“Dark warnings fill the air”
Forced into a starting lineup with Granit Xhaka at LB, and Calum Chambers at RB, Mikel Arteta chose to also throw a wrench into an already wobbling system and play Nicola Pepe at left wing, Saka at right wing, and Emile Smith Rowe in the false 9. Behind that trident, he played Martin Ødegaard in the 10, with Dani Ceballos supposedly playing on the left and Thomas playing both the deep pivot and the RM.
Exactly who this false 9 was supposed to be serving, we have no idea, but there he was zipping about, pressing, and doing what he was asked. Behind him, Ødegaard looked pretty lost as to what he was supposed to do. Pepe on the left drew praise from most Arsenal fans but provided very little in actual attack and proved to be quite a liability in defense – the praise must have been because apart from the always brilliant Saka, he was the only one giving Arsenal any attack. Though, again, I refer you to the question above “who was Smith Rowe supposed to be serving?” because no one made run through for him to pass to if he’d wanted to pass there.
And the left side of Arsenal’s formation was a disaster defensively. Xhaka is too immobile to play high enough up the pitch to stop the balls coming in, so he often drops deep, playing 6 feet off the end line. This makes people see him as a “3rd center back” but it’s not really what’s happening here, he’s just conceding space because he doesn’t want to get beaten. And huge credit to him, he had a tough job marshalling Villareal’s Pepe and more than once stood him up and forced him back or won the ball with a standing tackle.
What Xhaka needed were one or two players in front of him to help out, especially in the half spaces. Pepe was unlikely to do that which meant Ceballos needed to help out.
“No, no, no, you got no brains inside that thick skull, The rats of reality have eaten them all”
It was good to see that despite three plus years of mediocrity in football, Unai Emery hasn’t changed his approach to the game, at all.
Stubbornly play it out from the back? Yep!
Fullback overlaps? Yep!
Midfielders dominating the half spaces? Yep!
Given that, what Arsenal needed to watch out for were players attacking Xhaka, fullbacks overlapping, and the midfielders in the half space. Look, I know that I have just written those things twice but it seemed so important that I figured it needed to mentioned again, just to be safe. I’d be happy to say it again before the next game if it helps…
Critical in stopping Emery’s “attack” is that you need to put a man on the midfielders in the half spaces. Emery’s system was so adept at this little trick that he made Alex Iwobi and Sead Kolasinac Arsenal’s two best creative players one year. Opposition teams figured this out (and that high pressure worked a hell of a treat) but for some reason either Arteta didn’t know this, didn’t feel like trying it, or his players didn’t listen.
Wherever the failure, Villareal ghosted into those spaces on both sides of the pitch but especially against Ceballos, who looked utterly lost. And the figure of Juan Foyth, the Villareal right back, pocketing Nicola Pepe in defense and then marauding into those spaces unmarked so often that he eventually sprung a hamstring was ample evidence that Pepe wasn’t providing much cover either.
“Red Blanket Room”
If Arteta’s system wasn’t helping things much, his tactical choices and substitutions also hurt the team. It was clear from the start that Ceballos wasn’t at the races. And the way he picked up a yellow card before half time was a signal to the manager “hey, boss, take me off”. Arteta even said after the match they he and Ceballos had a chat and he told him not to get sent off.
But by that point, Arsenal were 2-0 down – thanks to Thomas Partey’s lax defending on a corner – and given our defensive problems the obvious choice then would be to bring on a fullback (Soares) and play Xhaka in midfield. This is a sentence I’ve never wanted to write.
Up front, I think he either should have moved Pepe more centrally (to absolve him of his duties as a creator for no one) or brought on Aubameyang to play more centrally. Then move Smith Rowe wide and give that formation a go.
With Xhaka making entrance passes to Smith Rowe, with Pepe/Auba making runs without the ball, and Odegaard dictating the pace of the game I think the attack would have been more balanced. And with Unai Emery going full Emery and bringing on Francis Coquelin at half-time to “close up shop”, the contest was there for the taking.
But Arteta did nothing. Ceballos got the most predictable red card of all time (the ref even let him get away with one more before the red) and at that point the only way for Arsenal to rescue this tie was for one of the knights in shining armor to ride in and save the day.
“We just get by, However we can; We all have to duck, When the shit hits the fan“
Bukayo Saka did ride in, once more, to give Arsenal a chance in this tie. With Emery going full Emery, the best choice was for Arsenal to pass the ball to the only guy who tried to get into their box: Saka. Inevitably when a player dribbles into the box enough times, they will draw a foul. Whether it gets called or not is up to the refs and yesterday that ref said “ok!”
Pepe stepped up and scored (he shot it straight and low, either bold or dangerous depending how you feel today). That goal gives Arsenal a lifeline in this tie.
“When it first happened, it was nice, it was sweet, Now it’s getting older and we’re finding that it’s not so neat“
I get the sense that a lot of the more stalwart folks are losing faith in Arteta. His starting choices are baffling and he often seems to be doing things that are too clever by half. Starting Smith Rowe in the false 9 was not a stroke of genius. Who was he supposed to pass to? Who was going to pass to him? How many times has he practiced this in training?
Worse, it looked like he was aping Guardiola. But Arsenal do not even remotely swarm the opposition half the way that Man City do. We don’t dominate possession the way they do. We don’t have extreme technicians who can open up a tight defense with a great one-two pass the way that they do. And we definitely don’t have midfield runners who will burst into the box and score goals the way that they do. It was astonishing to see him try this tactic with this squad.
And his substitutions are equally frustrating. He waits so long to bring people on that I almost think he’s trolling us. Aubameyang in the 85th minute??? What is my man supposed to do with 5 minutes in a game? And then Elneny and Willian in the 95th minute. I can’t understand the logic there. Maybe it was to make sure that they have enough appearances to qualify for the inevitable runners-up medal we are going to get?
Arteta claims that he changed things at half-time and that Arsenal went to a three striker system. It’s hard to tell, however, if the change to a “three striker” system produced the three mediocre shots or if it was Unai Emery bringing on a DM at half time and telling his team to turtle which produced the three mediocre shots.
He also says that he was going to take Dani off after the warning foul (and bring on Gabriel) but that Dani got the red card too quickly. But man, everyone knew Dani was getting a red. EVEN HE KNEW IT. That’s why he had a chat with Dani at half time.
If these were one-off things I suspect that most folks wouldn’t be questioning. But they aren’t. It’s a pattern with Arteta. It’s clear that he’s learning on the job and that Arsenal are paying the price, a tax if you will, for that OTJ training.
But, the tie’s not over. We could still win this competition and almost certainly should win this tie. Unai Emery will come to the Emirates looking to protect his lead. And let’s not forget he’s one of the worst ever away managers this club has seen. He even went a whole season in Spain without an away win. With Ceballos out (Arsenal have announced they won’t be renewing his contract if that helps) and Arsenal playing Newcastle this weekend, Arteta should probably field a very strong side next Thursday. I know the bookies have Villareal with the advantage but I would put the money on Arsenal.
That Villareal side were utter crap. If they turn up to the Emirates and get a result because they outplay us (not just dumb luck)… Arteta should be fired. He won’t be. Josh Kroenke (or JK as I’m going to call him now) and his father Enos will wait until the entire team have lost faith in Arteta in November and then fire him, sowing and reaping more chaos.
A Golden Shower of Hits
Watching this match was a golden shower of greatest hits from both managers. Mikel Arteta refusing to press, then making pretty much every wrong tactical choice, and being rescued by brilliant young players. Arteta doing a “Pep lite” with his starting lineup? Waiting until the 85th minute to bring on a striker?
Unai Emery forcing his side to play out from the back, getting lucky on a couple goals and instead of going for the kill, shoring up his team so that he would inevitably concede a goal?
Two red cards? A penalty? Stupid half-time substitutions? Stupid late subs?
It was a circle jerk, like the two spider mans pointing at each other, like watching Arsenal of two years ago play the Arsenal of this year. I’ve never seen anything like it and I hope I never have to watch it again. But I’m worried I will, next week.
Bottom line is that Arteta needs to win this tie and that Emery will almost certainly hand it to him with his morose tactics.
Under the gun
Nowhere to run
Yeah, sadly pretty much agree with everything you said. And it was all blatantly obvious to most Arsenal fans. I’ve been trying very hard to give Arteta the benefit of the doubt, but this match pretty much did me in. So many poor choices.
The connection to Pep is particularly telling. City/Pep have been guilty for many years of trying to get too clever in cup matches. Often they have had enough talent to get away with it until the final rounds. We definitely don’t.
As you say, Emery has kind of sucked in away matches, but I’d feel better about the next match at the Emirates if we hadn’t pretty much sucked at home this season.
when i saw the line up, i immediately thought, “oh, mikey’s trying to be like big brother”. nuts!
say what you want but soares is a better full back than granit xhaka. bellerin is a better fullback than chambers. xhaka is a better center mid than ceballos. to have those defenders available and sitting on the bench is foolish. you lose what they intuitively know. you could crush their confidence. so, what happens when you need to call their number and they’re not ready? how about if they become disruptive in training? and, did arsenal really announce they wouldn’t extend ceballos? only a fool would do that. he’s still at arsenal until june, and arsenal may need him. likewise, he could be a problem in the dressing room. this is management folks, not just the x’s and o’s.
another management issue, you don’t keep moving players around. xhaka, from midfield to defense? esr from the 10 to the 11 to the false 9? i’ve seen 20-year old saka play in the 7, the 11, the 3, and the 2, all in the same game! that’s absurd! my take is that i don’t want players to be a jack of all trades. i want them all to be a master of one. the premier league is too unforgiving for guys that fail to master their craft.
pepe stayed wide because xhaka didn’t overlap…meaning that arsenal would have no width if pepe were more dynamic. width is too important. with that, his penalty was lucky, and the foul on saka was no foul.
the highlight for me was unai emery. what a clown!
-say what you want but soares is a better full back than granit xhaka
yes
-bellerin is a better fullback than chambers
i think so but a lot of others seem to disagree
-xhaka is a better center mid than ceballos
yes
-did arsenal really announce they wouldn’t extend ceballos?
not on the dot com but through their sources in the media (trusted sources) yes.
I would also point out that at half time, they had a tunnel cam and Auba walked out past the players who were going on the pitch and looked pretty peeved. It’s not this hard. I can’t understand why Arteta makes everything so difficult.
“-bellerin is a better fullback than chambers
i think so but a lot of others seem to disagree”
Maybe, but it’s pretty close at this point, Bellerin has gone backwards since the injury. In terms of crossing, Chambers is definitely better, but that didn’t matter yesterday since there was no one to get on the crosses. Chambers also offers something in the air on set pieces that Bellerin doesn’t. More importantly, RB wasn’t the main issue yesterday.
As far as Xhaka goes at LB, it’s not that he has been terrible there as a defender. It’s that he doesn’t offer much in attack, and taking him out of the midfield screws things up there too. Surely playing Bellerin or Soares there would have helped and one of them should play there if Tierney isn’t healthy by the return match.
Bellerin isn’t getting a run. If it’s not Chambers it’s Cedric and he’s not playing with the same RCB and pivots game after game, one game it’s Holding, the next it’s Luis. Don’t think that isn’t part of why when he did play there was complaints about his defensive performances.
Xhaka at LB worked ONE game. The fact that ONE game sets Arteta’s thinking that oh, he’s stumbled onto something brilliant! and then he keeps going to the same well, I dunno, that’s discouraging. Chambers was phenomenal against West Ham. But since then? I dunno, Arteta is taking riding the hot hand to a new extreme.
okay, hector may not be at his best right now but he’s still better than callum…and i like callum.
as far as the ceballos announcement they leaked, crap move. it’s fine to have made that decision but leaking it is tacky. we may need ceballos to win us a cup final this year. where’s his mind going to be with the club leaking these types of announcements? if i were arteta and something like that got leaked, i’d be pissed!
Thanks for the review Tim, I’d add a couple of things.
Xhaka was directly at fault for the first goal because he is being played out of position. Their left footed winger cutting inside to Xhaka’s week foot was always going to cause trouble. Cedric would have been a far far more sensible choice to shut that side down and prevent the first goal. Anyone with 1 minute review of Villarreal on YouTube could have predicted that would happen. And it took all of 4 minutes to bear fruit. What are Arteta and his coaches playing at all week?
Secondly, you and nobody on here has even mentioned Martinelli. For me he changed the game when he came on and should have started upfront. It was his substitution that led to the raise in intensity. His pressing from CF and willingness to go for a header directly led to Saka winning the penalty.
When people say what choices did Arteta have? I say play players in positions that are familiar to them. It’s a European semifinal for f’cks sake. Stop experimenting. When you are under pressure you panic, so make the players feel as comfortable as possible. It’s really poor management all around, and like others have said he does not change the obvious in game and he does not seem to be learning after.
“It’s clear that he’s learning on the job and that Arsenal are paying the price, a tax if you will, for that OTJ training.”
But he’s not learning, or at least learning to replicate the same mistakes over and over again. Proud, stubborn, and inflexible are no ways to go through life, Mikel.
A Dean Wormer reference?
Tim. Thanks for the review. It’s easy to criticize tactics in retrospect. However prospectively I am not sure there was a whole lot of better options. Auba has been sick and he hasn’t been effective this year when he isn’t sick. Arteta would have been blamed if he had started Auba and it didn’t work. Laca is not healthy so that leaves no decent option at CF. When there are no good options you put the best players that you can put on the pitch. Xhaka is certainly not ideal at LB but he has done reasonably well at LB and with Tierney the options are extremely limited. Xhaka was part of the line up when we steam rolled Prague in the last Europa league game. Any strategy can be dissected and criticized in retrospect if it doesn’t work and the idea that things would have turned out better for Arsenal if Arteta would have used different players or different tactics is hopeful thinking at best.
i can’t speak for anyone else but my opinions are not retrospective. much of what i’ve said was mentioned after the lineup but before kickoff yesterday. some of the stuff i’ve been saying for weeks and other stuff for months.
Bill, Tim and many others have written repeatedly about recurring themes, namely playing people out of position or not making substitutions until late in the game just to name two examples. There’s nothing retrospective. In fact I think Tim could probably write a match report in advance of a game and it would be 90% accurate.
Err Bill no better options up front? Are you for real Emilio was the obvious choice. Peep Saka an ESR as the 10 and we would’ve had no problems in attack. Seriuosly
The homage to the Circle Jerks was entirely appropriate for these two coaches. This game actually provided more clarity on both, we weren’t wrong on Emery’s fear based protagonist do or die approach and our emerging picture of Arteta as an inexperienced manager who struggles with on the job learning due to either his ego or stubbornness and an inability to admit when he has made a mistake. A certain lack of humbleness. It’s unsettling to have been pining for Emery’s certain half time substitutions and recognizing Arteta would only bring on a striker until the last minute to save the game. The game gave me greater certainty that the sooner we move on from Arteta the better because we can’t at this juncture of the team to be able to afford his on the job training to reap the benefits once he finally learns. The curve is too long.
winning football matches is tough enough. why would arteta deliberately handicap the team by playing people out of position when he doesn’t have to? sure, xhaka did okay at left back…for a center mid. doesn’t it make sense that if soares plays left back, it not only improves the defense (and left-sided attack) but improves the midfield as xhaka is allowed to play there?
sure, soares made the mistake that led to slavia prague scoring a goal but you still have to be smart enough to know players are human and do what’s best for the team. lacazette missed a sitter in the same game against slavia prague but he’s been banging in goals for fun since. leno made the gaffe against everton but he saved our butts last night. everything doesn’t require arteta to try and show how smart he is. sometimes, it’s best to keep things simple.
reminds me of the champions league final in ’06. i’ve asked many gooners why they think jose antonio reyes didn’t start that game. everyone always says, “ljungberg had a good game”. sorry folks, but ljungberg, at his best, was not capable of doing what reyes could do regularly. in reyes, you have what wenger described as a “big-game player” and in the biggest game in the club’s history, wenger starts him on the bench; in my opinion, the dumbest move wenger made in his time at arsenal.
Interesting 06 CLJosh. If you ever get to watch the game again you’ll find the reason we lost was not JL getting sent off, was not JAR not starting it was because AW withdrew Cesc on around 75. Cesc was controlling the mid, we were comfortable but as soon as he was withdrawn we needed the mid and the rest is history
Ceeded (Sorry settings not right and can’t see words im writing
that’s not my point. arsenal could have started reyes and played cesc the full 90 and still lost. my point is you give yourself the best chance to win by playing your best team, especially in a cup final. wenger was nuts that game.
I was remembering 06 as well. Wenger got to the Champions League final with Flamini at left back.
It’s pretty common to play midfielders at fullback, and I disagree that playing Xhaka there is the mistake that you think it is. Soares played at LB when Tierney was last injured and our left-sided attack suffered, we all saw that and it was noted at the time. We look more fluid and our distribution is better with Xhaka there, and he didn’t make any errors.
It did cause an imbalance in midfield, as you correctly pointed out, but Dani is supposed to be able to play in there alongside Partey, link up and protect Xhaka, and he was found wanting. I agree he should have been hauled off earlier, I wanted Arteta to replace him with Elneny and leave Xhaka at LB.
Playing the front three of Pepe, ESR and Saka didn’t work. I assume that Pepe and Saka were supposed to run off ESR to get in behind, so I don’t know why you question who he was supposed to pass to, but I defer to your more experienced analysis on that.
arsenal got to the ’06 final with left back by committee. both cole and clichy were injured much of that season. i think arsenal used like 6 different players at left back.
sorry greg, but it is not common for center mids to play fullback. no other manager would play a slow center mid at fullback when he has saka, soares, and bellerin healthy and available. likewise, flamini didn’t do well at left back because he was a center mid. he did well because he was quick and agile. granit xhaka is struggling because he’s neither quick nor agile.
as for soares, i said he was a better left back than xhaka. i’ve never said he was better than tierney. likewise, arsenal’s attack has suffered mightily with xhaka at left back, as he lacks the speed and fitness to provide proper width. this is not to mention how his lack of agility was easily exposed both by richarlisson in the everton game and chukweze on thursday. two of the last 3 goals arsenal have conceded have come as a direct effect of xhaka’s left back play. the only reason he’s not being lambasted is because everyone knows it’s not his fault that he’s playing left back.
Kudos for writing a match review Tim as the game didn’t deserve one.
There’s a widely held view that Arteta has his favourites. It may go some way to explaining some of his decisions. But I’m not excusing him. He’s not clever. He’s a tinkerer. Clever people don’t play several players out of position, ask a kid who’s not a CF to play CF, or refuse to alter the team dynamic when it’s clear it’s not working.
On the feed I followed during the game more than half a dozen people called the Ceballos sending off more than 10 minutes before it happened. Stubborn or stupid?
And WTF has happened to Partey. I think we all expected a well disciplined, trained by Simeone in the dark arts, marauder. What we’re getting just isn’t good enough. Sure he’s trying to single handedly run midfield but he should be telling the manager what he needs. He’s been disappointing.
We should make the final. Villareal are a weak side. But success will be despite not because if Arteta. Feels like it’s the Summer or Christmas when he’ll get his marching orders. He’s just not good enough.
The confusing team selection and positional assignments resulting in a haphazard outing is in stark contrast to the clinical 6-2 demolition of AS Roma. I think Arteta has very little rope now.
This was our biggest match of the season by far and Arteta approached like an experiment. I don’t get it. Luckily, we played against a clueless ex-manager who decided to play Mourinho anti-football in the 2nd half instead of going for our jugular.
Assuming we squeak through thanks to our away goal by scoring at home and keeping a clean sheet, how will we ever match up against an in-form and well-coached Manchester United, who may rest a few big names next week, now that they have the tie well in hand?
You put a player out of position when that player is the best option you have at that position. On the blog I used to follow many people complained all the time about Wenger using players out of position but I believe he only did that when that was his best option. None of us are at the teams training sessions or know what is happening with certain players. Suggesting that Soares at LB would improve the team is easy to suggest in retrospect but its pure speculation.
Look up the numbers. Real Madrid has scored 30% fewer goals every year since they sold Ronaldo. This season Man City is on pace to score about 20- 25% fewer goals after losing most of the production from their leading scorer. Even the worlds greatest managers can’t come up with a tactical compensation when they lose their best scorers. This year Arteta lost more 1/2 of the production from Auba and there is nothing he can do to fix that. I don’t think the starting line up Arteta was left with yesterday had a single player who has scored more then 12 PL goals in their entire careers. There is no way any manager can put together a coherent tactical strategy that will make us look good when he is faced a squad handicap like that.
Pep has certainly used players out of position in his forward line this season and I suspect it’s because those players were the best options he believed that he had available. The difference is Pep’s players are so much better then ours and his team started from a baseline of scoring about 105 goals per year so losing 25% of your goal production has been tolerable. On the other hand we started this season from a baseline of being very short of fire power even with all of the players at their best. Last season we scored 56 goals losing a significant amount of the production from our golden boot winning and only reasonably reliable scorer is not something you can compensate for with tactical changes. IMO, That’s by far the major reason this season has been such a struggle.
I am not Arteta out, despite it being obvious he Claudio Ranieri-ed tinker manned himself out of actually winning this game. Might as well let him learn, I have ZERO confidence that the club hires a better coach. I read that Fonseca would be a candidate… the guy who just saw his team get smoked 6-2? JHC
Wenger played Wilshere, Ramsey, Ozil and occasionally Cazorla out wide. He had Maitland-niles all over the park. Klopp has used Fabinho as a CB and occasionally as a RB and Milner everywhere. Ozil played wide left when Germany won the World Cup in 2014. I am sure there are hundreds of other examples. Managers do what they have to do depending the options available even when it means moving a player out of their most common position.
Bellerin has been our RB and Xhaka has been playing in central midfield most of this season and we are in 10th place and on pace to score only 50 league goals. There is no way to prove it either way and now that its done its easy to criticize in retrospect but the idea things would have gone better for us if Arteta had used Bellerin or Soares goes against everything we have seen this entire season.
Arteta is clueless.
You have Marinelli, Belogun, and Eddy and still go with a false 9? The problem is Arteta has been made to think that he’s very smart. Dress the part, talk the part, gesture the part, act the part (now you are PEP) Except a very fake one.
He seems to have picked a fight with certain players first OZIIL, Luiz, Nketia, Auba, Bellarin Marinelli even Pepe previously.
This guy has no future at this club. And he OVERWORKS TP. In this press crazed era, how do you run a one man mid cum creator guy.
CLUELESS.
bill, your opinions are based exclusively on post-analytical and statistical view points. there’s nothing wrong with that perspective…except when it’s an exclusive perspective. understand that, in football, you can’t find the truth exclusively in the numbers; football isn’t moneyball. what’s more important in football than the numbers is the coach’s ability to express their strategy and the tactical skill of the players to implement the strategy.
it’s seems you don’t understand either tactics or strategy very well. if you do, you don’t have a healthy appreciation for them. i wouldn’t be surprised to learn that you’ve never kicked a football in your life. that’s okay. being a great tactician or even having experience as a 9-year old rec player isn’t a requirement to being an arsenal fan or a member of the 7am brotherhood. it just helps me understand how to talk to you better.
the first quality that a fullback needs to have is quickness. this is a player’s ability to change direction or change speed. if he’s fast, it certainly helps. however the quickness and agility component is key. granit xhaka is neither quick nor agile. there’s no way he’s an ideal fullback. arsenal have to employ a strategy to support his lack of agility by giving him extra cover. good fullbacks don’t need that help. likewise, this isn’t a retrospective. if during preseason, you’d asked who was the better fullback option between soares and xhaka, 98% of arsenal fans would have said soares simply because he’s got greater agility and quickness, not to mention experience. it’s the same on the right between chambers and hector; hector is quicker and more experienced.
jack mentioned higher up the thread that they may have had a good game but one game doesn’t make them ideal for the position.
as for man city, here’s a bit of a history lesson. everywhere he’s been, guardiola has had a notoriously bad relationship with goal scorers. when he first took the reigns at barcelona, he and eto’o clashed all the time. then he sold eto’o for a ham sandwich and got zlatan, who calls pep a coward and the worst manager he’s ever played for. this continued with alexis sanchez and up until he reintroduced the false 9 back to modern football. it worked for pep, as he doesn’t appreciate the special qualities of a great goalscorers; he’s a cruyff prodigy and believes they’re all interchangeable and anyone can score goals. it’s why he hated hleb, whom we all knew is not a goal scorer.
this continued at bayern with lewandowski and even at man city with aguero. he thinks everyone should be able to score but we all know there are levels to goal scoring. lewandowski and aguero are special. aguero has been injured so pep has reconstituted the false 9 back into modern football. it’s why man city, despite being so dominant, are scoring at a lower clip than usual this season. aguero’s lack of availability exacerbates this; when aguero plays, they score more than when he doesn’t play.
Josh, you’ve been trolled by Guardiola 😉
https://www.football365.com/news/what-a-goal-pep-guardiola-hails-striker-sergio-aguero
ha! i doubt it but it’s still funny.
i think he’s developed a more healthy respect for special goal scorers but it’s not always been his m.o. his reaction when lewandowski came off the bench and scored 5 goals in 8 minutes was impossible for him to hide. he truly couldn’t believe it! even after coming to man city, he wasn’t always “in love” with aguero. like arteta with nketiah, he seemed eager to prove that, with gabriel jesus, he didn’t need aguero. there are levels to great goal scorers.
I just thought the timing was priceless.
I saw a table this morning how City have shared the goal scoring this season:
Gundogan 16
Foden 14
Sterling 13
Jesus 13
Mahrez 12
Torres 10
De Bruyne 9
When you consider he’s been without Agüero most of the season and they didn’t replace Sane. I have nothing but respect for the way he’s re-engineered their attack.
It’s funny because if you hear him talk he says he doesn’t have time for hardly any training.
yeah, pep is a true cruyff disciple. to have 6 different players in double-digits is probably unprecedented. he made an old strategy like playing with a false 9 en vogue for barcelona and spain’s national team. people always try and copy him but it’s a lot of hard work. it’s why pep is held in such high regard.
Josh. I do tend to favor a more straight forward approach to analysis because in my experience over the years that approach gives the correct answer a lot more often. It’s my impression that you love to over think tactics and strategy to the point that you would rather ignore some things which seem pretty obvious because you think they are over simplistic. Best example is the discussion we had about Mesut Ozil. To me the fact that his production in terms of goals and assists steadily decreased over a 3-4 year period was a simplistic analysis but clearly pointed to his skills fading. You on the other hand made the argument that his contributions were still top level but the things he was doing were just to subtle and tactically complex for the average fan to understand. I think time has certainly proved the simplistic analysis was more accurate. Same thing now with Auba.
i never said your approach was straight forward…because it’s not. your approach is crooked and EXCLUSIVELY numbers-based. more important, your arguments are never based on the soccer we see. it’s almost like you’ll read a macro-level stat and make a hypothetical argument based exclusively on that number. you never talk about the football. it’s almost like you don’t watch the games but read a number and guess why someone’s goals or assists are down and make arguments based on your semi-educated w.a.g.
for instance, auba’s goals are down this season and you’ve hypothesize that it’s his skill fading. you ignore the fact that he’s scoring at the same rate he always has, and that arsenal don’t create very many chances, and that arsenal played the entire first half of the season without a #10, and that there were a lot of games that laca didn’t start at center forward, and that the guy’s mom got sick, and the fact that he got malaria, and that, as captain, his duties were increased beyond just goal scoring. you see, i’m considering not only numbers, but the “why”? this includes the stats, tactics, strategy, human factors, and the body of work we observe on match days. that’s not overthinking tactics, it’s a comprehensive assessment that respects the fact that the game is not played in a vacuum.
you’re right when you say that auba’s numbers are down. no one argues that. however, your “why” is based exclusively on some shit you made up. i don’t have a problem with that as i make shit up all the time. however, i support my points with respect to the soccer we see. bottom line, no one who’s watched auba play this year is saying that his skills are fading… except for you. how about offer a little insight that soccer folks can relate to?
it’s the same with mesut. tim pointed out that mesut was keeping the ball in the final third and that his pass completion percentage in the final third was among the best in the world. however, you argued that his skills were fading because his assists were down. once again, we didn’t see diminished skill when we watched mesut play.
Please don’t refer to Josh Kroenke by the abbreviation “JK”. My nom de plume will suggest why I object to this. I suggest a more specific shorthand acronym, namely “That Arsehole Josh”, or TAJ (with apologies to a certain famous blues guitarist and an Indian mausoleum).
That was an easy win. Do we give credit to Arteta for really good managerial tactics and strategy or just accept that we played a under talented bottom 5 team when they don’t really have a lot left to play for? The suspect the answer is a combination of the 2 with the second option being the biggest influence.
Josh. The problem with using what our eyes tell us about football is we tend to see what we hope or expect to see. It’s similar to what we talked about with bias confirmation and the refs. If we want to believe something then we will often see what we hope when we watch. Take for example Ozil. The reason we had Ozil in the lineup was to create opportunities to score goals. However the number of those great final passes he made and his goal and assist totals decreased progressively 4 years in a row and the only realistic explanation was the instinctive sense or vision to see openings no one else saw and the ability to execute the final pass that lead directly to a goal scoring opportunity was fading but thats not what most fans wanted to believe those they chose to ignore it and instead focus on touches or pass completion percentages. If a player no longer see those openings or can’t execute difficult passes to break open a defense he will revert to making simple 10 yards passes to players not under pressure. By focusing on the fact that goals and assists were dropping it took away the subjective nature of what we hope to see and what our eyes tell us. Focusing on the end product data for an attacking player is more likely to give correct answer then relying on what our eyes tell us.
In Auba’s case you are correct to suggest that its a bit early to make a definitive judgement that his skills are fading. A lot of players can have a single bad season and then rebound but that usually does not happen in players >30 years old. I have been following different American sports all my life and Arsenal football for about 20 years and when a player of his age has the sort of bad season that he did the most common explanation is the players skills are starting to fade. If you are looking to get the correct explanation for his bad season then you bet on the most likely possibility
I suspect that the “problem” withAuba is not his agae or supposed fading ability, but siply the fact that he is another player who does not fit in with Arteta’s “style”.
Without someone feeding him with balls in the places he runs into, he has nothing to do, and having a player who does that does not fit in with Arteta’s style.
I dare say that he and Auba have ahd words and I suspect the evidence of what we can see shows that he is likely to go the Ozil way.
I believe that it is a mistake to think that the only pass worth thinking about is one that directy leads to a chance, when there are plenty more passes that can be more important and telling.
I frequent a few blogs only, which are usully much more entertaining that the few games that I watch, which usually bore me to tears,
Arteta still enjoys a surprising amount of support, notwithstanding the rubbish his teams churn out week in week out.
Of course, it is not his fault, but simply we have a bad squad of players, who are incapable of playing his style and doing what they are told when they have been told to do it,
That so many fans continue to live in a dream world where wishful thinking reigns, is a surprise. Perhaps a abi-product of the pandemic is an inablilty for most people to see what they see and understand it.
In the meantime, the powers that be are terrfied at looking even more stupid that they do already, so Arteta is pretty safe, even if he is not fortunate enough to wn the Europa League.
Whilst that continues, my interest will wane even more, so as Arteta destroys our team and the owners destroy our club, at least we will have some good memories,