Judging by the myriad reactions this morning, I think it’s safe to say that some folks are going to take what I’m about to say as a personal attack or an affront to their way of seeing the world. But I’m going to say it anyway. It’s been a hell of a month for Arsenal so far.
At the end of January we beat Manchester United, 3-2 in what was a dominating performance. A wonder goal by Rashford and an error by Ramsdale were all that gave United any comfort in a match that Arsenal controlled throughout.
Then we lost to City in the FA Cup and again folks mostly agreed that we had played well but thanks to heavy rotation and another somewhat fortunate goal, we were out of the FA Cup. It was only the second loss of the season and it is at this point that folks started to say that it was how we respond that matters. That was the end of January.
Then came Everton and they bullied us. They made the game physically and emotionally intimidating, they made themselves hard to beat, they played an extra man in midfield, they used simple, physical tactics on set plays, and they got a win. The important thing is how we respond, we said.
Next up was Brentford. They took a slightly different approach to the game but with all the familiar hallmarks. This time it was a low block defense but the idea was the same; make the game physical, intimidate the Arsenal players, make them earn the right to play. Of course we can point to the offside goal that shouldn’t have counted but even without that goal, Brentford easily could have won that match based on the first half performance alone. The important thing is how we respond.
And yesterday, we faced the title challengers, Man City; the richest club in the world, the club with the depth to buy a player like Jack Grealish for 100m and then just let him sit for a year while he ripens, the club who have bought four of the last five League titles. And shockingly, they played mostly the same tactics against Arsenal that Everton and Brentford played.
All three of the last three matches have featured a very similar main tactic: big man up top, grappling with Arsenal’s CBs, holding the ball up, drawing fouls, and getting set plays. Out of possession teams deploy intentional fouling on the wings, especially Bukayo Saka. I’m sure they would call it “getting touch tight” but it’s really just “see what the refs will let us get away with”. And all three teams also pressed Arsenal, some higher up the pitch than others but all of them deployed an effective press.
But it’s not as if these are the worst performances of the season for Arsenal. Not by any measurement (Leeds away in October was the worst match, I thought, and we still managed to win that one). All of the data points show that Arsenal played well for huge stretches against Brentford and Man City, and probably should have gotten a goal against Everton, especially in the 2nd half.
But what I think I’ve seen during this period where we have been trying to pay close attention to “how Arsenal respond” is a team which wants to respond, gives everything to the cause, and just comes up slightly short. There were more than a few moments in yesterday’s match against Man City where highly experienced players just looked nervous under pressure and made mistakes. And against a team like Man City, you cannot have any mistakes. You essentially have to play flawlessly and we didn’t.
Frankly, more than anything yesterday, we looked like a young team. Man City looked like a team that knew how to scrap, bite, kick, and do everything in their power to get over the line. Arsenal looked like a team who didn’t have composure when we were pressured. We looked like a team who needs to go through bad times like this so that they can learn how to handle them and come out the other side better off.
None of this denies what you all have seen. Arsenal have played amazing football this season, some of the best I’ve seen in over 22 years watching the club. But it does look like teams are settling in to a set of tactics to use against us: they are bypassing the midfield when they have the ball, choosing to go long to a big man and try to win the 2nd ball, in order to get past Arsenal’s press. And in defense teams have figured out how to press Arsenal wide and pinch us into the middle, where they are forcing us to make poor shots, poor choices, and eventually turnovers which they use to spring their counters.
It is about how we respond and frankly the response has been a mixed bag: we are definitely trying and playing our hearts out. There’s no question about the players commitment to the club and each other. They are running after every loose ball, they are lifting each other after every mistake. But we are also looking a bit predictable, somewhat frail, and easily intimidated. Our tactics also seem a bit stale and easily shut down – if Sean Dyche can do it by simply playing a 451 then you know that EVERY manager knows what’s up.
So yeah, it’s how we respond. Obviously it’s going to help to have Gabriel Jesus back soon but we need to cut out the mistakes, we need to stand up to the physical challenges, and we need to freshen up our approach to make us less predictable.
Plenty still to play for this season. We have a juicy run ahead where we could easily win every match. We are 2nd only on goal difference and we have a game in hand. We are still in this title race.
That game, BTW, is against Everton at home and it comes during this run.
i’m going to say something controversial. i think the last 2 goals were down to jorginho. seemingly, he recognized situations but dodged responsibility…moving to areas where he proved redundant and unbalancing the team. saliba was hung out to dry multiple times. it was almost as if jorginho were afraid of haaland. for heavens sake, he didn’t have to win a physical battle; simply deny him the easy entry passes.
so many swoon over his ability on the ball but it’s equally important to play well without the ball. one of my favorite quotes from cruyff says something to the effect of “during the course of a 90-minute game, the average player has the ball at his feet for roughly 3 minutes so what are you doing the other 87 minutes?”. jorginho was good on the ball but unremarkable at critical moments off the ball when cover for gabriel was needed. partey and elneny wouldn’t have gotten those things wrong.
when guardiola brought on akanji and moved bernardo to midfield, city began to dominate the midfield and took over the game. arteta didn’t have an answer…and neither did the arsenal midfield . this is why arsenal lost.
Funny you should mention the Cruyff quote about what players do with the rest of the time. You can actually see possession % in the Whoscored dashboard for each game. Jorginho had 7.6% of the possession yesterday, which was actually 3rd most of any player on the pitch. If we assume that possession is equally divided by the full 90 minutes (it isn’t most games are closer to 60 minutes of action) he would have had the ball for a grand total of 6.84 minutes. If we use the more realistic 60 minutes of possible possession, he had the ball for 4.56 minutes. 4 minutes and 30 seconds.
God, the 2 points lost from Brentford hurt so bad. You need luck to get 90+ points in a season (like our win in Leeds away) and not getting lucky points in this tough run is killer.
Hopefully we can get some lucky points in this run of worse opponents.
I think we are going to look back at the loss to Everton as the moment that derailed the season.
100% THIS
And that was basically really bad timing. We had them away, for a new manager’s first match. Because of that, they worked exceptionally hard and had major crowd support. They didn’t look at all like that in the matches before, or in the one right after.
So what should likely have been a comfortable win was instead a tough loss that probably dented confidence.
Interesting on Jorginho’s positioning. I dont have Josh’s coach’s eye, so I thought he had a good game, particularly reading.
I dont see how he was at fault for Gabriel’s mistake. When GM receives the ball near the left touchline, the player in closest attendance was little Bernardo. KDB cut off the passing lane to Jorginho, and came over to press Gabriel. Bernardo was between Gabriel and Xhaka. They boxed him in, basketball style. He couldn’t pass to Xhaka, and he couldn’t pass to Jorginho. Who was he passing to? No one. Why? Because Bernardo was quicker than Xhaka in reading the situation, anticipated the pass, and stole possession. Gabriel should have booted the damn thing into touch.
Bernardo showed in that moment why Pep played him there. Quick mind and quick feet. Remember that city lost a good player in that position, Cancelo, who fell out with Pep. The refs let Bernardo get away with fouling Saka way too much, and that really pissed me off. Our RW needs more protection than he’s getting. But tactically for City, playing BS there for City worked. Saka gets a lot of love from opposing players, and double teams from coaches. We need the left wing to take some of the burden off. However he still has the quality to break that down, as he showed against Brentford.
Eddie has hit a mini wall, and we don’t really have an out and out striker sub. I’d try Martinelli centrally some of the time, and Trossard left. Play them both. Gabi’s direct running through the middle will unhinge teams. Not a knock on Eddie, who has admirably answered the call. But we must never find ourselves in game situations where we don’t have sub solution for our central striker. Eddie has got to be at least hitting the target both times with his heading opportunities
I thought that Rodri and KDB were imperious in the middle of the park. KDB got MOTM, but Rodri ran the show. We won the first half, but for some reason (even though we had more possession) couldn’t match their desire 2nd half. That was the most possession that City conceded, at least this season, from stats I’ve seen.
We can take heart from the fact that we were qualitatively well matched with one of the the best 3 teams in the world, but they are clinical in punishing errors, in a way that we are not. Arteta’s done brilliantly, but it takes a while to become as streetwise as City are now. No shame in that.
I’m not sure I can get down with moving Nelli to the middle. I think I get the impulse (because he can and does dribble) but it’s a huge promotion for a player who has been, let’s be honest, playing like shit.
I wonder if part of Nelli’s problem is that he dribbles with his head down. It was endearing to some at first but it looks like a problem now that teams know where he wants to go because it looks like he’s not seeing the traps closing on him.
I dunno, not saying to throw him out entirely but he still looks incredibly wrong when he dribbles in my mind.
explains the Mudryk interest? Perhaps Arteta sees the ceiling and the sale value.
@Zedd, Martinelli’s ceiling is far, far higher than Mudryk’s…
I think the main benefit of playing Martinelli as CF is he won’t need to dribble as much. He’ll make the runs in behind into the CB/FB gap to pick up possession and either shoot early, or play a dangerous ball into an underlaping/overlapping wing forward or midfielder.
The bottom line is we need a chaos agent in attack. 10 million ways to die, choose one.
I really liked what I saw from Jorginho last night. I was so so happy when we signed him and now I am over the moon over what his performance symbolises for us going forward this season. Jorginho will solve something that has been developing as a problem for Arsenal as the season has progressed. A problem that has been masked by good results.
Against City, the difference between our possession and theirs came to light. There are teams that dominate the ball by being very good at a passing game, which allows them to monopolise the ball at will. Then there are sides who play at such a pace that they force the opposition back through sheer tempo.
City showed that they can dominate while losing, while winning or while the game is still tied. I have watched us play under Arteta and Emery, and never saw us be able to take control of possession when we wanted. We were and are still unable to dominate at will, we just out-tempo teams into submission.
Since as a team, we do not dominate games with a superior passing game, but rather a side that out-tempos the opposition, teams have seen how effective it is to waste time while playing Arsenal. It is a tactic that denies us momentum and forces the game into a stop-start encounter where we are unable to take advantage of broken play. There are just fewer spaces to exploit, leaving our players in familiar situations that opposition sides can handle effectively.
Matching Arsenal’s running is also important, as well as skipping the Arsenal press by bypassing the midfield entirely.
By-passing the midfield also negates the threat of Xhaka and Odegaard, who were basically invisible in the second half of the City game, and struggled in the last few games. Xhaka and Odegaard are only capable to playing the tempo game over shorter distances. Having them compete physically with what Brentford and Everton put up was already a big task, but City’s ability to move the ball around just saw them being unable to even get close, let alone press at a high tempo for the whole game.
The benefit for us when playing our normal game is that tempo can afford space for technical players to dribble and also find passes because opponents are being dragged all over the place (Odegaard). As well as opening up gaps for late runners to take up dangerous positions(Xhaka). Killing Arsenal’s tempo reduces any moves by Xhaka because he isn’t dynamic enough to burst past opponents or recover fast enough after runs, and forces Odegaard to try to penetrate a compact and aggressive defence with stationary targets to hit.
this is where Jorginho will come in. Jorginho has the ability to help a team dominate possession off of its passing, but also to control the tempo that a team plays with. There were some amazing first time passes through the lines that got to Saka, Martinelli and Odegaard when the City structure had not been set yet. That is very important because we are trying to win off of output by our front three, and if they don’t receive the ball in situations that are dangerous for the opposition, we will not be able to threaten as well as we did at the start of the season, and this also gives teams the confidence to actually go after our defence, which has been working more than it did before teams saw what we were trying to do.
The performance is what I cared the most about, and it’s great that we stood up to last season’s champs, as a team that missed out on the Champions League so pathetically last season.
I think with a little bit of more time, Jorginho will turn out into a good signing. specifically for what we are trying to do, he will be very good for our front players.
I liked a lot of his passing through the middle. It was brave and cut through their midfield, very effective. I did not like some of his defending, where he vacated his position, missed the tackle, and left a mile of space behind him
This was a game of moments, as Arteta said. Not to hang anyone out to dry, but a number of things just didn’t work.
– Eddie had moments and fluffed them. He probably didn’t expect to be the leading striker for a team challenging for the title, but here we are. He’s not the reason we didn’t win, but he was part of it.
– Marti doesn’t work with Eddie, it’s clear. Why not give Trossard a start and see if that works better?
– Alternatively, would Trossard as CF work better? I’m sure he could link play pretty well and maybe bring out more of Marti
– Our CBs looked nervous, and so did Rambo. We looked like last year’s Arsenal, passing it around the back when a hoof would’ve relieved some pressure.
– Zinch is supposedly one of our experienced heads but he does some deeply weird stuff sometimes. He did not help in those moments.
– Tomi never really recovered from his error. He’s a player trying to rebuild his confidence and it’s clear it took a knock.
Overall we had an excellent second half, but City adjusted and we could not cope. The Villa game is absolutely crucial. If we win, we’re still in this. If we lose or draw, we start to drift into the top 4 race.
Agree with most of this, though I’d say the defense looked fine playing out in the first half. It was only when Pep changed things up in the second half and they pressed harder that it fell apart. This is where Partey instead of Jorghino might really have helped. Partey would have been a more familiar figure, and he’s very good at coming to get the ball and then turning with it under pressure.
As far as changes go, I’d be very tempted to start Trossard and use Martinelli as an impact sub. Though Eddie’s not been great for couple matches, I don’t think moving Martinelli into the middle will be any better. I think for better or worse, Eddie’s it until Jesus is back.
I’d like to see Tierney at LB and Zinchenko or Viera instead of Xhaka. This is pretty harsh on Xhaka, who has mostly been very good this season, but we need to change things up a little.
2018, Liverpool lost in the Champions League final and finished 4th in the league – 25pts behind City.
2019, Liverpool won the Champions League (beating Spurs in the final) and finished 2nd in the league – 1pt behind City
2020, Liverpool won the league – 18pts clear of City
Imagine a similar progression for Arsenal:
2022, Arsenal finish 5th in the league
2023, Arsenal finish 2nd in the league, win Europa League
2024, Arsenal win the league
Liverpool went and bought Keita, Fabinho and Alisson the summer of 2018. January 2018 was the VVD purchase. Those four put Liverpool over the top.
Arsenal have made their VVD purchase with Gabriel Jesus/Zinchenko. It’s what we do this summer that will either keep us on an upward trajectory of see us fall off. Jorginho isn’t a replacement for Partey. Ben White and Tomiyasu – too similar a profile at RB. Xhaka limited. No real alternative to Saka on RW. Nketiah maybe too lightweight against more physical teams. So will we upgrade in key areas?
I was hacked off yesterday despite knowing that it’s very difficult to beat them – I just wanted us to shut Guardiola up. He’s taken the place of Ferguson and Mourinho in my mind, and that’s a bad place to go back to. (“Come and get it” ffs as if all your titles aren’t under an avalanche of asterisks).
Less apocalyptically – yeah, we got beaten by a metric f-ton of talent, it’s not the end of the world. We were never “favourites” – the media is belatedly letting go of that unfair expectation as well. Which is great, because that’s where we started the season, and it’s been a good season to watch this far.
Frankly, no one was expecting a win against City without Partey. We fought, and it all comes down to our next game. Beat Villa, get that 3 points lead again and we are in contention again.
Another loss, and Everton really does have derailed our season.
Let’s not misunderstand the point about Eddie and Martinelli, SLC. The point is that we can’t sub Eddie out of games in which he’s failing to make an impact.
That’s it. It’s not about benching him for Gabi.
We are in a position where Eddie is having a bad game, but we cant take him out because we dont have a like for like sub.
How well Gabi can play centrally is another question, and eminently debatable. But we have to be able to sub Eddie off sometimes. Not being able to is the easiest way to bring predictability to a team’s forward play.
Not disagreeing about the need for an option to Eddie when he’s not having the needed impact. I’m just not sure who that is right now. I suppose you could try Martinelli, but playing him in a non-preferred position when he’s already struggling seems maybe not ideal. Move Saka central? Maybe if Nelson was available? There was a time where I thought maybe ESR could even play central, but he seems to have a long way back at this point.
Maybe Trossard, though he’s pretty small for a CF role?
i was clamoring for arsenal to make a move for another center forward in the last transfer window. eddie and jesus are the same type of center forward and i would have liked to see arsenal bring in a third option, preferably on loan until the end of the season. i watched man united sign wout weghorst on loan from burnley and he’s been good for them. likewise, nottingham forrest signed chris wood on loan from newcastle and he’s helped them get out of the relegation zone.
both of these loan signings were done last month to run through june. loans is the operative word. both signings have helped those teams and arsenal could have done with a similar but different signing; similar in that it would be a loan and different in that it would be a completely different type of player from what you have.
as for martinelli moving to center forward, he doesn’t seem to fit the mold. he takes too many touches.
claude, you have to understand. i’m not critical of what jorginho did when arsenal were in possession. i’ve already said that when on the ball, he was quite good. even when defending, he had a fabulous goal-line clearance. i’m talking about when arsenal transitioned after losing the ball. for the second and third goals, you can clearly see that when arsenal lost the ball, jorginho recognized gabriel was not in position to mark haaland and he was the closest arsenal player to haaland. is it ideal for jorginho to be responsible for haaland? absolutely not; such is the nature of transitions. his duty was clear.
after appearing to recognize he was closest to haaland, he abandoned haaland and went chasing the ball like a 7-year old. city played around him and haaland had a hand in two very easy man city goals. jorginho chasing the ball left the arsenal defense unbalanced both times. that’s never okay, especially for your cdm. i don’t care how good of a passer he is. he made huge positioning errors at critical moments. with his age, experience level, and italian background, that’s unacceptable. the worst part is he appears to have recognized the situation both times and still made those decisions. i don’t think either partey or elneny would have made those choices.
I’m not sure I agree with this. On both goals there’s a free man running toward our box with the ball and if Jorginho doesn’t step into the space then the attacker would have a slotted ball in behind into the box with Haaland running onto it. Is your contention he needs to drop in to man-mark goalside of the forward on both plays?
For their second he maybe-probably should drop back hard and fast, but Gabriel has already screwed us by not quickly dropping the ball to Ramsdale and then panickly crashing Bernardo after Jorginho has already come up to slow the play. However, it feels not un-reasonable for Jorginho to step there to buy time and allow the lines to organize- it’s already effectively already over with Haaland free and a free runner wide as well and too many of our players wrong side.
On the third goal I see a number of sliding errors starting with Gabriel not being on Haaland. Again Jorginho steps to the ball carrier but here I think he doesn’t have a choice. Can’t allow an attacker time to pick a pass or shoot as he approaches the 18. Better for Jorginho to press up, Gabriel slides to Haaland and Zinchenko comes inside. We give them the wing here but’s a broken play and c’est la vie.
Thoughts?
If we can magically swap in Partey on either play I think he crashes the ball (Bernardo and then Gundogan) much much faster by being much much faster, and potentially snuffs the play, but I’m not too bothered by Gorginho on either one.
Am curious how this jives with your thinking.