Every day as the sun starts to set my chickens go to their roost. I’ve had a dozen chickens here at this house and of them only one failed to roost at night. She was named “Billy” (it’s Russian for white белый, because she was a fully white colored little girl) and she was quite the turd. Almost all chickens will eat out of your hand if you give them something sweet like raisins, or something high in protein like dried bugs, but Billy didn’t like humans at all, and refused to come to us for treats.
Billy spent most of her night life roosting in the apple tree. And at first I got her down and put her back in the coop, for her own safety. We have racoons here and they love to kill chickens. If you don’t lock them up at night, the racoons will eventually get them. And it’s quite gory.
Billy resented me even getting her out of the tree. She kept going higher and higher until eventually, I said “fuck it, I guess you want to die.” And I left her to roost where she wanted.
One morning, I went out to feed the girls and the yard was full of white feathers. There was a blood trail to the neighbor’s yard. I followed it and sure enough, her body was there near his trees. Racoons don’t eat the chickens, they just bite their heads off. Sometimes they eat some of the guts but I guess they don’t like the feathers.
Aston Villa is the racoon, Arsenal is Billy.
Billy, you can’t roost in trees. You can’t play passive football in every match. And you really, really, really can’t start with Willian and Lacazette up front anymore. Arsenal have basically two weeks to ponder what they did and didn’t do in this match before we play Leeds. And if we play football the way we did yesterday, or the way we did in the 2nd half against Man U, or the way we did against West Ham, or the way we did against Liverpool, or Man City, or Leicester, we will get absolutely eviscerated.
It’s super popular right now to blame Arsenal’s bad attack and we are bad. Like Unai Emery bad. Actually worse than Unai Emery bad in attack. And yesterday was a nadir in terms of how bad Arsenal’s attack was. In 64 minutes, Lacazette made just 8 passes, progressed the ball a total of 15 yards, and had just one shot. In 64 minutes, Willian made 34 attempted passes, almost all of them backward, and progressed the ball a total of 149 yards. Aubameyang had zero shots and has only had 9 total shots this season. Even Fulham have gotten Mitrovic 27 shots this season. Even Burnley have gotten Chris Wood 13 shots this season. Even West Brom have gotten Pereira 12 shots this season. Arsenal are actually as bad as Sheffield United when it comes to getting their star forward shots: Ollie McBurnie has 9 shots this season. We are atrocious going forward, so bad that it’s actually infuriating.
But the fact is that Arsenal’s defense sucks too. And I feel like I’m taking crazy pills when you all think that the defense is good just because we’ve only leaked 10 goals. Good? Not really. Lucky? Maybe. Passive? One-hundred percent.
I don’t want to hear your excuses about the defense anymore. I get it, we aren’t a pressing team – or I guess we are an occasionally pressing team or a pressing team when it suits us. What has Arteta done? He’s made players stand in certain places on the pitch. Congratufuckinglations, we are Sam Allardyce’s Bolton.
I know that pressing is difficult. It’s actually far more difficult than most fans think. Pressing isn’t just letting Aubameyang run at keepers, it’s an entire scheme: moving the ball, jockying it into certain positions, so that you can trap the ball and win it back. It takes an entire team to press. Just having Alexis Sanchez run around and wave his arms at his teammates isn’t a press.
Klopp is notorious for his pressing schemes. He spends a lot of time in training preparing his teams for how they will press (differently) against every opponent that they face. Leeds are pressing maniacs and actually they illustrate how pressing can be both good and bad: good that they win the ball back, bad that pressing, once it’s beaten, can be exposed and actually cause goals. But surely we – and I include Arteta in this WE – have to find a way to stop people from just running at us?
There are obviously multiple ways to play football and no one does all of one thing and nothing of another. There is a spectrum between “more pressing” and “more passive”. I like to think of it as man-to-man defense versus zone, in basketball terms. Though every team does some of one and some of the other, depending on the possession and whether the pressing triggers present themselves.
And sometimes one style works better against one team and another style works better against another. We also need to account for game-state: even Liverpool play more zonal defending after they have the game in their favor. (Leeds are the odd man out here. I think they never stop pressing, it’s nuts.)
But what’s going on at Arsenal is actually embarrassing. It’s not just that Arsenal are passive in defense. It’s that we are intentionally passive and intentionally passive against players who have the ball at feet. I think Arteta is doing this to eliminate errors (missed tackles, penalties, etc) but we have attempted and won the fewest tackles against dribblers. This is 100% a Sam Allardyce style of defending. It’s what Burnley do as well. Think of it as “uber zonal”: we don’t want to leave our positions because it means that we will get exposed.
That third goal from Villa was the perfect example of this. As was the 2nd actually. Villa players just were allowed to have the ball and run at Arsenal. Grealish just ran down the sideline, no one tried to stop him. Jack Grealish advanced the ball 338 yards yesterday with ball at feet. And I know that he’s really really good at that but that was 57 more yards than his average and was actually his best game carrying the ball forward this season. Not surprisingly he had a similar game against Sheffield United who are a lot like Arsenal in their zonal defending – though he had 75 touches in that match. And also not surprising that he only had 182 yards forward progression against Liverpool, with 49 touches. He only had 46 touches against Arsenal. 46 touches, 338 yards carrying forward. Absolutely a disgrace from Arsenal.
The first is just as infuriating as the third. Grealish and Barkley were allowed to just do what they wanted *on the edge of our penalty area* and no one tried to stop them. Barkley had a cute backheel, Grealish just walked the ball at our centerbacks, then he must have lulled them to sleep because they let Targett walk past them, who crossed the ball unmarked, and no one bothered switching on to Trezeguet until it was too late.
You play football like that and you deserve to have your ass whupped.
Arteta took responsibility after the match and as well he should. We were 2nd to every ball, we were weak in challenges, we let players just run right past us. The back three was utterly useless. The front three even worse. The midfield non-existent and just let John McGinn boss them around. I got some blowback for pointing this McGinn thing out because he’s apparently a highly rated MFer but come on, folks, he’s not special. We are the Arsenal FFS. If he’s really that good then maybe we should have bought him this summer?
And to add injury to insult, Thomas was subbed off at half time with injury.
At this point I am actually starting to despair at Arteta. We don’t seem to have a plan going forward; we don’t have a defensive scheme apart from “you, stand there”; we aren’t proactive in nearly any meaningful metric and
I don’t know what we are doing in training every week. I know that we beat Man U away but that was mostly down to them playing almost exactly how we just played against Villa. I know that you all will point out that Villa beat Liverpool 7-2 and that’s fair, they are better than maybe I think that they are? And maybe Arsenal were just tired? They had a full week off while Arsenal played Thursday against Molde. But I think if you accept those excuses then I guess you accept that Arsenal are going to finish in the bottom half of the table this season. Which, maybe you do! And I have been saying we are a mid-table club for a while now, and also I have been saying that we need patience, that the squad is really poorly constructed, and that we have a lot of poor players that are going to take years to jettison.
But it still feels like this was a really bad result. A bad result brought about by the exact playing style that Arteta is bringing in. This wasn’t a fluke. This is what happens when a team plays small margin-ball, when a team has very little discernible attacking pattern, and a passive defensive scheme. This wasn’t a shocker, it was expected.
The question, then, is what will Arteta do about it?
Unfortunately, not at all a shocker. Until we show that we can score against a deep block, teams are mostly going to sit in exactly the way Villa did yesterday and Leicester before that. United probably would have beaten us as well if Ole had done that.
Our attack is basically the worst in the PL now. There’s really very little reason that Arteta shouldn’t try something else, such as Willock, Nelson and/or Auba in the middle.
I’m willing to give Arteta the season, given what he’s got to work with in terms of personnel. And my expectations are basically mid-table. But my patience will be wearing pretty thin if he doesn’t start trying something new.
The amount of bad personnel decisions is getting to be staggering.
Scoring against a deep block is a Wenger-era problem. We are now struggling to imagine our own football as anything beyond a deep block. The universe is having a laugh.
In seriousness, he’s tried being Pep-lite and it’s going miserably. Maybe take a leaf out of Ancelotti’s book – best player in his best position, complementary players in their best positions. Broad tactical structure, rely on the footballers to play football.
It’s not gridiron where you have to write down all the ‘plays’. This is a very good squad, let them do their thing and they might save your job.
Arteta and Edu have an enomous job to rebuid Afc.
They have not got the financial backing Man.City and L’pool had and although Arteta has done great he is not a magician.
He is forced to use deadwood players and improve them like Elniney and Mustafi well they are just not good enough,Willian for free but on big wages another compremise he is past his best.
Partey,Gabriel and possibly Saliba offer hope while Saka,Nelson and Martinelli are promising.
And Auba is world class,Tierney and Leno are rocks so there is hope but please please get rid of the deadwood then build.
I’m not quite convinced that Arteta actually is that great. I am hopeful, but it has been about a year now and we are playing as badly as we ever did under Emery. This might actually be the worst attacking arsenal side we’ve ever seen.
I’m going to try to focus on the positives from this weekend, namely a sane president elect and a COVID vaccine. 2021 is shaping up to kick 2020’s sorry a**. High hopes!
Amen! Although now in the USA one needs 4 subscriptions to follow Arsenal so, like most, I was hoping for a bit more.
To consistently breakdown opponents you need to create overloads in areas of the pitch which pulls defenders out of position and makes space for chances. At City Guardiola has a plethora of one-man overloads, DeBruyne, Aguero, Sterling… players who are unmarkable one on one and demand help for defenders. Liverpool not only have forwards that are nightmares one v one, but by pressing in packs, when they win the ball it’s instant overloads. This is how Leeds produces more offense than us with lesser talent.
Outside of Aubameyang, who do we have that demands extra attention from the defenders? Nobody. So we have to create the overloads with numbers, but everyone is so pegged to their spots that it falls on Elneny yesterday to ferry the ball around, burning tremendous energy to cover big distances with the ball. It’s Unai-redux.
Reality is Gabriel seems to be our only real defender. Tierney, Bellerin, Holding, Luiz… average defenders at best. Tierney and Bellerin are good going forward, Luiz offers passing range and experience, but only Gabriel is that unit at the back that destroys space for the opposition. Until we get great defenders, Arteta has obviously decided he needs the team playing in a rigid positional system that limits our ability to overload areas of the pitch and create chances.
The worst thing for us is to go down; if we use the analogy of a blanket that’s not long enough to cover our whole body, either you pull it over your head and leave your feet exposed or you pull it down and leave your head exposed. Yesterday because we were chasing the game but positionally hamstrung we ended up trying to pull it over both our head and our feet and it tore in the middle, leaving Grealish and company to run rampant through a vacated midfield.
I’m starting to worry that Arteta learned more from Moyes than Wenger or Guardiola.
Emi has kept more clean sheets at The Emirates this season than Arsenal just saying
I was going to write a more detailed comment but it just made me grumpy poring over the game again so this is what I have. I’m disappointed. Disappointed that it feels like the wheels are falling off so soon. Disappointed the players seem like they’re losing belief. But mostly disappointed that unless something changes quickly we’ll be looking at a change of manager soon. Most of all disappointed that this is such a fantastic opportunity for Arteta and it feels like he’s fvcking it up.
There’s a couple of things that concern me about dear Mikel. He’s clearly a proud man which isn’t a fault if you can acknowledge mistakes. But he’s getting a lot wrong. Wrong approach to games; wrong selection of players because they fit what he sees in himself; wrong omission of players he doesn’t feel he can control.
By all accounts he’s very smart and I hope that’s the case. The club took a risk on a rookie and need to give him the greatest support to succeed. I think he needs a mentor, needs to figure out how to deal with players who challenge him, needs to find a better balance between control and expression. It’s clear to me he is over promoted and without guidance and dare I say it a change of philosophy this won’t end well.
A final word on squad poverty. It’s easy when we have bad games to say it’s the players. Once the window closes you play with what you’ve got. We’ve got the biggest squad in the league and Arteta is approaching eleven months in situ. When a team drops as bad a performance as yesterday it’s either poor prep by one or bad attitude from eleven-plus.
Poor Billy. As we say in some parts of the Caribbean, “when you don’t hear, you does feel.” Excellent analysis, and we can feel the frustration.
Patience, though. Arteta gained a lot of credit by winning the FA Cup. That is how it is supposed to work… for us fans at least. Boards and owners may be less forgiving. He did not improve our GD over Emery, and his side’s attacking limitations have continued to be evident. Even late Arsene sides defended better, and had healthier GDs. He needs to do something really big, to get his side back on track and to find a better balance. Bill’s going to come on here and say his players aren’t good and that’s it, but don’t good coaches get more out of their resources? I agree with Tim that we’re a mid-table side, but are Villa or Leicester better than us, man for man?
Yesterday, he presided over a rabble. Jonathan Liew put it best…at some point, Villa realised that they were the better team, and proceeded to play like it.
It’s one thing to make a big show of tossing aside your 10, your expensive young defensive recruit and your Greek Barney Rubble… but you better have people on the field who looks like they are better. He doesn’t.
I lost faith in Laca a long time ago, but I dont feel hat we can fairly judge Willian in such a short space of time. Nonetheless, they looked tactically lost out there, and it’s on the coach. Like Pep, he’s the kind of coach who kicks every ball and would run onto the field and yank people into position if he could. Interesting next few months for him.
interesting, never heard that saying said like that before. the Jamaicans I know and grew up with always said “who can’t hear, will feel” or “hard ears”.
which Caribbean country are you referring to?
We’re saying the same thing; you express it only slightly differently. And it’s an English-speaking Caribbean-wide expression. “Hard ears” is too far as I can tell (meaning a refusal to listen or take good advice).
Is it possible to befriend a chicken? Like, can you get one to chill with you? I have to say, they seem like an incredibly stupid animal.
[I can’t believe I just typed this. Honestly, I’m determined not to talk about Arsenal today. It’s just too depressing. I’ll get over it.]
Of course! They have individual personalities, like dogs, cats, every animal! Some are sweet, some are mean, some just don’t like people.
Uh, yeah, so what does a “sweet” chicken get up to? Like, do they follow you around and stuff? Give you affectionate pecks and the like? Can you pet a chicken?
Cant wait to see where this all goes, Bun…. 🧐
of course you can pet a chicken! they come running over to me when they see me. I’ve even had chickens that wanted to snuggle on me. I don’t recommend it though because, well, they’re kind of filthy animals!
I suppose if I was going to end up with my throat cut, as part of Sunday lunch, I might be a bit resentful.
I don’t eat my girls. These are layers. They give us eggs, which is good enough.
Raising meat chickens is an entirely different process and genetically modified bird. First off, most chicken you eat in the market is only 6 weeks old. My girls are not even out in the yard at that age! Second, raising meat chickens is done almost entirely in an enclosed pen with no human contact. The birds (which are male and female) are fed with a machine and the entire process is very clinical. All my girls have names and are buried in graves when they do eventually pass away.
Ha 🙂
Also, 1NIL, these last couple of days I was hoping for your thoughts on the bass!
Every band I played in, we were only as good as our bass player. Always found it one of the most difficult players/positions to find, partly, I guess, because most people who wanted to play a stringed instrument in a band gravitated towards the guitar because it is/was seen as a virtuoso instrument.
Hey my friend,
The bassist is often s the most under-rated, most unassuming player in the band. But he/she bring all the instruments together to provide that rhythmic foundation.
Sometimes, they’re the best musicians in the band, A certain soon to be octogenerian (2022, I think), left-handed bass player comes to mind. I love John and Ringo and especially George but there’s no denying who had the greatest chops.
The bassist is the rhythmic foundation, the bassist supports the harmony. The three most important elements of music are rhythm, harmony and melody and the bassist supports two out of the three.
Here’s my girl Talia showing how it’s done!:
TAL not Talia, of course.
That’s amazing. Even more so given that she was only 21 when she played that club with Beck.
A couple of people were suggesting their favorite bass players in the other article, and here I’ll just throw out one of my own: Stefan Lessard from Dave Matthews Band (which also happens to have one of my favorite drummers of all time).
Back to guitar, I’ve been learning a lot from Tom Bukovac lately. His homeshoolin’ youtube videos are fantastic.
Good shout out on Lessard. A truly phenomenal bassist who was often a guest of the Dave Matthews Band is Victor Wooten. An absolute genius whose funky style I love. Reminds me a lot of Jaco Pastorius who’s a fixture on any greatest bassists lists.
I love Robbie Shakespeare (& Sly Dunbar of course) and would there even be funk music without Bootsy Collins?
Oh, and Geddy Lee. RIP, Niel Peart. They made incredible polyrhythms and some of the most complex heavy rock ever created. Alex Lifeson is another discussion all by himself.
Thanks for the post Tim
Yesterday was a really poor game for the defense. We have no chance to get any type of resul if we concede 3 goal. However, for most of this year the defense has done well in terms of conceding goals. Right now the biggest problem we have is we have not scored a goal from open play in about 3 league games and we have only scored 9 goals in 8 games. By comparison our defense has been excellent.
For the last 2 years we have been heavily dependent on Auba to score and if he does not score we are always in trouble. We have not had any creativity for those 2 years but Auba has not needed it and he was still scoring lots of goals. Unfortunately so far this year he is not scoring. 2 possible explanations. 1) He is in a short run of bad form which will end soon. 2)He is 32 and starting on the downside of his career arc. Time will tell which one it is.
Auba is being wasted on the left. This is someone who would walk on and start for most teams anywhere in the world and score for fun. He desperately needs to be playing as a classic , lone, central striker, supported by our attacking midfielders. Instead we’re barely scoring anything at all. Just 9 goals in the Premier League. Abysmal.
Auba has played on the left for the last 2 years and been highly successful. He has been struggling so far this season for some reason. I don’t think our midfield and overall creativity is that much worse this year then it has been for the last 2 years but I suspect part of the reason Auba has been less involved is down him not playing well.
Before yesterday we were the best in the league in terms of goals conceded and our defense has been significantly improved since Arteta took over last year which is a pretty large sample size. I think we can hope yesterday was a just a bad day and hopefully a one-off.
nicely put Tim,
it appears spiders are just chickens with more legs and arteta is a spider with too many chickens.
Point being, it seems decision making has become the kryptonite to our Spanish kal el.
As one of the greatest poets once said, “the plot thickened, I dipped my fingers in its sauce”.
“Arteta is a spider with too many chickens” send tweet
So Tim, what’s the solution ?
Pay me 10 million Pounds a year and give me a three year guaranteed contract and I will tell you.
“So Tim, what’s the solution ?“
Cut down the apple tree?
Too late for Billy, although cutting her wings (,relax, I meant wing feathers, I’m not a monster), would’ve saved her… maybe.
First step, Doc, is to stop coaching professional footballers every minute of every play during games.
It’s embarrassing for Arteta but especially embarrassing for the players who play scared $hitless for fear of making a mistake.
You’re nine months into the project and if the players don’t know what’s required than you haven’t been doing your job in training.
Rodgers has half the squad missing with injuries but somehow manages to get the newbies play while he takes his notes.
I’ve seen coaches give out directions to players mid play but Arteta has taken this to a ridiculous level.
Maybe someone should tell him opponents have ears too.
I trimmed her wing (you only trim one wing). Even if you clip their wings they can still jump/fly surprisingly high.
Yeah, I think there are a lot of problems and not one easy solution. But you’ve nailed a big problem. Ancelotti also has Everton playing well and he’s known as a less strict coach, though it takes all types and maybe this is the type we need?
I think another big problem is starting Auba wide left and Lacazette in the middle. This is such a weird formation because Laca is not at all the kind of guy who is great at headers, at holding the ball up, or at bringing others into play. The first bit (headers) is the part that bugs me: he’s had 20 headed shots in the last 37 PL matches, he had 20 headed shots in the previous 97 league matches. His conversion rate has actually dropped so he’s not getting better at them. But it just seems like whipping in crosses to a forward who is 5’7″ (him and I are the same height, in CMs) in the Premier League where you have giants all around is going to require some insanely accurate crosses. That said, he has 9 shots this season, 5 of them have been headers, he scored one and did have a 20-24% header against Villa. So I think that as improbable as it sounds, it looks like the plan is to get Lacazette headers.
It seems so counter-intuitive.
Another things I would do? I would make my team more proactive. Especially defensively. I just abhor passive defending. But if you are going to play Allardyce-ball, one key thing that we are missing is killing the clock. You have to kill the clock.
First , thanks for the Billy story ,Tim.
Arsenal have been so bland that a story about flying chicken murdered by a blood thirsty raccoon was more compelling than watching us play, even when we’ve won.
My grandma kept chickens and she clipped both wings of some of the more adventurous ones who flew over fences, and it worked.
Maybe Billy was a superior athlete , god rest her soul lol.
ha! My apple tree has low branches, about two feet off the ground. But Billy could and did jump the 4ft fence. She was a hassle. I was relieved when she died!
“The chicken who wouldn’t roost “ would make a great short story for kids……….. kinda like the “ The Tortoise and the Hare” , or “ The tale of two mice”.
An instant classic Tim. A tiny bit more gory but perhaps in keeping with the times. Lol
” But if you are going to play Allardyce-ball, one key thing that we are missing is killing the clock. You have to kill the clock.”
Oh Lord!!
What have we become?
A complete lack of movement up front. There’s nothing a defender likes more than a forward who stands still. The ones who give you nightmares are the ones that are constantly on the move. You get tight on them and they spin you. You stand off them and they turn and run at you. Ask any “park footballer” and even they will tell you the same. Good strikers know how to operate in defender’s blind spots. “Where’s he gone?” Witness Jamie Vardy, or even Ollie Watkins on Sunday.
Which brings me on to Arsenal, because our forwards do none of this.
Does anyone here remember “Table Football”? It’s what British students used to do, before they invented video games. For the uninitiated, what happens is 4 blokes stand around a glass top table and operate their players using long handles which they turn. Anyway, if you’ve ever witnessed this, then it is Arsenal football to a tee. Players in straight lines, who never go past the opposition.
Ergo, if we do manage to score, it’s almost a freak occurrence. Very rarely the result of sustained pressure. The few players who are actually capable of taking on players ie PEA, Saka, Pepe, Willock, either play out of position. or don’t play at all.
Mark’s description is right – I think they call it foozball or something in the US, ya weirdos.
Not only were we stuck in lines but those lines were way too far apart, I was yelling at the screen for the back 3 to move up. Part of our attacking problem I think is that the back line aren’t adept at controlling space when we are in possession. When we passed it around at the back on Sunday it was so frustrating to watch. Our defenders stayed too far back, too far away from our midfielders. This either means our lines are too far apart, or to close them back together it forces the whole team to drop deeper, which means our forwards are further away from goal, more easily marshalled, and try increasingly riskier plays to make something happen. I would have brought on Luiz for Willian I think, pushed Holding right, Gabriel left, Bellerin and Tierney playing higher up, to get the ball circulation and pass penetration going.
Also, Auba deserves at least as much criticism as Laca and Willian, at least those two are having touches and getting on the ball. If we’re being scrupulously fair, he should also get dropped on current form and I suspect when Martinelli’s fit he might be.
I’m sure Arteta is there on the touchline yelling at him to stay high and wide, but give the man some license to roam a little deeper, please, make overloads in midfield, force the right back to track him, ask some different questions, SOMETHING
At the moment, on current form (which is all you can ask for) I would like to see us start Willock in Laca’s position, with any two out of Auba, Saka and Pepe on either side. CMs any two of Partey, Elneny and Ceballos depending on rotation / fitness, and back 5 of Tierney, Bellerin, Gabriel, Luiz and Holding.
Tim
Superb analogy. It was like driving to the point. I will say it again, Tim you should begin on a book. It could be a collection of short stories too.
Coming to Arsenal, Arteta seems clear headed, albeit obstinate and prejudiced to an extent. With his discipline would be a great success as a coach. He needs an Authority figure above to rein in his deficiencies. Do not know if Edu is good enough. Wright or Vieira would be appropriate for the Director of Football role and no Manager, so long we have a rookie.
I agree completely that conceding 3 goals and the performance and the result against Villa were miserable. However, on balance, I think that game was an outlier we are being overly harsh on Arteta. Last season he took over a team that was in the lower half of the table and falling fast and was on pace to concede in the high 50’s in league goals. He took that team and reenergized it and significantly improved the teams defense and the fact we won the FA cup and rescued European football last season was amazing. IMO.
He can only work with the players he has available and his goal has to be setting up the team in the way which gives us the best possible chance of winning games. He grew up in the Barcelona youth system and played several years for Arsene and learned how to coach from Pep. To suggest that he either can’t or does not want to play a more open attacking brand of football seems or is not smart enough to understand different tactical tweaks seems completely unimaginable. He has an army of assistant coaches to help him and I am sure he has watched tens of thousands of hours of film and I assume he and his coaching staff have concluded that the way he is setting up the team to play is the best way to get results given the talent level of the team. We are a team that is woefully short of fire power upfront. We don’t have anyone not named Auba who is a legitimate threat to score any game and realistically the only way we are going to succeed right now is to play solid defense and make our team difficult to beat and with thats what he did last year to rescue European football and with the exception of the Villa game that is what has happened this season.
Liverpool finished in 8 place in Klopp’s first season and 4th in the 2nd and 3rd. It wasn’t like he transformed the team instantly and he had to completely rebuild the squad he inherited. I think he also had more money and a couple players like Coutinho and Raheem Sterling that he could sell for big money. . The Arsenal squad was in terrible shape and going downhill fast when Arsene left and we didn’t have even a single player that we could have sold for big money. Its going to take time and there will be a few more missteps before we can truly rebuild the squad. IMO.
love the bass guitar talk. we were talking bass a few months back when tim was contemplating getting one for his daughter. 1nil, i was thinking geddy lee as well. likewise, i believe that a good bassist is like a good cdm for all the points you mention…they dictate the rhythm of play and are often the smartest players, but get very little credit. people don’t realize how important they are until they’re not there.
you guys have made a ton of great points. tom, i agree with you 100%. arteta has to allow players to think…he can’t think for them because the game is too fast. all of that talk from the touch line is frustrating for players. mark, likewise with your talk about more movement than simply vertical runs; attacking players have to be more dynamic. the good points in this thread are endless.
there’s an old saying that a soccer team needs piano carriers and piano players. right now, arsenal have no piano players on the roster to facilitate the attack. arsenal is set up for the front three to score and create everything for themselves and that is unlikely to find a sustainable success. you have to be able to create from midfield. it’s also boring football to watch.
it’s not the player’s fault. the strategy is flawed. it’s unfair to blame lacazette, willian, or aubameyang. likewise, it’s unreasonable to think that throwing young guys into a situation that’s proven difficult for seasoned professionals is the way forward. lastly, aubameyang can’t play with his back to goal…he’s best facing the goal. this is where arteta has to earn his keep. it’s difficult to change the strategy mid-season but arsenal will continue to struggle creating chances if they don’t change. the current strategy is good for cup competition but not for league play.