COMMUNICATION

53 comments

1. how do you store that much flour? Surely you can’t go through it THAT fast!? (and stop calling you Shirley)

   1. Cold storage is best. I have a fridge in the basement.

2. I thought I was all by myself in thinking how it was a “strategic masterplan” yesterday, and we only managed to concede one goal against the mighty City. I’m being sarcastic here, of course. Pep didn’t even start a recognized striker, leaving both Jesus and Aguero on the bench. City played the whole game in 2nd gear, and didn’t even once looked threatened by us. The game, as you rightly pointed out, Tim, was a borefest. Arteta is out of his depth, and no (backhanded) compliment from his buddy Pep will convince me otherwise. We’re sitting in 10th place. We’re out of FA and League Cups. We’re not getting into top 4 and probably won’t even finish in top 6 (so no European football) AND there’s no way we’re winning Europa League. Arteta already broke all kinds of unwanted records this season, and will probably break some more. So I ask you, what will it take for Arsenal’s board to finally sack the bum who’s currently in charge?

   1. What will it take?

      An owner who cares.

      1. Touche

3. By the way, Tim… the comments section(s) disappeared yesterday all of a sudden from all your posts. It’s working now though so I’ll take a wild guess and say that it probably got fixed. I know, I know… I’m a genius… just like Arteta.

4. “Actually, come to think of it, I can’t really figure out how we play football.”

   And that, in a nutshell is one our biggest problems and one of the reasons why this team will NOT succeed under the current manager. There’s no identity. There’s no clear path or vision. And what’s more importantly, there’s no desire (or very little of it). A lot of times I don’t see professional football players on the pitch, I see a bunch of passengers who are just happy to collect their (hefty) paychecks. They are happy to win a game when they do but it’s almost like they are not even been bothered when they don’t get a result. Motivation is a big part of it and it seems to me that Arteta is not doing a very good job at it.

   1. Well, I’m not sure that players at this level should require “motivation” so I sort of disagree with you there. But having a bunch of players (like Xhaka) who are basically undroppable does create some problems. Actually, just having Xhaka as our “best” MFer is a huge part of the problem. He really doesn’t fit in this squad and with the way that I would normally expect Arsenal to play.

      1. I think motivation is important at any level, whether it’s a Sunday football league where guys just play for fun or EPL where pretty much every single player you see on the pitch is a millionaire. That’s why pre game and halftime pep talks are so important. The players need to be pumped. They need to be charged and ready to go. They need to relish every opportunity at playing, and especially against the big boys. And for me, I can almost hear Arteta saying to the guys in the locker room yesterday “let’s just not get battered, okay?” I’m sure when it was all done and dusted he was even proud of the performance and will even put it under the category of “progress” since we only lost by one goal. I do agree about Xhaka though, and it’s one of the major beefs I have with Arteta. He convinced him to stay and he persists with him week in and week out. To me, that’s completely unacceptable and screams favoritism.

         1. he does the same thing with David Luiz. Both of these players have literally cost Arsenal games with their stupidity. It’s unbelievable that he persists with them. David Luiz is about to get a contract extension…

            1. In the light of recent introspection, are they stupid? Or have they made errors? What’s their net contribution to the team? I don’t think it’s negative.

         2. Agreed about Xhaka Upstate. But what choices does he have? Midfield is still a glaring issue for Arsenal, as it has been since Cazorla got injured. Especially with Partey out, and Dani coming back from injury. He basically had only Mo and Xhaka to face the best team in Europe. He picked his battle and decided not to waste too much on an unwinnable match. Hoping the legs are fresh for Benfica.

            1. The choices? How about keeping Torreira instead of convincing Xhaka to stay? How about selling AMN to Wolves and investing that money in another central midfielder, someone who’s more competent and capable than Xhaka (that would be pretty much anyone)? Or if he did decided to keep AMN then how about actually playing him in his preferred position as a CM rather than sending him out on loan? Ceballos/Elneny is better than anything that Xhaka brings to the table. Same goes for Luiz. Holding, Mari, Gabriel, Chambers should all be starting ahead of him. And don’t even get me started on the whole Saliba thing… P.S. How I miss Santi. He made everyone else look better around him. That partnership that he had with Coquelin was pretty darn solid. Koscielny/Mertesacker in the back. Nacho on the left. Sagna on the right. Those were actually the good old days that people thought were bad. Well, if that was bad then what we have now is UGLY.

            2. i would have no qualms with a decision to sell niles to wolves. however, the rest is off base.

               torreira is a huge step down from xhaka. arsenal should never had bought that player. while i’ve never been a fan of xhaka, he’s come back from his last stupid red card and has been playing on merit, becoming virtually undroppable; xhaka has played very well over the past few months.

               likewise, i’ve never been a fan of david luiz. however, he’s not arsenal’s biggest problem. he has made some costly errors but arsenal have been pretty solid in the back. the problem is the other defenders you mention don’t provide the personality and leadership in the back that david luiz appears to bring. holding will in time but he’s still developing and coming back to his best.

      2. Well, you’ve nailed the problem right there. With Partey unfit, Xhaka is the best central/defensive mid option we have. It’s not necessarily that Arteta is playing favorites or that Xhaka is amazing. It’s that the other choices are worse.
         With Luiz it’s a different story. We do now have other options in central defense. We ought to be phasing Luiz out.

         1. “With Partey unfit, Xhaka is the best central/defensive mid option we have.”

            And that, in itself, is a huge problem. Arteta should’ve never convinced Xhaka to stay. We’ve all seen him play for years for us, and we all know his “contributions”. I don’t care if he’s a leader in the locker room and a stellar guy off the pitch who buys everyone beers after the game. We need players who can perform ON the pitch. Same goes for Luiz… he can be a great role model for young players but he brings next to nothing come the game time. Actually, he brings even less. Just like Xhaka, he’s a huge liability and I don’t even want to start counting games/points that we lost because of those two.

5. Like you I have issues with how Arteta plays football. There’s something Tim Stillman pointed about Arsenal under him, which is that we don’t take enough risks. Everything we do is tentative and calculated. Our football ideology currently should be called the handbrake.

   But there are some other issues which serves to lead us to where we are currently with this team. After more than a year in charge, Arteta should take the blame for what he has turned us to, the way we blamed Emery and Wenger before him.

   Basically, his man management is bad. It must be really bad, when you take the advice Pepe was giving Saliba a few weeks ago, not to talk on Instagram or he will get himself in trouble, to.which Saliba did not heed by the way.

   But if the players feel they cannot express themselves around the manager or online, what other issues does the manager that we don’t know.

   His issues with Ozil are well documented. He had issues with Pepe, Saliba, Guendouzi, Maitland-Niles also. And I think we may add Sokratis to this list also.

   The fact that we have not seen Arteta revert back to his 3 at the back formation, since we defeated West Brom is welcome. But is it lost on anyone that his jettisoning of that idea after being heady all about it earlier in the season, to the extent that he claims he doesn’t believe in an “Arsenal DNA” because he just wants to win matches, is nothing but an acknowledgement that that sojourn into defensive football was a trip that was designed not to benefit the club or the players he has available but himself only, and his penchant for short term glory.

   I think Arseblog captured it well, in the aftermath of the Tottenham loss, where he started a clearly unfit Partey, and it boomeranged to the point that Partey limped off while Tottenham was attacking us, on the way to their second goal.

   One thing, I think should be clear from the Emery and Arteta era is how both coaches make decisions for short term benefits consistently. But comparably, Arteta is worse. Saliba, Guendouzi, Maitland-Niles, Willock, Nketiah, Nelson, Martinelli and Balogun may not have a future with the team anymore but I doubt if any Arsenal fan doubts their ability to make it to the top again.

   The idea that Arteta felt Willian can do a job for this team but Mkhitaryan cannot is laughable. At least we know who is having a better season right now.

   Another thing that is clear again with Arteta is how he does not know how to rotate the team. If priority dictated his lineup against City, why did Auba start? Should he not have been rested for Benfica? Why did Bellerin, Saka and Xhaka start? Martinelli is fit again but has not played recently. Laca was flying high until Arteta benched him. And once Auba got his 3 goals against Leeds, Laca got forgotten. Pepe is a player whose gsme is based on dribbling. Arteta sticking him to the left where there’s comparatively less space was not the best deployment of his strengths but he found a way to make it work. However after 3 good matches where we expect him to finally kick his season into second gear, Arteta suddenly sticks him to the bench, where he has been for 3 consecutive matches until yesterday. Yet for all his inconsistent presence in the team’s lineup this season, Pepe has 7 goals this season and 5 assists. It’s not a bad return when compared to Willian or Saka who has been selected more often than him.

   Arteta’s biased treatment of players is already documented. It is why David Luiz never gets to be blamed despite multiple red cards that has cost this team many points since he joined but a reaction to provocation by Pepe got him out of the team for weeks. And this after he was roundly criticized by his own manager, moments after the match ended.

   From all these, do I see a way for Arsenal to get back to the top under Arteta? The answer is no. The best position we can achieve this season is 8th. 10 losses after 25 matches in the league is not what Arsenal should sign up for. Wenger never got this bad. Emery didnt. But Arteta may be the first coach to achieve that in more that 2 decades and for that we should thank him and move on.
   .

   1. Some really good points here and hard to argue against. One thing I will say, however, is that he’s under contract for another 2 years and I would be surprised if Kroenke would like to pay him off. I think we are stuck with him for at least another year. Unless we get in a relegation battle, which btw isn’t impossible.

   2. I’d agree that Arteta has a pattern of benching players just as they are coming into form, and rotating poorly. I see it as his main, possibly fatal flaw, that everything is in service of the tactics.

      Bias? Not so sure. Arteta’s been pretty consistent at not tolerating certain behaviours – Xhaka, Guendouzi and Pepe all punished for lashing out, while effort and good attitude in training get rewarded. Xhaka and Pepe turned it around. Guendouzi didn’t. Luiz hasn’t head-butted anyone recently.

      And then every manager has their favourite players, first names on the team sheet, would you really call that bias? Maybe, if those players aren’t justifying their selection over time.

6. Yeah, that was a pretty blah match. Not the worst one we’ve played this season, but definitely uninspiring.
   Xhaka wasn’t awful. But the Xhaka/Elnenyy partnership is. Hopefully Partey is back soon. He helps a lot in the midfield.

   I’m not quite on the Arteta out bandwagon yet, but it does seem like he is not learning and correcting. The Pepe/Bellerin thing just doesn’t work. Why didn’t we try Pepe left and Saka right? That has worked better.

   It will be interesting to see what happens Thursday. We did play better in the previous match against Benfica. I’d expect to see that level or higher. If we don’t get it, and we go out, the howls are going to grow a lot louder.

7. Oh dear, what an anti-Arteta mood in these comments! Maybe you should blame him for Covid-19 as well!

   Arteta inherited an unbalanced squad replete with mediocre players and bad attitudes. He’s working on changing a culture and a squad. That will take more than the year you’re prepared to call time on.

   He’s trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. As a rookie coach he has to deal with an unprecedented schedule with little time for constructive tactical work on the training pitch. And he has to learn on the job, so he’s bound to make some wrong calls. Maybe you were all born experts in everything and make a great job of every day in life. I congratulate you. You should be awarded the Nobel Prize for knowing everything about everything! You’ll need to share it. The world is full of know-alls.

   Arteta has an advantage over all the armchair experts who see players for 90 minutes twice a week. He sees them on the training ground 5-days per week and as a result he knows their individual fitness, attitudes, confidence levels, commitment and willingness to apply themselves to the challenges he sets them. We know nothing but what we see on the pitch during games and draw inferences to ridiculous degrees.

   You want rid of Arteta already? You want to start cycling through managers at a rate of knots until we happen upon one with whom you agree with every decision? Where will you be when we’re in the Championship? Not in the Stadium I’ll bet.

   What a load of ball locks! Get over yourselves.

   1. There’s a lot going on here but I’d like to address this: “Arteta inherited an unbalanced squad replete with mediocre players and bad attitudes. He’s working on changing a culture and a squad. That will take more than the year you’re prepared to call time on.”

      This “unbalanced” squad finished in 5th place (2 points from 3rd) under Emery and reached EL final. This “unbalanced” squad won FA Cup (under Arteta nonetheless). This “unbalanced” squad as you refer to it currently consists of pretty much full starting XI that is entirely Arteta’s. He decided he doesn’t need Ozil and Mkhitaryan. He got Willian instead. He decided that Leno is better than Martinez, and sold the latter. He convinced Xhaka to stay. He gave Luiz a contract extension. He signed Mari. He shipped Guendouzi and Torreira out, and got Elneny back. Kept AMN when Wolves were offering a good price only to have him warm the bench and then loaned him out. Gave Soares a 4-year deal. So if there is some unbalance to our squad then that is entirely due to Arteta’s incompetence as a manager. And if by “working on changing a culture” and getting rid of “mediocre players with bad attitudes” you mean keeping Xhaka, and Luiz (both of whom should not be nowhere near the pitch) then yes, Arteta has done a stellar job. He’s been in charge for over a year now. And I must say that at first (after winning the FA Cup), it looked like we took a big step forward but now it seems like we’ve take several steps back. It’s a results based business. Emery was sacked because the results were poor. Why shouldn’t the same set of rules/standards apply to Arteta?

      1. His Premier League record is atrocious.

         P45 W19 D10 L16 GF63 GA47 1.49ppg.

         1. wow! that says it. he’s lost more than a third of his league games.

      2. The number of players underachieving under Arteta’s guidance far exceeds the number outperforming expectations. It’s his job to get the most out of his players who’s chosen to keep or acquire, however limited their abilities, and he’s failing.

8. Great post Tim. Thanks for the review. As sometimes happens I have a different take on the game yesterday. If the problem is Arteta or his tactics then how can we beat teams like West Brom or Leeds with ease and consistently destroy the teams in our group stage of the Europa league? If the problem was simply the manager then we should not be able to beat those teams so easily. There are no tactical secrets in football because every PL team has hundreds of hours of game film on every team they play. Every team in the world knows exactly what Pep’s teams or last years Liverpool team was going to do every game but they still made the rest of the league look bad because their players can execute that game plan effectively. Our players can overwhelm a poor defensive team like Leeds, West Brom, Dundalk or Molde but they are just not talented enough to effectively out execute the better teams in the top 1/2 of the table. We have been seeing similar things for 4 years now with 3 different managers including Arsene and no one seems to want to a accept this but over a 38 game season I just don’t think our squad is strong enough to compete for the top 6 or 7 places in this league. There is no tactical solution when your team does not have the players who can execute the managers strategy effectively against solid defensive teams.

9. On the positive side it was a really good defensive result but on the attacking end another shut out. Our football has been more eye pleasing and I suspect the passing, shots attempted and possession stats look better over the last month compared with the the really bad run in November/December but despite the better performances we have still been shut out in 6 of the last 11 games. During those 11 games we have only scored 14 goals and 12 of those goals came in 4 games, Newcastle twice, Leeds and Southampton. Against better defensive teams in the other 7 games we have scored only 2 total goals. Auba has missed several of those 11 games and despite that he has scored 42% of our goals in those 11 games. Without Auba scoring regularly we are going to struggle against any good defensive team. We look great against Dundalk, Molde and the worst defensive teams in the PL but the reality is we just don’t have the firepower to compete with the better teams in the top 1/2 of the table. 

   1. Ok, let me ask you this, Bill. Do teams like Leicester, West Ham, Everton, and Aston Villa have all better squads than we do? Must be so because they are all sitting in front of us in the table. Well, one might argue (and I can’t believe I’m including Moyes in this company) that the reason is because they all have better managers.

      1. i’ve always liked david moyes as a manager. he got everton into the top 4 with a not so great squad. likewise, i’ve seen video sessions he’s done as a coach when he was at everton and he’s class. i’m not at all surprised that he’s gotten west ham in the top 4. the man united job was simply a bad gig for him to take. that was an awfully unbalanced team he inherited…and expected to win with.

10. It was a very dull affair – I agree. I – who was fully ready to dump Mikel before the Chelsea win – think he is actually doing better, yesterday notwithstanding. I suspect that Arteta recognized that we weren’t gonig to have a chance against City without Partey in midfield. And he needed to give ESR and Dani a break. So with Mo and Xhaka passing backwards, Tierney rusty, Odegaard still unfamiliar, and City being City, he played with a very defensive, conservative mindset. If we somehow had nicked a goal, he would’ve looked like a genius. We had a shot to get a point until the end – although it never looked remotely likely. I think he had to pick a game in this tight run of 4 tough fixtures to ease off on the gas, and this was the one.
    He’s been pretty aggressive in his attacking approach over the last several games, but this was one where he thought that might get us crushed. We are not on City’s level. Duh. It was drab, boring and disappointing. I wish I had that 2 hours back, but I’m not upset that we did what we did. Assuming we do better Thursday and Sunday. Big assumption.

    1. Apart from the Leeds match, Arsenal have created just 3 big chances in 5 matches (and conceded 9). That doesn’t feel like attacking football to me.

       1. Which 5 matches are you referring to, Tim? I thought we had more big chances than that in the Benfica game alone. Based on eyeball measure, I admit.

          1. Man U – 0
             Wolves – 1
             Villa – 0
             Leeds – 3
             Benfica – 2
             Man City – 0

             We only had 7 shots against Benfica.

             1. I would like more big chances too. But first we have to be able to progress and get into the attacking third more consistently. We dominated Wolves, Leeds and Benfica. We were wasteful with final balls and opportunities in many instances. It’s a far cry from the Fall in terms of how we play. It’s not good enough, but there’s pretty clear progress overall. Is that just an indictment of how poor we were – maybe. But it’s more pleasing to the eye than we’ve been for a while – even when we were winning the FA Cup with our back 3. More exciting, more on the front foot. CIty being the big exception.

             2. Big chances are the number one indicator of success. The fact that we can’t create them is not just something I want it’s something that we need. We have created 41 in 25 games and conceded 38. We’ve also created 80 shots in prime and conceded 80 shots in prime. Leno has been massive for us, saving 10.5 xG. Without Leno’s saves and some high profile misses Arteta’s miraculous defense would look really really poor and with a poor attack, man, this doesn’t look good.

                We are 5th in completed passes in the final 3rd, 9th in final third touches, 8th in penalty area touches, 12th in key passes, 12th in shot creating actions, 12th in goal creating actions.

                The more exciting part is that he’s playing Smith Rowe but even that I fear he will stop doing. I guess I’m worried that he will drop ESR. Maybe I’m being paranoid but it feels like a pattern with Arteta.

                Arteta’s been in charge of Arsenal now for 45 league matches and yet we are still struggling with the same weird problems. There was a brief moment when he had pepe and others overlapping and running into the box without the ball but we seem to have killed that off again. It’s all just perplexing, man. One step forward, two steps back kind of stuff.

                of course, this is mostly me being emotional about the games. the data, though, seems to back me up. it feels like we are way worse than even our results show and this is the worst Arsenal have played since before almost everyone on the team was born!

                I like that so many people are optimistic about Arteta and I’m not an “arteta out” guy but I just see this as a team who are 10th and well deserve to be 10th.

             3. I was really concerned about the ESR thing too. I will be upset if his time gets reduced considerably. I’m not sold on Odegaard, but I like having another option there, even in the short term, to rest ESR. We have played like a 10th place team this season overall, no question. But he had a massive roster overhaul to do, and we have cleared out a lot of problem players. I think Arteta was counting on having a healthy Partey, and built things around that assumption. And we’ve suffered because of his injuries. Unless we’re disastrous the rest of the season, I’d like to see him get the players he wants to mold the squad his way. If we’re not in serious contention for top 4 next year, we should move on.

                I think it’s hard for everyone to recognize what a mess our club became by the end of Wenger’s time. In our minds, we are top 4 every year and trying to win titles. In reality, we had a squad that was old, overpaid and not performing. The size of the task requires some patience – still.

             4. I’m not Arteta out but this isn’t great work and him getting the squad he wants has been pretty not great also.

                willian is his guy, the saliba thing is on him, david luiz, playing Xhaka every game.

                I’m not sure I want the squad that Arteta wants. and what happens when the senior players like Auba get sick of this?

             5. Thanks Tim. Guess I can’t trust my eyes. But I still think we could have had four against Benfica, easy. And I prefer at this point to focus on the positive aspects of the season: the rise of our young guns, some good recent performances (we may have lost to Wolves but we were thrashing them until we imploded), Thomas looks the biz if he could just stay healthy, defense looking more reliable. Yes, it will suck if we have no European football next year, but lots of us thought this season was always going to be a write-off… it seems a bit harsh to put all the blame on Arteta when the low expectations of so many are turning out to be accurate. BTW, my current strategy is to avoid watching the games live, and to be highly selective about which games I choose to watch after the fact on Arsenal.com. Life’s too short…

             6. You can trust your eyes! Opta aren’t the only arbiters of reality. But we did only have 7 shots. Are you perhaps counting non-shot events as “big chances” because that’s a legit thing in my mind.

             7. Well, perhaps an expectation of four is pushing it, but how Auba missed that sitter is beyond me, and I thought we were significantly better against a useful Benfica side so 3-1 would have been a fair expectation on the basis of what I saw. But I am a bit color blind.

             8. yeah, he misses those shots from time to time.

       2. Tim – Since the Chelsea match, we are xg of 17.2 vs. opponents 11.2. It got much worse when you add City. 17.5 vs. 13.3 That’s compared to the games prior where we had 16 for and 17 against. This is progress. It’s not miraculous, but it’s improvement. This is what happens in a rebuild. it takes time. But even the eye test says we’re much better to watch since the Chelsea match than before. City being the exception. Fits and starts, but the arrow is pointing up.

          1. That’s true! However, that was largely against the bottom table teams. Arsenal had 9.9 xG and 3.5 xGA against Brighton, West Brom, Crystal Palace, Newcastle, and Southampton.

             The last six matches have been xG 7.2 xGA 7.9.

             That’s what I mean by steps forward and then back. You see what I mean?

             1. Yeah this is exactly the frustration. Every time we seem to be picking things up, we stall. When things start to look up I think Arteta is on to something, when they stall again it reaffirms all my fears.

11. Easily the most gutless performance by an Arsenal side in all my years watching Arsenal.
    Didn’t expect a result but neither waving of a white flag .
    Seems I wasn’t alone in this since both The Guardian and ESPN called it as having a testimonial/friendly like feel to it.

    1. it looked like arsenal under unai emery.

12. arteta is totally to blame for the poor league results by arsenal this season.

    first, is esr really that good? maybe it’s that he’s an academy product that we’re excited to see make the step up and hope can be the arsenal savior… or maybe it’s that arsenal went so long without a cam that’s it was refreshing to see someone in that role? it’s been plain to see most of the season that arsenal needed a cam but arteta froze our their best cam. now, they play odegaard and esr there but neither are actually better than mesut. understand, i’m not attacking esr. i’m just highlighting how the squad has been managed by arteta.

    second, i agree with tom that arsenal need auba firing but it’s not going to happen with him playing center forward. it’s simply not what auba’s good at. he’s a striker. if you let him be a striker, his goals will come. likewise, auba is a human. he hasn’t scored so many this year because he’s trying to learn a new position, lead the line, lead the team, and still score goals. they have this axiom about teaching an old dog new tricks that mikel has clearly ignored. likewise, we’re seeing why most managers don’t make their goal scorers captain. it’s difficult enough to score goals. your goal scorers only focus should be putting the ball in the back of the net, not also leading the line or leading the team.

    arsenal’s early season success was with lacazette playing center forward. their mid-season success was with lacazette playing center forward. arsenal’s struggles have come when mikel thought it a good idea to drop lacazette; the correlation is undeniable. center forward is what lacazette does better than aubameyang. sure, auba had the hat trick against leeds but come on…it was leeds. second, his goals were not a result of good center forward play from him. his first goal was class but scored from his best position, on the left. the second was a penalty and the third was a mis-hit shot that fell perfectly for him at the back post. did auba need the goals? absolutely. but it didn’t imply that “he was back” like so many have said. we saw that with the missed sitters against benfica. arsenal need auba playing as a striker and not at center forward.

    speaking of strikers, who here actually believes that esr is a better striker than aubameyang or pepe? probably very few, if any. however, mikel played esr at striker against man city while auba floundered at center forward and pepe sat the bench.

    1. …err, i agree with bill, not tom, about needing aubameyang scoring again.

13. I understand all the stuff about xG for and against and big chances etc but in the end the things that correlate with winning and losing is goals scored and goals conceded. If you don’t have enough players who are good at turning the big chances you create into actual goals scored then you are not going to have success no matter how good you are at creating big chances and thats where this squad is right now.

    I would also argue that if our team setup and tactics and attacking mindset were all fundamentally flawed then we would not be able to overwhelm teams like West Brom or Leeds I believe the reason we struggle to create big chances and score against better defensive teams is not because of poor tactics or bag management but because we don’t have a lot of players who are good at it and the opposition defense is preventing us from executing the things we want to do.

14. tim is spot on when he says that created chances are the biggest indicator of how successful a team is. if your team is creating good chances, they’re playing good football. if you’re creating chances, you’re more likely to score goals, hence more likely to win games. if arsenal were creating chances but not scoring, then bill’s idea of having players not very good at scoring goals would be accurate.

    in the game on sunday, i remember one ball that was played forward to auba that he kept. that was a throw in from tierney on the touch line. first, he kept dropping too deep. if arsenal win the ball, who are they going to play it forward to? second, when he did stay high, every long ball, high ball or anything else with his back to goal resulted in manchester city assuming possession. while having a cam is important, the front man that can win and keep the ball high up the pitch, bring others into the play, execute aerial redirects, and draw fouls, etc., all with his back to goal, is vitally important. if your center forward can’t do that, how can you penetrate? all that’s left are attempted dribbles, overloads, or through balls, which are all easy to defend.

    it’s foolish to try and get aubameyang to change his game at this point in his career.

15. It was such a turgid and weird match.

    I don’t know what Guardiola saw, either – but if we hadn’t switched off in the second minute we might be talking about a frustrating but honourable 0-0 against the best team in Europe. I don’t think that would have been a terrible outcome, however much I would hope for more.

    So, trying to understand:

    One thing I’m fairly sure of is that Arteta wanted it to be gnarly and awkward. We are terrible at progressing the ball in possession through the midfield with both Xhaka and Elneny on the pitch and I’m sure Arteta could see that, but he left Dani on the bench until the 85th minute. That was his choice to sacrifice our penetration.

    I’m also pretty sure he had very specific ideas about how to get through City. It looked like he wanted us to draw them out by backing off – no pressing – keep shape, control space, wait for an error, wait for the fullbacks to overload, and then try to win back the ball. Maybe not that exactly, but something like that – waiting until City moved into a certain shape or phase of play and then becoming more active.

    That plus our midfield setup and rubbish passing going forward explains why our stats were bad across the board.

    Apart from the disappointing passing I don’t view it as a bad performance, more as something Arteta seems to have decided we had to endure. I don’t think we were ever going to see anything free-flowing with the ball or even aggressive without it, and we should see much “better” (from both stats pov and excitement pov) performances.

    This all sounds like I think Arteta’s a genius strategist or something and I don’t think that at the moment, but he is very inclined to strict implementation of detailed tactics. What looks “passive”, and is reflected in low numbers, can be the outcome of a conscious tactical decision. So under this coach in particular the stats can almost make it harder to judge what’s going on.

    1. On Xhaka, I’ve never been a massive fan, but he’s looking increasingly Barry- or Carrick-esque these days so fair play to him.

16. Same old, same old.

    Man City score in the first few minutes and then spend the rest of the game playing keep ball. How many times has that happened in the last few years? It might as well have been a testimonial. They never really got out of 2nd gear, because they didn’t need to. You always had the impression that Arsenal would never score, barring some fluke, and that City could any time they put their minds to it.

    Sterling and Mahrez had our full backs in their pockets. At least Tierney had the excuse of being rusty after injury. Bellerin just isn’t a particularly good defender. I read today that PSG were looking at him, which is difficult to believe. Sell, Arsenal. Sell!

    Holding gets beaten to the header by the shortest player on the pitch. Ball watching. He was mentally still in the changing room.

    I presume playing Pepe on the right and Saka on the left was “tactical”? I always think the best tactics are playing players in the positions where they perform best. Bellerin and Pepe have no chemistry whatsoever.

    Xhaka and Elneny completely out of their depth against players of that level.

    Auba looked sulky and disinterested. Have we no-one in that side, who can spark a bit of passion? A very timid performance all round.

    Oodergaard worked hard, but to little avail. At the end of the day, we missed ESR. We invariably play worse when he isn’t in the side. I don’t think that’s coincidence.

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