Arsenal 0-3 Liverpool: brain dump

23 comments

1. Yeah, looking kind of bleak at this point. You didn’t even mention Auba turning into Ozil 2.0.
   Not sure what the answer is. Re-building would have been hard during regular times, it’s going to be even harder with COVID screwed finances. Though it might make some players cheaper if we can find the right ones, which I don’t have much faith in.
   Looks like all the Easter eggs are in the Europa League basket now. If we play this poorly in that, not sure I see Arteta keeping the job.
   How have we spent so much money for such poor and inconsistent play? Jota cost so much less than Pepe. Even Partey…he looked relatively good in the first half, but again ran out of steam. How did he prosper at Atletico with such apparently poor fitness?
   As far as Odegaard goes, we probably need to win the Europa, and have RM buy Haaland, so that they need money.
   It’s sad that we are so dependent on a couple of kids and Xhaka.

2. Extremely poor.
   It looked to me that Arsenal decided early on that they wouldn’t be able to play out from the back against this Liverpool side. I lost count of how many times they just hoofed the ball up field. very un-Arsenal-like. I presume they thought that was the safest option, which in all honesty it probably was. The only thing that happened, unfortunately, was that Liverpool then just kept coming back, wave after wave. They had no problem keeping the ball and getting it into forward positions. It was almost like Arsenal were playing rope-a-dope. Nil-nil at half time wasn’t actually a bad result. At least then you’ve got the 2nd half to find something.

   Sadly it got a whole lot worse. Tierney going off was a real problem. We then had absolutely nothing down the left hand side. Soares is no left back. His only claim to fame is that he had our only shot of the match! No Xhaka, of course. I’m not his greatest fan, but at least he covers the left back slot when we’re defending. Danny Onions? Real Madrid? Ha! Wouldn’t even get in Old Fallopians reserve side. Hopeless.

   Add in the fact that Auba wasn’t “in the mood” to defend, and what we ended up with, was enough space down the left hand side to drive a London bus. Trent Alexander must have thought all his Christmases had arrived at once. So did Salah. It could and should have been 6. Liverpool hardly broke sweat.

   What it told me was more about the players that were missing.

   Without Saka and ESR, our movement and creativity drops through the floor. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve said this. I’m even boring myself.

   We need cover at left back. Desperately.

   If you can’t play out from defence and end up going long, then Luiz and Xhaka have to play. Also Martinelli. In fact play Martinelli anyway. At least he might offer us something up front, by making forward runs. Not playing him at all is starting to look perverse.

3. I have had the same issues with Arsenal and squad building that you raised for…. well since I started watching Arsenal. I was always confused on a manager like Arsene, who has a distinct way of playing would consistently face squad balance issues, especially when his starting elevens would look stellar, even during our worst times.

   Having a set way of playing, for me, meant that the style dictated the type of players you would sign, but the composition of the squad would dictate which positions needed strengthening. Arsenal though, especially under Arsene, would somehow have a very weird type of depth. The squad was big enough, but the players never really shared similar strengths and brought different interpretations of the same roles.

   An example would be Carzola, Xhaka, Coquelin, Elneny, Ramsey and Wilshere. All central midfield players who bring very different interpretations of the midfield two based on their qualities, and most importantly, their weaknesses. Arsenal was also one of, if not the most injury prone squad in the league, especially in midfield. Any injury to a starting midfielder forced a significant change in how the entire team defended, transitioned and attacked. replacing someone like Xhaka with Francis or Elneny changes passing options for the defence and asks the attacking players to drop deeper to collect in obvious areas. Xhaka for Santi takes away our ability to quickly get beyond the first press and runners were confident moving early because of the security Santi offered on the ball, but Santi going out meant the team has to either stretch the pitch as wide and long as possible to afford Xhaka space and time or be as close as possible in case he is pressed off it.

   The players themselves are not bad, but they bring something new when they step onto the pitch which forces the entire team to adjust. Like right now, how Pablo Mari and Gabriel are options for the same position in a team that looks to play a certain is a recipe for disaster because if Mari plays so well that his play is key to our transitioning, an injury to Mari and Gabriel (with his different strengths) will be asked to do a job he isn’t good at or the rest of the team will have to make adjustments to his strengths and weaknesses, thus throwing away all the work that made them successful. Our biggest example of this is with Auba and Laca, and how they affect Smith-Rowe, Saka and Martin, which affects Tierney and Hector. Players will never be alike, but they can share similar strengths and bring a similar element to a line-up which will not ask the entire side to adjust. Liverpool faced similar problems when they had to replace Firmino with Origi, which didnt work because of the average positions that both liked taking up, their dribbling or lack thereof for Origi, the playmaking which Origi didn’t have. Now they have Jota, who isn’t a like for like player to Firmino, but they share similar strengths which they interpret in their own unique ways. Taking up positions in deep areas and zone 14, dribbling and causing chaos in the half spaces and being able to combine well with their wide teammates is something they both have.

   I know that having variety is important for when the main approach is not working, and that is what utility players are for. That is what an Oxlade-chamberlain is for at Liverpool, in midfield or on the wing. That is what a Cancelo is for in city’s line-up, wherever he plays, which is basically everywhere. That is what Lucas Vasquez was for Real’s Champion’s League winning sides, on the right wing, midfield and even rightback. That is what Iwobi is doing for Everton right now.

   The main squad should, from my view at least, have a stellar starting eleven and a second eleven that mirrors the first. Maybe not in quality (difficult to sit quality on the bench), but in how they interpret their roles on the pitch. the rest of the squad can be utility players for variety.

   Arsenal have had this problem or ages and I dnt see it happening until Arteta puts his foot down and picks/establishes his system, style and tactics, then builds to those.

   1. I agree with all of this

      1. Including the spelling errors?

         1. Especially those

4. Masterful analysis, sir. You’ve nailed the problems yesterday and the possible solutions going forward. Sadly it’s a rather bleak outlook.

   Our terrible record of purchases and sales over the past decade is largely responsible for the position we are in. For a club that has made a virtue of a self-sufficiency policy on its finances to have been so profligate in its purchases and so casual in letting players just walk out the door is criminal.

   God help Arteta.

5. Happy and blessed Easter to everyone and especially you Tim. Thanks for your time and energy and your superb writing, even though you have to say things that we don’t necessarily want to hear. I agree with your post. We have a squad with mid table talent because we have done a miserable job of using the resources we do have starting with the latter few years of the Wenger era. The front 3 we started yesterday cost a total of $175 million. Auba was a great purchase but it looks like he has clearly hit the decline part of his career arc and Pepe and Laca are not that good. The solution is simple. We need to make better decisions and buy the right players. However that is much easier said then done.

6. I don’t think the problem is the system or the manager. Liverpool have won the CL and the PL in the last couple of seasons and the reality is that when they are playing well we just don’t have the talent to compete with a team like that. It was the same thing in the Man City game. We have to hope they don’t play well.

   Same thing happened in the Wenger era. We were a consistent top 4 team for years because we had top 4 talent. We were leading the league around Christmas of 15/16 and had our best chance in over a decade to win the league but then we fell apart in the second half of the season and we haven’t been able to reach the top 4 since 15/16. Wenger did not suddenly forget how to manage in 16/17 or 17/18 but the rest of the league got better and our important difference making players were fading and not adequately replaced. Bill Bellichick did not suddenly forget how to be a great coach last year but the talent he needs to effectively execute his game plans was not longer available. I am not trying to suggest that managers don’t matter but there is only so much they can do and they can’t take mid table talent and somehow improve them and turn them into top 4 teams.

7. I would have golfed yesterday but for (1) I had a bit of food poisoning from Friday’s excesses (pro-tip: post-lockdown food truck tacos probably aren’t the best call) and (2) I tweaked my back years ago hitting the sweetest second shot into a par 5 that I have ever hit…so I don’t golf much anymore (but I intended to make an exception yesterday – regardless, I had no intention of taking the better part of two hours to watch the boys).

   Arsenal are Arsenal. Flawed but still a source of deep affection. I love Arsenal; I’m just no longer “in love” with Arsenal. It makes things much easier.

   Happy Easter to all who celebrate.

8. The good thing is 6 of our last 8 games in the league are against bottom half of the table teams. We can play well in games where we are not overmatched by teams with better talent and I suspect we will finish the season strong and end up somewhere around 7th or 8th place.

9. The good thing is that your post and Bill’s comments are spot on. The bad thing is everything else.

10. you can blame players all you want but this is a structural and strategic management failure. with that strategy, even if arsenal had everyone available, they would have gotten slapped.

    play a 4-4-2 against liverpool and you’re gonna lose, full stop. what’s worse is that the 2 up front were lacazette and odegaard. if arsenal were gonna play a 4-4-2, aubameyang and either pepe or nketiah have to be your front players; you drop lacazette and odegaard. likewise, that’s a game for the likes of reiss nelson and other wingers to play wide. also, your front players can’t be so deep. when arsenal’s defenders/mids won the ball, who could they pass forward to when lacazette is right next to them? arteta completely surrendered the initiative.

    next, you have to play with three in midfield against liverpool or you’re gonna be overrun.

    tim’s assertion that the liverpool strikers press the wide guys is right but it’s more specific than that. they don’t block the middle. salah and mane channel the ball to the middle, where liverpool pack their whole team, making opponents have to cope with that congestion. it’s how the gegenpress works. they deny the ball going wide, making the field 50-60% narrower. then they push up the center halves, making the field shorter. lastly, they pack all ten of their field players in that tight area and force opponents to play through that. while they do work hard, it’s not as hard as people think. they’ve just made the entire pitch roughly 25^2 meters; a very small area to work in with ten players.

    the silly thing is this is nothing new. arteta’s plan was foolish. he got completely out-coached and klopp didn’t have to do anything. ironically, i’m sure pep guardiola has lost more games to klopp than any other manager, both in germany and england.

    1. more specific about the gegenpress, the liverpool midfield don’t just clog the midfield. they sit in passing lanes or man-mark; they have specific duties, just like mane and salah prevent forward passes down the line. arsenal, on the other hand, seem to be focused more on keeping a shape than man-marking or sitting in passing lanes, making it easy for liverpool to play through them. it was my biggest criticism of arteta the majority of 2020 and it reared it’s ugly head again on saturday.

       more specific about mane, how many forward passes did chambers make to pepe? i’m sure it was very few but it’s not because chambers didn’t want to play those passes. it’s because the liverpool strategy specifies that mane deny chambers those passes. tim even highlighted that the most passes chambers made were to rob holding. that’s no coincidence. i’m sure it was a similar thing on the salah side as well, although salah isn’t as good a defender as mane; salah is an egomaniac who only cares about scoring goals.

       lastly, i would have started either hector or cedric at right back. mane vs. chambers is a matchup that favors the senegalese player all day every day. chambers simply doesn’t have the quickness to compete. on a different day, he would have been exposed.

       1. Excellent comments Josh. I saw a lot if criticism of Auba but just look at his heatmap. He was playing fullback most of the game. That’s not his initiative; that was the plan. Struck me the gameplan was sit deep and hope they’re forwards continue to misfire. Naive at best.

11. Josh

    If you are suggesting that we wanted to set up in a 442 with Laca and Odegaard upfront it would mean that Auba and Pepe were supposed to be midfielders. I don’t believe that for a second. Neither of us know exactly what Arteta was thinking but I believe a much more likely explanation is he replaced Auba because he wasn’t playing the way the manager wanted. Players are not always able or willing to execute the game plan the manager sets up.

    I think your idea that he should even consider starting Nketiah and Nelson is not realistic. You don’t start players who have not been good enough to get minutes all season.

    1. you’re right, we don’t know what arteta was thinking. but i know what i saw. if it wasn’t a 4-4-2, please tell me what you saw.

       i’ve never been a fan of your generic “he’s not good enough” description of players. these are all professionals who have certain qualities that made them desirable to arsenal.

       categorically, i can tell you that eddie doesn’t fit in a 4-2-3-1, as he’s not a proper center forward. however, he does fit in a 4-4-2 with a striker partner. so does reiss nelson as a winger. he doesn’t play because arsenal don’t play with wingers but strikers and overlapping fullbacks. aubameyang, saka, smith rowe, pepe, willian, and gabriel are all better strikers than nelson. however, in a 4-4-2, he’s a better choice as a more traditional winger than the aforementioned players.

12. If Liverpool was funneling everything to the middle then your central players have to be good enough to break down the defense and we don’t have central midfielders who are that good. There is no managerial strategy that will ever work when we have no realistic options for the moving the ball forward effectively on a consistent basis.

13. Liverpool has been using the exact same pressing strategy for several years and every manager in the world knows exactly what they are going to do. They have been successful because they have better talent. If there was some sort of tactical strategy that could effectively beat their press when they are playing well then I assume someone would have figured it out by now. The idea that Arteta is tactically inept and set the team up in a way that plays right into their strengths seems totally unbelievable to me.

    1. Bill,

       They don’t use the exact same press in every game. One of the things that Klopp does extremely well – and is very secretive about – are the trapping schemes he runs, often detailing them to a specific opponent. Pressing is an organized set of movements for the entire team.

       1. tim’s absolutely right. i saw them pick on rob holding and they probably targeted him for this game. hypothetically, they could say i don’t think holding has the quality to find the right pass. so, they develop a situation where holding is the only guy open. when he get’s the ball, firmino puts moderate direct pressure on him but the rest of the team put pressure on him by taking away his easy passes. holding, under pressure, decides to send the ball long to get it out of harms way. problem is it goes straight to a liverpool defender and that ball is coming right back to the arsenal goal area. liverpool will do that for 90 minutes. it has nothing to do with “how good at dribbling or scoring goals” a player is. the players have to see what’s going on and defeat the trap. it’s more chess than checkers.

14. off the top of my head, i can think of about a half-dozen ways to defeat the klopp press. the reason i’m so intimately familiar with his approach is because, as a coach, i stole it from him about a decade or so ago. i still use it today because it’s super-effective. i’ve seen smart players defeat it and i’ve seen talented players get stuck all game long. typically, it takes a sound strategy and good tacticians to defeat it. on this occasion, the only option arsenal seemed to have was when partey dribbling out of trouble. it’s the player’s job to defeat the press (tactics) and the manager’s job to help the players when they struggle (strategy).

    1. Partey quietly (most people didn’t notice) had a great game.

Comments are closed.