Watched the Arsenal match today and here are a few thoughts to argue over.
Well, first off (saying “first off” just to tick off my English profs) Aubameyang looks like a player who is really struggling with the wide left role Arteta keeps pushing on him. I got so tired of saying this last season that I just quit but I guess it needs to be said again: Aubameyang playing wide, pumping in lofted crosses to Lacazette is an obscene waste of his talent and our money. Like I’ve said already this summer, Arsenal are paying him £13m a season and to get anything close to value for that money, Arsenal need to feed him a steady diet of shots. Instead, we are in such a bad way that we have to play Lacazette in the false nein role and have Lacazette trying to feed him lofted crosses.
This is exactly how we started last season. Why we are still playing this kind of football 18 months into “the process” makes me wonder what the process actually is. Sorry, I know, a lot of you will be angry with me but I’ve been saying this for about a year with Arteta. If it’s a surprise to you, that’s only because I quit criticizing him because I got bored saying the same stuff over and over.
I know that you’ll say “we couldn’t start Saka, so that’s why we played with that formation.” Uhh.. no. The problem is that Arteta defaults to that formation, despite the fact that it’s not good. It wasn’t good two years ago but at least Auba was able to overcome the limitations and still score. In fact, if you look at the data, him playing wide left actually has a positive xG for the player, in other words he overperforms on the left, but the problem isn’t with him, it’s that the rest of the team suffers when he plays wide left.
Last season when Auba plays left, his xG+xA per90 was 0.4. When he played forward his xG+xA per90 was 0.55. It wasn’t always like this, in his first year and a half with Arsenal, it wasn’t a problem, but it seems like teams have figured out how to play him when he plays wide and he’s now struggling out wide.
All that said, I guess we can only hope that this was a one-off thing for Arteta. Saka is just returning from the Euros and I guess Arteta’s only other options (based off the bench) were Reiss Nelson or Maitland-Niles. But I’m being very angry online right now 1) because my back is killing me and I’m cranky and 2) because I don’t want to see this set up any more.
One thing that would help with the problems we have on the left is buying an attacking player. You know, going out and getting another attacking MFer. We all know this, though. When Arteta played Saka on the left with Smith Rowe and Odegaard we were better. Replacing Odegaard should have been our number one priority this season, but instead, we spent £55m on Ben White.
Ben White looked fine today, an upgrade on Holding. I have no problem with Arsenal buying better players. Making the squad better in all positions should be our top priority. And we did that with both Lokonga and White. Along with getting in Tavares, that’s three good pieces of business. But when it comes to this squad, the biggest problem last season wasn’t defense. It was attack. That first half of the season was the worst I’ve ever seen Arsenal play from an attacking perspective. If you wanted Ben White, ok, cool, but you have to get in an attacking player. That is a non-negotiable for me. That is “the process” I want to see taking place at Arsenal.
Now you can go ahead and say that the transfer market is messed up because of the pandemic. I agree with that. But Arsenal are out there now trying to package up some players in transfers which seems like something a club does when it doesn’t have enough money to just buy the players we need.
Maybe the club expected to be able to sell Maitland-Niles, Willock (who is on the verge of a transfer based on Arteta’s quotes today), Nelson, and a few others but the reality is that we are struggling to sell, and it looks like that is making it difficult to buy. Which makes that Ben White transfer look a bit more foolish than it would have otherwise. In fact, I feel confident that if Arsenal had bought an AM before Ben White, there would be very little frustration. As it stands, there is a ton of frustration.
But I don’t want to be all negative because I think the club and Arteta both know that we have big problems in attack, so I am going to trust that we are working on it.
On the positive side, Lokonga looked good in all phases of play today. His defense looks smart, he’s energetic, and he gets the ball forward. Massive upgrade on Elneny and probably a smart replacement for Ceballos.
Still alot of transfer window to go. Going to be a busy final day for lots of clubs.
My feelings exactly, I have been an arsenal fan for years now and I have been seeing the invincible squad being disassembled piece by piece. Now for a while now we have been either bad or the press would make it worse, Mr Wenger had an eye though to get us good and smart attacking players and we survived the bad mouthing. After Mr Emery left the talk of rebuilding started to take shape, and the issue with players they can’t sell is not Arteta’s problem cause he inherited it. Firstly to start from Scratch we need a lot of sacrifice, for instance we must terminate a lot of contracts and refrain from renewing for players like Elneny. 2nd Sell cheaply to recover what we can. 3rd the owner must pump up cash not too much but to get us started. Remember we have a few fixtures and less travelling, and again prioritize positions as Arteta was mentioning during the season.he kept saying we need a creative player yet he bought a defender, does he know that we consided less last season than other teams. I am frustrated by Arteta and his agenda, let’s see how it pens out this coming season.
Arsenal did not create a lot today and after losing to Chelsea are not inspiring a great deal of hope for the new season.
Exactly who are we going to be able to beat?
Like I said also, when we had dani Ceballos and Ødegaard we end up 8th in position both of them left our priority should be to get a very quality attacking midfielder like Maddison instead of spending £50m on white. A very good club that know what they are doing we go all out to get Maddison and also make use of the opportunity of Bernardo silver and add him to the squad. No player we see that we just bought Maddison will not want to come to arsenal since they want to leave their club. Just imagine having Maddison as 8, then Bernardo Silver as our attacking midfielder bring in Smith Rowe as substitute to play from left wing, Arsenal will be solid but I doubt the arsenal board, Edu, Arteta doing this kind of business to bring in Maddison and Bernardo Silver before our opening match of the Premier league season.
This has been a discouraging preseason. We had plenty of our senior players available but we finished with a record of 0-3-1 and only 4 goals scored in 4 games. The 3 players we expect to lead us in scoring this season Auba, Laca and Pepe were all shut out. As you pointed out Auba is not the same player he was 2 years ago but blaming it on the formation or his position seems off base when he thrived and won a golden boot playing mostly wide left on a team that lacked creativity in the recent past. To me the elephant in the room seems to be this is his age 32 season.
What are you complaining about?
We had 2 shots on target, one in each half.
Surely that is a great omen for the season?
Why, we may score a couple of goals on our way down.
As for Auba not scoring, is that not what Arteta wants? Marginalise him and then Ozilise him.
His style does not suit Arteta’s style and it is Arteta’s style which counts, isn’t it?
After all, it gets us up to 2 shots on target per game.
I hear you JJG
Much as I want to – and will – give Arteta the benefit of the doubt and my full support (difficult as I anticipate it will be) through the tough games in August & September, I just find it so hard to stomach his football. The summer break, Euros and transfer season were a welcome distraction but we have started exactly as we left off and I would dearly love to be proved wrong that it will continue this way.
The guardian had a fans perspective preview from each club, and Paddy Viera was regularly mentioned as first manager likely to be canned. I fear another former Arsenal midfielder will give him a good run for his money.
A side note to that Guardian article was the Brighton fan calling out what a great bit of business for White. He may be an improvement. He may become the bedrock of our defence for years to come. But for £50m and when we have other far more important areas to address it’s one hell of a gamble.
I’d be in agreement that we’re looking pretty impotent. I’m pretty sure there’s some shenanigans behind the Ben White deal because it makes so little sense. That said, I think we need to wait until the transfer window closes to condemn “the process”. A lot of big logs have been cleared now (Messi, Grealish, Lukaku) and we may see a huge uptick in business the next two or three weeks.
Oh Arsenal, why???? I was caught up celebrating the Springboks series win over the Lions yesterday, that I woke up late, missed the UFC event and forgot the Arsenal game today. Almost missed it and now I wish I did.
On arsenal and the football, it’s all just disappointing when you can see the problems coming and somehow hose in the positions to make a difference are just pushing forward with a losing plan/process. I have seen failed processes and also successful ones. One of the successes that I like is Klopp.
When Jürgen Klopp arrived in Dortmund, he had already built on what his football philosophy was at Mainz. I had not been paying attention until I was tasked with analysing development structures and coaching from around the world for an academy I was working for. This was when the German development structures had just brought out the amazing (and future world cup winning) youth side containing a certain Mesut Ozil.
I decided to focus on Dortmund because they got better by developing young players for the first team (development structures) and buying cheap but talented players (coaching to potential). It made sense to learn about them, but I was inexperienced. I focused on a lot of stuff like the technical drills, conditioning work and how the academy was run.
Throughout that time, I missed the coach’s personal role in all those facets and his connection to the players, the man-management. It was only after Klopp moved to Liverpool that I stared fully appreciating, not only the work that coaches do, but also the necessity of some fundamentals that coaches at the highest level should have.
At Dortmund Klopp favoured a 4-2-3-1 formation. The most interesting thing about this for me, was his midfield. He loved a midfield two that consisted of a deep-lying playmaker who could get on the ball and dictate play, but was not afraid to break forward. For the second midfield role, he preferred a high tempo marking player who could also help the attacking players bounce passes off of him. The playmakers he used when I started looking into Dortmund where Sahin, then Gundogan and sometimes Mario Gotze would perform that role. Highly technical and tactically intelligent players who remained calm and dictated the tempo and flow of the game. The second midfield role was filled by Sebastian Kehl and then later, Sven Bender. This was the combination that he worked with and it worked very well for him.
When he moved to Liverpool, I started looking into the Liverpool squad to see who he would sell and who would stay, all based on what I studied about his way of playing at Dortmund. I got many right in terms of sales, but got two very profiles wrongs, Jordan Henderson and Philippe Coutinho. On Jordan Henderson, he just did not fit in what Klopp had built and used before. Here was a hard running, hard marking, tactically questionable player who loved roaming and playing hero-ball. He was like the in-between of what Klopp used in the two midfield roles at Dortmund. Coutinho seemed perfect for the Kagawa role, and maybe slightly better. Here was a player with supreme technical ability, game changing ability, could see passes, could and was pressing for Rodgers, great at roaming into wide areas to create overloads, could beat a man from a standstill position and just downright audacious at times. Perfect right? Wrong!
Klopp’s Liverpool are a side that plays Klopp’s football and you can see it, but they look different. From the positions they take up, the transitions, the counters, the pressing, the jockeying, the tactical fouling, the build-up, etc. it’s all still Klopp’s football, but it’s also adjusted to be effective in a whole new environment with a different football culture and players.
I had to humble myself and look beyond the stats, formations and transfer prices. Coaching at the highest level demands a coach/manager who has gone through their trial and error period, and knows what they want from their side. This is the most important of the fundamentals of coaching, a football philosophy. Klopp’s football philosophy could be described as high intensity, pressing and transition based football. Klopp’s football was not the formation, nor the players he once had. Klopp does not need a 4-2-3-1 to win or to have a 2-man midfield with a #10 ahead of them, nor does he need the current 4-3-3 or to have a hard-working, hard-running midfield with goal scoring wingers. As long as Klopp knows his philosophy, he can apply it anywhere (not saying he can win the league with any team on the planet).
This all brings me to Arteta and what I have been saying since the FA Cup win where some said the playing style there was just short-term. I never bought it, but I also didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Last season showed me what Arteta’s football philosophy was, and it is unfortunately it is not developed yet. He is going through his trial and error period, trying to figure out what he needs to get his ideas to come out on the pitch. The stats don’t help in this regard, the analytics don’t help either. He has his communication down, but there is so much more he is missing/just doesn’t have.
Mikel’s coaching, based on the evidence of his tenure, is pretty bad for the level he is coaching at. An example would be Wenger’s through-play drills where his players played combinations around cones/mannequins to get instinctive understanding of their movements for in-game situations, and the Norwich goal is the best example, but most of our play showed from that session. Wenger-ball videos on YouTube show how it applied in almost every facet of our play.
Mikel lacks an overarching approach of what type of football he is capable of making effective. There is a difference in what you want and what you can do, and Mikel seems so certain but he really is lost in this moment. It takes years of trial and error, where you learn what players, formations, drills and sessions in training bring out what you want in games. We will struggle to get any coherence in attack again this season, we will continue reverting to the formation and passive style that Tim keeps pointing out to, we will continue signing good players who improve us on paper but still somehow struggle to make that translate into performances/results.
I am predicting Arteta will be on the brink again by the end of November!
I am going drink until I sleep tonight, then celebrate Women’s day tomorrow by getting some ribs to braai and biltong as well for my partner (which I will probably eat more than her), especially bacon biltong (tasted it for the first time yesterday and would highly recommend).
I hope you guys can get your minds away from Arsenal for a bit and enjoy your day/week/month/season/whatever.
Great stuff as always Devlin! I don’t have a lot of confidence in the attack improving under Mikel, either. He just seems much more comfortable dealing with the defense and midfield than with the attack. This sort of thing happens a lot in marketing departments. Someone is promoted because they are exceptional at lead generation. Now they are in charge of both lead gen and brand/messaging. The brand is terrible,, but because they are most comfortable with lead generation, they spend 80% of their time focusing on lead generation – trying to get it from very very good to excellent. Meanwhile the brand is languishing in the poor/awful realm. But they keep improving lead gen anyway. And things don’t improve overall because you need both brand AND lead generation to succeed. Arenal need attack and defense to work, But MA8 seems to only care about defense.
For Arsenal the real sign of this will be if we buy a GK and RB before the deadline, but not a #10. That will hasten the end of the Arteta era.
Tim
It was another top post thanks. I agree that not buying a difference making attacking player so far seems like poor judgement. I like ball playing CB’s like Ben White too but the reality is we have not purchased anyone who realistically can do much to improve our attack. I defend Arteta’s tactical decisions all day because I still believe he does not have the talent available to do much more then he has done. I am not sure how much influence he has in the decisions with regard to our transfer business but so far I really question his judgement when it comes to squad building and player acquisition. I have no idea what he and Edu are thinking.
I think Arsene made some proper decisions a few years ago when we sold Walcott, Ox, Giroud and Iwobe and used the money to buy Laca and Auba. I also think purchasing Pepe was also the right idea. We were trying to buy some true difference making attacking players. At the time we purchased them Laca was one of Europes leading goal scorers and Pepe was a true stat sheet superstar. Unfortunately Auba was the only one of the 3 who lived up to expectations because both Laca and Pepe have been mostly disappointing. History is clear that trying to develop your own stars rarely works. I think using financial firepower to buy the star players you need and then fill the squad around them with solid role players is the proper way to build a top 4 team. Imagine how much different things would have been if Pepe and Laca had both been hits. I believe the key to us rebuilding a top 4 team will depend on our front office brain trust doing a better job of finding and acquiring those difference making players.
Our results when we purchase attacking players from Ligue 1 in France over the last 12 years have been underwhelming. Chamakh, Gervinho, Giroud, Pepe, Laca, Sanogo were all placed into a situation which in theory should have been ideal for an attacking player. They had world class creative talent creating chances for them and a manager with an attacking mindset but each one of those players has had a significant decrease in their goal scoring numbers when they moved to Arsenal.
Willock sold for £22m. If that’s the fee then Nketiah and AMN are only worth £10-12m each, max.
I would argue Sanchez, Auba, Ozil and Cazorla were the most successful attacking players we have purchased in the last decade. 1 played in Germany and 3 in Spain before we bought them while the attacking players we purchased from France have not done nearly as well at least in my opinion. I wonder if there is a lesson to be learned or if its just coincidence.
interesting that you raise this point. i remember making it many years ago and asked the same questions. whether it’s been loic remy, djbril cisse, el hadji diouf, didier drogba, eden hazard, or even as far back as titi kamara, many strikers coming from france going to any premier league team sees their productivity drop off; it’s not arsenal-specific.
after asking the questions, i realized there’s one exception to your list and that’s olivier giroud. his productivity stayed relatively the same upon his arrival to the premier league. you could also put an asterisk next to drogba’s name as although he struggled with injury in his first season, it was plain to see he was something serious. the same with sylvain wiltord as his numbers were only limited by the fact that he was behind henry.
as a general rule, i think a player needs about 18 months to adapt to the premier league. it’s a bit of an arbitrary number but it’s when we began to see the best of robert pires so i’ve adopted it as universal. it was about 18 months when we began to see the best of pepe. if he starts regularly, he’ll be prolific. however, i think arteta will stick with saka, who will likely never be prolific. as for lacazette, i didn’t think he’d be able to get 30+ league goals in england. however, i believe if he was played regularly, he’d get at least 20 goals.
Arteta has spent a big sum to mould the team in his own way.
As we all know, if Arsenal dont start winning asap,he could be out.
Fans dont bother with bewitching soccer. They want a winning team.
Thats the problem with the fm .
His high attacking philosphy could be nullified by anti soccer time and again.
I believe Arteta is far more pragmatic.
Lacazette and Aubameyang playing together just doesn’t work. Is there anyone out there who can’t see that? Laca almost playing like a number 10 and Auba more like a winger who is continually having to use his wrong foot. Who exactly is going to be in the 6 yard box to put the ball in the net? I have no idea where the goals are going to come from. That being the case, I really can’t see anything better than 7th or 8th, if we’re lucky and scrape some results. If I see Xhaka and Elneny line up in midfield again, I think I’m going to scream.
i would make several suggestions with aubameyang. first, take away that armband. the most difficult thing to do in football is to score goals. i believe that having your goal scorers or creative playmakers focused on anything but scoring goals is derelict. i would only make a striker captain if i didn’t need him to lead my team on the field; a bit like raul when he was captain at real madrid. they had plenty of leaders in that team like hierro, beckham, zidane, figo, cannavarro, etc. these guys were all captains of their national teams that didn’t require raul’s leadership but allowed him to focus on scoring and being a figure head.
second, tim is likely right when he says that teams have figured out how to play aubameyang by denying him a penetrative dribble inside. the smart football move for auba is to release tierney on the overlap and allow him to cross. i would direct auba to cut in on his right at least twice in each half and see what happens. maybe he gets a curler to the far post or does a 1-2 with emile or laca but i would demand he look to be more dangerous.
third, he needs to stop changing his shoes. every day, he’s wearing some different throw back footwear from a decade ago.
Josh
Giroud won the golden boot and looked to be on the rise as a scorer and lead his relatively underdog Montpellier team to the league title in his last season playing in France. Then he comes to an Arsenal team with arguably the best creative talent in the world creating chances for him. Given that scenario I would argue that his average of 13.5 league goals per season during his Arsenal years was definitely a disappointment at least in terms of his goal production
Pepe scored half of his league goals last season in 3 games in the last 4 games of the season against 3 bottom of the table poor defensive teams who had very little to play for in terms of table position. Time will tell how this year plays out but I would argue that its a bit early to be confident that he has finally adapted to the PL and is going to be prolific this season.
dude, i’m mostly agreeing, not arguing with you.
with that, giroud never won the golden boot in france. likewise, why are you focused on giroud’s entire time at arsenal while i’m talking about his initial season after moving from france to england? your average stat is skewed as we all know, with the exception of his first year, giroud shared time at center forward with the likes of theo, alexis, and lacazette when he was at arsenal. also, who were the creative players his first season? fabregas, samir, song, and van persie were already gone. mesut and alexis hadn’t arrived yet. besides an often unfit rosicky, cazorla (and podolski) was it and he’d only just arrived in the same transfer window as giroud, meaning he had to get used to the league too.
saka was preferred to pepe, once again, skewing your numbers. we all saw pepe’s form in the second half of last season and know full well that if he plays regularly, he can be a major contributor to the arsenal attack. i know i’d prefer the ivorian in my starting line up. in fact, most of the debate is whether to play saka ahead of auba, but most seem to prefer keeping pepe in the team.
it’s true that arsenal need an attacking midfielder. they used to have mesut who’s vision and ability frightened defenses all over europe. arteta went from using him regularly to not at all after the covid shutdown. i think it safe to say that it was less an arteta decision and more an arsenal decision as mesut and another unnamed player refused to take a pay cut. I think that other player is sokratis as he never played for the club again either but i digress.
arsenal lost out on buendia and didn’t seem to have a contingency plan, which showcases both their ineptitude and ignorance. while they might be able to bring in james madisson for a boatload of money, i dropped the name of matheus cunha the other day as an option. this kid just won gold for brazil at the olympics and has been good for hertha in germany. more importantly, he can play anywhere in the front four, giving arsenal depth at center forward and cam…and he only costs £25 million. while he may not be as hard-working as smith rowe, he’s certainly more creative and clinical. he got 8 goals and 8 assists in 26 games playing left wing, which isn’t his best position, for a poor hertha berlin side. leeds is interested but he might prefer arsenal. who knows if arsenal are even interested. i absolutely love the kid. we’ll see.
stories coming out of europe is that inter milan want cunha to replace lautaro martinez. likewise, after his olympic exploits, atalanta and real madrid are now interested in this young man. well, they all have champions league football to offer so… i would still try. he’s a special kid.
Odegaard has been given just one 30-minute look (and some cameos) by Ancelotti in Real’s preseason– where peripheral players like Isco getting more minutes than he. I suspect that Martin Odegaard is leaning toward a jump back to Arsenal, sooner than later.
Arteta seems to have Odegaard and Maddison as his creative midfield targets. Preferring MO it seems– but has irons in the fire to move for Maddison– if MO ends up staying at Real. If neither, the plan seems to make a play for Houssem Aouar at/near the deadline.
In the pre-season match that we lost to Chelsea, Joe Willock scored an equaliser. It wasnt given, but score he did. An instinctive shot on the right of D. And it showed what he could have added to Arsenal… tie-breaking, goalscoring punch, in a side that struggled to score on the day, and looks as if it’ll struggle to score.
He’s got 10 goals a season in him and a higher ceiling than the dismal Elneny, who, again yesterday and for the 3rd time in pre-season, was culpable in a goal — Son’s this time (not a great bit of defending by Pepe or Mari either). Willock clearly adds value, has a skillset unique to our midfield, and is 21. So what does Arsenal do? Sell him, of course.
Can any Mikel’s instinctive defenders tell us that he knows what he doing at this point? I cant. And the argument that Willock doesn’t play the Arteta way? Please. It says “Head Coach” in the top line of his resume.
If selling Willock isnt one of those tough either/or decision MikEdu has to make in order to push out the boat for Maddison financially, they’ll have confirmed to me that they’ve truly lost the plot. Maddison is nice to have and is a capable goalscorer, but to me he cancels Emile. We needed a lock-picker and knitter who’d create more chances for Auba et al; but I absolutely wont quibble with a Maddison. Someone like Odegaard.
Mikel, on the evidence of this pre-season, is a dead man walking. But it’s only pre-season, and not the real thing. We won the Community Shield last summer, and promply proceeded to play pants in the regular season.
Spot on, Claude!
I have been ok with selling Joe. As many have said, we have to do business where we can, and he might be at his peak value right now for us. There’s a risk his career takes off and we miss out, but there is also a risk he loses value and we get nothing for him. And we apparently need the cash.
Having said that, there’s a sad irony about Joe. He strikes me as a guy who can play on the break. When we create chaos with a turnover, he can find space to arrive and score. But I think Mikel doesn’t like chaos. He wants an orderly, structured break/counterattack. (That is not a thing!)
You need players who thrive on freelancing and creating/utilizing space when teams are running backwards. They aren’t always the same players who have great positional discipline. Doesn’t seem like MA8 gets this. Or maybe he thinks you can get players who have both. You can, if you have a Man City budget.
Auba was very successful for his first 2 1/2 seasons. Defenses in the PL watch film and know what players tendencies are and If it was simply a matter of the defenses had to learn how to play against him then it would never have taken 2 1/2 seasons. Defenses knew what was coming but they could not stop Auba because he was really good at scoring. Auba is a highly experienced professional player and if something is not working for him because the defense has compensated then he would try something different to regain his advantage. He also has several assistant coaches and positional coaches who in theory watch hundreds hours of film and study the game in a lot more detail then any of us. The idea that bringing Auba back to his golden boot level is simply a matter of a couple of tactical tweaks that we as fans understand but Auba and the coaching staff has not figured out seems completely unrealistic to me. I understand everyone wants to blame the coaches and managerial tactics and no one wants to believe the player is not as good as he used to be but Father Time catches up with every player at some point.
Players are generally past their peak at age 32, it’s true… but strikers also need feeding, from creatives and others, to score. Both those things can be true. Why can you only argue in black and white?
A few things to consider… in what was his worst season in which he missed a slew of games, Auba had 20 or so goal involvements (too busy to look it up for exactness for now)
Lewa and Cavani are still productive goalscorers past 34
And those G+A involvements came while playing Arteta’s turgid brand of attacking football.
So basically nothing’s changed in attack because nothing’s changed in attack except that we’ve lost Martin Odegaard, who was, in my humble opinion, incredibly important.
It’s also preseason. And also Spurs and Chelsea are not, like, easy. But yeah. We need Odegaard.
Why not Maddison? I never saw him play for Arsenal. Maybe he’d be great. But I like MO.
JW1
Thanks for the detailed response about Stats DNA on the previous post. Even if some of it was speculative it was illuminating and made sense. I am not as confident as you that it is going to be a pathbreaking tool for the club, but if Lokonga and Tavares are their recommendations then I am somewhat encouraged.
My non expert observation is that Arteta’s plan is to get us more shots by winning the ball higher up and catching the opposition out because against a set defense all we can do is cross and hope, or rely on an individual piece of skill to open up space.
We’re now more vulnerable at the back to the long ball or to passed around in midfield, and the ‘athletic profile’ of incoming transfers is his hedge against that.
In both attack and defense, we’re relying on opposition mistakes (a bit Mourinho-esque) and on the players’ individual ability. I think it will put too much pressure on the players and that when it fails we will once again blame individual errors. Meanwhile if we start to ship more goals, the ‘press’ will be abandoned and we’ll go back to sitting deep and building slowly and all of it through the flanks.
I don’t think any Arteta signing really fixes this though better players always help. The ‘chaotic’ Joe Willock would help too. But as pointed out above, Arteta is very much against chaos. I expect another season of dull football with some moments of individual skill, and an 8th or 10th place finish.