Scraping the Molde off

You should just go to Arteta’s press conference, read that, and then stop reading/listening to anything about Arsenal for the rest of the week. You could even read just one of his answers and be happy for this weekend. Asked about replicating the scoring form from the Europa League into the Premier League, Arteta gave an answer which I hope helps clear up the confusion and frustration felt by fans all over the world:

This is what we want [to do]. We’ve been more efficient in this competition. It can be down to some of the players that we utilise in certain positions, it can be because of the opposition, there are a few factors there. I must say that if we want to be fighting with the big clubs, obviously the amount of goals that we score has to improve because defensively I think we’ve had four clean sheets in the last six games, which is pretty good, but offensively our numbers have to improve.

Yep, that’s it. The formation, the opposition, both (maybe) matter but the bottom line is that if we want to be fighting with the big clubs, we need to score more goals. That’s my only frustration with this Arsenal team.

Ok, not true. I also think the defense isn’t as great as everyone else does and that we are frustratingly passive almost all the time but other than those two (small) things, yes, we need to improve the attack.

I was frustrated watching that first half. Arsenal were incredibly passive, they let Molde bring the ball forward at will, and when Molde got the ball into dangerous areas Arsenal failed time and again to close down on the opposition. Molde should have had the first goal when Sinyan latched on to a wide open cross at the far post, only to shoot it into Runarsson’s hand on the other side of the goal. And as if the gods themselves were punishing Sheriff Sinyan – he got kicked in the nuts by the upright.

That was hardly Molde’s only chance in that half. They had at least three others in dangerous, deep areas in Arsenal’s penalty box. And that’s not counting the non-shot big chance they created early on.

When I say that Arsenal live dangerously and that I feel like the defense is perhaps on the road to a good old fashioned hiding, this is what I mean.

That said, I have come to the conclusion that on defense, Arteta’s plan is to control space. It’s the ultimate in zonal defense in a sense. We are not going to mark players (or do so rarely) and only press high under certain (very rare) triggers such as the opposition playing the ball out from the back. We step into lanes to cut out passes during opposition buildup and get back quickly into compact shape when we turn the ball over up the pitch.

A lot of folks will point to the personnel on the pitch as the reasoning for this approach. It’s a decent enough argument: Xhaka is hardly going to be a Kante, so expecting him to cover the midfield by himself was a fatal flaw on Wenger’s part. We have a lot of players (especially in defense) who are either older or returning from injury and are less mobile than you might expect from a top team. So, there is a certain logic to the defense. When I complain about the defense it’s not because I don’t understand all these things, it’s just that it drives me nuts and I feel certain that it’s going to be exposed eventually. Maybe not 8-2 exposed but all it actually takes is for a few of these clean sheets to concede a single goal and the system starts to wobble.

Because even when the midfielders are more mobile, Arteta still wants them to play less adventurously. Again, maybe this is a personnel problem. Every club has what I call a “bulk creator”. Man City has de Bruyne, Liverpool has Alexander-Arnold (and two others!), Chelsea have Ziyech, Villa have Grealish (and Barkley), Man U have Bruno Penaldes, Leeds have (three guys actually), Spurs have Kane (and Son), and even small teams have at least one guy who is a creative force. Arsenal’s main creator this season has been… Dani Ceballos – 54th in the League in SCA. Willian is 2nd best at Arsenal in 72nd place on the list.

That’s why when Pepe plays like he did yesterday, and why when Reiss Nelson has a big game, we all stand up and cheer. Because Arsenal need these kinds of players if we are going to turn into a (more) attacking team. The formation is sort of irrelevant. We had two players on the pitch who could and did create (both had 6 SCA in that match). I’ve seen England play well with a 343 and plenty of teams play attacking 343. It’s not entirely down to the formation but for me more about getting the right attacking players on the pitch.

Arteta spoke about those two as well – it would have been weird if they hadn’t been mentioned. About Nelson he said:

He’s made some big steps in the last month or so. He’s shown what he can do. Again, he’s another player that wants to take you on all the time, he’s very vertical, he’s a great player when he runs in behind and he’s very unpredictable. I really like these types of players to play in the wide positions.

And on Pepe, something very similar:

We all know what his level, and all the time the question is how often he can get to that level and how he contributes to other aspects of the game. Today is the example of the level he needs to hit, and he needs to keep doing it because he is capable of it and you can see that every time he gets in those positions in the final third, he is a real threat and a very difficult player to control because he can go with his feet, he can come inside, he can shoot, he can create crosses and he can go in behind you as well. That is what we can expect from him.

And Pepe had his best match of the season. Yes, it’s against Molde, but he blew away his previous season best (which was also against Molde) in terms of carries, dribbles, and creation stats.

72 – Touches*
6 – Shots*
6 – SCA*
0.4 – xG*
0.5 – xA
199 – Yards progressive passing*
61 – Carries*
357 – Yards progressive carries*
9 – Successful dribbles*
*Season high for him
Source: @fbref

And from a qualitative standpoint I thought he looked very calm and in control for most of the match. Pepe tends to over-elaborate sometimes, to try to do too much with the ball, and sometimes to try to beat the entire team when a simple pass back to recycle possession would be the smarter move. For most of the game, Pepe played very intelligently and looked calm and assured. There were a few moments I thought that he tried too much, but overall, it was a great performance from him and something he needs to build on.

I would especially like to see Pepe running more without the ball: running in behind, getting into the 18 yard box, presenting himself as a target for crosses from Nelson, Saka, and Aubameyang. One touch to kill the ball and one to shoot? I think that’s when things are going to really open up for him.

Once he can keep defenders honest by taking quicker shots/passes and combination moves while making runs off the ball, that’s when teams are going to struggle to contain him. Right now, it’s often too easy because he collects and faces up with an opponent. But when he gets behind them and collects (especially on the left side inside the box) he is crazy deadly with that sweeping left foot shot.

A good result. Youth got a good run out but ultimately I don’t think we learned much. This team is still a work in progress. The really good news is that the next two matches in the Europa League will be two more chances for Arteta to play a youthful side and get them some experience. Plus a chance to rest the senior players for the upcoming fixture pile-up.

Qq

29 comments

  1. Another awesome post Tim

    I would caution against drawing any meaningful conclusions from the group stage Europa league games. We have consistently dominated these games since we started playing in the Europe league. We have played our youth players and scored plenty of goals and won just about every game. Same thing has happened for the last 15 years in the league cup games and early rounds of the FA cup starting around 2005 with our Carling Cup runs. Players like Bendtner, Fran Merida, Aliadiadaire, Frimpong, Walcott, Eisfeld, Bischoff and dozens and dozens and dozens of other players looked like surefire superstars. We have a 15 year sample size and unfortunately the performances and production in those games was never predictive of future performances and we could never replicate what we did in our league games.

  2. I think if we’d have had Elneny and Partey in midfield then, the defence would have looked a whole lot better. Xhaka? I see he has slipped back into “ball watching mode”. Wake up Granit, you’ll be late for school. Ceballos? Forget it. Passengers, both of them. They flatter to deceive.
    As far as getting goals. Lacazette as a focal point for our attacks? Don’t make me laugh! Has he forgotten how to run, or just decided he can’t be bothered? He makes Mesut look like a goal hungry human dynamo. He played a couple of useful one twos and had a good shot, well saved. And that was it. Captaincy? Hardly “officer material”. He could barely raise a gallop. Regularly miscontrolled it, when the ball was played up to him.
    If you go into a game with a main striker ,who is not going to get a goal in a million years, is it any wonder we don’t look dangerous?

    1. geez, mark. arsenal won 0-3. the boys played well enough to win on a cold thursday night away from home. give the boys a little credit. we all know that this wasn’t arsenal’s best eleven.

      just talking about xhaka, i thought he did okay. he’s not a great tactician but he’s grown in his time at the club and played within himself on thursday. big props to arteta for not asking him to do something he can’t. likewise, he seems a bit calmer without the responsibility of captaincy. we saw the weight of the armband negatively affect vermaelen and henry as well. once again, good on arteta.

  3. Freddie on Mesut:

    Mesut Ozil started all of Ljungberg’s first four Premier League games in charge before being substituted against Manchester City and reacting in a way that meant he would have been left out of the Swede’s squad for his last game as interim head coach at Everton – regardless of the German’s injury.

    “I have all the respect for Mesut and that was not about football,” said Ljungberg. “When we played City, he had a reaction, I can’t remember if it was the gloves, but something happened on his way off the pitch.

    “He got booed and things started, and, for me, it was about what I expect from an Arsenal player. That was not just him. There are certain things, because I love the club so much, I expect from players in terms of their behaviour and I don’t care if that’s Mesut or Joe Willock, or who it is, I will react the same. That was something I was very clear on.

    “Mesut was injured, but he would not have been part of the Everton game. It was about the culture and the foundations to put down and to say ‘no, that is not acceptable’. It was something that I felt like, to be honest, that in the past hadn’t always been dealt with. I felt it was my chance to deal with it and to show what I thought was important. That was nothing to do with Mesut as a footballer, it was just a principle of what we do. I played Mesut all the games before that because I think he’s a very good football player.”

    1. big credit for freddie having the courage to say to the world that dropping mesut was not about football.

      1. Freddie was a diva in his own time ,got sent off against spurs,fought melberg zlatan,slammed doors and all yet Wenger and his national team coach saw beyond that and used him to his best yet coaches now try to set examples without trying how to work out how best to use diva players,crazy things for me.

        1. that’s very fair. it’s like arteta trying to create a new team spirit by treating everyone the same. while i think it’s fair to hold everyone to the same standard, you can’t treat a veteran the same way you would treat an academy player. likewise, and more to your point, you have to respect the nature of footballers as young men and respect the fact that everyone is different, which is where management skill really comes into play.

          my point is that freddie had the balls to say that it wasn’t about football, whereas everyone else has endeavored to find a football reason to justify dropping the former german international.

          1. I saw Ozil’s public strop when he was substituted, and Freddie was totally right to drop him.

  4. I assume Arteta wants to do everything he can to win games and he certainly understands the club needs to score more goals. As Freddie points out, I suspect part of the problem with Ozil is based on off the field issues and attitude issues. However, if Arteta really thought Ozil could significantly improve the teams chances of winning games then I believe he would find a way to get past the other issues and use him. Same thing with Guendouzi.

    1. you don’t need to suspect “off the field issues” or “attitude issues”. freddie said, in plain english, that mesut’s reaction to being substituted in the man city game is the reason he would have been dropped.

      freddie even goes on to praise mesut’s talent but felt compelled to stand up to the principles of the club over simply playing a guy who he thinks can help him win.

  5. I think the same thing is true for Germany. I they believed Ozil was still able to improve the team they would have found a way to work around all of the off the field issues.

    1. Löw tried to talk him out of leaving, and into returning. Stop assuming and suspecting and arm yourself with facts, Bill. There is a colour called grey, you know.

    2. More to the point, though, in 2020, the era of Özil, Muller, Gomez, Khedira, Boateng and Hummels is very much over. He (and likely none of the others) is coming back, because Germany has a younger core with the likes of Gnabry, Werner, Harvetz and Sane. Context, Bill.

  6. Claude.

    Fair enough. I don’t know for sure what happened with Germany.

    I suspect they would be using those players you mentioned at 11:06AM if they thought it could help them win. I agree that entire generation of players are all on the downside of their career arcs.

    None of that changes whats happening with Arsenal right now.

    1. big credit to you for admitting that you don’t know what happened with mesut and the german team.

      the main thing we know is that he was scapegoated for the german performance in the last world cup; an ugly and very false campaign primarily spearheaded by uli hoeness and lothar matthaus. as a fan of german football, that was a joachim low failure all day long…just like the 6-piece beating they got handed by spain last week.

      likewise, we know that mesut made the decision to quit the german team, citing racism and lack of respect as the primary cause; he wasn’t dropped. it’s hard enough to win a world cup, let alone be weighted down by the racism stuff coming from your own so-called countrymen who are privileged white men who have never had to walk a day in immigrant shoes. likewise, the lack of insulation from the dfb was a disgrace.

      has that affected mesut negatively? we don’t know but conventional wisdom suggests it would affect just about anybody negatively…to be essentially abandoned by your birth country after giving so much to their cause has to be extremely heavy. business is one thing but when it’s your country…i need to stop.

      1. Besides that painful exit and to Bill’s point… even if the circumstances of his exit had been different and more amicable, none of the old guard is coming back. Germany has turned that page. So it’s simplistic to say that “(if) they believed Ozil was still able to improve the team they would have found a way to work around all of the off the field issues”. Darn, even Kroos looks headed to the departure lounge

        If you’re talking about 2 years ago, yes, what Josh said.

        Arsenal? All parties involved here need to turn the page. Then write tell-all books.

  7. You guys might be in a mighty fight at the bottom. If you look at the fixture list over December/January you play decent sides every 3/4 days. It’s a prediction but I believe you’ll have a decimated squad with injury and poor form soon.

    Btw Tim, Lampard isn’t dumb, we just wanted to play a measured possession game to avoid stretching play and having to duel with Tots in an open game. And Werner was a casualty at the end because of the mins he’s played(probably one of the highest across our team)

  8. And the s**t cherry on top of this pile of s**t is that Partey is set to miss more games and possibly all of December.

  9. I have never lived through a relegation scrap but with Pepe and and Party gone for the next few fixtures plus our current lack of form, we may not win another League match in 2020.

    Is it time to scream “Areta Out!'”?

    I would do no such thing but this project has seized up and is now rolling backwards in reverse with the handbrake on.

  10. I only saw the second half. What stood out to me was that we were outmatched physically as a team. Neto and Traore in particular just slalomed through our defenders. Technically we were probably just about the better side but it wasn’t enoug of a margin to make a difference. They had the edge on physicality, cohesion, experience and leadership on the pitch. That’s a lot of missing tangibles and intangibles for Arsenal right now and I think that’s the chief reason they struggle in the league. I don’t think their form over the past few games (since the win at MU) represents what this team is capable of but it’s clear that league is a real issue and there are no easy answers. Teams now seem confident that they can beat us.

    All that aside, I thought we put them under pretty decent pressure and created enough to score at least one but the chance conversion faries deserted us again. I liked Willock’s directness and power on the ball and his runs from midfield sparked most of our offense. I thought Willian played a decent game and was unlucky to be substituted. His combination play with Willock, Tierney and Saka seemed our best route to goal. I really liked the Nelson sub at the time but it actually seemed to kill our momentum. He’s lightning fast and can dribble but I get the sense he doesn’t quite know what he wants to do with the ball when he gets it, nor did he participate in the builldup. He’s just not at the level yet where he can make that sort of difference on this sort of game. At that crucial juncture it was a killer tactical mis-step, in hindsight.

    Now though with so much upheaval at the club in recent years is a time for stability, not more chopping and changing, certainly not at the coaching/managerial position. It’s time to allow this team to develop that missing cohesion with each other and with their coaches. The league is more difficult than ever and it’s punishing Arsenal for every mistake we ever made. It takes time to navigate out from the long shadow of Wenger’s legacy. This will continue to be difficult no matter who is in charge.

  11. We have “a midfield with the mobility of my 94-year-old grandma three-point turning her trolley in an Aldi shopping aisle.” I read that on another blog, somewhere.
    Just about sums it up for me. Xhaka and Ceballos? The less said the better.
    Willian “unlucky ” to be substituted?
    I take it that was irony? He offers nothing, zilch, zero. A less mobile version of Mkhitaryan. Like you say, you didn’t watch the 1st half!
    Incidentally, whose bright idea was it to let Luiz carry on after his head injury?
    Madness. Any neurologist will tell you that. At risk for the next 24 hours at least. Another bang on the head and where would that have left him? Apart from anything else, he unsurprisingly had a shocker of a game.
    We’ve become a club, who are basically a pension fund for players who are well and truly over the hill.

    1. I’ll stick up for Willian, he looked better than he has done. Tackled harder from the first minute, was faking and going past defenders for the first time in ages, and his passing was sharper.

      On Luiz I have no argument, it was madness to let him play on. Holding should have been on right away, apart from the duty of care to Luiz I don’t think we would have conceded those two goals.

  12. I agree with Tim on the defence, and that the aim is to control space. I also agree that it’s a kind of passive tactic, and while this works well most of the time the problem is that enough teams these days have enough quality and skill up front to eventually make holes and find their way through – and then we are open.

    The defence I can live with but attacking-wise, we have a massive problem. You get the feeling that the players are too reliant on Arteta’s drilling, because the one thing you can’t drill (coaches please correct me) is the final ball, the key pass, the opportunity: as a player you have to see that for yourself and make it, and when it comes to that moment the players look like they are suddenly adrift, without guidance, not knowing what to do. For players of Auba and Laca’s experience and quality that’s just not good enough.

    Pepe’s just arrived in the Premier League, into a team in transition, and when he’s switched on and focused like he was against Molde he has the potential to be a transformative player, so I have some respect and sympathy for him – and even the red card showed some edge, some fight. But I am almost done with Auba now. The passivity starts with him. The team are, however inexpertly and clumsily, killing themselves to try to make chances for him, the whole set-up is focused on him, and he is not getting into dangerous positions, making himself available, linking up or making runs. Defenders are relaxed around him. I kind of get it, you can see from his personality that he wants everything to be fun, and he’s not getting the kind of service that would make things fun, but we’re carrying him both on the pitch and financially and that can’t continue, he needs to start fighting. When I see a performance from him that we saw from Pepe against Molde – serious, laser-focused, I might start to believe in him.

  13. This squad lacks firepower upfront and if going to struggle to score and now with Auba out of form we have lost our only real scoring threat which negates whatever threat we had. We basically have to keep a clean sheet if we hope to win and if we concede more then 1 we are almost certainly going to lose.

    1. Miles worse, Fergie left with a title, united have since won the UEFA cup and FA cup and league cup, qualified for champions league with some consistency.

      Glass half full, either we win the UEFA cup and get Champions league football or we don’t, strike out in both cups and get our first season outside of Europe, a ‘bad’ season could set the territory for a better one. There’s been enough behind the scenes shenanigans, the board isn’t investing and its far from a seller’s market, we’re stuck with who we have, a mixture of youth and veterans (granted we’ve a few expiring contracts, but I’m not sure we can attract another Partey level player, a loan for Isco could be doable mind assuming they’d rather blow whatever that’d cost rather than recall a certain German), and the club has essentially gone all-in on the latter for the next few seasons, it’s up to them to lead now, as Wenger said in the book, it’s ultimately the players who make the difference, do they want to go out fighting or are they just happy to cash their cheques.

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