Trying to trust the process

49 comments

1. I dozed off around the same time, so it might have just been the football.

   I have hope. I just hope we are not trusting in the wrong process.

2. If Mustafi had been standing around fiddling with his prick wouldn’t it have gotten coverage in other sources? Better TV ratings to be certain, but your point is taken if not the tip.

3. We started the season on a high. Most were optimistic we could compete for top four but may end up 5th or 6th. I think we’ll be lucky to make top 10.

   For me it’s primarily down to the manager. I could write an ever increasing list of what he’s doing wrong but the simplest thing to say is I fear the players are tiring of his mistakes and rigid game plan. And we saw what happened to the previous two managers when the players lose faith.

   I’m genuinely questioning whether he is smart because the stats, the eye-test, the pundits, the reviews – it’s obvious we’re too easy to play against and there’s no fear factor.

   As for ‘the process’ we’re eleven months in – what process?

   My sense is that Mikel does not have the introspection or adaptability to turn this around. I dearly hope I’m wrong.

   United, Villa, Leeds, Wolves, Spurs to come. I’m not sure we’ll see more than 5 points from this schedule. We could be looking at the relegation spots come December.

4. Yeah – it was very dull football. But chalking it up to being leggy doesn’t cut it for me. We looked very timid in possession, especially in the 2nd half. Our midfield three sat in a straight line and did nothing except pass to the fullbacks, semi-square. Credt Leicester for great defensive organization, but it feels like MA has us soooo focused on positional discipline that we have completely outlawed creative movement. The Front 3 also looked pretty stagnant. I’ve been defending Laca a bit but he really doesn’t seem to offer anything creative. And we’re asking him to fill that role. Total misfit imo.
   Agree that both Gabriel and Partey looked sharp. But let’s get Partey the ball a bit, FFS. Frustrating. We do have to keep in mind this was our first try at a 4-3-3 and it will take some time to figure out for the players and the coach. Still trusting the process, but like you, wondering where it will take us.

   1. I know Partey looks to be very good at using the ball and moving us forward, but he isn’t a ball dominant player. He will not be the player that the team will play through, unless everyone is so bad that he has to. At Atletico Madrid, he always had a ball dominant player alongside him who would take up the job of rotating and retaining the ball.

      Granit Xhaka is an example of a ball dominant player. He not only looks for the ball, but is also very consistent in his use of it. A ball dominant player in central midfield has to be very safe in his passing and protect possession for the team. Mostly players who are more inventive cant do this role because they try to make things happen, and that comes with risk. Players like Partey are capable of more, so they will obviously try more. They will also lose confidence if some of their risky passes are turned.

      Xhaka is ball dominant because he is limited skillwise, but a very consistent and safe passing option. The way that he plays is very hard for anyone who wants to enjoy playing football because its BORING as hell, but some players enjoy it and those are the special few who are ball dominant.

      Special praise should however go to the select few players who are anomalies and have struck the perfect balance between rotating possession and playing with flair/creativity. I will only point out Arsenal players, because this is an Arsenal blog. Those players are Fabregas and Carzola. They had the ability to be conservative and safe, but could spring something incredible at any moment. Truly special players and a calibre o midfielder we are sorely lacking.

      So Partey will not become our deep playmaker or one higher up the pitch, as long as Xhaka is still around. He will be a higher level Elneny (Yes I still stand by that).

5. The Process is indeed ultra-ugly. I know that because I’ve seen it.

   My brother is a Liverpool fan, so I watched them almost as much as Arsenal, and this season honestly reminds me of Klopp’s 1st season and a half, when Klopp was trying to play his philosophy with mediocre players like Klavan, Sakho and Moreno.

   The main differences are:
   1) Rodgers already had similarities in playing style with Klopp, so the transition was a bit smoother in terms of player profile fit.
   2) Liverpool wisely held off in investing too much money into Rodgers, and reserved the pot for Klopp.

   Take a look at this search for #KloppOut between 2015~2017.. The tweets are almost exactly what is happening here!
   https://twitter.com/search?q=%23KloppOut%20until%3A2017-12-31%20since%3A2015-01-01&src=typed_query&f=live

   1. You could probably teach a twitter bot to guess the last 10 results of a club based on the tweets about the manager.

   2. I do not have social media, but I have been told that its full of over the top comments and not much analysis, so is it objective to use reactions from there?

      On the similarities between the two tenures, is that Liverpool started and never stopped trying to play Klopp’s football. From the very beginning, they tried to play the same way that they play now, just with worse players. As time went, the players who were good enough slowly learned the system’s requirements and style, and were then provided with teammates that could help them make that style what it is now.

      So Liverpool played a worse version of what we are seeing now, but we had already seen what it looked like in the successful Dortmund side. Arsenal on the other hand? We started with a very attacking pressing style and structure before lock-down. We then switched to the boring opposite of that after the lock-down. So which system or style is our future? Or are we going to continue being chameleons like under Emery?

      The simple question is, do we know what the end product of our process looks like? What are the qualities of the players that Arteta needs for his football, based on what the final product requires? Is it a question of quality only or also the types of players that we need? We saw answers to all of this with Liverpool from Klopps very first game. From there on, you can make mistakes in purchasing players, but the idea behind the acquisition comforts the knowledgeable fan.

      In the end, the earlier you start applying your principles, the earlier you will reach the target.

   3. Klopp’s Liverpool hit 2 points per game in his first full season amassing 76 points and edging out Arsenal for 4th place. I’d also add that Klopp was an extremely well known quantity with an elite track record plus being one of the very few coaches to truly have invented a playing style. Arteta by comparison is getting a pretty easy ride because he’s a former player and there are no fans in the stadia to yawn or boo the performances.

6. At this point in the sample size on Arteta, I’ll trust my eyes. I know we are on our way to being a sound defensive team because I’ve seen the difference unfold in front of me. There’s no comparison really. Football is a low scoring sport where the better team often doesn’t win. That was the case yesterday.

   1. The better mostly wins my dear Doctor. that is why we have won far more games where we dominated, than the narrative of us losing games like this a lot suggests. Remember, this is not the first time Leicester have come to the Emirates and played like this, but it is their first win here in a long time. For all of the anger and disappointment in dominating games for many years and losing by a sucker punch, we normally wiped the floor with many teams during our top 4 Wenger years. We started losing more and more, when we stopped being the better side and having teams start competing more with us.

      So yes, football is a low scoring sport. But the better team usually wins. That’s why signing good players, a good coach and having a proactive style are so important, to help you become the better team. Being the better team in many of your games means winning most of your games.

      1. Lost track after the 3rd impossibly obvious sentence and can’t help but feel that perhaps you’re being passive aggressively condescending. Would hope to be corrected because I think you’re better than that.

         1. Apologies if I came across that way Dr. I just have an issue with the way that people have complained about losing games like this a lot, when we have won far more games that went this way in the past..

            I am hoping that we focus on being the better team in games and being proactive.

            1. Don’t you think we were the better team in that game? I do.

7. Correct, Tim. Trust the process. Im not thrilled with everything Arteta has done, but I’m happy with about 80%. Im not about to the way of Bernie dems who want to burn it all down. It doesn’t have to be 100%. Arteta is an investment, and we have to back him long term, even if football management is more fickle than that. He is a trophy winner 7 months into his tenure as a rookie coach, so we need some perspective. On another day and maybe with different personnel, we go to the break 2 goals up.

   But football often doesn’t follow neat fault lines. The reality was that we had a “running in behind” ace coming on, on the hour, and we did not adjust. And he has a mad goalscoring record against us.

   On the decisive play, the player who seemed most aware of the danger was our newest defender, Gabriel. Our two senior pros, Xhaka and Mustafi, were most egregiously at fault. Arteta’s transition planning was actually sound. When Tierney attacks, Xhaka drops into the space. Tielemans, Under and Vardy executed magnificently (and took advantage of Granit’s slowness) and that’s good play as well as good coaching. What in the hell was Musti doing so far up the pitch, ostensibly marking Leicester’s speed merchant? Look at photo 2… his is marking no one, Gabriel is recating to the danger by leaving vardy and running into the space where the ball is being delivered, and Vary has a free run up the middle. Gabriel did what he was supposed to in Arteta’s A to D transition play, Musti hasnt run that far (check the cut of the grass).

   Photo 3 looks really, bad from a transition POV, because it has a “nobody is at home” vibe. Tielemans took Xhaka and Tierney out of the game. Gabriel, had to try to block the cross. Our central CB is miles from Vardy, our LB is miles from his turf, and the drop in LB was caught back on his heels, ball watching, for a split second. If Gabriel chooses to stick on Vardy, Under has a free run at Leno.

   Looks to me like their training ground counter/transition was done to perfection; our attack to defence transition failed. One-nil to Rodgers.

   1. If one of our chances goes in, it’s a totally different ballgame. The counterattack chances never materialize for them and instead we get to play with space in their half. That’s football, and it was a cruel mistress to Arsenal.

      Also we haven’t spoken much about that first half. Arsenal had 11 shots! Weren’t people freaking out about the shots? Arsenal had 60% possession and made chances from it. Isn’t that what we wanted to see? There’s a heavy element of judging the performance based on the outcome here.

      Xhaka played a solid game and didn’t pick himself. In hindsight maybe Maitland Nike’s wouldve been a better fit for that role.

      If any one player deserves blame in that game, and I don’t think he does because he played hard. it would be Lacazette. He was awful with his touches, his awareness, his movement… I don’t know how he has regressed so much except that maybe physically he is just declining early. I think it’s primarily mental for him though.

      1. If you’d indulge me while I quote myself in an act of vanity, doc, “football often doesnt follow neat fault lines.”

         Over my many years of supporting Arsenal, Ive lost count of the number of times we’ve battered other teams on possession and chances, only to drop points or even lose. That is football.

         Leicester adjusted after the half. Moreover, they had us where they wanted us after an hour… scoreless, frustrated, and with Mister Running In Behind to unleash.

         Agree on Laca, but I dont understand what you mean by Xhaka “didnt pick himself”. What sort of argument is that? Most of the time he does his “drop in” defender duties very well, but he was undone by a moment of Leicester brilliance, and his dozing off for a second. That’s all it takes sometimes… one mistake, one perfect execution, one chance, one goal. That is football.

         That said and leaving aside the wide men Saka, Willian and Pepe, we need goals from the middle of the park to alleviate the pressure up front. All good and even not so good Arsenal teams have had that. One of Xhaka, Ceballos, Partey, Elneny and/or Willock will have to step up and take goalscoring responsibilities.

         One more thing… with the benefit of years of hindsight, I and others have been wrong about Giroud. If Laca is giving us Giroud goalscoring numbers without being close to bringing others into play in the same way, what is the point?

         There was one classic but aging CF on the market late in the window, and I’d have taken Edinson Cavani (yes, he mightnt have come anyway, but a guy can daydream). What are the chances of his playing against us, having a good game and scoring?

         (Ive a temperamental keyboard, so please excuse the typos)

         1. I’d trade Lacazette for Giroud in a second. Giroud was MUCH better at link up. And while he got crap for not scoring consistently, he scored 100 for Arsenal. Doubt Laca’s getting anywhere near that.
            Plus he was a very good aerial defender on set pieces.

            1. Giroud and Theo are the two most underrated attackers in the AW era, by far.

               Never have I seen so much slander of two high-scoring players like that.

      2. I watched the game and it was clear from the first whistle Leicester were playing ten men behind the ball and conceding possession. No two ways about it Rodgers played his hand well. I think even if we had scored in the first half Vardy would bail him out ‘cause that’s what he does. The real concern yesterday is that second half they pushed up and at 60 minutes brought on the Road Runner and we just didn’t adjust. 1 shot in the entire second half and 0 big chances all match are difficult stats to defend.

8. Thanks for a great post and a great blog. I don´t know how you manage. I´m so bleeding tired of Arsenal and games like yesterday.

   I actually turned off the tv when Luiz went off, Mustafi on and Vardy on. I knew, I bleeding knew. Its exhausting.

9. The last several games Emery-itis has crept into the team – players spread out across the pitch, passes having to travel across acres of grass, build up play not happening through the middle but through Tierney and Bellerin, and frighteningly at the end, through Pepe on the left coming deep for the ball. We need to work harder at make the pitch smaller, building through the middle , and creating overloads with some aggressive movement off the ball. Don’t tell me Leeds has more naturally creative players than we have, but they vastly out perform us in attacking intent. Arteta has over emphasized defensive stability. To paraphrase Thomas Sowell – there are no such things as solutions, only trade offs. The trade off for being defensively solid with a cadre of mediocre defenders is that we’ve become overly conservative in our attack. We have Partey now – go back to a back four, play 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 even if you want to partner him with Xhaka and let’s get more expansive in our play.

   1. I know nothing, but I think this is bang on.

      Don’t do an erudite Emery. Give players roles and autonomy to play to their strengths.

      I agree that a back 4 is the key to much of this.

10. It was absolutely boring stuff.
    I have a feeling, Arteta was promoted to manager too soon, must have given him a little bit more time to work out the head coach role.
    As a manager, I suppose there has to be a greater vision as to where you would like to take the product. He is still at the stage of figuring out the product, which is going to take some time, considering the absolute identity crisis we have been facing with the football we have played since almost 2011 I guess.
    I do feel he has the potential to be a very good manager, but he needs to get his head out of the tactical stuff he right now seems to be whirling his head in and take on a distant view.
    Put your best players in form on the pitch, let them learn to play together, give them confidence. And move the system to a more fluid frontline with Auba, Pepe/Willian, Saka, make it simpler rather than overly complicated stuff.
    Not that I know too much about this stuff, but it feels like the team is playing in a straightjacket.

11. Yes, we can trust the process while also feeling upset or frustrated about it. We all know in our heads that this will take time, more than one or two seasons, but we feel the highs and lows in our hearts, and we’re low right now and it’s hard right now to see how we’re going to get out of this funk.

    One thing that’s really struck me so far this season is how technically poor we are when in attack. Passes are over-hit or under-hit, there’s a lack of control at speed, poor first touches, failure to find runners, mistimed runs. We rarely seem to be confident or secure in possession in the final third. It’s strange because over the years we’ve grown accustomed to scrambled eggs at the back and technical flair up front. The opposite seems to be happening now, although obviously we still have a few lingering leftover scrambled eggs these days (Mustafi!!!).

    I’m ok with this if Arteta’s plan is the proverbial “build from the back” (I seem to associate this with Scottish football for some reason…maybe because Alex Ferguson said it all the time? or the insufferable Souness?); I don’t think it’s much of a mystery that the plan in the next two transfer windows involves an attacking midfielder.

    So, yeah, process. Time. Patience. None of the things we’re good at as fans!

12. The first half was pretty decent. We have some good players.
    But Auba can’t carry the load on the offense entirely. We’re wasting 100M on Laca and Pepe and getting very few returns. Getting Martinelli back might help. Eddie is decent. But we need someone else to step up.
    On the goal, like everyone else, I figured something like that was more likely than not, given we hadn’t manage to score in the first half. I wouldn’t blame it on Xhaka. He’s never going to be the right person to cover a speed merchant forward. He’d have needed at least a 5 yard headstart on Under. The fact that he was in that position was down to injuries, Arteta, and Mustafi. Most of the blame on that one in mind goes on Mustafi, who didn’t track Vardy despite Gabriel pointing it out.

13. Top blog.

14. I know that football isn’t as simple a game as we armchair quarterbacks like to suggest that it is, but to me, Vardy made a powerful argument for playing your best striker and one of your quickest athletes centrally. I’ve seen the two Tims, Todd and Stillman, both arguing that Auba centrally causes havoc with his movement.

    Living on the shoulder of the defender is a nightmare for a defence. Go to sleep for one second and you’re done. The attacker gets caught offside a lot, but when it works, it works well. Having left Mustafi for dead, it’s Gabriel alone with two attackers… allow one a free run at Leno (Under), or hope that your partner picks up the central striker, Vardy. And you have a split second to decide. Devil and the deep blue sea time. It’s telling that Leno went to his left post to meet Under, which tells me that he was expecting Gabriel to track and mark Vardy out. So when Under crossed to Vardy, he had a more or less unguarded goal.

    This is good attacking execution. NNo doubt Arteta will iron things out in training.

    Im not a coach, so I’ll ask the question… is it time to call time on this “hold up play” thingy at Arsenal, until we get a classic CF who can do that better than Laca does? Rodgers in his interview said he had Kelechi do holdup (which didnt work that well for them), but when he moved to actively trying to win the game, he went to his best striker centrally. Imagine Jorginho (who admitted yesterday that we did try to sign him), causing mayhem in the way that Tielemans did yesterday by pinging it aerially from the middle, with Pepe, Willian and Saka flanking Auba. Or the central ball-carrier in Aouar that we never got, feeding him with through balls to run onto. Was this what Arteta ideally wanted during the transfer window?

    Some teams have good classic 9s. Tammy Abraham is one, Calvert-Lewin is one, Kane is one. It seems like Kane is now playing for Son at Spurs, with the Korean as the main disruptor. We don’t have a 9 of Kane’s quality, and might as well change our style to get the best out of our talisman.

    1. I thought Lacazette was drafted in to make up for a lack of presence in zone 14 and connect the midfield with the rest of the attack, or hold up play until the rest of the team can catch up to the play.

       I still think that Aour skills and style of play are grossly misjudged. He is more of a Caballos with ball carrying abilities. Even if we had him, Lacazette would still need to drop deeper. The best way to get the best out of Lacazette is to push the team higher up the pitch, and allow him to play most of the game in the box. Right now, I do not think playing Auba will work out how many think it will. The U-Shape will come back in a huge way.

       Leicester have always had someone that knows how to operate in the middle, so Vardy has never had to drop deeper like Lacazette does, and how Auba will have to.

       From my point of view, the little that we get from Lacazette dropping deeper will be glaringly obvious and very significant if we move him or Eddie away from the middle. The same way that people saw little from Mesut before lockdown, but take him out and you realise how much he did. Same thing with Arsene, after he left, we started seeing that he wasn’t as bad or behind modern standards of coaching as most thought.

       I would love to see Auba in the middle, but my fear is that the system is so rigid that it needs Lacazette/Eddie to function, even at such a low level. Move Auba central, and we might just take a clear step back.

15. We have scored 5 goals in October. Five. This is a team with Aubamayeng, Lacazette and Pepe. With Saka and Nketiah well capable of putting the ball in the back of the net as well.

    To be still underachieving to this degree after knocking out big teams to win the FA Cup and Community Shield just weeks ago is beyond my understanding.

16. Did any of you torture yourself by reading Scott Willis’ By the Numbers piece on Arseblog News today?

    1 shot in the second half. ONE! When WE WERE CHASING THE GAME! Did we ever look like we were chasing the game, though?

    This from Scott dovetails nicely with what Tim presented above: “Looking at raw shots, Arsenal went from slightly above 15 shots per match in the last four seasons of Arsene Wenger, to 12 in Unai Emery’s first season, followed by a drop to 10.5 last season and another drop this season to just 8.7.”

    So, it’s going to get worse before it gets better, right? This is the part of the ‘ripping off the bandaid’ metaphor where it stings before it doesn’t sting? Got any other tried and tested maxims to help me here?

17. folks screamed for aubameyang and lacazette to play together and now you want to drop laca? you gooners are too funny.

    lacazette is currently the best center forward option that arsenal have. aubameyang is a great player but it’s different when you have to play with your back to goal and you have no midfield support. as a striker, auba can use his speed to get on the end of passes behind defenses as he’s mostly facing goal but not as much at center forward.

    theo has speed and many thought he had great movement (i thought no, he just did them really fast). giroud showed arsenal some good movement in baku last june and he’s not fast. likewise, alexis was arsenal’s best scorer but his goals dried up when he went to center forward. likewise, neither alexis nor theo could hold up the ball to save their lives.

    good movement and speed aren’t the same thing. vardy is fast, has great movement, and is in a system that’s designed to exploit his speed. leicester sit deep to create space for him to run into on the counter-attack. is anyone interested in seeing arsenal play that way? what happens if auba picks up an injury?

    last, we should give lacazette a break. while i did declare that he was a huge center forward downgrade to giroud when he came to arsenal, he’s much better than i thought he would be. he’s currently arsenal’s leading scorer and had a fine finish disallowed yesterday through no fault of his own. most of us don’t know the process but we have little choice but to trust it.

    1. some players like dzeko, giroud, lewandowski, firmino, suarez, benzema, kane, etc. are not merely goal scorers but facilitators of goals being scored. this requires a unique skill set that requires more than just speed or scoring technique. vardy has played in a 4-4-2 as a striker. when emery was at arsenal, he played a 4-4-2 with pepe and aubameyang as counter-attack strikers. that approach was to both their strengths but not to the strength of the rest of the team.

    2. “lacazette is currently the best center forward option that arsenal have”

       ===

       Then that’s a real problem. He’s so out of form and out of shape it’s unreal. Surely you recognize this.

       1. i don’t agree with that. sure, he was not at his best but his form has been solid. like i said, he had a great finish disallowed. likewise, he played the majority of the vienna game on thursday only to come on again and play the majority on sunday. he’s used to sharing that time with nketiah but it’s been mostly laca…he may be knackered.

          also, why play willian as a false 9 against city? maybe that’s a knock to his confidence. who knows. we know goal scorers are drama queens.

       2. Lacazette scores three goals in the first three games and then just falls off a cliff. I think this is probably his MO for now. Some times he’s going to be good, sometimes not.

          One thing that REALLY frustrates me is his lack of movement up top. The man stands still far too often. Also he’s terrible at playing false nine. Absolutely terrible at it.

18. claudivan, i saw you mention midfield contributions to the arsenal attack…not gonna happen too much. if you notice, arsenal transition from a 3-4-3 to something that looks like a 2-3-2-3 when arsenal are in possession. the two center backs sit behind the 3 center mids who serve as a triple-screen with one (thomas) playing centrally and the other two (xhaka and ceballos) playing as inverted wingbacks. they may get opportunities occasionally but they’re generally too far away from the goal.

    it’s a throwback to cruyff’s barcelona, pre-romario. that makes sense as arteta was at barcelona when cruyff was there but they all learned the same system. mikey seems to be going back to his childhood.

19. Is it time for Balogun to have a chance at no.9?

20. Arsenal’s attacking woes are nothing new. From what I recall, Tim has charted our xG per season and it was declining in Wenger’s final years. Scoring goals is the hardest part of football. We used to do it by having lots of technical players and throwing them all forward. Then, we slowly lost our midfield talent, never replaced from without or within; and poured our money into expensive strikers. The result is that our best chance to make goals now comes from the flanks, set plays, or counterattacks. The midfield has been bypassed for several seasons in a row, by three different managers, because it lacks the dynamism or technical quality to break down even an average press or low block. So, we have a team with a few excellent strikers but limited avenues to get them into situations where they can be effective. One way is to play out from the back and get them into space. Another is to create overloads in wide areas using technically excellent fullback play.. Another is to ping long passes into the channels for them. Finally there is the counter press. Arteta’s team is doing all of these things and the team is scoring goals, but it’s not the flowing football people expect from Arsenal.
    Tim Stillman’s column this week on Arseblog challenged Arteta to show his managerial chops by unlocking the attacking talent on the team. I’m not sure that’s possible with the players he has wothout, as Tim S said himself, reopening the soft underbelly of the team to counteratttacks. That’s probably why Thomas Partey and Gabriel were prioritized this summer. Both players are athletic and strong in duels, the ideal qualities to stymie counters. Thomas looks particularly agile and quick and should be an effective counter killer for Arsenal, a role only Maitland Niles could fulfill from Midfield players we had last season.
    The reason we paid so much for Thomas though is that he also has the technical quality to be press resistant without being too conservative with his passing. That’s a trait only Dani Ceballos has among our other midfield options, but of course without the physical tools described above. Thomas and Dani together could in theory provide the sort of ball progression from midfield that could unlock more attacks from central zones and thus many more shots per game without exposing the back line to too much pressure because they could move the ball with a pass or on the dribble and If the ball is lost, they could cover ground quickly enough to close passing lanes before they can be exploited. Thomas and Xhaka is an interesting idea but the latter’s issues with mobility would not make him an ideal partner in a two man midfield. El-Neny, a steady all round player, has neither the physical or technical tools required of a top drawer midfielder.
    If we maintain the current system, it will absolutely require starting Bellerin and Tierney in order to be effective. Kolasinac isn’t cut out for the hybrid LCB/LWB role that Tierney plays so well, and Soares hasn’t been able to provide much so far at either end. Gabriel will anchor the middle nicely but a more technical RCB will also be important. Hopefully Chambers can step into that role, which seems ideal for him. I like holding but not with the ball at his feet. Callum is a more dangerous passer and more technically secure.
    The forward line itself is well stocked, especially with the eventual return of Martinelli who I think we miss quite a bit especially in the sort of game we played against Vienna. Nketiah is not cut out to play wide left, not by a long shot. Martinelli’s combination of speed, two footed technical ability and finishing prowess is special and I am gutted about his injury.
    Regardless of who we put up there though, the solution to our problems up front begin at the back. Arteta and Edu bought the right player to liberate Arsenal’s midfield from its very necessary but rigid structure. Now let’s see how well he can do it. He’s had one full game this far.

    1. Of Partey, he isn’t going to do the liberation thing if the defenders don’t give him the fucking ball. Allowing Luiz to play the long passes he does, albeit mostly successfully, we are bypassing a 50 million pound player, meaning we virtually played the first half with 10. That can’t be the plan. After the Vienna game, Arteta more or less suggested that Partey could boss the midfield at will. So it’s hardly likely that in the next game, he told Luiz to starve Thomas of the ball.

       My personal opinion is that there are too many players at the club who are not of the right standard for a Top 4 team. It needs a masive clear out. Not just the obvious ones, but others who are either proving to be past it, or unable to grasp what it is that Arteta wants them to do.

       Top 4? This season unlikely, next season possible. If not, does that mean Arteta get’s let go at the end of his contract? Hopefully not if he is at that point, getting a very TOP drawer squad together.

       1. It’s really frustrating to see Arsenal’s main creative outlet be the center backs.

21. For me the problems started with the match against Rapid. When I saw the starting lineup, I thought it was too strong. I know that it was an important opening game game against maybe the strongest opponent in the group, but when you have a game on the weekend, you have to consider rotating. Because if you start the same pair of defenders on Thursday as you had started against City, and then you field them again on Sunday against Leicester, the best thing you can expect is to be a bit “leggy”. The worst is to get an injury. If you were afraid of playing Mustafi against Rapid, you will have to have him against Vardy.

    1. Agreed. That strong team selection against Rapid Vienna was a hostage to fortune. However that was, on paper at least, the toughest game in the group and winning the first game is an important boost to the team’s psyche in the subsequent matches. We were unlucky against Lesta and within a couple of key moments from getting something from that game.

22. This team is playing games on the finest of margins. I think MA8’S philosophy is to give up few chances, with the tradeoff of creating few chances. The bet is we will take our chances and the other guys won’t. High stakes game. This will be the pattern for the foreseeable future. We better get used to it. We won’t have many Fulham games. Just 1-0 and 2-1 games, no matter if it’s Liverpool or Burnley. Exciting against the former, dreary against the latter.

23. I am confident we’ll get top 4 this season. We’ll win against teams we’re supposed to beat and gain a few good results against the top teams.

    I trust the managerial process but not the club’s upper management. It seems disjointed and driven by selfish interests and it doesn’t help that Kia speaks for the club.

    Mustafi’s contract offer was apparently in the summer. Maybe before we signed Gabriel and Mari? Not sure what the club is doing with Saliba. Does Arteta not think he’s good enough? That’s the impression I get.

    We played some decent football in the first half. Hopefully that will happen more often now with more end product. I want to enjoy watching Arsenal again.

24. Hey Tim.

    Hope all is well. I have not been following the post or the comments on a daily basis but your writing and the comment section are as good as ever.

    I think Arteta has done as well as any manager possibly could given the players he has to work with. Winning the FA cup and saving a Europa league spot for this club last season was nothing short of miraculous. When he came on board we were on the way to our 3rd season in a row of conceding > 50 goals and sitting in the bottom half of the table and falling fast. Improving the defense and winning football games and saving European football no matter how it was done had to be by far the top priority.

    As far as creativity and free flowing football and piling up passing and creativity stats that is going to have to wait until we get better players. Comparing Arteta to Wenger is totally unfair to Arteta because Arsene had teams with Ozil in his prime, cazorla, Ramsey, Wilshere, Kos, Nacho etc etc and almost manager including Arteta could play the sort of football you like and pile up great stats with those sort of players. Arsene would struggle to play beautiful football with the players Arteta has. It was clear the team started to fall off the cliff in Arsene’s last season because those players mentioned were either no longer available to Arsene or fading. Its going to take time and at least a couple years to rebuild.

25. Hmmm…I read that article on ESPN about Wilfried Zaha. Coming down to 2 years left a contract with no release clause (?). With his early returns as a free-roaming attacker, he could fit in a front 3 of Saka, Auba and Zaha. Could we get a deal done?

26. I have backed off commenting because I don’t want to vent and I don’t want to blame anybody. I am trying to accept that this is a transition period and we will just have to live with some crappy football for a while. But it’s hard!

    Tim Stillman at Arseblog argues that we have not recruited our attacking players in a coherent way. Via his article I saw this tweet showing Premier League players’ ball retention scores: https://twitter.com/Tw3rcazette/status/1303382443320369154

    There is a group of 6 players separate from the rest, with excellent ball retention and low-risk style (i.e. passing not dribbling, I think). All 6 play for City.

    You will not convince me that this is down to recruitment. First, I don’t believe that all 6 City players are that technically superior to all the other players in the league. Second, City did not buy all of these players as ready-made possession-masters. Sterling for example was a very high-risk low-end-product dribbly winger at Liverpool, and Mahrez similar but less so at Leicester.

    Coaching makes the players, which at Arsenal puts the onus back on Arteta. Stillman’s point notwithstanding, all caveats around transition fully noted, we do have the raw material for a great attack. I think it can and should be better.

    And the biggest takeaway from an Arsenal perspective is the gap between Giroud (2 turnovers per 90, low risk) and Lacazette (5 turnovers per 90, high risk). Laca is just not that centre-forward who will hold the ball up and take care of it. He wants to use it or lose it. He’s a box player, a striker, he plays on the turn, he will take the ball into contact.

    Interestingly, in the pack just below the City players, Willian ranks highly in terms of ball retention. You can see why Arteta would have been interested in bringing him in, if Arteta wants to improve our possession, which I dearly hope he is. So that’s hopeful.

27. Tim

    The other thing I wanted to comment about is Mesut Ozil. I know there are a lot of conspiracy theories flying around and I honestly don’t believe any of them. Mesut has been dropped by 4 managers if you include the German national team. All of those teams want to win games and to succeed and if those managers believed that Mesut could help them win games they would not really care much about all of the off the field stuff and they would find a way to use him. Arsenal’s front office and Arteta want to find a way to get back into the champions league more then anything in the whole world. If they believed Ozil could improve our chances they dismiss the other stuff and get him into our lineup. They also don’t enjoy the negative publicity. You can believe whatever conspiracy theory you like but I believe the bottom line is we have 4 managers and our front office who no longer believe Mesut is capable of improving our chances of succeeding on the pitch. I assume they have all watched 1000’s of hours of film and studied every aspect of the situation and they have concluded that Ozil can no longer bring positive influence and he can’t help us win games.

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