanced MFer position) though he’s not great at that but then neither are any of the other MF choices.
I would be surprised to see Thomas start this match and since Xhaka was rested at Old Trafford I expect him to get the nod. Ceballos feels like a certainty to play along Xhaka because of the little partnership that they seem to have.
For defense, I haven’t got any idea who we pick. I guess Cedric and Sead as the FBs? David Luiz, Gabriel, and Holding at CB? But with Arteta in charge, we could get a surprise Xhaka CB, with a Ceballos/Elneny/Willock midfield in front of him. It’s all very murky.
That’s what I got for today. Oh yeah, we are doing an international break and after this weekend’s match against Aston Villa. That should give us plenty of time to unpack the election results or whatever else I might feel like talking about.
See you tomorrow!
Those results are nearly clear enough to unpack too Tim.
Every vote counts. Count every vote.
See you on the other side.
Smart finish, Thierry Willock.
Saw most of the second half. As expected, scoring the go-ahead goal opened the game up and Arsenal could take advantage of that with the superior quality we have compared to our opponents on the night. The key moment then was that second own goal and it was made by Willock running behind them from midfield and the service in to him coming from a deep central area. The defender misjudges it and after that it’s a certain goal.
I was impressed with a couple of El-Neny’s passes after he came on, notably to set up the 4th goal. Unflustered in tight situations and a smart team player, he looked a class above out there and it’s great to see. I also enjoyed Dani Ceballos’ positivity running with the ball and quickly atoning for his mistakes.
Tactically I noticed Arsenal doing a good job pulling Molde both ways on the edge of their box. The threat of the ball behind them was balanced with the threat of the cut back and so they couldn’t sell out to stop either.
Yes, obviously the result needs to be caveated by the fact that it was Molde. But there was a fair amount of promise there. I’m hopeful that maybe Arteta has eliminated some of the tripping up on minnows issues that have plagued us in recent years.
As for the vote, the goal of any democracy should be to have as many of its citizens participating as is possible. So yes, count all the votes. My apologies for getting so political, but the speech tonight from Trump left me utterly furious. That type of completely unfounded rhetoric does nothing but undermine our country and democracy. He can eff right off to an authoritarian banana republic, as that is where one expects to hear that kind of thing, not in a country that has tried to hold itself up as a model.
Only saw the highlights for Molde, they looked a decent team and unlucky to lose 4-1. I was settling down to watch the whole game this morning but I’m too preoccupied with going back into lockdown in the UK with no exit strategy, and with the US election.
Sorry to be a downer but while there is a huge amount of relief at the news that it looks like Trump is on his way out, what we are left with is almost the worst possible outcome.
– more people voted for Trump this time round than last time, showing his supporters have no shame about voting for this proven, demonstrably stupid, vainglorious, cartoon, dollar store fascist buffoon
– Close Biden win, dragging out, that will have Trump’s base believing his lies that the election was stolen and lead to possible violence and unrest to come
– Republican senate intact that can easily block any of the legislation that Biden desperately needs to fight three crises at the same time – Covid, Economic and Climate – all of which need major investment such as MFA, Green New Deal, and all of which McConnell can gut, block and/or trade off for welfare cuts, tax cuts etc.
This article by Adam Tooze lays it all out (history professor at Columbia and an interesting twitter follow, didn’t know he was a political commentator too): https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/05/biden-presidency-face-obstruction-election.
I have my own opinions about how Democrats could have done better (ahem, Sanders) and while I have evidence to back that up it’s an opinion firmly rooted in my own preferences. Maybe this really is the best they could have done, which is an even more depressing notion than thinking that they are just currently constitutionally incapable of wanting to do the right thing and build a movement that people can believe in.
Don’t let the doom get to you Greg! The world will never be what we imagine it should be because we are too many and we are all different. And that’s ok. Well, a bit like at Arsenal we can’t have both defensive security and champagne football, in society we can’t have both absolute freedom and absolute inclusivity.
I hear you saying, what happened to standing up and fighting for what you believe??
To that I say, sure, do what you want. But don’t be surprised when that other side fights back. That’s the famed American freedom the world both covets and gawks at when it’s grotesque.
Me? I just think we’d have a whole lot less problems as a nation if we started to focus more on what we have in common than what we don’t.
Ach thanks for the pep talk, no worries, I’m not too doomy and I’m getting ahead of myself on the senate anyway – it’s all down to the two races in Georgia.
I’m just picking up on the common ground thing because I find it interesting. As an overall sentiment it’s noble, we have to remember we are all human, we have to lessen hate and increase love and forgiveness, we have to connect with each other, and in the end we all have to work together. So I very much agree.
But then I think of things like Charlottesville, “Jews will not replace us” and Trump’s response “very fine people on both sides”. I mean yeah, I’m sure those Nazis love their mothers. I’m sure they are very fine people who you can spend some pleasant time with if all you talk about is football or the weather, but they aren’t holding rallies to declare their love of high barometric pressure.
Sometimes you have to focus on what divides us, because what’s dividing us is racism, misogyny, hate, white power, eco-collapse, rampant inequlity, authoritarianism and the very status of objective truth, and those things actually really matter.
There’s an element to it that makes me impatient as well. It makes me want to say “Hey! I’m not the one sowing divisions which are based on lies, fear and hatred. I believe that everyone is worthy of equal respect, they don’t. Don’t talk about me, in my opposition to them, as part of the problem.”
I know you oppose those things as much as I do. You probably have less radical inclinations than me, and that’s absolutely fine. We are on the same side. But there are sides.
Fair points. It’s obviously much more complicated than “us” vs “them.” Who are “they?” Clearly not everyone who voted republican is a nazi, racist, misogynist, pro white power and anti environment. But there are people from each of those camps that do vote republican. Conversely, there are liberals who hold extreme views as well and can find a way to justify violence on behalf of those views. Maybe we don’t need to be anti-republican or anti-democrat as much as anti-Ahole. America is becoming polarized and radicalized because of the views of an extremist few that don’t come close to representing the majority. But because of the power of social media they are the most visible and not too shy to speak for the whole group. I honestly believe most poor rural whites that voted for trump did so for two reasons 1. because they think he is their best hope for economic gains and 2. Because they love sticking it to smarmy coastal liberals like us. That’s not to say they are saints or to excuse the behavior of some of these same people during rallies, but it does say that I don’t believe they really want to stand or die for those “anti-values” that you listed. At the end of the day they care about the same things we do: to live their lives as they choose, to have the opportunity to prosper, to provide for their families and to enjoy their leisure time. That’s it.
Well, the president is very openly all of those things and if you vote for him you vote for all of those things.
Thanks for the reply Doc, I’m always nervous after posting political comments, because I hate the idea of alienating others.
I agree very much that smarmy liberals exist, full-on Letter From Birmingham Jail caricatures, who profess their love and affiliation for freedom and human rights and all that jazz and then in practice love to go around bombing brown people overseas, and sticking it to the “welfare queens”, and making Black people wait some more for their full emancipation, and ALSO mocking the rural white poor, their culture and their tastes.
So if finding common ground means the poor, working and middle classes of all ethnicities and all regions unifying against those elites of both party affiliations who basically despise them and shut them out of full participation in their own economy then I am in full support, but for me it certainly means the Trump-voting whites have to move towards the left, or be moved, not vice versa.
Fantastic response Greg thanks.
Exactly Tim
Spot on, Greg. I couldn’t agree more. Even if Trump is on his way out, then Trumpism most certainly isn’t. I can’t think of a single more depressing thought. When he finally does go, you can bet your sweet life, he will take down everybody with him. I’ve made a lot of good friends on my numerous trips to the States. Nice people. My heart goes out to all of them. Tough times ahead, like you could never believe possible.
Although this is a football blog and not a political one, can I make one political comment.
At least Trump knows his opponent’s name.
It is a warning for the future that Biden thought, even for a few seconds, in public, that Trump’s name was George.
As for the football, one short on target for the first 60 minutes or so, at home, against a Norwegian team does not bode well either.
5 shots on target in the whole game. Yes an improvement on the 3 of the last game, but still worrying even if we won 4 1, with 2 own goals to start off with.
On a much brighter note, after a stodgy start, Arsenal finally got going and won comfortably in the end. Yet again, it was the “kids” who pulled us through. Willock, Saka, Nketiah were positive and bright. In complete contrast, Xhaka, Ceballos and Kolasinac were decidedly average. Sluggish, both physically and mentally. Basically, we’re stuck contractually with players we could really do with discarding. The revolution can’t come quickly enough, as far as I am concerned.
It’s going to be a struggle for Arteta to keep those senior players who don’t have a long-term future fully engaged and motivated. I include Xhaka here because I see the glimmerings of a midfield that no longer relies on him. I include Ceballos because he’s only here on loan, and assuming we aren’t going to buy him it’s Arteta’s job to transition him out.
Based on the manager’s comments to date, I expect that if they don’t stay fully engaged they just won’t be selected, and they will seal their own fate more quickly.
Very good 2nd half yesterday. Do some of these kids need to be loaned out to get 1st team starts to accelerate their development?
Joe Willock rocked the house!
I really hope we can put the election to bed by the weekend. I’m at a loss to understand why it is so close.
A vote for Trump is an endorsement for mysogeny.
A vote for Trump is an endorsement of racism.
A vote for Trump is an endorsement for cheating and lying.
I am deeply disappointed that it is so close.
End of rant.
Hi 1nil,
Long time reader here, first-time commenter.
I don’t know if it’s worth spouting opinions online, but here I go…
I will preface this by saying I am only engaging out love and the hope to have an earnest conversation.
I think it is a dangerous misnomer to associate all of those terrible things with a vote for Trump. Only because it simplifies and trivialises the myriad of complex reasons people would vote for a politician like Trump. His appeal is, admittedly, not obvious at first glance. Personally, I find him to be a reprehensible human, but when I took the time to understand his appeal the whole phenomenon made more sense to me. Ultimately, I have landed on the viewpoint that it is important to separate one’s hatred of Trump from one’s hatred for those who have voted for him. America is in a troubled place at the moment and people are reaching out in desperation for something different and it’s not always going to be pretty, but hopefully, it can be a catalyst for meaningful change.
I would like to leave a quote from a book I have been reading to sign off…
‘Fear creates more fear. Wrath creates more wrath. Joining the system of problems by offering outrage will only produce more of the same’
I hope my message is received as intended.
Peace and love to you and yours.
Great comment.