Falafel 1-0 Arsenal

For people who complain about a story before the recipe we will skip that and go straight to the ingredients:

Falafel:

1/2 pound chickpeas
1/2 an onion
4 cloves of garlic
1 TBS of garbanzo flouyer
1 handful each of parsley, cilantro, and dill
1/2 TBS each of black pepper, coriander, and cumin
a pinch of cayenne pepper
a punch of salt

Pita:

Poolish:
300g water
75g whole wheat flour
75g of 100% hydration sourdough discard (optional)
3g yeets
5g sugar

Final dough:
Poolish
370g all porpoise flour (really get a fine grind on those dolphins)
5-10g salt (depending on your sodium intake)

Hummus:

1/2 pound of dried beans
1/2 an onion
garlic
bae leeefs
about a tsp that shit powder, baking soda
lemon juice from 1-2 lemons
about a half cup of tahini (it’s a lot, I know)

Tzatziki sauce

Half a cuke
some lemon juice
1/2 a cup of good Greek yogurt (read the ingredients, it should be something like milk and bacteria, that’s it. If it has some thickeners in it, throw it in the garbage, like Arsenal should do with Danny Ceballos)
garlic
salt
olive oil

Ok, so, here’s what you do to get a really good falafel.

First, take 1/2 pound of dried ceci beans (chickpeas, garbanzos, same) and soak them for at least 8 hours in a lot of cold water. You cannot use canned beans, sorry, you will get a soggy mess. Arteta would try to use canned beans and then say that it was not the fact he used canned beans but the fact that the beans didn’t cross the ball enough.

Now, while the beans are soaking, mix up your poolish. This should be easy to do, even an imbecile like Granit Xhaka can’t fuck this up. Cover it with plastic wrap – or one of those beeswax covers if you’re Hector Bellerin – and let it sit for 8 hours.

Ok, now that you’ve done nothing, like that fuck Willian, for the last 8 hours it’s time to get the dough started. Mix everything together. Yep, it’s that easy. It’s like taking a throw-in, you cannot fuck this up! I guess you should knead the dough a bit. But you know what I do? I let it sit on the counter and do nothing for an hour, like Lacazette! I think that hydrates the flouyer. Then I knead it until it passes the windowpane test. Then I let it rest for an hour. Should it double in size? Sure. I guess!

While that dough is doing it’s imitation of Lacazette – imagine being such an asshole that you would play Lacazette as a number 10, what the fuck is wrong with you, lol – I suppose you could fire up the oven. Put it up to 475 and put a pizza stone in there. I use a real pizza stone, folks. Not one of those cheap ass flimsy round pieces of shit. Don’t buy a five-dollar pizza stone and then @ me with some nonsense about how your pizza and falafel and shit doesn’t turn out right. LOL. That’s like playing Xhaka and expecting him to be a really good MFer.

Where the fuck are we with this recipe? Uhh, grate up some cucumber. Pinch some salt in it. Then let it drain for a bit. I mean you can try to speed things up by yelling at it from the sidelines but that doesn’t really work. I just drain it for a while. Then I plop it in a bowl and using a microplaner, I grate in a clove of garlic, then I add the yogurt, and a little lemon juice and mix it all up. I taste things too, as I go. You know? Then I add olive oil. How much? I dunno. I suppose a tablespoon? Why do people obsess over “extra virgin” olive oil? Not a fan, tastes grassy to me. Just get some regular olive oil and save yourself the cash. Ok, so try not to eat all of the tzatziki sauce right away. It gets better overnight.

Ah, yes, the pita.

But first! Put your hummus stuff into a pressure cooker and cook it for 15 minutes. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, get one. If you need a creative midfielder, get one. Or hey, appoint one from the youth team! Don’t be that guy who plays Lacazette in the number 10 role when he clearly needs to be dropped. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, I think you have to cook the beans on the stovetop for 8 hours – which is how long ago Lacazette got an assist.

Once the beans are cooked, take out the onions and garlic and stuff and stick them in your blender with a half cup of the bean juice, the lemon juice, and the garlic. Blend them while they are hot. Taste. Add salt. Ok, then take the hot bean puree out of the blender and put that in a bowl and mix in your tahini. Jesus this recipe is long.

Let’s finish up the pita.

Take a hunk of dough – speaking of hunks, Kieran Tierney – and roll it into a ball. About 75-100 grams of dough per ball. Do 4 of those, or 8. I saved half of my dough for pizza today.

Let the balls rest a bit then roll them out as flat as you think you can. Then plop the flattened dough onto the pizza stone and bake for about 2-3 minutes. Then flip it over and bake another 2-3 minutes. They should puff up like Granit Xhaka pretending he’s a hard man.

Ok, trick for pita is to take them out the oven and wrap them with a towel. Then once they have cooled off, put them in plastic bags. Seriously.

Ok, you should just about have everything ready so now you need to make falafel. I put the onion and garlic into my food processor and blend a bit. Then I add the drained soaked beans and all the other stuff and process that for a bit until I get small chunks.

Now, you have to rest that mixture, like Nicolas Pepe getting a rest after his red card because he’s another one of the brain geniuses we have on this team. Put the mixture in the fridge (covered) for an hour.

Then you heat up some oil – two inches or so – in a cast iron pan. You don’t have a cast iron pan? What’s wrong with you? Are you the kind of person who pays a guy 18m a year to sit around and troll you? Don’t do that. Go get a cast iron pan.

Anyway, I get that oil up to like 350F and then I plop in some falafel balls or flat things, pucks. Hey by the way, if you’re a single guy like me, you will have a lot of falafel mix. You can actually freeze the raw mix and use it again later!

Fry them until they are golden brown. Do you think Rafa Benitez would want the job at Arsenal? I hear he hates it in China.

Ok so, erm, assemble everything. Cut the pita in half and open it up like Arsenal’s defense, then spread on some hummus, spread on some tzatziki, put some diced tomato, lettuce, cucumber, onions, and whatever else you want (pickle! hot sauce!).

Qq

35 comments

  1. Still on my Arsenal hiatus. I did cheat a bit and watch the NLD (WHHHYYYY?????), but things are going as predicted. Which is painful because I was ready to see an actual plan that could build tis side to competing in the next two years. To enjoy my holidays as much as I can with my foot healing, I will not be watching arsenal for the remainder of this year. I will leave you guys with this though…
    My view on the roles and relationship between coaches/managers and players is this:
    • *Player’s part – As a player, I will provide you with all of my energy and attributes, in a way that is as efficient as possible to help implement your tactics. As long as you utilize my energy and attributes well, you will be a successful coach/manager.
    • *Coach/manager’s part – As a coach/manager, I will provide you with the best tactics that will make the best use of your attributes. As long as you play according to my tactics, with as much energy as possible, you will be a successful player.
    This view has helped me in analysing whether the problems that teams face in certain moments are down to the players or the coach/manager. I just look to see if either is fulfilling their part. Under Emery, Arsenal were one of the teams that covered the most distance (If not the most). The players were trying, but the tactics did not suit their attributes and didn’t make use of the energy they gave. So it was fairly simple to pinpoint where the problem was.
    The above view is a very robotic way to view the relationships between people though, especially in sports. The following quote, added to the above view is probably the right way to view things.
    “Thirty per cent of coaching is tactics, 70 per cent is social competence.”
    Julian Nagelsmann.
    The missing point for many people is that there is always a need for people to feel like someone they find annoying or just dislike get what’s coming to them. People want to vent to punish. Just like a boss you do not like, people just want to tell that person off and transfer all of their frustrations out on that person. In football, fans in some places (British Isles) like the head master treatment applied to footballers. And where there is a player they don’t like, those fans would be fine if that players is mistreated, if it means they feel like he has gotten what has been coming to them.
    The problem with this is where coaches buy into this mentality. Modern football is global. The players are from different continents, countries and even provinces/states. There are now different cultures in all the teams competing in the top five leagues. Social competence has become far more important in a world where players are looking out for themselves more than ever. The top layers are already hard working and focussed on success, but it is not driven by love for the team. I mean City have an Arsenal fan at right wing, Mahrez, and Spurs signed a die-hard gunner for the right back position, and it’s not hampering them.. Asking players to show fight and passion is an exercise in futility if you want to compete at this level, the talent/ability will always come first. The love for the team is not a necessity or a priority for players, it is probably third or fourth after salary, level of competition and maybe playing style.
    We are in a world where a coach/manager has to convince multi-millionaires to go out onto the pitch and CARE about the result to the club. The coach/manager has to make such people feel needed without making them comfortable. The coach/manager has to be able inspire his players (have them look up to him) and still be approachable on a day by day basis. The coach/manager has to be fair and punish/reward players accordingly, whilst still understanding that players react differently to the same treatment. It’s tough I know, but that’s what all coaches/managers in the past had to face and they didn’t have the pity that modern coaches/managers seems to be getting.
    Emery, Freddie and Arteta, along with many young coaches/managers carry the same mind-set as supporters (British Isles). They make emotional decisions instead of decisions based on team management and tactics. These can be fine at smaller clubs, but the higher the level of talent being dealt with, the better your understanding of people ought to be. A huge example for me is how Sir Alex dealt with Eric Cantona and Wenger with Sanchez and Ozil.
    The truth is that Arteta does not seem to have the social competence or the tactical competence for this Arsenal side. He is an amazing speaker, but communication is only good if the content is relevant and this is where his inexperience really showed. He knows how to convince supporters and not players. That is my only reason why people say things like “I believe in Arteta” and “He just needs a few transfer windows”. Those looking for him to stay because we need stability sound masochistic. Imagine staying in an abusive relationship because you are tired of going in and out of relationships. Liverpool didn’t know Klopp would succeed the very moment he stepped through the door, Klopp had to show them what he was capable of and convince a club the size of Liverpool to wholly follow him. This season is showing that the age of appointing a mediocre coach/manager could be offset by the quality of the squad and keep the club amongst the top sides.
    I also see a lot of people complaining of how these players get managers fired and etc, but that is the era we are in right now. Every team that fires their coach/manager can label the players as having gotten the coach/manager fired. This happens because the moment players put forth their part, and are failed by the manager not doing his part, they conserve their energy and ability. It happens when players pull out of challenges during dead rubber international games or end of season games before international tournaments. It’s not even a decision, if you watch enough football, you will notice players holding back.
    All that is remembered about the last days of a coach/manager’s reign is how bad the players were, but the beginning of a coach/manager’s failures is often ignored. From the coach/manager’s decisions that create toxicity, their inconsistency in dealing with players, to the failure in providing the coach/manager’s part. This is why I have said, for a while, that Arteta will not succeed here at Arsenal, RIGHT NOW. He is a bad coach/manager right now. I have learnt to observe patterns in how either side is playing their part and it helps show what will happen. Everyone didn’t have problems with these players’ fighting or showing passion during the FA Cup run, but now they don’t have it?
    Players will only show fight to combat the initial stages of a crisis if you are directing them wrong. Once you enter the eye of the storm, do not blame them for giving up.

    So it has been Arteta out for a while with me. I believe that every great coach/manager was stumbled upon (Except Pep and Mourinho). In the same way that you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince charming, you have to rotate between coaches/managers to find the right one for your club. Once a coach has shown the ability to make you as a team go out and play in such a way that you deserve to win most games, then you will win most games. That is the one to stick with and support. Knockout football success should have taught many Arsenal fans that it is the worst indicator of future success. We have won 4 FA cups in the last 10 years and we declined more and more since the second. Our decline just keeps getting more rapid the more we lean into cup football.

  2. Laughed my head off.

    And cant stop seeing hunky Tierney, in t shirt and shorts with Stuart Pearce like thigh muscles bulging, strolling through the the streets of Newcastle at 0° c.

    Yes, we need to keep our humour in these times. And try out new recipes too! Take our minds off Arsenal, and the pandemic. Me and the missus have been trying our hand at kimchi, and got a very good result second time around.

  3. Inspired by the great Devlin, I am dragging my comment made an hour or so ago on the last, old thread over here, because we touch on the same themes. Hope that’s ok….
    ______________________________________

    Mikel needs good results, and he needs them now. Chuck in the kids at the deep end? That’s for when you’re in 8th, not 15th. When you are the process of drowning, you don’t then decide to go exploring the deep blue. You’re looking to keep your head above the water, for a lifeboat, or a rescue. So if he’s mad, he’d bench the entire senior squad… and find himself in a relegation battle for sure. SPOILER: he’s not mad.

    Look, it is both the squad and the manager at fault. I still cling to the belief that he’s a superb coach in the making, but perhaps not yet. Arsenal 2019/20 might be too early, and too complex a turnaround. Part of being a great coach is turning straw into gold, not turning gold into straw, as he appears to be doing. I said a year ago on this forum when Emery was on the way out and we were looking at replacements, that I’d feel better if Arteta had managed a Wolves or a Newcastle (good, fallen clubs with solid fanbases and pedigree), and shown that he can have players with names that few have heard of punching above their weight. Instead, he’s got experienced internationals punching way below theirs. Good players are looking worse. Undeveloped players are not taking a step forward. How can anyone throw it all on the players?

    Here’s my read. Arteta has a superb football brain but he’s terrible on important intangibles like interpersonal relations. Like Tim, I trust only a small number of sources, but it is plain that he’s fallen out with a section of his dressing room, most notably David Luiz, one of the team’s leaders.

    Xhaka is a liability, tactically and discipline-wise. Nobody twists Arteta’s arm to start him nearly every big game. He decided at cast off Guendouzi and Torreira. Play a youngster, you say? Well we have a decent one who could have been playing there, except for the fact that he’s playing in Berlin. Matteo, skilled but raw and temperamental, is the ideal coaching project. He is worth far more than the 8m we paid for him. Work on him, work with him. There is something there. That is what coaches do. He’s 20 years old, and apparently culturally irredeemable.

    A good coach develops Reiss, not brings in Willian on a gold plated pension plan. A more experienced coach concerned with inter-personal relations understands player dynamics, and relations formed before he got there. So he would understand how to manage players that he doesn’t want and cant move on, in a way that seems fair and just. It must be in the back of Auba’s mind that the coach or the club will turn on him at some point. Auba, Kola and The Exile are tight, They’re gaming buddies, for one.

    A good coach does not mismanage in the way that he did the clubs’s second most expensive defender (who is now openly grumbling about his internal exile on social media). This isn’t Manchester City, where spare parts are easily replaced. Heck, Pep made even players like Delph play well and look decent for a while. And speaking of that, Im beginning to think that Mikel’s role in developing the likes of Sterling was overstated. I see no signs of his grooming hands with Arsenal’s young players. Saka broke out under Emery. Who else has, since?

    Good coaches coach the fundamentals, and wouldn’t tolerate Hector picking up FIVE foul throw calls. Hector isn’t 12. He’s a 25 year old professional who has captained the side, and he barely knows how to take a throw. He barely knows how to defend, ffs (and yet he almost never gets dropped for big games). Is that on the coach or the player? I saw a piece from Henry Winter in the Times that nails it. Hector’s problem is a sign of the sloppiness that pervades the coaching setup, and the club. Is that on the coach, the players, or both?

    All the signs point to Mikel losing the dressing room. Yes, he’s right. There is a poisonous player culture that needs eradicating, and perhaps he’ll be given the time to that. But on and off the field, he has also shown his limitations as a young coach. Let’s hold EVERYONE accountable.

    All that said, I’d love nothing more than some luck falling Mikel’s way (an opposition goalkeeper error, anything), and he starts getting some results. I want him to succeed, and build on his FA Cup success. He’s going to have to start getting more out of what he’s got, now. That is what good coaches do. The squad, though far from perfect, is far better than he and they are showing themselves to be.

    1. I am not great CLAUDEIVAN. I am actually so stupid that once i felt like I could do without crutches, I went overboard and started walking around,. I even started climbing up stairs and might have re-raptured my achilles about 4 days ago. I was already in week 4 of my healing programme. Feel really dumb (STUPID,STUPID,STUPID,STUPID….

      But on the little bit of luck falling Mikel’s way, That is what is the problem for Arsenal. Man Utd are playing in that way with Ole. Just enough luck to keep him in the job, but not good enough coaching to sustain the team at the top.

      For the last month and a half I have been writing examinations. I promised my grandmother that I would become a chartered accountant and have her with me to celebrate, but she passed on of COVID earlier this year. She used t give me advice all the time, but one stuck with me. Every time i would do my mathematics home work at her house and I showed of after solving one problem, she would write down a different problem for me and then tell me to solve it. I would then struggle and get it wrong. she would then laugh and tell me that I should never be comfortable with solving one solution, it didn’t mean that I knew how to solve such problems. She would always tell me that the only time that I can say that I know how to do something is when I can consistently do it successfully, as fast as possible and using the minimum amount of energy possible.

      I feel sorry for everyone hoping for luck because it shows more of an affection for Mikel than belief in his ability as a coach. One goal going in by luck will mean one goal going in, but nothing more. It will not be a reflection of a turnaround and wont bring such because we are not able to play in a way that means we can consistently score, as many as possible in games and in a way that doesn’t require too much effort.

      1. V happy to hear that your recovery is continuing apace, Devlin. You dont know how important your achilles is until you can barely move. It is literally an important part of the foundation. Keep it going.

        Im very clear-eyed about Mikel, his weaknesses and strengths. So wishing him luck isnt closing my eyes in any way. He deserved some luck, because you can argue that Xhaka’s boneheadedness tossed away a game that, based on the run of play, he might otherwise of won. Im a big cricket fan. Sometimes a great batsman in horrible form gets let off by a dropped catch, and that’d what he needs to go on and get a big score.

        And yes, Im not ready to let go of the Arteta experiment. If the luck does fall his way, it’s up to him to ride it.

    2. I really don’t see a “superb football brain” in Arteta. I see a manager who is a petit dictator, who ruins players and the game with micromanagement, who is not even training his team properly, who keeps picking shit and putting it in the wrong places, and who is a dickhead to his players on and off the pitch.

      Honestly starting to think Ozil is/was right which is a terrible place to be.

  4. Thanks Tim. Something that cheered me up/made me laugh about Arsenal. What a catastrophic mess they are in. Rafa might be the guy to drag us away from relegation. Can’t think of many other ready and willing candidates. Trouble is, they sack Arteta and then what. I don’t trust Edu and his creepy agent pal to fix things. Kia probably has some dodgy bloke to foist on us already.

  5. The King of Metaphor strikes again and in a very funny way. The falafel and pita s/w look delicious though could do with a bit of heat for me. Long-Suffering-Wife-of-1-Nil would be proud. Her falafel is the best I’ve ever tasted. Better than Jerusalem Restaurant here, which we frequent quite often.

    I don’t know what to think about Arteta, honestly. I thought it was a ghastly decision to let David Luiz on with a bloody head wound, looking like someone in a painting about the Crimean War. His team selection is exactly like Emery’s in that it is perplexing. Perplexing that he continues with the same underperforming group match after match instead of giving the kids a chance. They have impressed in the Europa League, yes against less than stellar competition, but that’s Burnley. And we can’t possibly do any worse than we’re doing right now.

  6. Completely right on Luiz, 1-Nil. If they have held out Luiz for two weeks recovery from that injury, he should never have been allowed back on the pitch. Just another in a long line of bad decisions.
    I don’t think we need to throw the entire academy on at once. Leno, Holding, Gabriel and Tierney are fine. Soares isn’t a youngster. Nor Elneny. And if we bring Ozil back, he certainly isn’t either.
    But the failure to use some of them instead of the non-performing senior players is glaringly bad, particularly at the offensive. Taking away the Gabriel and Auba goals, we haven’t scored from open play in the Premier League since Oct 4th. It really can’t actually get worse from an attacking standpoint.

  7. Here’s a serious thought about yesterday’s match:

    We were actually really good until that blockhead Xhaka got himself sent off.

    1. played with a man in between the lines (Laca wasn’t actually horrible despite what I said above)
    2. low crosses (these are the right kind of crosses, folks)
    3. players in the half spaces crossing (these are the good places to cross, folks)
    4. Overlaps and dragbacks (again, like the low crosses, this is the really good stuff)
    5. shots in really dangerous areas – we created 3 big chances.

    It was a bit shit at times, slow, and we were sometimes lacking ideas and the ability to beat a man but if this is how Arteta wants us to play, we should win a lot more games this season.

    Enough to avoid relegation anyway.

    1. I dunno. We were slightly improved from a few of the previous matches. I wouldn’t call it “really good”. To me that means we actually would have scored a goal at home against a team in the bottom 3.
      Leicester, who is around where we’d like to be, put 3 past a similar team in the first half. The commentators were wishing they were on that match and I don’t blame them.
      So it was a little better. With the enforced Xhaka absence, and Pepe back, we might actually have a better chance against Soton. Hopefully he drops Willian.
      And good recipe by the way. I’ll have to try the onion in the hummus. I actually find canned chickpeas are OK for that. Sometimes also use a little greek yogurt.

      1. well, I see three big chances created and 1.8 xG against a team that sits in the low block as something approaching really good.

    2. It’s a bit ironic that we’ve gone to a 4-2-3-1, largely since Partey’s arrival and then asking Lacazette to fill the #10 role when the team is actually exactly constructed now to take advantage of Ozil’s talents; we have fast, mobile attackers that are best with balls played to feet and into space (Auba, Saka, Pepe, Martinelli, Reiss-Nelson) and a midfield platform (Partey, Elneny) that would allow Ozil to just float up top and only worry about finding channels to receive and turn.

      I’m not an Ozil fan, granted.

      That said, why is he trying to jam a square peg into a round hole? If that’s the vision, 4-2-3-1, put ESR or Saka into that spot and sit Lacazette down. I think Laca worked hard yesterday but it’s just too industrial and not enough subtlety. And Lacazette is so one-footed.

  8. Enjoyable post but falafel really isn’t my thing (yuk).

    In the absence of joy from Arsenal…..

    – I’m far from being a fan of David Moyes but he’s taken a dysfunctional club with many high paid underperformers and remodeled them into a much more capable side. Pre-season he was a bookies favourite to get sacked pre Christmas. Just shows – it can be done.
    – Theo Walcott the oft criticised former gunner was part of a 3-0 demolishing of Sheff Utd. He’s playing for a young progressive coach, enjoying his football and succeeding. I can’t remember the outlet but there was a great photo of him celebrating the goal with Che Adams. Good on you Theo.
    – Southampton smashed for nine by Leicester 12 months ago sit fourth in the league, 10 points clear of Arsenal. Even if they don’t maintain this form they (along with many others) are punching well above their weight.

    I picked these examples to illustrate that (1) it’s all happiness when you’re winning and (2) every dog has his day.

    Arteta is toast. He can’t build, corral or motivate. He’s divisive, dare I say destructive and increasingly desperate. He’ll leave the club in a worse state than he found it.

    If the Kroenke’s took football seriously Arteta would have been dismissed today. Arsenal needs a new leader.

  9. Thank you, Tim, for an entertaining post.

    I also agree with you in asking how do people, who are so adamant in saying so, know that Arteta is such a wonderful coach.

    In the year he has been with us, have we actually seen anything “wonderful”.

    Yes, for a while, the defence has improved, but you do not need to be a wonderful coach to work out that if you flood the defence with players you will let in fewer goals.

    I see the destruction of our midfield, which was always the jewel in Wenger’s crown and now we are seeing the emasculation of Auba as a striker, so much so that the only goal he can score in is his own.

    The oft-repeated total lack of creativity is not the sign of a wonderful coach, so please, all of those who keep on saying it, what is it that you have seen that convinces you that this is a truth.

  10. At the beginning, Arteta said many of the right things, he brought in some decent players, we were beginning to look like an organized, well-drilled team with potential to push on to the proverbial next level.

    And we continue to play that way in one competition with the understudies but look completely lost with the big name, A-list cast in the other competition. It’s perplexing and confounding. Start Balogun and Smith-Rowe on the bench at least, in a mixed squad and see what happens. We have nothing to lose.

  11. Oh, and I watched parts of the game again and there’s no doubt about it: Willian is utter s%$t.

  12. Tim: Great post. I am a big fan of falafel

    I agree with your last comment. Arteta’s tactics are not the biggest problem and what he is trying to do could work if the players are able to execute the way he wants. Unfortunately in most games they have not been able to execute and even when they do a better job of executing there is nothing Arteta or even the most brilliant tactical manager in history can do when we don’t have anyone in the squad who can actually score a goal right now.

  13. I suspect almost everyone would agree that our best attacking players not named Auba are the wide players such as Tierney, Saka, Bellerin and I also suspect that most people would agree that our central midfielders are not all that good.
    With our squad it makes complete sense to focus our buildups from wide positions rather then thru the central midfield which is what both Emery and Arteta saw when they watched our team so Arteta’s tactical focus on wide play makes complete sense at least to me.

    During the last few years of the Wenger era most of what we saw was ball possession with a short passes in a horseshoe shape pattern 40 yards from goal with very little actual penetration. When asked about it Arsene said literally hundreds of times the team was playing with the “handbrake on” which was Arsene’s way of saying his players were not executing the way they practiced on the training pitch. If you just watched a lot of the games you might believe that Arsene was telling his players to move forward slowly and let the defense set up and then pass the ball endlessly 40 yards from goal. The point of all of this is its just as utterly ridiculous to believe that Arteta is telling his players to advance the ball slowly down the wing and wait for the defense to set up and then hit a high cross and hope. Again its just my opinion but the biggest problem is not the tactics but the players are playing most of their games with the “handbrake” on and not effectively executing the things they are working on in training. Is it all Arteta’s fault for poor tactics or is a bigger part of the problem the players inability to play the way Tim described in his comment at 12:08pm? I favor the latter but to each his own.

    1. Arteta brought in Willian as a key piece, lobbied Aubameyang hard to stay, opted to keep Lacazette into his last year, opted to bring back Ceballos, opted to keep Elneny, opted to extend Luiz, bought Gabriel, opts to start Xhaka nearly every game.

      These are HIS players. What do you mean that he doesn’t have the players to executive his plan, Bill.

      But let’s say for the sake of argument that he doesnt have the players suited to his perfect plans. Let’s say further that a coach can’t have wholesale but only incremental changes to the squad, on the basis that not every owner spends money like a Russian oligarch or an Emirati shiekh.

      For what else does a good coach exist, if not not make players better through tactical coaching? Or barring that, to play to their strengths? Do you think that Arteta is doing either?

      1. CLAUDEIVAN SAYS: December 14, 2020 at 7:54 pm
        “Arteta brought in Willian as a key piece, lobbied Aubameyang hard to stay, opted to keep Lacazette into his last year, opted to bring back Ceballos, opted to keep Elneny, opted to extend Luiz, bought Gabriel, opts to start Xhaka nearly every game.“

        Actually persuaded Xhaka to stay when the 25m offer from Hertha Berlin only needed Arteta’s signature.
        Also opted to keep AMN from going to Wolves when the 20m offered could’ve come in handy in fixing the mid.
        Kept Leno, sold Martinez.
        Not a great argument Bill.

        1. I forgot to mention that Arteta bought Partey.

          So Partey, Willian, Auba, Ceballos, Gabriel, Luiz, Lacazette, Elneny, Xhaka and Maitland Niles are all Arteta’s players. He HAS his players. Not all mind… he wanted Aouar. But those players I named are Arteta’s players.

          *(plus I meant to say, players to “execute” his plans)*

  14. In the years after Scholes ability faded a of of Fergies ManU teams concentrated their buildups from wide areas for the simple reason that his wide players like Valencia, Ashley young and Evra were more effective attacking options then his central midfielders. Carrick or one of the CB’s would feed the ball to the wide players who moved the ball forward. . It worked because he had players who could execute that strategy successfully on a consistent basis.

  15. I thought I had seen the worst Arsenal midfield in Ian Selley, John Jensen, David Hillier and Jimmy Carter in the final years of George Graham’s reign. They were so unreliable and bereft of creative talent that David Seaman and the defenders nearly always used to hoof the ball high over their heads for Ian Wright, Kevin Campbell or Paul Merson to chase down the channels rather than attempt to play through midfield. It was awful to watch.

    Arteta’s Arsenal with its pedestrian midfield is every bit as bad to watch but even less effective. It’s difficult to see how he’s going to turn this team around. I’m not sure a rookie coach has the skillset to sort out this mess. I hope he’s a ‘lucky general’ though the way the games are breaking and his players are behaving it doesn’t look like he is.

  16. Claude.

    Fair points about bringing in Willian and keeping Auba keeping Laca etc. However it’s pretty clear that the 2 key pieces in that equation for improving this season were supposed to be Auba and Willian but both have been busts so far this year which is the single biggest reason why things have been so bad. Its pretty clear to me that Willian was never a long term fix because of his age but I don’t think anyone would have expected his skills to deteriorate as quickly and to the degree they have. His ability to influence the game has fallen off a cliff. I don’t know what’s wrong with Auba. Hopefully it’s just a temporary run of bad form but it’s worrisome to see how ineffective he has been. A manager has no control over individual players form and he certainly can’t turn the clock back and on a player like Willian. The reality of this squad is we were counting on Auba scoring 20 or more league goals again this year and Arteta can’t kick the ball into the goal for him. Players have to take responsibility for their own form and without Auba scoring we are hosed and there is no manager who could fix this squad without enough players who are capable of scoring.

    Partey and Gabriel at least so far look like reasonably good signings.

    I think Arteta brought back ceballos because he was better then nothing and he didn’t cost a transfer fee. That was clearly not a move which was going to be a difference maker. We had to keep Elneny, Xhaka and AMN because we need bodies to play minutes in those position and we have no other options. Those are left over Wenger guys. Mari and Cedric are also squad depth options. Laca is another left over Wenger guy and the only player on the squad not named Auba who has ever scored in double digits in the PL in their entire career. Laca is the only other player on the squad who is somewhat of a threat to possibly score a goal. To suggest that somehow Arteta could be “improving” these players and turning them into something they are not is unrealistic. Further to suggest these are “Arteta guys” and the type of players we could build a long term plan around is distorting reality. IMO.

  17. I am certain Arteta and probably our front office brain trust would love to be able to take the nuclear option and completely blow up this squad and buy a dozen new players. However, that is not a realistic option.

Comments are closed.

Related articles