Good morning, folks. Here in Tacoma, the sun isn’t shining, the air is heavy with smoke from the forest fires, and people are getting slightly aggro. Just slightly aggro, nothing too wild but lots of horn honking and people clearly getting frustrated for no reason.
I saw a man lean on his horn for 2 minutes and yell at another driver just because the guy changed lanes. And I went to Costco the other day to get basic supplies for the next four years and folks there were being just weird: parking their carts in the middle of the aisle and then staring at people who wanted to go around them. But hey, I got my trash bags and green scrubbies all settled.
I’m not kidding about the four years thing. I use about 1 trash bag a week and a box of 200 lasts me about 4 years. I also change out the scrubbies every 3 months (don’t worry! I down-cycle them from dishes to bathtub to toilet!) so a box of them typically lasts about 3 years.
Speaking of trash bags that last four years, Granit Xhaka signed a new deal with the Arsenal today. Ok, just kidding, he’s not a trash bag: a trash bag could hold onto a football under pressure. Ok ok! I’m really kidding here, he’s decent enough as a player.
Ok, I’ll stop saying “ok” after this: statistically, Xhaka is one of the best passing midfielders in the Premier League so I can, sort of, understand why Arsenal would want to keep him. But…
It’s no secret that I’m not a Xhaka-fan. I see what he adds to the team and also what he subtracts from the team and think that his ceiling is too low for a club which has ambitions of finishing in the top four*, much less competing for the League. He’s not quick enough in possession (takes too many touches to settle the ball) and he’s a defensive liability.
Yes, sir, I have seen that one account on twitter which does some stats shenanigans to say “well actually he’s one of the best defensive midfielders in the league” but “I’ve actually watched him play football” and a great defender doesn’t get turned and burned as often as Xhaka does; a great defender reads the game and steps in to pick off passes; a great defender wins tackles.
And it’s not just that he’s slow, which he is, it’s that he literally doesn’t read the game very well. Slow DMs can still be great ball-winners but, they need to read the danger, know where the passing lanes are, know where the attackers are, and move into spaces that maximize their ability to effect the outcome before the pass is made. Xhaka is a great talent on the ball, given plenty of time, but he is a straight up liability off the ball.
Rodri’s no speedster but he till ranks 66th percentile in tackles per game and 57th percentile in tackles+interceptions. And while he was at Atleti, he was 92nd percentile. Xhaka was 11th percentile in 2019/20. At his “best” under Emery, Xhaka barely ticked up to 42nd percentile – below average.
What’s even more inconceivable about re-signing Xhaka is that he’s a limited player who requires a team to play a certain way around him. He fits into Arteta’s Positional approach but, for example, we can’t play counter-attacking football (which suits all of our attackers, except Lacazette) with him because that would require him to play more defense and would require much quicker distribution, which he is just not capable of.
I’m not at all angry with Xhaka for signing a new deal. Heck yes, my man, go get your money. Where I’m ticked off is with the Arsenal.
There’s going to be a lot of nonce on here and twitter about “protecting his value”. Let me just put this in terms that will make sense: that’s the very definition of “sunk cost fallacy”. Hertha Berlin offered £21m for him in 2019, Roma offered Arsenal £15m for him in 2021. Not sure if you see what’s happening here… but that is his value. It’s not getting better!
By adding 4 years to the length of his contract, and increasing his pay rate, you aren’t protecting anything. You are agreeing to an additional £24m in costs. He turns 29 in 41 days (which means he’s 28). Let’s just say that next year you are able to sell this 29 year old with obvious flaws for £20m, well you’ve lost £1m. Why? Because you’re paying him £6m a year. And selling him for £20m is a huge if – because there are very few teams in world football who can afford his current salary, much less the increase we are giving him.
With Xhaka (all players) we have to think of the percentages: what percent chance will he increase in value next year and every year from here on out? Feels like it’s a very low % chance. Teams are not going to recover from the pandemic in one year, folks. But even before the pandemic, there were few teams who could afford Xhaka’s salary. Now, going forward, I expect a lot of clubs in Europe to be austere.
And that’s not even the thing I’m super mad about, with Arsenal. The thing I’m super mad about is that now we have yet another older player, who has obvious flaws, who is on an un-transferrable contract, who LIMITS OUR ABILITY TO PLAY A DIFFERENT STYLE OF FOOTBALL, who has a fractious relationship with the fans, who has the kind of temper which could see that relationship break even further at any point, and who will in all likelihood be sitting around doing jack shit for the last two to three years of his deal. That has me utterly frustrated. This fucking club, man. Just pissing away Wenger’s legacy.
Which brings me to the final angry point of the day: there’s a lot of nonsense on the internet right now about how this decline at Arsenal is Wenger’s fault. The logic goes that Wenger wanted to win at all costs and put the club in a sticky situation with signings like Ozil, Mustafi, Kolasinac, Xhaka, Elneny, Lacazette, and Aubameyang.
The problem with this argument is that if those were Wenger’s mistakes why does the club KEEP FUCKING MAKING THEM??? No one forced Arsenal to hand a massive new deal to Aubameyang – which we did AFTER he was in decline. Wenger isn’t the one signing Xhaka to another contract. Wenger isn’t the one turning down offers for Maitland-Niles, Xhaka, Lacazette, etc. In fact, Wenger left the club a £150m cash surplus. And the club have spent well over £300m (net spend, mate) on players. So, despite having a few personnel problems, the club were left in better shape than almost any club in the Premier League and most other clubs in the world.
It’s been three years, folks, but I guess, to be fair, you could apportion some of the blame for the current situation on Arsene Wenger. 5%? I blame him for signing Bellerin to a 7 year deal (we needed to “protect his value”) and putting him on an un-transferrable salary.
The thing about blaming Wenger for this situation is that it absolves the real culprits: the owner and his scion. The club had the perfect moment to break with Wenger in 2016 but since they had no idea how to run a football club, they couldn’t put together a transition. So instead, they gave Wenger a two year deal and bought Lacazette and Aubameyang. I intentionally didn’t say “Wenger bought” because if you remember that season, Arsene was complaining that a lot of the decisions had been taken out of his hands. And if you remember, I warned you all that this was what was going to happen: the owners would firewall themselves from criticism by throwing Wenger and everyone after him under the bus.
And after Wenger came Raul Sanllehi and his gang. Whatever mistakes Wenger made, and he did make mistakes, they pale in comparison to what Raul and his gang did to Arsenal. Nico Pepe? William Saliba and two years of David Luiz? Lucas Torreira? Sokratis? Cedric Soares? Derelichsteiner? That bag of frozen peas Runnar Alex Runnarson? Willian… WILLIAN??? Wenger ran the club as a break-even enterprise. Since he left, Arsenal have been hemorrhaging money.
There’s a reason why Wenger’s never been back to a game at Arsenal and I believe that reason is Stan and Josh Kroenke. I think Wenger felt used and abused by them. And he has every right to feel that way considering the fact that people are still blaming him.
You want to blame someone for Arsenal’s fall to mid-table mediocrity?
You blame Enos Kroenke.
Full stop.
*Arsenal with Granit Xhaka has never finished higher than 5th.
Damn.. too many home-truths in one article. Blaming Wenger is dumb but people love to point to one moment and say “there thats where it all started to fall apart” and like you said it reduces the size of the problem if its managers which have f-ed us not our owner.
The point made about limiting our style of play is so poignant because this club have too many players who it can’t realign if the ideas at the top change, be that due to Arteta trying something new or from us finally getting rid of him. (My prediction is mid-november for his sacking)
It is a confused rebuilding strategy, to say the least. The market is what the market is. We are simultaneously saying yes to other clubs’ inflated pricing; but hanging onto assets they wont pay our price for. That’s getting double screwed. I know my friend Josh is in favour of keeping Xhaka, but this is a puzzling deal. He’s a decent player, but he’s no Busquets.
It’s like we’ve learned nothing from the past 4 years about how to time the shifting of players.
Speaking of Arsene, he moved on big players — Vieira, Henry — at precisely the right time. Arteta? He’d have given old Vieira a 4 year contract extension and loaned Cesc to Celta Vigo.
just spit my coffee at the trash bag jokes. nice one Tim!
If I remember correctly, only Ozil was a purely Wenger purchase (and only Wenger seemed to know how to get the best out of Ozil). Kola, Xhaka, Mustafi and Elneny were StatsDNA recommendations and Auba and Laca (along with Sokratis and Lichtsteiner) was Mislintat bringing in boys that he knew and had scouted. Wenger made a lot of mistakes (not selling Sanchez, Andre Santos, etc. dithering on other transfers) but these colossal wastes of money the past five years are not on him (other than the Ozil contract)
And speaking of StatsDNA, going to your comment last post about Ben White smelling like a StatsDNA buy, that is the only way I can rationalize our pursuit of Aaron Ramsdale – he must score highly statistically, because he certainly doesn’t pass the eye test as a top 4 starting goalkeeper. How was Sambi identified? Tavares? They’ve looked OK so far, but I’m worried that our purchases so far may have been less about squad building as opposed to addressing Moneyball statistical deficits and answering questions about sell-on values 2-3 years hence.
Per your comment about Xhaka limiting our style of play, I fear the same thing about Ben White – we’ve paid 55m for a guy who might look good statistically but will only really be able to flourish as the RCB in a back three system where his skills at carrying the ball and passing can be useful and his weakness at defending long balls and physical forwards can be minimized.
This transfer window is looking more and more bleak. I really hope this Coutinho talk is absolute sh*t and we’re only talking to Barca about getting Emerson for RB. I’m pretty sure Laca and Auba are on strike, they’ve had a falling out with Arteta and we’re about to get hit with some major news. I’m really worried about getting battered by Chelsea.
People are already saying we should move Ben White into the DM role (basically because he’s not good at defense and needs someone to cover for him) and that just makes me want to give up on everything in life.
I was certainly one of the ones that suggested we move Chambers there. The idea that we’d spend $50M on a central defender to do that and then also re-sign Xhaka is just ludicrous and frustrating.
There are very few that make the conversion successfully and typically they started as midfielders when they were younger and moved back into defense – Marquinhos at PSG being the best example. I’m not precluding the possibility that Ben White is only 23 and in two or three years time he’ll be a solid, if not great, CB in a back four set-up. But right now he feels like a Mustafi redux – Mustafi was a good passer, relatively mobile, however couldn’t win a head ball if his life depended on it and was prone to brain farts that cost us goals. Mustafi, just like Luiz, was better when we had him in back three.
Musti was actually good in the air. And a goal threat on set-pieces too.His problem was brain farts at key moments in bad positions when forced to make quick decisions.
We should sell the right backs, keep one as backup, and play White there (I know it wasnt the plan, but hey…). Or as the right-most player in a back three.
I agree with Josh last post. Nice tat White can ball carry, but your defenders’ main job is defending. One game, though. let’s see how he responds to Allardycian targeting (great coinage, Tim).
Samba Lokmanya were strongly recommended by Henry and Viera, if would like to know the intelligence
I wouldn’t necessarily have called the Auba deal a poor decision. It was risky, due to his age, but he had just finished second in scoring, had a good injury record, and it’s my understanding was still one of the fastest players in the league. In hindsight, maybe a bad deal, but at the time, it wasn’t that clearcut.
If you had asked me a year ago, I’d have blamed a lot of this on Sanhelli(particularly given the dismal state of affairs at Barca).
But this summer has looked pretty bad. And Edu being repeatedly reported to be off on vacation isn’t a good look.
It really does look like we’re repeatedly being taken to the cleaners, and further, don’t even have a strong strategy to address the needs. For instance, why didn’t we just re-sign Matt Ryan to back up Leno?
matt ryan says the club told him they wanted a home grown keeper.
We’ll said, Tim. I can’t twist my mind to see any logic in this new contract.
Hypothetical, at least for now. Assume Arteta is toast this season; a) who’s the ideal replacement and 2) who’s available mid season?
Are we looking at a “proven” big name or taking a flyer on a young, but promising manager? I don’t regularly follow enough of the other leagues to comment on managers/coaches, so I’d be genuinely interested in hearing the thoughts of those in this community.
You should be asking who would want to come to Arsenal? Look how long it took Spurs to find a manager after all of their first choices (ten Hag, Nagelsman, Conte) passed. This is not a marquee job anymore, we’ll be fishing in the 2nd tier barrel and starting from square one with a Valverde, de Boer, Gattuso, Tedesco, Fonseca, Andre Villas-Boas, Klinsman, Eddie Howe. Sam Allardyce is available.
Yeah, we were rejected by several names last time and I seriously doubt Conte or any top manager would come to a club so insanely built that they are giving new deals to players like Xhaka.
Fantastic post Tim. I agree completely with everything you say about Xhaka. I don’t think a PL team with top 4 aspirations can afford to start a defensively suspect deep lying midfielder no matter how good his passing or build up stats are or how eye catching and technically skilled. We talked about this with Guendouzi a couple posts ago.
I was not as big a Arsene Wenger fan as almost everyone else in the blog. However I also agree that blaming him at this point is just searching for excuses. The quality in the squad was clearly headed downhill in the last couple Arsene’s season because almost all of the critical players were heading into the downhill stage of their careers and there was a whole squad full of overpaid underperforming and under motivated players that had to be move out. However that was 3 years ago and the measured well thought out rebuilding process should have started then.The squad should have been getting better over those 3 years but IMO the squad is clearly weaker now then it was 3 years ago and that is inexcusable. No way Arsene can be blamed for what has happened since he left. I have been defending Emery’s and Arteta’s tactics because I don’t believe there are many managers in the world who could have done better with the squad of players. There is no way this squad has top 6 talent. However, Emery and Arteta have both been part of the decision making team and they have to take part of the blame for the disjointed and ineffective rebuilding process that has put together this squad.
I’m not sure Xhaka is a good passer. He was apparently brought in based on a vague stat called pass packing and his “progressive passing” numbers have been beaten to death.
Anyone who has watched him for a while will draw the obvious conclusion – those stats are fundamentally flawed. They define the utility of build-up play in terms of distance and reaching the final third, under-accounting for the fact that the goal is (much) narrower than the pitch, and almost omitting any consideration of angles of attack. So Xhaka’s favourite pass from the centre circle toward the corner flag registers as a highly positive one, when it is in fact a regressive pass.
More concerning is that the whole team is being coached to play like this – vacate the space in front of the penalty area and overload the ‘cutback zones’, even when there are passes/dribbles/shots available in central areas. As with much of Arsenal’s decision making over the last 15 years, ass-backward “forward-thinking”.
Agree about Wenger, the only thing he can be blamed for is that he was too willing to be a “company man”, coming out swinging at AGMs in defense of the club’s ambition.
When he was here, I dreamt of the day he would say “if we don’t buy players of quality in x, y and z positions by the end of July, I do not expect any fan to watch our games this season.” And if it didn’t happen, fans don’t watch, the “engagement metric” alarms start going off, and owners get a wake up call.
That particular dream is (obviously) unrealistic, but there are ways to ramp up pressure on non-cooperating owners, and he just seemed too gentlemanly or too comfortable to try them.
If the club can waste money the way they have been, they can afford to keep Xhaka and switch up the style of play by buying/developing someone to come in ahead of him. I don’t see his contract as an albatross. I just see this is a club that has no idea what it’s doing. This Auba and Laca illness came from out of the blue, but also somehow not a surprise. Ornstein says Bellerin wants to leave too. AMN and Nelson are still sidelined. Willian has been disappeared. Eddie is in his last year as well. So much flux, so much disruption. To what end? Get better? I don’t believe they know how that will happen.
I said before the transfer window opened that it would be better if we signed nobody and first set about playing a cohesive, progressive game with what we have. A good coaching set up helps us figure out what the weaknesses are and how to address them. It makes players we want to sell look better and more transferable.
The problem is not the players. They can finish 10th and offer hope for a better future, and it would be better than finishing 8th and sucking the life out of the game and the club.
This is not some temporary blip anymore. This is a club in permanent decline. We can just about get out of it right now if we make intelligent decisions. But we’re fast losing/have lost all the pull we had from being a club that knew what it stood for.
It’s fair to put this on the Kroenkes head. Especially Josh Kroenke. He started and is continuing this decline. People position this as ‘class vs results’ as if that was the problem under Arsene. That’s why he gets the blame and why people back the confused mess because it is different. But all I see is a club struggling because it no longer has a ‘mission statement’ beyond some undefined process and a cult of personality.
+1
Yes, this Xhaka deal is doing the same thing and expecting different results. SMH.
I am going to say two somewhat contradictory things:
We greatly outplayed Brentford Friday.
Arteta won’t be able to salvage this. (I know I said this last November too.)
We played without: our top 3 strikers. Our best CM. A starting CB. We had one of our best players (Saka) for half the match. Good luck to any team in that situation. Newly promoted team at, first PL game with fans in 18 months. This was not an easy win.
This whole ‘Brentford bossed us off the pitch’ narrative is a pure emotional outpouring from our angry/anxious fan base. Understandable, but it’s way off base. I watched the match after I knew the result, so I had no emotion in it. We ran all over them, especially in the second half. We didn’t produce anything from it, but we really dominated them. Reminded me of our win over City in the FA cup. They battered us for 90 minutes and we won the match. We had two defensive miscues that turned into goals. And we couldn’t create anything really dangerous.
Having said that, we still can’t score goals. We have less creativity than last year without Odegaard. We are showing the same issues we’ve had through Arteta’s tenure, and it’s finally taking a toll on the players. The vets all want out. Auba, Laca, Xhaka (until recently), Bellerin, Leno. They’ve all lost faith. It would be one thing if we were losing and playing exciting football, but it’s all so antiseptic and dreary. No one wants to play in the system. No one wants to watch it.
I think ArtEdu have done some heavy lifting with the squad in the last 18 months. Cleared out some bad contracts. The new young players have been good. The new older ones are poor. But if (BIG IF) another manager who’s willing to play counter attacking football comes in, we’ve got some young talent with promise. Free them to play and we can be a 5th/6th team pretty quickly.
Rebuilds are hard. We don’t want to hear it, but sometimes rebuilds beget rebuilds. COYG.
A few things there Tim that I do not agree with you on.
1. Xhaka is not a defensive midfielder. Our coaches might play him there in the same way that Aubameyang plays out wide (which he has now done more times for Arsenal th a in his natural position up front ), but we never refer to him as a winger.
This is probably the only player I know whose judged for a role he is fulfilling for his side, and all this because they had gone close to 10 years without purchasing a genuine defensive midfielder (Partey), and instead, playing Mikel Arteta (was kinda good for what he was), Flamini (free) and Francis Coquelin (solution that was stumbled upon).
As you said, the stats can point at him as a very good defensive midfielder, but when you watch him, you will recognise that he is not really a bad defensive midfielder, he is just not a defensive midfielder. It’s why the basics of the position are completely missing, because he doesn’t have them, because he isn’t a defensive midfielder.
So Xhaka would be like trying to carry your trash in a Gucci hand bag. Theoretically, it can carry some trash, but it is not really practical, or at least for the amount of trash per household, and for the price as well. Why? Because it is not a trash bag.
2. The type of football we can actually play is not dictated by a single player, but for what he is, Xhaka is the best at helping a side play however it wants to play. It’s the same reason he has been a starter for various managers with different styles of play.
The thing with counter attacking football is that it isn’t really about breaking forward every time you win the ball, that’s for small teams who do not have a player to at least help relieve pressure by circulating possession, and in case most forgot, possession does not always have to start by playing out.
Yes Xhaka has issues collecting the ball from the defence, turning and getting past pressure, but if the solution to such a weakness is to sell, then we might as well sell every player because they all have weaknesses.
I always go on about Xhaka at Switzerland and for some reason I am met with the whole “football is slower at international level”, which it might be, but if you watch them play, Xhaka is not collecting from the defence or taking up the positions he takes up with Arsenal. It is the same with what they did at Monchengladbach. He had player do what he can’t, so that he could do what they couldn’t. That’s called tactics.
Xhaka only limits our style of play in the same way that Santi would too if we decided to play long ball football and expected him to challenge for the ball. But if you take Santi and push him out wide to be the player that gets on the ball and delivers the long passes and high balls instead of challenging, you now have a better functioning side. Xhaka has been one of the stand outs at every international tournament since the World Cup in 2014 and the junior sides in prior years. He has also been a stand out at club level everywhere he has played. This is not a player who limits the way you want to play, he is a player who exposes those who are rigid in their approach to football.
3. I agree that we have sunk low in the past three to five years, and that we are acting in a way to get back to fighting for top four. But does you believe that we can jump back into contention for such within the next 3 years? I don’t see how. I say this because we have had two successive 8th place finishes and it has been a downward spiral over a few years that led to this.
Now Xhaka might not be the player to get us into the top four (I myself don’t believe in blaming individual players or giving them all the praise for team performance), but he is far better than an 8th placed EPL side. For who we are and where we are, there has to be an admission that we as Arsenal can’t do better than Xhaka. Not only because we don’t carry the pull anymore, but because “for what he actually brings”, there are very few players who you can watch and say will bring more, especially with the experience he has.
My point is, does selling Xhaka make us better? Does selling Willock make us better? Who can we get that would improve our side for similar amounts of money? The same applies to Bellerin, who has been on the pitch and performed well in wins against all the top 7 sides that finished above us and in Champions League games, but we somehow have to suddenly believe he is not good enough to come on against Brentford? That a young leftback who is new to the league is a better option, and we should sell Bellerin?
Every deal should inform us of whether we are improving or not by purchasing or selling. Does this new deal for Xhaka make us weaker as a footballing side?
4. The whole Arsenal has never finished higher than 5th with Xhaka in the side is the same as blaming Wenger for our current plight. This is a team game and if you recognized that Arsene should have left in 2016, what informed that opinion?
Could it be that the decline of the club’s performances on the pitch were clear for everyone to see coming?
Xhaka, just like with many other players, should be put out as if he is a reason Arsenal have fallen off. The decline was on the way and we brought a few players to solve the decline but what about those who were already there? Did Xhaka drag them into mediocrity?
In the same way, I can say that the US national team has never qualified for a world cup with Cristian Pulisic. True? Yes. Fair to say? No.
Otherwise I agree with you on everything else. Especially when people use Arsene (and the Kroenkes at times) to deflect individual game analysis. Losing to Brentford should have been analysed how you did in your last post Tim. But when other people are brought in to share the blame for such instances, it ends up with a poor manager (whose right winger and centerback cost more than his counterpart’s entire squad) being given some leeway to continue his long car crash of a managerial career.
I still say Arteta does not see November.
Also wanted to say be careful out there guys. This Virus is taking lives and you are all a great big part of this community, especially you Tim. I saw a really bad car crash today and for some reason when I got the e-mail alert of a new post here, I breathed a sigh of relief that hopefully you are well.
I selfishly wish you a healthy and joyous time during these hard times because I enjoy your writing, and your slow decline into anger/disappointment tinged posts about the club you and all of us love.
Sometimes a good player simply isnt the best solution for a team, system or country. See Juan Sebastian Veron for Manchester United. Why do we seem so terrified about moving players on, even good players? What exactly are we trying to prove, giving Granit 10 years at the club? The time’s perfect now for a parting of the ways. We saw the sense in rebuilding without him, but changed tack because of price, not tactical considerations. This the the EPL, a league with unique characteristics. The player needs to adapt to the needs of the team and the demands of the league. The league isnt required to adept to the player. The mountain isnt going to come to Mohammed, Devlin.
You are right about adapting to the needs of the team and the league, but don’t you think proper squad planning negatesbthe need for such? Signing players should not be to experiment with them but to maximise their abilities, especially for the sums that were paid for Xhaka.
The same as paying 50 million for Ben White and then wondering if he could be moved to central midfield, doesn’t that just scare some of you? Isnt that the same mistake that was made with Xhaka? Sign a player for big money with no plan on how to maximise the quality we bought?
It’s hard to adapt to a team that does not know what it is, and if you can’t adapt to the team, how do you then adapt to the league.
And the fixation with selling is really baffling. Liverpool are usually cited as selling well and at just the right time, but people forget that the sales related to performance. Coutinho was playing well, but the side played better without him in it. Selling him was not Liverpool letting go of a player that was crucial, it was just masked as such to make (stupid) teams like Barcelona and their very bad analysis of players think they needed to pay big money for him. Can you guess who stayed at Liverpool? Milner and Henderson, because they were more crucial to the way the team performed.
You don’t just sell because you have to move on, you move on when it comes to how the team plays fir and then you can sell. I don’t mind selling Xhaka, but I fear that without him we will not be able to climb back up to competing for the top four without him. It was already a mistake to sell, so keeping him is good for me. Unfortunately Willock has been lost but hey, Cest last vie.
“Xhaka is not a defensive midfielder.”
Midfielders need to be able to play defense. Especially deep lying midfielders. And if they can’t get forward and can’t play defense, then they are a liability.
Xhaka useless? Cant get forward? So you do not watch him at Switzerland then Tim?
What I really find to be a bad habit of most people is that if they don’t understand a player, they don’t try to analyse him in different environments and ascertain what he brings to the table, where he fits and how he influences a team. Mostly players are just put into a box and then the box is labelled with the first thing that comes to mind about the player. That’s what you just did there Tim.
But in saying that, every player has to play defence up to some point, that does not necessarily designate them as defensive players. Auba plays wing and defends quite a bit, but is not designated as a wing-back. Heck he isnt even designated or judged as a winger.
Saying Xhaka is a defensive midfielder and then judging him against other players who are purpose built for the role and have been playing the role is very misleading and very unfair. Saying he is bad defensively, that makes sense and is fair, which will then bring us to the question of why is Xhaka playing defensive midfield for a team the size of Arsenal for the past 5 or so years when he isn’t a defensive midfielder?
Xhaka is also far from a liability, in its definition and in a footballing sense. He goes out of the team, we perform worse, he comes in, we improve. The improvement might not be a day and night difference, but the stats and the eye test show this as well.
I will say it again, Xhaka is not a defensive midfielder. Just because he is played in deep midfield does does not make him one. There are various interpretations of that deep lying midfield role that does not rely on defense as its basis for judgement/significance, Regista being one. But in truth he isn’t that either, watch him at Switzerland or clips of him at his previous sides to ascertain what he brings to the table, which you are right in pointing out Tim, is definitely not defensive ability.
“What I really find to be a bad habit of most people is that if they don’t understand a player, they don’t try to analyse him in different environments and ascertain what he brings to the table, where he fits and how he influences a team. Mostly players are just put into a box and then the box is labelled with the first thing that comes to mind about the player. That’s what you just did there Tim.”
I didn’t do anything of the sort but thanks for the personal insult of my intelligence, ability to observe, and analytical abilities.
Also please stop with the whole “Xhaka isn’t a DM”. He plays in the deep lying playmaker role. That role has defensive responsibilities. He isn’t good at the defensive responsibilities he’s supposed to be good at. In the article I used the term “defensive midfielders” as a term used to describe the actions, (defensive actions in midfield) and it was a made-up quote from someone else. I do not call Xhaka a defensive midfielder. He is as far from a DM as is possible, because he’s so god-awful at defending.
Sorry if you felt insulted by that part, but it was directed at this response…
“Midfielders need to be able to play defense. Especially deep lying midfielders. And if they can’t get forward and can’t play defense, then they are a liability.”
I took it as though that is the reasoning behind calling him or even comparjng him to a DM. If that is the reason that you would judge him as such, it is wrong and based on the position he is merely told to position himself in rather than what he is actually capable of doing.
It is also worth considering that when compared with other similar players (not natural defensive midfielders), Xhaka comes out a big winner. I am talking of a player like Toni Kroos who is a very similar player, not only in their roles now but also how they started and how they transitioned to their current positions.
Since Xhaka has been at Arsenal, he has completely beaten Kroos in terms of defensive stats and even the eye test will tell you Xhaka is better defensively than Kroos. Xhajka is shit defensively for a DM, but no other player like him could perform the role he has for Arsenal better defensively. Does Xhaka’s defensive numbers and performances make Toni Kroos a bad player? A player not worth persisting with? Is his quality diminished by how shit he is defensively? No, because he is not a defensive midfielder. He thrives with one alongside him in a team that tries to get the best out of him. Germany tried him there in the 2018 World Cup and you yourself said they reminded you of Arsenal. It’s because just like Arsenal, along with their other issues (which we also have), they played a guy that was NOT a DM in the role, and expected him to handle it. He didn’t, they were shit.
I agree with you on the fact that he is bad defensively, but that is only compared to nagural DMs. To use that as a judgement of his quality and utility to the team is unfair and overlooks what he actually brings to the table. If he is to be sold for his performances at DM, then we are going to struggle, because that is not what he is. If he was to be sold for what he actually is and there is better value elsewhere, then we will definitely improve.
So my point is only on using the standards of a DM to judge Xhaka, because even if you say you did not, the whole article is about him in that role and what he lacks for it. No mention of what he is and actually brings. It’s like a whole article on Auba and how we should have sold him because he is a bad winger and does not allow us to hold possession in the final third, he does not come inside and combine, he does not cross well and he does not match up to players like Salah, Mane, Mahrez and others with stats favourable for wingers.
“Sorry if you felt insulted by that part, but it was directed at this response…”
This is not an apology. It’s actually an insulting apology because it puts the blame on me and my feelings “sorry if you felt insulted”. I don’t actually give a shit what it was directed at, you basically called me a moron who “doesn’t understand what Xhaka does”. That’s deeply insulting.
Here’s the deal: I pay for this site to operate and give away my work for free, I do not pay/work to have people direct abuse at me. I would have blocked you if you said this to me on twitter. The rules of this site are simple: feel free to critique the ideas (see Joshua’s response) all day long, you’ll find me a willing listener and I am often swayed by the arguments you and other make on here. But never come out swinging at me or anyone else personally. I wouldn’t let you talk to my child or my partner that way and I sure as fuck won’t let you talk to me that way. We are not here to degrade each other. That will be your only warning on the topic.
Cheers.
Lol. Xhaka had another great game today!
Honestly? Xhaka-lovers need to re-evaluate everything they think they know about football.
Tim,
You and I have both criticized and lauded Arsène Wenger because he deserved both and we both thought his time had come and gone. But the long shadow he has cast over this clubs had never cost us more than we could pay.
And as you’ve pointed out out on many occasions: 17straight years of top-level European competition and all the money that went with it.
I’m more careful than ever about what I wish for because I sure miss those days.
We should not be giving xhaka a new contract.
But you underrate him as a player massively.
If the logic for being bad defensively is tackles+ interception stat, expect that stat to improve massively this season.
There are tactical reasons for low tackles+ interceptions stat but Arteta seems to have made a few changes so I expect that to improve.
Xhaka isn’t great defensively due to lack of athleticism.
He can’t sprint,so he can’t track runs+ he lacks agility to deal with nimble attackers .
But he is one of the best MFs itw at reading the game.
Do you think a pragmatic manager like Arteta would have Tierney pushing up so high if xhaka was an utter liability defensively?
Surely that channel would be exposed a lot more defensively if xhaka was,as you say an utter liability defensively.
The idea that Wenger is responsible for our issues now is ridiculous.
We have spent enough post Wenger to be better than we are right now.
Teams do attack down that left side. Pablo Mari had a rough afternoon partly because that side of the pitch was exposed. Brentford’s first good shot (11′) was a ball in the left side. And Brentford have come out after the match to say that they specifically targeted Xhaka.
Why would I expect Xhaka’s tackles and interceptions numbers to rise this season? Evidence is that Arteta doesn’t really play football that way and that Xhaka isn’t good at it.
Teams do attack down the left but they don’t get much joy generally.
Pretty much every Brentford chance came due to Leno being a coward and going long.
Arsenal’s right side was the far weaker side last season.
I remember feeling very frustrated at the Bellerin/Holding axis, considering them responsible for many of the goals we conceded pre Christmas.
This is what the Brentford player actually said:-
“Our plan was to close down the middle where they have good players like Granit Xhaka”
Very different from how you have portrayed it.
Why would xhaka’s tackles+ interception stats improve this season?
Because from what I see vs Brentford, he will be spending more time in the central areas of the pitch.
Based off on eye test, he is superb at reading the game and blocking passing lanes. This is not 2016 xhaka
It will show in stats if he spends more time in central areas.
I assume his defensive stats vs Brentford were good?
Since we are doing the “play the whole quote” game:
“Our plan was to close down the middle where they have good players like Granit Xhaka. Although sometimes they did get a bit too much space and created dangerous moments through Emile Smith-Rowe, we closed it down the whole game. That was one very small achievement in comparison to the whole season but we were already confident before this game and that confidence just got boosted.”
Not exactly praising Xhaka, but praising Smith Rowe.
As for his defensive stats, yes, according to FBREF he had 4 interceptions for the first time in a match since the League cup final against Man City. But no it wasn’t because he was playing more centrally, he spent most of his time in the upper left final third (heatmap). So, I’m not sure I can agree that he was central in that match.
Lokonga on the other hand…
The point of the whole quote game is to show xhaka wasn’t specifically targeted as a weakpoint.
Pushing LB up and having LCM cover is a staple of Arteta’s possession scheme.
So his heat map will obviously show that.
But he engaged a lot more centrally.
Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if his tackles+ interceptions stat improves.
To my eyes,he is superb positioning wise and at blocking passing lanes.
Lokonga’s tackles+interceptions stat should be better since he was basically central.
defensive masterclass from Xhaka today!
I would also add that the reason Leno had to go long was because they were pressing us off the ball in midfield. Lokonga coughed the ball up 5 times. Not sure if that’s cowardice.
He didn’t even try, probably due to lack of confidence.
We had 3-2 build up with ESR taking up positions in space higher up.
We had a clear overload in the buildup phase.
Against any good press,there are 2 free men.
The GK and the far side FB.
So you build on one side,all your progressive passing options are shut off,you recycle to the GK/CB and then hit the far side FB and progress via that side.
That’s how you break the press but he didn’t even try,kicked it long from the first GK.
He makes everybody nervous.
When we are in our build up structure,we are expanding the pitch.
If we lose the ball, the opponent will get a lot of space to attack.
We don’t have 2nd ball winning duel monsters in the team so we can’t keep the ball if we go long.
We are vulnerable in that time.
Hence playing out from the back is almost a necessity.
Leno,xhaka and chambers need to be upgraded on,for the build up to be perfect though.
Hi! how was the “great Xhaka left side defense” today? LOL
i was not opposed to xhaka staying or leaving. however xhaka has recently entered his prime, which means i was opposed to xhaka leaving for a ham sandwich. if roma wanted him, they needed to pay full price. however, him entering his prime means him staying makes sense. like i said before, i don’t think arteta ever wanted to lose him.
i’m not sure that anyone has been more critical of xhaka over the years than i have. still, i believe a natural maturation and the addition of thomas partey has allowed us to see the best of granit xhaka in 2021. xhaka has a long history of making poor tackles. however, he seems to be winning more tackles. likewise, his fouls are more tactical fouls. i’ve chocked that up to him understanding his limits and playing within them. likewise, many have made the statement that if fabregas had a proper foil in midfield, he could have been better. well, i’ll make that argument for xhaka now as we’ve seen him play with marginal players in his time at arsenal. now, he has partey and looks a different player.
as for the pay raise? any senior guy extending would expect a pay raise. wouldn’t you?
He was 98th percentile in tackles won % (50%) against dribbler’s last term, which was far and beyond a career high (he’s normally low 30’s). Just to put that in context, however, that’s 1 of 2 tackles per game. He’s also 3rd percentile (basically the lowest in the league) in pressures attempted and 5th percentile in pressures won, 5th percentile in passes blocked, 7th percentile in blocks, and 24th percentile in interceptions. So, I will grant you that Arteta has taught him, perhaps, how to tackle a dribbler better.
Or maybe with us playing deeper and holding shape, he is facing dribbles that are slower and sometimes from standing still positions where players just can’t manoeuvre around him because the space is less?
I don’t see his technique or timing being better, especially when the opposition play at pace in broken play.
back to auba and laca, i have a theory i’ve just pulled out of my ass. i think arsenal wanted laca to either leave or sign an extension but not pay him more. predictably, he refused both. he’s about to become a free agent so why would he leave? if he stays, arsenal won’t be able to pay him what a team would for a free agent in less than a year. arsenal only have themselves to blame. they waited too long to try and convince lacazette to stay. he’s likely to do a flamini and it’s arsenal’s fault.
as for aubameyang, i believe the club wanted him to take a pay cut and he told them to go do something sexually explicit to themselves. he’s already taken a pay cut for the team once. he didn’t give himself that contract. the club can’t move him because he’s too old and his wages are too high. this may be another mesut situation. that aubameyang deal is like syphilis; it’s there to stay.
Spot on about Laca. He holds the cards. He can defy efforts to push him out, see out his last year and bet that we cant afford to Ozil him. I know you like him, but I’d have moved him on last summer, with 2 years left. We learned nothing about contract management from the past few years.
On Aubameyang, virtually all of the criticism of his new deal is hindsight. Extending him was a perfectly rational thing to do, iven how hot he was in previous years. Just play the guy to max his ability. City won the league playing without a classic 9 (even though theyre after Harry Kane)
One thing people are pointing out with the Xhaka deal is that they are doing what you wanted them to do with Laca: signing him to a new deal so that he can’t walk on a free in.. 2023.
when i spoke of arsenal extending lacazette, i mentioned them inserting the option to extend. you do this when a player is playing well and is happy with the club. he’ll want to stay there for life. if you offer a pay raise and he’s happy with the club, he’s likely to grant the club the option to extend.
the option to extend an additional year can seemingly go on in perpetuity. chelsea extended giroud last summer and this summer but they only gave him one contract. arsenal did the same thing with rosicky the last two years of he was at arsenal. rosicky griped about it because he wasn’t playing and wanted to go back to czech republic and finish his career but arsenal kept extending him. once it became public, arsenal released him.
the only thing xhaka and lacazette have in common is they’re both arsenal players in their primes. the obvious difference is it’s much more difficult to replace/upgrade lacazette than it is xhaka.
laca is a center forward and that unique skill set is in high demand. teams will pay top dollar for a top center forward who’s only 30 yet as talented as laca. chelsea just paid nearly £100 million for lukaku. who believed that lukaku was better than lacazette when he was at man united, chelsea, everton, or any other premier league side?
i’ve already stated that if lacazette started regularly for arsenal, he’d be a 20+ league goal striker every season. those types are hard to find.
Hey man, I have already been swayed by your arguments about Lacazette. I was just saying that people are making the same argument about Xhaka.
Loved all the points about Costco and the green scrubbers. I do exactly that!
Damn. I wish I could argue with your points about Xhaka. And your other points. I don’t want you to be right. But I think you may be right. Damn.
Claude
City may have won last season without a high scoring striker but they also had a decrease in the total number of goals they scored by about 22%. I am 100% certain that Pep did not want his goals to decrease but it’s inevitable when you lose the production from your teams top scorer and you don’t replace him. They won last season because they have the most expensively assembled group of players in world football and they played arguably the best defense in Europe last season. The other advantage they had was they started from a position of absolute strength averaging 105 goals/year the 2 years before so a loss of 22% of their goals still left them as the highest scoring team in the league. My guess is their downward momentum in terms of how many goals they score will continue this season unless they replace their lost firepower. They have been shut out and lost their last 2 competitive games including the CL final. I am certainly not predicting that someone else will win the league this year but I suspect the title race will be a lot closer then it was last season unless they buy Harry Kane or someone like him.
The point of all of this for Arsenal is I believe the biggest reason we struggled to score last season was the fact that Auba who was our only truly reliable scorer saw a decrease in his goal production by more then 50%. There is no way with the squad we have now that any manager could come up with a tactical solution that have compensated for that loss in firepower. Not even Pep with all of his talent and all of the creativity in his squad could find a way to compensate in terms of goals scored for the loss of production from his top scorer.
My point is about a classic Number 9, not a high scoring striker. And not playing Auba on the wing
If Auba and Laca are really on the way out then I hope that we finally will accept its time for a major rebuild and overhaul of this squad. Not even the most optimistic person could believe we have a chance to climb back up the table without their production. In truth the total rebuild should have started 3 years ago but I understand that no one really wanted to throw in the towel and accept that a couple more seasons outside the CL was probably inevitable and we needed to accept reality. Its sort of like a poker player who has a ok hand that he knows probably won’t win the pot but he has already put a lot of money in and he does not want to just fold and move on to the next hand. I guess its better late then never. The problem is I am not sure I trust the current regime to make the right decisions in terms of player sales and acquisition. The evidence to date has not been encouraging.
devlin and tim, good chat higher up. i kind of agree and disagree with you both.
devlin, your claims that xhaka isn’t a cdm are dead wrong. he’s totally a cdm, both for gladbach and arsenal. the swiss team had a different role for xhaka when he first got into the team, as they still had gokhan inler and valon behrami. now, they have a young kid we saw this summer named zakaria who plays more defensive for the swiss team…and, ironically, i think he also plays for gladbach.
tim, your assertion that cdm are judged on their defensive actions is also wrong. in fairness, you did say that it was someone else’s definition. a cdm is so referred because they assume a posture deep in a central area serving as a screen in front of the defense. it’s not about their defensive actions as the #8 often performs more defensive actions (vieira more defensive actions than gilberto).
also, the cdm is often the smartest guy on the field. he tends to control the team from deep while staying connected to the defense. many times, their passes are less penetrative and more about making the pass that the game needs; many times, that means switching the point of attack. i could be wrong but that’s my piece.
Maybe I am misunderstanding the definition of a CDM. If it is positionally, then I see it but I also like your take on defensive actions.
But yes he was kept at CAM during his earlier years at both Basel and the Swiss side. He was then played deeper at Gladbach, but was not in the side for the defensive role. With the Swiss side, Xhaka replaced Inler (loved him as a player) and played while flanked by Behrami and Dzemaili, which was their team at the World Cup. In their nation’s league run Xhaka was flanked by two of Zakaria, Fernandez and Freuler. Currently he was in a two with Freuler.
In all these combinations, Xhaka has players who collect deep for him (or centerbacks who pass it out further) and also perform more defensive actions in the way that Mascherano did for Alonso and Casemiro does for Kroos. The same thing happened for Xhaka with Dahoud and Kramer at Gladbach.
I really like the Partey signing because I feel that we finally got a player to free up Xhaka and contribute the defensive actions he just isn’t capable of contributing. I was sceptical at first and proclaimed that he was just a better version of Elneny, which he isn’t and is way better. He seems like a perfect foil for Xhaka and a player that can help us become more solid and effective in midfield.
I do have a question though on that last part about being the smartest guy. Do you think we have any other player who is ball dominant and can lead the team vocally in the middle of the pitch? It just crossed my mind while reading that part, that it might have been a factor in keeping him.
DEVLIN: “I really like the Partey signing because I feel that we finally got a player to free up Xhaka and contribute the defensive actions he just isn’t capable of contributing.”
And this, right here, is the problem with your argument. He cannot and should not be given the luxury of minders/bodyguards in a team that plays every week, or several times a week. There’s an ocean of difference between international football and club football. You cant carry one-dimensional players, or (to be fair to Granit), players who lack one of the most important skillsets for the midfield. You are literally LITERALLY arguing for building the team around Xhaka.
And I know that youre a passionate guy and didnt intend it, but your responses to Tim approached the edges of condescension. Sorry, mate. Love your illuminating analysis of midfield play, though.
If he was Fabregas-level deep-lying playmaker, pumping in tons of key passes and opening up the attack, I’d be ok with him not being great at defense. In fact, Fabregas was widely considered a liability in defense though I think that’s funny since he led (or close to it) Arsenal in tackles and interceptions for many years.
But your point is exactly the problem: if we need to buy a specialist defender there will be a problem in that that person also has to have good passing skills or teams will just target Xhaka and force all our build-up through the other guy. This is sort of what we’ve done with Partey but it really begs the question “why do we need Xhaka if we have Partey?”
The fundamental question I see you asking is: “What does Xhaka DO?” He doesn’t defend or attack that well so what’s the point?
And given his rock solid status in the squad across 4 managers, it’s an interesting one. I think first and foremost what he does as he is told, gives maximal effort and really cares. He is also consistently fit and does not complain. That’s the kind of person we all want to work with, no? Hence the captaincy for both us and his country.
He has his warts. The slow first step, the difficulty tackling in space, the occasional terrible pass. It’s tempting to want to move on from him and I think the club were prepared to do so for the right offer. It’s silly though to move on from a player who makes you better right now just for the sake of it. And I don’t think we can argue that Xhaka makes this team better. You can argue Locatelli or someone like that might’ve made us even better, but if I’m presented the option of Xhaka or anyone else in this squad to play with Partey as a double pivot, it’s clear what the answer is.
I don’t know what our plans were to replace him but it’s clear that the club didn’t like the alternatives enough to push the boat out. It’s fair to question that. What is not I question is that Xhaka will give this club 100% effort like he always has. So let’s get behind him!
He makes us better than when we play with Elneny, yes. I’m not sure that’s something to write home about.
Why has Xhaka played? Well, for one, like you say he does what he’s told and he’s never injured. But also because the options behind him are not very good. Elneny? No. Emery tried to replace him with Guendouzi but the Frenchman is just too irascible. I think we bought Partey to replace him/compete but Partey was injured all season (and is again already) so, that for me are the main reasons.
I think I can see both sides here but I have a burning question: Why would every Arsenal manager of this current millennium absolutely and completely trust and play Xhaka game after game?
And as a follow up to that, why did we all love on him when he was good for Swiss and now hating that he’s ours again?
Doc, Xhaka was magnificent vs France, but the French gave him all the time and space he rarely, if ever, gets in the PL.
This is it exactly, everyone knows that you need to close him down. If you just give him space he’s a good footballer.
And that’s the difference between him and someone like Cesc, Cesc was able to create his own space, Xhaka literally cannot do that. He needs his teammates to create space for him or for the opposition to gift him space.
‘Why would every Arsenal manager of this current millennium absolutely and completely trust and play Xhaka game after game’
Xhaka’s arrival literally ended Arsenal’s status as a Champion’s league side. The quality of our midfield plummeted by the time he was here. He was the best of a terrible bunch, that’s why. Not to mention other factors already mentioned like his injury record, obedience to the manager etc.
“This is sort of what we’ve done with Partey but it really begs the question “why do we need Xhaka if we have Partey?”
Actually I think Xhakla is given a new contract (I heard it was merely taking up a 1 year extension option on the existing deal + an option for one more) because Partey is broken and there is no more $$ to spend on another mid.
OP: “people are getting slightly aggro. Just slightly aggro, nothing too wild but lots of horn honking and people clearly getting frustrated for no reason.”
Also OP: “never come out swinging at me or anyone else personally. I wouldn’t let you talk to my child or my partner that way and I sure as fuck won’t let you talk to me that way. We are not here to degrade each other. That will be your only warning on the topic. Cheers.”
Thanks, the two aren’t equivalent.
Oh yeah, I completely agree with you on Xhaka. A complete waste of space, time, energy & money. Soooo why not give him the Captain’s armband!
I understand the defence of St Arsene of Strasbourg. He sure was tidy with the money back in the day…But he did splash out £35 million on said Xhaka and the same on Mustafi. He sold Van Persie to Man Utd and swapped Sanchez for MickeyTarIan. Not so tidy.
Maybe St Arsene’s sin was not being good with money when it was available??
He should have walked away from the job many years before he was given the boot. The rot started under Him.
the rot started under wenger? yes but more specifically, the rot began when the club fired david dein. wenger and dein were the dynamic duo; wenger contributed the charisma and eye for talent, while dein brought the connections and business savvy.
dein was special because he was more than just a business man. he was a football man and an arsenal man to the core. can you imagine dein going to milan like gazidis did? never in a million years. wenger simply lacked the negotiation skills and know-how that dein had. he did the best he could but no one is great at everything.
Dein sold his 15% stake to Alisher Usmanov, who sold it on to Kroenke. Guess Dein wasn’t “Arsenal through and through”* enough not to cash in.
There are no heroes in the decline of Arsenal FC, but you’re right, he was the absolute best at transfers.
_________________________
*the fans’ song for Freddie Ljungberg is still the best ever.
devlin, i loved your acknowledgement of the role mascherano played with xabi alonso at liverpool. it’s another example i often use to describe the difference between a defensive midfielder and a midfielder who does defensive actions. there are many others but i want to focus on xabi alonso.
before coming to arsenal, many believed that granit xhaka was “the new xabi alonso”. they had similar heights, builds, and technical skill sets. i honestly believe wenger bought him because he regretted not buying xabi alonso when he had the chance; digression. since coming to arsenal, i’ve found the biggest difference between the two is that xhaka is simply not as smart as xabi alonso. this is not to say that xhaka is an idiot but that xabi alonso was absolutely brilliant. it’s why i say the cdm has to be one of the smartest players on the field. if you’re not, it’s a difficult position to play well, regardless of your skill set or number of defensive actions.
alonso and cazorla had completely different skill sets but both played the position very effectively because they were smarter than everyone else. by the way, coquelin also did far more defensive actions than santi ever attempted but, once again, i digress. xhaka has a poor history at arsenal but he’s played along side torreira, who’s only one meter tall, guendouzi who was only 12-years old, and ramsey, who was trying to win the golden boot. partey is a clear upgrade to all of them and his arrival has allowed us to see the best of xhaka in an arsenal shirt. sure, he’s has obvious limitations but he’s not useless. while i knew his tackling had improved, i had no idea he was in the 98th percentile. that’s amazing.
dark hei makes an important point. xhaka’s extension was only for one year but arsenal have the option to extend him, which is what i was saying they should do with lacazette a year ago.
Very excited for the return of Martin Odegaard! He was fundamental to our best attacking performances last season, pulls his weight defensively, has a mature head on his shoulders already and still just 22. Great victory to bring him back permanently.
MO 11 Mark Two? I wanted Odegaard, a lock picker and knitter, ahead of the more direct Maddison, who is too much of a duplicate of Emile for my liking. Plus he’s younger and half the price. A good get by Arsenal 👏 (Is this a commentary on the state of La Liga?)
I’m guessing that he gets Torreira’s shirt number.
Ornstein reporting that Aaron Ramsdale from Sheffield is a done deal 24m GBP + 6m in add ons, a deal likely rising to 30m.
If anyone as much as mentions Emi Martinez or being confused MikEdu’s planning, I’ll throw rotten tomatoes at you
Ramsdale has been relegated twice. It doesnt necessarily make him a bad keeper, but man, our buyers are driving a hard bargain.
Maybe Ramsdale (Rambo Two?) has more penalty box authority that Leno showed against Brentford, but if he’s a better distributor that the German (who isnt great), Im sending a plane to ticket to Antigua for LAGUNNER 😅
Havine Odegaard will certainly add depth to our attacking group of players and I think he is an upgrade over ESR but is he enough of an upgrade to really make a significant difference? We can’t use MO and ESR at the same time this season unless we drop Pepe or Saka and ESR plays on one of the wings. Doing that would decrease our already underwhelming firepower upfront. If we play MO, ESR and Saka upfront there is almost no place left on the pitch for a player who can score goals.
BILL SAYS: August 17, 2021 at 5:23 am
“If Auba and Laca are really on the way out then I hope that we finally will accept its time for a major rebuild and overhaul of this squad. Not even the most optimistic person could believe we have a chance to climb back up the table without their production. In truth the total rebuild should have started 3 years ago…..”
Partey, Gabriel, Mari, White, Lokonga, Tavares, Odegaard, Ramsdale, over two TW for about $250m would suggest a major rebuild to me, Bill.
Tom
Fair point. I had not thought of it that way but you are right. To me the rebuild to date seems somewhat disjointed and not very well thought out. The biggest problem in my opinion is we still have not added any new goal scoring firepower and I don’t think we have much chance to climb back into the top 6 until we do.
Xhaka at Arsenal is a liability despite his good qualities. This is the point that we must all agree on. We should have sold him to Roma at that price and re-invested in a DM with more athleticism.
Each time we line up with Xhaka, it’s like we have a target on our backs. And that is without mentioning other problems that we have at the moment. Vintage Arsenal under Wenger often had a bevy of MFs with outrageous skill. Right now, our MF looks empty without Partey.
With the return of Odegaard, we have 2 good players, 1 new boy in Lokonga, and 2 old spares in Xhaka and Elneny.
We should have wiped the slate clean for a fresh start this season but we didn’t. Like some people have said, Arteta has no place to hide this season. He has literally gotten most of what he asked for, so he has to produce results.
KroenkesOUT!
Xhaka has had plenty of time in midfield to know his limitations. If we could play him like Jorginho in the Italy side with two high energy 8’s either side he might look better, but Arteta doesn’t play that formation. I think we should of moved him on last summer, but that’s the same for multiple players AMN, Reid’s Nelson etc