12th place Arsenal got a lucky goal at the end of a turgid match to earn a point at home against 14th place Crystal Palace. It was a match that was billed as Vieira versus Arteta by the media looking for a good story but in the end the real story was about two mediocre managers going head to head with two mediocre teams and getting a mediocre point.
Arsenal played like a 12th place team yesterday and have been playing like a mid-table team now for two years. Mid-table clubs often have large spells in games where they can’t get control. Mid-table clubs let another mid-table club come to their home patch and boss their midfield. Mid-table clubs don’t have an idea for how to play their way out of that mediocrity and don’t make in-game substitutions which wrest control back from the opponent. Mid-table clubs don’t have the personnel to make those changes anyway and because of that, mid-table clubs rely on scrappy goals from set plays to rescue a point.
If we all thought that “not having the distraction of European football” would help our fearless leader finally come up with a plan to get the ball into attack, we were dead wrong. He seems to have extra days at his disposal to teach the men how to pass the ball backward, stop the attacking flow, retain possession, and not be adventurous. And yesterday his philosophy was on full display. The only question I have left after two years of Arteta is “when he stands on the sideline, pursing his lips in that weird pout he does when things aren’t going right, does he think ‘I wish I had a better plan for attack’ or does he genuinely think that we are playing football the right way?” I believe in my soul it’s the latter.
Fans have gone after Nicolas Pepe after yesterday’s match, calling him “the Bermuda triangle of Arsenal’s attack” and don’t get me wrong, he had an atrocious match. He had 6 turnovers and only managed to pass the ball forward 14/47 passes. He also had zero key passes and only had one successful dribble (in his own final third, in the 18th minute).
But I think it’s illustrative that Kieran Tierney had 65 passes and 41 of them were backward. That matches my eye test as well, every time Tierney got the ball it seemed like his job was to stop the attack and pass it back to safety.
I understand that you want to keep possession and that there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. The problem at Arsenal is that there is no one to pass it forward to. For the final 40 minutes of this match against 14th placed Crystal Palace – who deploy their own inanimate carbon rod in the CF role – Arsenal put 4 men in a line on the Palace 18 yard box. None of those men moved hardly an inch. In fact, the one and only time we got the ball into a good attacking position was when Aubameyang released to Lacazette in the 71st minute. Lacazette geed up the crowd after his shot but then he must have heard Arteta’s voice in the back of his mind because he stopped making those runs after that.
Arsenal ended the match in the most shameful way possible: playing Gabriel as a “center forward”. But again, there was no movement, no darting runs to bother the center backs, no one even strayed a toe offside – Arsenal had no offsides passes in this game. Every play was in to a man who was well covered by two defenders, who would nip in and disrupt the attack. We just don’t attack unless things are absolutely desperate: Arsenal play gutless football and that’s down to the manager.
And make no mistake, this wasn’t tactical genius by Patrick Vieira. They played a 5-man midfield and shielded the back four. They generated almost nothing in attack (their xG estimate is somewhere between 0.5 and 1) and their two goals were simple football at best. They don’t have a well-defined style other than play simple football but a lot of Arsenal fans want Patrick Vieira at Arsenal because.. well because we don’t even play simple football. In fact, people keep saying that Arsenal are playing “juego de posicion” but frankly I don’t see it. I don’t see anything at all like a clearly defined style for Arsenal.
This isn’t sustainable. Arsenal currently have the 5th largest wage bill and spent more money on transfers than any club in the League but when we needed another midfielder to come in and provide some beef and drive in midfield, we didn’t have one. That’s not a knock on Sambi who is a good enough guy and did ok when he came on but let’s not quibble about things here: Arsenal spent £55m on a center back we didn’t need, who isn’t a great defender, who is pretty good at passing the ball, but who isn’t the world class center mid that this team has needed since Cazorla left.
I want to take a moment here to just point out that for the second goal, Lokonga was pressed off the ball and then no one even tries to make a tackle to stop the counter. Those two things are poor but worst of all, Ben White squares up to Odsonne Edouard (who can’t dribble without looking down at his feet) and then just lets Edouard WALK THE BALL INTO THE 18 YARD BOX. Watch Ben White again in that play, he makes no attempt to stop the ball. I don’t know if you’ve played organized football but I can tell you that in one of my first ever matches I was taken off for doing that. The coach was screaming at me “stop the ball, stop the ball, STOP THE BALL” and I just didn’t know what he meant or why it was important. It’s actually unbelievable to me that Ben White didn’t make a challenge for the ball or at least close down on Edouard. That isn’t the first time Ben White has done something highly amateurish in defense. I’m willing to give him more time but right now, it’s mind-boggling to think we paid £55m for this guy.
Back to the problem in midfield… Arteta keeps trying different solutions there (because he has to, because WE DIDN’T BUY THE MFER WE NEEDED). Ødegaard was forced to play deeper for most of this match and looks ok at times but he was neutralized because Arteta kept playing just the two. Same with Thomas Partey, we fans get mad at him for his turnover which led to their opening goal but who exactly was he supposed to pass the ball to? If the coach doesn’t make tactical changes to the shape of the team, doesn’t bring on another midfielder to play along side the two who are being swamped, how on earth can we blame a player when he’s passed the ball and is immediately and easily closed down by two or three defenders?
Sure, he was probably fouled (though it looks like the Premier League has decided to stop calling fouls) in that buildup but it happened more than once, Lokonga was also pressed off the ball easily. And here’s the real kicker, though, when I looked at the bench, there was only one other midfielder who Arteta could have brought on: Mohamed Elneny. I don’t hate the Egyptian but he’s hardly the guy we should be looking to to shore up a leaky midfield.
I guess we really are missing Granit Xhaka. For all his flaws, he’s our best midfielder. And with him back and healthy, I think Arsenal could go as high as 8th or even 7th place in the League table. We should have sold him and bought a very talented and athletic midfielder, but we didn’t. And now we really miss him.
That’s how much of a mediocre team we are. We are a mediocre team with a mediocre manager and we are getting mediocre results.
Special Shout Out Mike Dean
Arsenal fans were incensed when James McArthur was seen kicking the living shit out of Bukayo Saka in the final minute of the first half. Mike Dean gave McArthur a yellow card, VAR had a look at the incident, and decided that no further punishment was warranted.
After the match Mike Dean admitted he got the call wrong saying in his match report “in retrospect, Bukayo Saka should have been sent off. He endangered his opponent, James McArthur, by willfully and negligently clearing a football while the Palace player was trying to kick him in the calf. McArthur could have broken his foot on Saka’s leg, in the future I would give the Arsenal man a red card.”*
*In case it isn’t clear, this isn’t true. It’s comedy. A joke. A jape. Mike Dean would never admit he got a call wrong and we all know that.
You guys know I’m always good for some excuses so please indulge me. I prefer to talk about what we did well rather than what we didn’t because I’m a fan and I’m not embarrassed admit that I’m biased.
First off, Arsenal started well. We controlled the game and put them under pressure. We scored a goal in the 7th minute as a consequence. Better yet, Aubameyang scored that goal and made everyone happy, including himself. It’s good to see the front flip again!
Admittedly we lost our way for most of the rest of the way in the first half. But what you want to see is a clear change in the second instead of accepting that and that’s exactly what we got. Moreover, Arteta was at pains to emphasize how he hated that we became so passive during that period. It was not how he drew that up. We conceded in the second half from a foul on Partey, but regardless of your view on that, we were trying to play progressive football and took some risks. That’s what we wanted to see, but this is the downside of that strategy: sometime you get caught on the ball.
I thought we were fine the rest of the way. Arteta made a good change bringing Lacazette on and he immediately started creating things. It became the classic cat and mouse game. We had to keep committing and they got opportunities in transition. Eduard looks like a top player and it’s too bad we couldn’t get him, but I also get why we spent in other places in the squad. That was a heck of a shot. Spare a thought for Tierney who was even better placed and hit a similar rocket off the bar, but his missed scoring by a few centimeters.
At the end game, Vieira brought on Tomkins for Eduard (who had been their best player) and sold out for defense. In a sense the late goal was his just dessert for that, as Arsenal spent the final 10 minutes camped out in the palace half. It only takes a funny bounce to go your way and that’s what we got. Shout out to Mike Dean who must have felt bad about ignoring a blatant red card offense against Saka because he let Arsenal out in that second ball from the corner well past the 4 added minutes.
In terms of the big picture stuff, we have the youngest side in the PL and it shows. I kept wanting someone to take responsibility and drive the team forward, but instead players are getting in each others’ way and passing patterns aren’t developing because the timing isn’t there. I don’t blame Pepe for trying to make stuff happen, or Tierney for taking the safe option instead of turning it over. Those are two sides of the same attacking coin. When the team isn’t giving the guy on the ball options, those are the only two options players have. When Martinelli came on late in the game, he faced the same thing. Meanwhile, Lacazette and Aubameyang immediately found each other with 3-4 flicked one timers, and that’s the result of years of continuity.
I don’t think any knee jerk reactions are going to make major changes. We can put whoever you want in charge of this group and I don’t think they can do too much better. This team is neither a defensive nor an offensive juggernaut and isn’t going to be either by the end of the season. The only thing that will help is continuity and development of the players we already have, which means getting results however we can and doing the best with what we have.
I for one actually really like this team. I find the players VERY likable and I just want to run on the pitch sometimes and tell them to relax, it’s going to be OK. I can also see what the club is trying to do and I’m invested in the success of this project because I want to see the smiles on the faces of Bukayo, and Rambo and Auba. This is a group worth cheering for even if they’re not Wenger’s Arsenal.
This is a fair reading of the game, though I disagree about the progressive football argument. We literally turned back every time we got it forward. In fact, one reason why we got pressed off the ball is because we kept turning around or dallying on the ball.
Emphasize trying to play that way, not actually accomplishing it often enough! But at least the intent was there unlike in the first half from what I saw. The team lacks a cohesive passing structure too often in any phase of the game, in my opinion because they are too far from each other and are too risk averse. But then you can see why when they concede goals like that. I do think we miss Xhaka’s experience and leadership. Neither Sambi or Odegaard are strong enough physically to mix it in midfield for games like this and the. That affects their confidence. I really liked Odegaard back there in theory but its only going to work while we are on the front foot.
Appreciate the post as always. I had similar thoughts on Tierney yesterday. Multiple times I expected him to try to blow past his defender and cross or cut back, but he seemed to just stop and pass backwards. Do you think it’s down to coaching? Lack of supporting runners? An injury?
It’s coaching. Remember that Arteta is an absolute dictator. If you don’t play the way he wants, you don’t play. And it’s on both sides of the pitch.
I was at the game with my brother. We had a fantastic time despite the drab football and result. Arsenal seem to start games like the manager has told the players ‘Run around… a lot,’. And it worked. Pepe was tricky and creating which led to Auba’s goal. Then the energy seemed to dissipate and Palace figured we were unbalanced. Five in attack works for City but left midfield vulnerable. MO and Partey doesn’t work. I can’t put my finger on why but they were both very average.
You could see Palace were pressing and targeting Partey. Arsenal on the orher hand just retreat to the 18 yard line every time we lose the ball. I need to see the stats but we seem like a team that don’t press, intercept, tackle or try to win second balls.
Their goals were well constructed and taken. I saw Arteta called them cheap goals but that’s a nonsense; they came about from pressure. Lacazette’s impact was clear to see. I hope Arteta stops marginalising him.
I wasn’t surprised by the result or performance. We have brief moments in games when it clicks but for the most part we drift in a sea of passivity. We’re very much dependent on moments of individual brilliance be that Auba or Ramsdale. At times it was like watching a junior side play and by that I mean the lack of sophistication in our play. There aren’t neat passing triangles, players don’t create enough space for each other. It’s so far beneath a poor Wenger performance it’s not funny. But it was nice to be in the stadium and sing like fools for two hours 😀
“I need to see the stats but we seem like a team that don’t press, intercept, tackle or try to win second balls”
16th in total pressures
19th in pressure regain %
20th in successful pressures
6th in high pressures attempted
I see our pressing as largely performative. We make a show of pressing (especially high) but we are atrocious at it.
8th in interceptions
4th in blocked passes
I think this is where Arteta wants to focus his defense, on getting the ball back in the passing lanes.
16th in tackles
19th in tackles won
20th in tackles attempted v. dribbles
5th in successful tackle v. dribble %
I think this is also a choice by Arteta: he doesn’t want his players engaging in defensive duels (because losing the duel means you’re out of position and requires the team to cover) unless they are really sure that they can win them.
Thanks for that Tim. So the eye test and stat test correlate.
I just don’t get why Arteta thinks his philosophy will work. Klopp plays attack is the best form of defence. Super drilled pressure and attack patterns pen the opponent in and mean when the ball is turned over it’s close to the opponent’s goal. Pep’s similar but knows he has the technical security of a raft of a A-grade #8’s that interchange with freedom and manipulate their opponent’s into mistakes. These approaches have been adopted by the smaller teams like Brentford and Brighton successfully – defend from the front, force errors, win possession as close as possible to the opponent’s goal.
It’s as if Arteta is trying to swim against the tide and reinvent football…. But what he’s espousing looks like not just super dull but super crap.
Palace was mediocre enough to concede a draw against this mediocre Arsenal team. They really missed Zaha which limited their xG and penalty winning potential. Imagine if Tierney was pushed further back making those backward passes in his own half.
Of all the things I don’t like about Arteta’s management is the lack of good chances.. it’s like the chances has to fall upon in rebounds or one cross which eludes everyone and accident lands onto the guy who nobody is marking..
It’s not even side ways passing it is inability of multiple players to move at the same time. It inadvertently results in miss pass. It’s like there is something like you said wired that they should expect the pass behind them or at best straight at them rather than forward. Also Odegaard is not a chance creator. He has some through balls in him, but other wise is just a ball regurgitator..
Partey needs plugs attached to his nipples which gives a 12 V shock every time he thinks about shooting
Top post Tim, agree with every word.
I don’t get the fans’ infatuation with former club legends for coaching jobs either.
I’d take a mediocre former player who cut his teeth in coaching in a weaker league, but vastly outperformed his spend and wage bill and played attractive brand football…….over a club legend who hasn’t done any of those things.
Btw, Vieira cost Palace the win with his Tomkins for Eduard sub.
I had this game down as a draw before kickoff. When we started strongly, I allowed myself to hope we could get a couple of goals. Even then, Palace don’t give up. They came back against Leicester (?)
I couldn’t point to instances but the impression I carry is that when we get a lead, Arteta’s Arsenal sit back. No matter what he says about not being happy with it, it is his footballing outlook. I don’t believe putting in Lokonga for the injured Saka (English refs are horrible) was a move in line with what he claimed he wanted from the second half. We were lucky to get a draw from that game in the end. Lacazette really made a difference, and after conceding to Brighton in the last minute Vieira didn’t want to take chances and made a move that worked in our favour.
I see no point to sticking with Arteta. By the time he’ll gain enough experience to start being a net positive, I’m not sure we’ll be able to field a strong enough team any more. Certainly no Auba or Laca level forwards (Yes, I rate Lacazette) and I don’t think he’s really suited to playing the role of a developmental manager either.
But he’s here to stay for now. So this is how it will be. I reckon we’ll get somewhere just north of 50 points and finish around 10th. So be it.
On another note, I really didn’t like the new paint job on the tunnel and in the locker room. It looks gaudy.
Mediocrity FC. This style of play is dreadful. We consistently withdraw when we get a lead and allow other teams to have their way with us. We get what we deserve.
It looked like the entire team were playing with shock collars around their necks, being told not to be aggressive or ambitious in possession lest they be zapped with 120 volts.
I take issue with only one thing. I think the talent level of this team is better than our performances. Not like we are good enough to challenge for the title, but good enough to be 5th-6th, and maybe even steal a top 4 spot. I will once again state my mantra. The next manager has a nice group of young players on which to build.
.
In Smith Rowe and Saka, we have two of the more promising young attacking players. Think we’ll be able to keep them if our general position is going to be 8-10? Especially if Newcastle stays up and is flush with cash?
White hasn’t been as good as hoped yet, or perhaps relative to the money spent. But the defense isn’t the issue at this point. It’s the midfield and attack. And it’s not like we don’t have enough talent. I’d argue that only City, Pool and Chelsea are clearly in better shape on that front. Based on the players we have and money we’ve spent, we should be competing for 4-6. At this point, it’s pretty hard for me to look past the manager as being the problem 🙁
Great post Tim
I agree that your assessment of our talent as mid table. Mid table teams have an occasional good game of good run where they look like potential top 6 contenders but they balance that with occasional bad runs where they look like a 15th place team. You get games on the good extreme and games on the bad and it averages out to mid table. I completely agree with your idea that we will probably end up around 7th or 8th place this season. That is the reality of where we are right now. A see a lot of people reminiscing about how great the football was with Arsene but he had much better talent to work with during the vast majority of his time. Like it or not the quality of the football began to deteriorate and the handbrake games became much more common in the last couple years of his reign because the players the team was built around were moving past their prime and they we not adequately replaced. Even the best managers in the world can not turn a mid table team into something it is not.
The one thing I do blame management for is I think they have spent one heck of a lot of money on transfers and wage bills without a lot of actual improvement in the team on the attacking end. They need do a much better job of squad building.
SLC_Gooner
Saka and ESR are both nice players but to suggest they are great attacking players is overly optimistic at best. We can’t build a team around them unless they both have to start scoring goals and producing assists. Right now the best comparison to Saka and ESR are players like Ox and Iwobe who were heavily hyped and had loads of technical skill, power and pace but just like dozens and dozens of other young players in the last 15 years they never were able to turn that talent into end product. The list of high profile players who never lived up to the potential is almost endless. Not even the worlds best manager can take a team whose best attacking players are Ox and Iwobe and turn that team into a top 4 contender.
We are a team which is building its attacking hopes around a pair of academy players who have only 10 total career league goals and 14 total career league assists tells you exactly where we are in terms of talent. We are not going to get much better until we buy some better attacking players.
I’d argue a supporting cast of Pepe, Odegaard, Lacazette and Aubameyang for two rising stars like Saka and Smith Rowe is pretty good. Really good actually. The problem I see is in midfield. After Xhaka-Partey we are down to half measures and stop gap solutions. It’s no coincidence that our best game of the year was when they started together.
Sambi has a bright future but he’s not ready to be an every day starter. It seemed like a great idea but on Monday’s evidence Odegaard is not comfortable playing that far back. That leaves Maitland Niles, who I don’t think Mikel trusts because he freelances, and ElNeny who would be in the dictionary next to the word blah if blah was a word. Still, he might be the best option we have in there right now.
I’m telling you though, this squad is almost there. Believe in them, even if you don’t believe in the manager. They need us right now.
Yeah, our midfield is just not good enough. We need a star MFer.
Ben White did that thing that Mustafi does that drove us crazy… back off, back off, back off, and give the attacker a sight of goal on his good foot. I said that he’s either going to be a Koscielny or a Mustafi. We’ll see. He’s got time. But in going for the £55m White, Arteta did a Willian. Bring in, expensively, a player to replace someone he already had, the new import being arguably worse than the player he’s blanking.
I see talk about youth, but youth is not a tactic. The players are young, but theyve been professional footballers for some time. White is 23, and went to a school of hard knocks in Brighton. Youthfulness is not an excuse for un-smart play.
Josh, Aubameyang had a stormer of a game leading the line and pressing from the front. He, like Lacazette, scored a goal. Auba played well up to Laca’s sub on (and wasnt really the problem — our midfield was). Auba now has 3 goals in his last 3 home games. That said, I hear you on Laca. Laca had in 25 minutes, comparable numbers to Auba all game. That’s a nice conundrum to have. Bench warming probably gave him a point to prove. Auba has been ggood for us up front of late. Both those things are true. Im not quite ready to shunt Auba to the side; but I woulnt begrudge Laca his chance..
All this said, I dont want to get too reactive. Palace generally play us well, and we havent beatem them at home in 4 years, I think. We make that lump Benteke look like Lewandowski. It’s really weird.
We also sometimes need to stop focusing on our mistakes, and give the other team credit. Man for man, we are better. So inferior teams play us with mindset that they’ve got to make a key play count. After dispossessing Thomas (who looked like thought he had all the time and space in the world for an elegant pirouette), the mindset was a quick counter before we could get set defensively. Yes, White did his Mustafi thing, but Odsonne’s shot was a beauty… short backlift, good disguise. And no, Thomas was not fouled.
Brentford in Game 1 WANTED that 2nd goal. They maximised their opportunity. it’s kind of admirable that small team realise they have to be efficient with the few chances they’ll get against better sides.
Sometimes it seems that we only really start to play when we have to..
Crystal Palace though played dreadful. If you think about what they created it was literally two half-chances which were off basic errors by Arsenal. They weren’t really a well-coached team that just outplayed us, that was Brighton. It was basic, 5-man midfield, with a few pressure triggers. We played right into their hands deploying Thomas and Ødegaard as the two in midfield and then later Sambi and Thomas. We were disjointed and easily pressed and there are a lot of screen grabs which show how bad we were in midfield.
It’s frustrating, honestly.
I agree. What I’m saying is that they made those 2 key plays count. They didnt do much else apart from that. Odsonne’s shot was a belter, though
Thank you, Tim, for what looks to me to be an accurate description of the game that I was lucky only to see the first 15 minutes of and the 2nd half.
The apologists continue to find excuses for the awful standard of play served up by our players.
There are, in my view, no longer any valid excuses.
For Arteta to suggest that the players did not do what he wanted them to do is ludicrous.
That he continues to finger point is further evidence of the depths that he has sunk, which is where he has dragged our team.
As you rightly said, the players all know that if they do not do exactly what they are told, they will be Oziled at the drop of a hat.
I think it may be a compliment to suggest that we are mediocre and to suggest that we might be good enough to rise up to the dizzy heights of 8th might be pie in the sky.
We are now seeing a decline worse than with Emery and the longer the apologists excuse Arteta and blame the refs or someone else, the harder it will be for them to come to terms with the inevitable decline that hanging on to Arteta will bring.
I said this in yesterdays post but in our 8 games we have played against the 1st 3rd 4th 5th and 9th place teams in the league table. The schedule will obviously lighten up and we will start to win more games.
Claude.
So far it looks like selling Joe Willock when his value was high has been a good decision. He has played 544minutes with no goals or assists and Newcastle is subbing him off in most games.
We are 8 games into the season. Nobody said 7 in 7 was sustainable. What it is, is indicative of his skill, goalscoring from midfield. Also indicative was his Europa leage goalscoring for us the season before. Perhaps he’d have been a good option for us to have yesterday? We’ll never know. You keep dumping on and dissing young players. How about you wait till the end of the season to reach a conclusion? Fair?
I always appreciate people like Dr. Gooner, who strives, as an uber-fan, to look at the positives, rather than look down at the dark abyss looming ever closer as the results remain bad, or meh.
Unfortunately, I’m a spelunker, more than willing to rappel myself down into the navel-gazing depths of Arsenal hell. I don’t quite know if “I’m Arsenal ’til I die” but I can’t imagine supporting another team, even if were are relegated this season (unlikely but, not all all impossible). Still, we are so absolutely, positively…meh, I honestly can’t be arsed to watch a game in real time anymore.
The sign of real progress with this team is when I get motivated/excited to watch a game live.
Until then, rock on, good people.
I don’t think what Doc does can be classified as ‘positive’ (positive for whom ?). It’s more ‘let’s stick with the status quo’ ,or, what you might term in political parlance as ‘conservative’
Appreciate the shout out 1Nil!
Claude
Fair enough. Time will tell what happens with Willock.
I don’t think its unreasonable to suggest that its probably not realistic to expect any manager to find a tactical solution which can turn his team into a top 6 contender when a lot of us believe our 2 most influential forward players that we hope to build our attack around have combined for 10 league goals in their entire careers. The fact that we are currently in this position despite all the money we have spent on transfers and wages is the real problem.
I didn’t see the game. Disappointing result.
I think people are completely right to call out our overly-dogmatic and conservative football, but I think that is a product of Arteta not being successful in coaching the team to do what he wants. I don’t think he’s a dogmatic coach, he might just be an ineffectual one.
What I mean is that when the team are not confident and can’t handle complexity, they will resort to very simple building blocks that the manager can enforce. You get predictable, unimaginative, rigid football as a result.
I don’t know if we are trying to play Juego de posicion exactly but it’s widely associated with Guardiola, and we all know Arteta’s affiliation with Guardiola. As I understand it, it means that the pitch is divided up into smaller zones, and you want your players to fill these zones in relation to where the ball is. So players are supposed to move as the ball moves. Within that system there is actually a lot of flexibility, but crucially it totally depends on everyone understanding the basics and being able to move independently within an overall shape and pattern, and when they don’t it can look rigid.
This description and observation resonates with me:
“The team must use continuous ball-oriented shifts … coordinated to give the team as many passing options and running lanes as possible while simultaneously causing the opposition problems. Short passes, switched balls, and the rotation of the ball’s position are all important tools that are defined by the complex positional tasks assigned to the players.(…)
The goal … is that the zones and the tasks within them are flexible and can be occupied and used by different players. There are usually problems in the implementation in training or the adjustment and understanding of the players. Rigid positions and an extremely dogmatic style are created specifically for when the players don’t know when to leave their positions or aren’t confident in the other positions.”
https://spielverlagerung.com/2014/11/26/juego-de-posicion-a-short-explanation/
It looks to me that we can’t currently execute the game as described in the first para, and fall back into the behaviour described in the second.
We need our fluidity and execution to improve. If it doesn’t, that points to a combination of poor coaching, poor leadership and/or poor player recruitment.
On the recruitment side, the club have put its money where Arteta’s mouth is, and recruited what looks to be a bunch of smart and talented players, so we have to hope that the right decisions have been made. If Odegaard, Partey, White et al can’t play at the required level then that’s a big setback to the tune of millions and years of rebuild.
On the coaching and leadership side, we can replace the manager, and I think there are managers out there who have the experience to implement a similar philosophy perhaps with more, or quicker, success. For me we are in the period now where if we don’t see improvements over the next few months then it’s right to put the blame on the manager and the club will have to make a call.
So yeah, disappointing result, but most of all, disappointing to hear that the performance was still disjointed and tepid.
Bill, before you get too carried away, the team 4th in the league is Brighton, a team we would expect to be able to beat any time, 5th is the scum, who we can always expect to beat and 9th is Brentford, hardly a team for us to be scared of.
If our expectations are that we can only hope to beat teams at the bottom of the league then how the mighty have fallen.
I think that when one tries to defend the indefensible, you end up with egg on your face.
That we are so bad that we are outplayed by Brighton, Brentford and and Crystal Palace, one wonders how much worse things have to get before the owners decide we have sunk low enough.
They left it far too late with Emery and are leaving it even later with Arteta.
JJGSOL
The reason Brighton and Brentford are in the top half of the table is because they are in good form and playing well right now. I don’t expect Brighton to finish in the top 4 but that does not matter if they are in good form right now and playing like a top 4 team right now. The idea that we are a big team and should easily beat the “small teams” like Brighton is just not true any more. Spurs have been better then us for several years now and suggesting that we should always expect to beat them makes no sense.
The point I have been making for a couple years now is we are going thru a period in our history where we are no longer mighty. We don’t have players like the ones from the Fabregas era and we don’t have talent that could compete with the the players in the Sanchez, Ozil Cazorla era. To make matters worse the influx of TV and other money has leveled the playing field to some extent and I think the competition for the top of half of the table is much stronger then is was at any time during Wenger era. It all adds up to us being a mid table team. There will be exceptions and games we play well against better teams but its clear from looking at the results in the last couple years that we will probably struggle against most teams near the top of the table and have a lot more success against the teams in the bottom half.
Bill, let me just fix that first sentence for you:
“The reason Brighton and Brentford are in the top half of the table is because they…. have good managers.”
Also does your comment about not expecting to easily beat the small teams not contradict with your position that we shouldn’t expect to place higher yet because we’ve not yet played the bottom half teams? It seems you are arguing both sides of the coin here.
JJGSOL and others (myself and I’m pretty sure Tim on the basis of this article included) are of the opinion that it’s not who we are playing that is the problem, it’s how we are playing. This is not a one-off bad day at the office, it’s a consistent pattern, and that is clearly down to the manager.
Three consecutive managers. Four if you count Freddie.
The “this has happened under multiple managers” thing doesn’t hold water, I’m afraid. Each of the managers has had a decline in both underlying and overt metrics from the previous. Each of those managers has been bankrolled massively. I think it’s pretty clear that what we are seeing is a major decline in managerial talent (both in the coaching and recruitment) year on year at Arsenal.
It’s pretty undeniable to me.
Look, we suck, okay? Endof.
Surely, the fact that we are no longer mighty is entirely self inflicted.
Whilst the TV money has indeed levelled the playing field, but as far as we are concerned, having spent our share of it on a series of lemons,
We have been throwing away the better payers and leaving the chaff, simply because they are not prepared to follow Arteta’s line like slaves.
The Brightons and the Brentfords and many more, have not only levelled with us, but also overtaken us whilst we sink like a stone, thanks to 2 disastrous managerial appointments.
The rush to destroy what Wenger took 22 years to build, based on the egos of 2 poor managers has been amazing to see.
W have been in transition for so long that the gears have well and truly stuck in reverse.
That excuse no longer wash as our decline is reaching alarming proportions.
8 games in and we have managed one half of decent play, and that mainly because the opponents were even worse than we are.
Yes, lets follow the process and see how long it takes until we reach rock bottom.
It should give many fans of other clubs much pleasure and enhance Arteta’s reputation as someone not to touch with a barge pole immeasurably.
The evidence is there for everyone to see each time our players take the pitch. Anyone who can’t see what is hitting them in the face needs sympathy. This is a case of the blind leading the brain dead.
The football is not enjoyable or good. The big problem is that it’s working, by certain measures.
After two 8th place finishes I think 5th / 6th is realistically what we are aiming for, and for the calendar year of 2021, over 8 months of football, Arsenal are 6th in the table.
(6th was also Wenger’s last finish. In other words even Wenger was struggling to do much better than Arteta is now, with a more experienced squad, with Ozil and Auba in his prime etc. The decline has been a long time coming and is not down to one or two men).
In the real table of course we’re not 6th, we’re 12th, and I am worried we could stall / go backwards. Two uninspiring performances in two winnable draws, and gutting because we had an opportunity to establish ourselves in the top 4.
But on the other hand only Wolves and Chelsea have more points from their last 5 games.
I defend Arteta but in truth I haven’t seen anything yet from him that convinces me he’s significantly more than a transition manager – a guy with ideas, appetite and ambition brought in to do the dirty work and make changes. To move forwards we may need to upgrade.
Just either way please, God, let’s start to play some good football.
By the way, before I get accused of having a small club mentality, I don’t think 6th is good enough for Arsenal, and it should not be the limit of our ambition. Just a realistic one.
David
If Brighton and/or Brentford hit a period of this season when they struggle are you going to say their managers suddenly forgot how to be good managers? Arsenal teams playing for Arsene had dramatic swings of good form and bad form almost every season. Did Arsene go from being a good manager to a bad manager and then back to a good manager depending on how well his team was playing at the moment. That is nonsensical. Managers don’t go from smart to dumb to smart from one game or month to another. Arsene was a top manager and his run of top 4 finishes were extraordinary but he during that entire run he had top 4 talent in his squad. His ability to maintain top 4 ended when the players he built the team around started to fade and the rest of the league started to catch up with him. Just like Arsene in his last couple seasons we don’t have top 4 talent
JJGSOL
Our fall from being mighty is self inflicted. It started in the last few years of Arsene. I don’t believe Arsene lost his tactical acumen. That makes no sense. His best players started to fade and he spent a lot of wage and transfer money on the wrong players did a poor job of rebuilding his squad. I am not suggesting the Arteta is some world class tactical genius but I don’t think on field tactics is the biggest problem. Our front office devolved into a mess in the last few years of Arsene’s reign and left our front office has been a mess since he left and our ability to rebuild our squad with difference making players especially on the attacking end has not improved and we seem to be constantly rebuilding and thats is where the real problem lies.
Hi Bill,
No, when (not if) they fall slightly down the table it will be something of a normalisation because they (Brighton in particular) are punching too high above their talent level (= spending level) at this point in the season.
However relatively speaking although I would need someone as smart as Tim to check the facts, the eye test is that both punch above their talent/spending level and credit for that has to be due to the manager. And for certain both managers outwitted Arteta when they played us.