Do you even watch games, bro?

25 comments

1. You put it the work man!
   Especially considering the blandness of the dour product AFC has been putting out the last few years.

   Actually think you should get paid to do some analysis for AFC, as it would surely be better than the crap statsdNa does.

   Can’t believe we are actually interested in defenders at this point as our midfield is not functioning very well.

   Keep up the insightful analysis and bread recipes.

2. ‘Do you even sift, bro?’ is genius. Made me smile.

   Uneasy about Ben White? I don’t get the logic of prioritizing a CB/RB at this point, but I’m not low on the player. Now I’m starting to worry. Not sure what it means for Saliba, and I feel bad that we never gave Mavropanos a chance. Not the most refined player but he seems like he’d fit into the physicality of the PL (if his injury problems are behind him) But looking forward to your analysis on Ben White. If it’s bad, I will take solace in you getting the Gary Cahill analysis just a little bit wrong.

   1. It doesn’t have to be zero sum… White or Saliba. But with this coach, it is possible that it is. I see a pattern with some young players, and it’s not one that I like.

      Tim has a point. You remember impact players… Adama Traore for example. Im not saying we buy him, but we remember standout players against us. One from recent memory was Calum Chambers outstanding play against Arsenal, as a RB for Southampton.

      But hey, we’ll see. Everything will be clearer by Christmas.

      1. On that note, we’re linked with a Benfica LB who I don’t remember at all. But that’s because he only came on in the 85th minute of the second leg, and I think he was the player Saka bamboozled to send in the cross for the winning goal.

   2. Second you on Mavrapanos. The guy had a tough vibe.
      It’s pretty shocking what’s happened at management level the last few years. We had that operator sanellhi (sp?) and peopls like joorabchian are still floating around.

3. People still sift, bro? Do they even have weevils in the Pacific Northwest? 😉

   1. Weevil weevil shock you

      1. Shard, my 7am sparring partner of many years. With the greatest respect, that was terrible. Freddie is turning.

         1. What’s a weevil?

      2. 🤣

      3. +1. love it, shard!

      4. Shard! Ripped!

4. Tavares I dont have an issue with. KT is the man in possession, and a good one too…a FAC. But he’s injury prone. Tavares has got to be good enough to play when called, which could be a lot, and young enough to not sulk when not starting. Some of our buys will look unspectacular now, and that’s fine as long as they pan out long term. Who had Koscielny on their bingo card when we bought him?

   I dont worry about purchases like this, because I’m not privy to the scouting and selection process. On the likes of Tavares and even White, I have to trust the process.

   Where I trust Arteta less is on the management of his CURRENT resources. I haven’t seen a good strategy for developing young players. And please don’t tell me about Saka. He emerged under Freddie and Emery

5. What a pass from Granit Xhaka.

   3 -3

   1. …and what an overall performance from Xhaka! So present, so tidy in his passing, so influential. One game, I know. A different context, I know. But it is still amazing that this guy is surplus to requirements at AFC while indispensable to the Swiss team and man of that historical match. Football is mysterious and subject to strange alchemies.

6. Wow. I love this game…

7. Why would we want keep a player like Xhaka?

   I mean, if so many bloggists and commentators say he is not good enough and should be sold, then surely they must be right?

   After all, did they not repeatedly say how we had to buy Partey and we all know what a great success that was.

   Surely, its the process that is important not how well the players play?

8. I know I rarely criticize players and mostly go after the coaching and squad building, but Switzerland are an example of a well built unit that has been consistently performing for the last 12 years without many realizing how good they really are.

   I hear so much criticism of Granit and how his time at Arsenal is usually analyzed, and to tell the truth, I always wonder, do these people even watch football? Just kidding, but it is a bit heart breaking to hear how such and such is a terrible footballer, but is such a key cog for a different, consistent side.

   I believe every player at the top level is very good. Maybe others are better at certain things, but to get to the top as a player, you have to beat out thousands of potential footballers vying for the same goal as you. Unlike with management, nepotism can only get you a slight push as a player, while a Frank Lampard or Arteta can jump straight into some of the top jobs, not only in England, but in global football.

   Players at EPL level can contribute something to any top team, even if asked to cover for another player, most are more than capable. This is because players’ contributions, outside of their general effort, is dictated by what they are good at, the structure of the side, the style of play of their side and the composition of the team around them. its also important to note that some players are not meant to perform feats that get people off their seats, but if your best attribute is passing in between the lines and rotating possession, that is what you ought to be judged on.

   I know most, including you Tim, have said Arteta has improved Xhaka or gotten better performances out of him, but in truth, Arteta has wasted the player, and last night showed it to most people out there. Xhaka is a player who is a team’s bulk passer, very good at passing through the lines, switching play and shooting. stats do point to Xhaka having made a good contribution last season, but in things that he was never good at or bought for. Did Xhaka become better, or was he used in a way that served Mikel’s needs in midfield? Was Xhaka reborn or was he altered to fit into the team’s needs.

   Mikel did the same thing with Xhaka that he did with Auba, but nobody is highlighting that. I am sure Aubameyang’s defensive stats where at a career best last season, but that isn’t what defines him or what he is best at. the difference? We know and appreciate what Auba’s natural gifts bring to the table. It was so bad that most have and still are not happy with Auba out wide. Even if it serves a purpose to Mikel’s tactics, people still oppose it. What about Granit? We not only let this negative coaching go ahead, we encourage it. Its even called an improvement, and give Arteta credit for it.

   The best of Xhaka has seemed to show up at Switzerland where they know what he does and only ask that of him. Everything around him isn’t built out of fear of him being targeted or dispossessed, but in creating so many outlets for ball progression, that teams just cant focus on Xhaka. Instead of taking the ball away from him, the team’s movement offers options that the opposition MUST take heed of before targeting Xhaka. Its at a point now where Xhaka has been the only constant in the side’s transition from 4231, to 433, and now to a 3412/3421. In all those structures, none has taken the negative option of trying to alter him, but in finding ways, structurally and tactically, to get him to do his best in peace.

   This isn’t even with him as the focal point of the side, or the defining player for them. That would be Shaqiri. The back three is because they have three really good ball playing centerbacks who allow the side to play out better than before. The two in midfield coincides with the rise of central midfielders like Freuler and Zakaria, who play deeper than Edmilson Fernades and are much better in possession than Behrami.

   This is just me addressing the point on Mikel’s supposed “improvement” of Xhaka. This is not a player who was ever known for his tackling, and if his tackling becomes an issue for any side that he plays for, then there are tactical or personnel problems which that particular side needs to address. And just like the Swiss, we have very good players that require a solid system and philosophy, along with positive coaching to get any sort of consistency and end product.

   Pepe’s right foot? I give Mikel credit for that because we got a wide goal scorer to start scoring with his other foot. That is an improvement on the player’s game and what he brings to the table.

   I get that Xhaka isn’t what Mikel wants ( Or many Arsenal fans out there), but we better replace Xhaka properly or face the problem of altering another player to plug holes that they aren’t capable or built for. But different takes on Mikel’s tactics on Auba and Granit shows that there needs to be more fairness in our analysis of players.

9. Grant Xhaka is a good footballer (a point that even his critics have made). Grant Xhaka’s skills havent seemed, for much of the time, best suited to the EPL. Both of those things can be true. He was magnificent against France. As I and others have pointed here, he was superb in a number of ELP games (I remember one against Liverpool, and said so at the time). He was atrocious in others — slow, ponderous, rash (of temper and of play) and defensively suspect.

   Of late, under Arteta, he seems to have found a system and setup that allowed him to play consistently well. Even his tackling improved heaps. Xhaka looks more accomplished in international football, because the style of play is more tactical, and yes, slower. There were times late second half and extra time yesterday when he was literally playing at walking pace. No team in the premiership will let him do that, or have time on the ball. Even a prima ballerina will struggle to perform on rough concrete.

   And importantly, he’s been with this cohort of Swiss players for more than a decade. A good part of the core of the u-17 team that won the youth world cup in Nigeria in 2009 has remained intact. That continuity, impossible in club football, breeds tactical stability. The can find each other with their eyes closed. So let’s get some perspective. His national team environment is totally different to his club one. That said, Im sort of coming around to Josh’s POV, that we may be selling him at a time he’s playing his best, most intelligent football. I’m one of those who has said that it’s time to sell.

   1. (autocorrect caused me to Anglicise Granit’s name. Didnt catch it 🤦🏽‍♂️)

   2. I have long heard statements like “such and such is not suited to English football because he is this or that”, and never really got it.

      For a while, the English game has been personified by its pace and intensity. It is a league where players are given shorter time on the ball and forced into turnovers. It is a league where tackles fly and the referee lets pay continue more often than everywhere else. So if you are slow, slight and/or technical, while expecting time on the ball and protection from the officials, you wont make it.

      Is this really true? Can a player not be suited to a league?

      I have watched English football get dominated by foreign players and managers of all sorts, and they have thrived playing very differently from the norm. The current champions and dominant side, Man City do not really get dictated to by the league. Maybe some individual games, but those are anomalies. They bought players to to counter what the rest of the league brings, and kill all that intensity.

      Football is not about playing the game that someone dictates to you, its about dictating to your opponent how the game will go. For the top sides, they can afford the players to enforce their own pace on proceedings. I do not think it has anything to do with international football being more tactical or slower, the players are the same ones who play week in and week out in the EPL and other top leagues. If that pace and intensity was such a big factor, why is it that England do not play at EPL pace in internationals?

      The answer? Football is about controlling space. Whatever league or competition, it is a regulation size pitch with 22 players in it. Intensity is good, but speed of thought, spatial awareness, technical ability and a proper philosophy will trump whatever amount of energy any team can exert.

      Mertesaker and Ozil showed taught me more on this. I doubt they could or have ever played better anywhere outside of their best at Arsenal. They often used their intelligence to use the inertia of opponents against them. Ozil never dribbled, but just flicked the ball to to directions that where impossible for opponents to adjust towards at their intensity. Ozil was able to find spaces for passes because of the intensity which forced positional mistakes in the opponent. Mertesaker just had to time the mis-control that comes from the fast running with the ball that players at high intensity often make. He was rarely booked because he didn’t have to do much, just read the mistakes that was inevitable.

      I don’t think it is about the league. It has more to do with the team. Being slow does not mean you are not suited to the EPL, it just means that you are at a team that cant offset that weakness with a strength somewhere else in the team. He can thrive in the EPL, he is good enough to to. It is Arsenal that never suited him. Not when he was signed, and with people thinking he did well last season, not in this current side, because he was performing a function and not playing his game.

      1. eye opening comment, Devlin, thanks. I was one of those who took it for granted that p)ace was characteristic of the English game and that there was no way around it. You are right, there are ways around it.

10. Echo Devlin re: Xhaka. That’s what a good player looks like, on form, playing with freedom in a system designed to maximize his strengths and minimize his weaknesses. This doesn’t mean we were wrong about his fit with us. Arsenal doesn’t want to play like Switzerland plays. Xhaka can’t always have the game in front of him, flanked by runners, like a latter day Pirlo. More than that, he’s at an age where he is signing his last major contract at the end of which his value will be a fraction of what it is now. If we are going to sell, now is the time. I’m glad he’s finally getting some love from the fans because he deserves it. I hope he does really well in Italy. But again, As great as he was for the Swiss, this shouldn’t change anything from our point of view.

11. france and switzerland is always going to end in a draw. i don’t remember the last time they played and there was a winner. however, yesterday had to produce a winner. after 10 minutes, i was really impressed with how switzerland attacked the space behind kante and pogba. when a fan ran onto the field, and there was the unofficial water break, deschamps switched to a back 4, putting rabiot in midfield until halftime assessments/substitutions could be made. the second half saw france score 3 unanswered goals and dominate. however, the swiss didn’t quit and finally took off the very disappointing embolo. prophetically, regular time ended…in a draw.

    as for xhaka, i’ve been his biggest critic on this forum. however, not sense his last red card. bottom line, he’s been brilliant for arsenal sense returning from that suspension. i think it humbled him a bit and calmed him down. as a result, he’s been better and i’ve given him his props. many credit arteta but i simply believe it came down to him maturing, better understanding his limitations, and playing within himself. he’s properly acclimated to the league, he doesn’t get so emotional like he did with the red card, and he doesn’t try certain tackles anymore. he’s learned to relax a bit more on the field. maybe arteta played a role, but that’s a natural maturation for me.

    actually, now that i think about it, xhaka, has finally got somebody to play with. i’ve often read people be critical of the club for not giving fabregas the necessary support. who has xhaka played with since he’s come to the club and settled? he never really played with cazorla or coquelin. it was always ramsey, then guendouzi, and torreira, then ceballos. finally, he’s got partey to help him where he doesn’t have to try and do everything…including some things he couldn’t do. perhaps that was always his problem. now, he’s relaxed and his true quality is beginning to show more consistently. xhaka now has a foil, he’s in his prime, and he’s playing well, but the club want to sell him for less than half of what they paid for him. you can’t make this shit up. it’s insane. if it were me, i’d have a sit down with xhaka, explaining how he and partey could carry this club back to european glory for the next 7 years and try to convince him to stay. we’ll see what they do. however, selling a player in his prime, especially after the experience of eliminating france from the euros, is foolish.

    1. understand, my opinion is not based on xhaka’s performances at the euros, it’s based on his performances this past season for arsenal. tim may be right and it may have been something arteta has done strategically, taking the ball out of xhaka’s hand or whatever. however, i think the most significant thing arteta did to help xhaka was bring in partey as a midfield partner.

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