After a fortnight of international football where most Arsenal players needed to travel around the world while a pandemic is raging, the team regrouped only a few days back to prepare for what was expected to be a particularly difficult away trip against the newly promoted Leeds, managed by the managers’ manager, Marcelo Bielsa. The Argentinian enjoys a nearly universal respect among the football management fraternity for his tactical acumen and the ability to build teams that irrespective of their playing personnel play in a trademark fluid style with relentless intensity, first brought to world’s attention as he built a formidable Chilean national team which was the basis for their subsequent success in Copa America.
We were coming into this match on the back of a less than mediocre run of forms in the Premier League. The rare (and well-deserved) away win at Manchester United – courtesy a penalty by Aubameyang, our captain too has been in an uncharacteristically poor run of form in front of the goal, only two PL goals in this campaign including the – may have made us all not as alarmed as we would otherwise have been by our two consecutive home defeats: 0-1 to Leicester and an embarrassing 0-3 to Aston Villa. If we include the other away trip to Manchester City which we had lost 0-1 we had three points from our last four premier league matches, 5 goals conceded, 1 goal scored and that too from a penalty. It is no longer just a blip but a noticeable stagnation, especially so in the attacking department where we had looked predictable and pedestrian.
However, there have been other reasons for optimism. Our newly acquired midfield stalwart Thomas Partey looked exactly the player we had hoped for, and more. And next to the new Ghanaian, the returning (from loan) Egyptian Mohamed Elneny finally looked to have found a system and a manager who can best optimize his specific skillsets and positive energy.
But Partey was yet to recover from the injury he had suffered against Villa before the break, and Elneny unfortunately is in self-quarantine for a fortnight more after being positively diagnosed with Covid-19. Thankfully there are no such interlull before March. Hence a forced and unfortunate change was expected in the engine room of the team.
Aubameyang-Lacazette-Willian have been Mikel’s go-to choice for the forward line before the break, and given the paucity of goals and shots that department too was expected to be revamped.
The line-up looked aggressive and assertive, with a clear 4-3-3 and our captain returning to a central position where his movements, instincts and finishing abilities were surely expected to give us an edge we have been missing.
Leno
Bellerin-Holding-Gabriel-Tierney
Xhaka-Ceballos-Willock
Pépé-Aubameyang-Willian
Willock earned his first start of the PL this season on the basis of a series of effervescent and energetic performances in the Europa. Xhaka and Ceballos resumed their old partnership from towards the second half of the last season where they provided a basis of solidity and consistency on which we had built a clever counter-attacking game.
The omission of Saka was most definitely due to his prolonged involvement with the England senior squad. Keeping Saka company on the bench were our Icelandic goalkeeper, Mustafi and Maitland-Niles as defensive options, Lacazette, Nketiah and Nelson as firepower up the field.
We started brightly enough. Willian – hopefully rejuvenated after a memorable meal of the golden Tomahawk at Nusr-Et Dubai – moved through the gears effortlessly (reminding us all that we were supposed to have brought in a world class performer) and charging into the Leeds penalty box but his cutback was cleared out. Around 6th minute Pépé ran at speed with the ball past the defenders but the ball was expertly taken off his feet before he could set it up for a curler. A few minutes later a bright move saw Dani moving up the pitch and from outside the box powered through a shot that hit the side-netting. Leeds didn’t look particularly perturbed by this flurry of activities in front of their goal. Around 12th minute they put together a typically rapid and fluent counter-attacking move which drew a good save from Leno.
At this early stage the possession was evenly split, but Leeds looked to have more variations and ideas than us. Watching an Arsenal team play without any neat triangle of passes around opposition or a defense-splitting pass from an advanced midfield position is something that I have not yet become used to, despite our frighteningly rapid slide down the attractive football ladder in the last couple of years. And hopefully Mikel Arteta will soon find a way – and the requisite players – to remind us of why Arsenal for the last two decades has been synonymous with inventive, attacking football.
Around 15th minute Ceballos was hacked down which earned Leeds a yellow card. Pépé delivered a decent enough free-kick in the box which was cleared for a corner. Pépé took the corner, Auba found himself offside.
Willian was dropping in deep and adding an extra body in the midfield. I think the idea was for that to be a signal for Joe to join in Auba centrally while Tierney takes over an effective left-winger role in attack. While Tierney was doing his part, Joe looked tactically lost in his positioning and movement. Evidently this is a system not all of these players have had much time to work with and/or has past experience of.
Pépé switched flank momentarily and around 21st minute drove past defenders near the left by-line and miscued a cross (or was that an intentional shot? Surely not…) that hit the cross-bar. We were building a bit of attacking momentum. Around 24th minute Bellerin set up Auba with a crisp pass. Auba had two options: either to shoot from a tight angle or try to set up Pépé who ghosted a run behind the central defense. Aubameyang did what was expected of him but his shot instead of rippling the opposition net flew harmlessly wide. The commentators didn’t think much of that chance but watching Auba all these years that is exactly the kind of “in the penalty box but not quite there to score” chances that he excels at. In my book it was a miss.
After the first 20-odd minutes Leeds started to exert more influence on the game. It was noticeable how little we were trying to play out from the back in this game — well aware of the collective high-press of Leeds and the slow turning radius of Holding and Xhaka – but Leno kicking it up field. Neither Auba nor Pépé are quite the target man so our goal-kicks will often find their way back to Leeds players. One such well-orchestrated Leeds move drew another good save by Leno around 30th minute. In the next 10-odd minutes Leeds saw most of the ball and created couple of good chances but in both cases shot over the bar. As the half-time approached Pépé found just enough space to cut in from the right to bend in a left-foot curler that went just wide. Neither him nor Willian were having particularly memorable game, but at least there were some attempts to make something happen from Pépé.
At the interval Willian was replaced by Reiss Nelson who too – like his mate Joe – has been impressive in his appearances (if not as impressive as Willock) this season despite a few niggling injuries that kept him away in a few matches. We started energetically with Reiss and Pépé switching flanks as well as moving inside to create positional uncertainties for Leeds to be able to defend space. While trying to influence the game from one-such inside-drawn position Pépé committed an absolutely irresponsible offense that earned him a red card. It was his first red card in senior football.
Pépé was being hounded by a Leeds defender both on and off the ball with some niggly kicks and pushes. This was as per the course in modern football though some teams apply this tactic more than others. After a while Pépé reacted by head-butting – well, technically speaking it was indeed a head-butting but was not a dangerous play; let us just say he fell for one of the oldest tricks in the footballers’ manuals in getting opposition players carded – and deservedly received the marching order albeit after a consultation with the VAR. I think Pépé the player has a very high ceiling and sooner than later things will work better for him, and I hope this was a significant learning experience towards that direction.
It was now only 52 minutes on the clock and we were down to ten men. That definitely forced a tactical change for Mikel who brought in Saka to provide both more technical security in defense while allowing for incisive counter-attack down the left: Tierney-Saka-Auba have traditionally been the best attacking avenue for Arteta. Saka replaced Willock around 56th minute. It was a learning experience for Joe as well, who couldn’t quite impose himself in the game the way we had all hoped he would. Playing against a midfield that rotates positions so cleverly and presses so relentlessly he will need to find a better tactical awareness about what is happening all around in the pitch to complement his technical abilities.
Immediately afterwards Saka-Tierney-Aubameyang put together a crisp passing counter-attacking move that ended up with a tame shot from our captain. But Leeds was now dominating possession much more and overloading both flanks. Leno produced a superlative save around 63rd minute, punching away a fierce shot headed towards his top right corner. We managed another promising counter-attack when Saka’s cross was headed clear. On 75th minute Xhaka stepped up to take a free-kick from outside the penalty box and his effort didn’t dip and bend enough to trouble the keeper. In between Leeds continue to pour forward, and hit the post once, but other than that didn’t trouble our defense too much as Gabriel, Holding and Xhaka dropping deep stood firm. There were stretches of the game when we were playing two defensive lines of 5-and-3 with just a few meters between them, only Auba somewhat listlessly floating around and hoping for a counter-attack.
Maybe I was just imagining it but it felt like the team is more comfortable defending deep and in numbers and then launching rapid counter-attacks than when they need to take the initiative and force the issue. After going down to ten men and having to reshape the formation and the positioning, the team played with a greater tactical assurance.
We did put together a couple of more sharp counter-attacks and on another day either of those could have ended with a goal. First, the Saka-Auba combination down the left led to Auba’s shot hitting the arms of a Leeds defender who was already on the floor. The VAR decided not a penalty. But isn’t the letter of the law now that any handball in the penalty box is a penalty? Maybe there is a fine print in the complex and everchanging legalities of handball rules that I have missed.
And then the best move of the match came on 80th minute when Bellerin made a wonderful through-pass bypassing all of Leeds midfield to set Saka up 1-on-1 with the Leeds keeper. Instead of taking a first time shot on either side of the keeper or loft it over his head Saka tried to move around the keeper to find him with an empty net but the keeper recovered swiftly and made an excellent save. It was a movement of pure brilliance, all the more memorable as our current Arsenal incarnation has been so bereft of moments like that.
A few minutes later Leno made yet another good save. Around 86th minute Bamford’s header after beating Leno found the post. As the game approached the 90th minute five extra minutes were added. Within that injury time Saka suffered a knock and was replaced by Maitland-Niles. Leeds again hit the bar around 94th minute, but the game then ended as they were getting ready to take another corner.
A clean sheet, and an away draw at Leeds with playing nearly half of the match with ten men is not the worst result. We do have Bernd Leno to thank, and also his best friend the goalpost. But while the result was acceptable the first half performance with eleven players on the field was not entirely so. The team is missing both cohesiveness and inspiration in attack, though the defense has come in leaps and bounds since the troubled days last year (around this time last season our defense had more or less disintegrated). We all have our theories about how best to revive our attacking verve, but at this time of his tenure and at such a crucial juncture of Arsenal’s season, our young manager needs all our support and maybe also a bit of patience. I myself am convinced that he will turn this around, will do so sooner than later, but he and the entire team are now under a bit of pressure – as they should be — to start moving up the league table.
A really fair and excellently catalogued report Doctor F .
You sum up everything in one particular paragraph ‘ Maybe I was just imagining it but it felt like the team is more comfortable defending deep and in numbers and then launching rapid counter-attacks than when they need to take the initiative and force the issue.‘
I think it’s fair to say that Artetaball is looking much more like Mourinhoball circa 2008 , than we hoped and expected. I’m still a huge believer in Arteta because he inherited a low confidence team with a disorganised defence but the creativity has been squeezed out of the team and the constant changes in formation don’t help. Those of us who go back beyond Wenger would remember that the Bertie Mee side and George Graham’s double title winners were not always easy on the eye but they had huge attacking power which we currently don’t have .
As for Leeds I described them to my mate who is an avid supporter of them as ‘ fur coat and no knickers ‘ in that they look a bit better than they actually are . But they play a lot more attractively than we do.
But I’ll take that point and Pepe can be sent out by sled to Norway to save anyone else risking injury .
Good work Dr.F
A tough assignment, Dr F which you have completed with style. You sum the situation up well. Arteta and the team do indeed all need our support and patience. Pepe needs to say sorry. KT3 and PEA need to rest. I pray Saka hasn’t sustained a serious knee injury.
“Maybe I was just imagining it but it felt like the team is more comfortable defending deep and in numbers and then launching rapid counter-attacks than when they need to take the initiative and force the issue.”
You are not imagining it. That is the situation. At this stage in our development it might be sensible to recognise that and play to that strength, gradually evolving the personnel and the confidence to play in a more expansive and stylish manner. It won’t be great to watch but we’ve been that team before. Those drawn to the Arsenal purely by the early noughties artistry will whine and some will stop supporting us but we have to accept what the squad is capable doing at the moment and make the best of it. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
Great minds, TTG!
Before I read the report –
Cynic, TTG – in previous bar, well said.
A very fair report thanks Dr F.
As Bath and TTG have said we
need to be patient now. Sadly,
I am not a patient man so I
expect I will moan a lot😉
On to Molde.
I think with the players he has, he has to be more defensive. At least I hope it’s that and he’s not ultra negative by nature.
A now for Thursday, from mouldy to Molde. You can have that headline for free.
Which is just as well because nobody would ever pay for that level of wit.
Cynic,
There is much in what you say and it’s easier to teach players to defend effectively than attack effectively . But modern football thinking appears to be to take risk in your own third to draw teams out and to be progressively less risky as you get towards goal! That way is very negative and counterproductive.
I was looking at the fixtures the Spuds have had this season and that we have had and massive bias aside I think we might be very close to the top, even with this side, if we had theirs and they might be close to where we are . But results aside, the football is tedious and unattractive and several players like Lacazette and Willian are playing very poorly .
Mikel needs to emerge from this period stronger and wiser .
Cheers Doctor F!
Thanks Herr Doktor for an excellent report on an interesting game. I thought Saka could have dropped a first-time chipped over the keeper’s head to give us a lead, but it felt as if taking a lead might have somehow changed the dynamic more in Leeds’ favor. I think we need to be content with the point under the circumstances and hope for the best going forward. A few goals would be nice but where are they going to come from, pray tell?
Thanks Dr F,
Not a joyous one to write up. I also think you were right that this team is currently happier sitting deep and counter attacking. I’m not sure Aubameyang would agree to feeling happier as he is presented with few to no scoring chances.
And while I agree that we have a much better defensive record under Arteta, I’m not sure that we are defending much better per se. We are certainly more resilient and throwing bodies in front of shots to block them out of desperation. We are still leaving players unmarked, not tracking properly and failing miserably to shut out crosses into dangerous areas. I don’t really see how you can say we have improved defensively by leaps and bounds when Leeds had 25 shots yesterday and hit the woodwork 3 times.
I like Arteta a lot and I do think he is displaying great qualities in what is proving to be a very mediocre squad. Additions like Gabriel, Tierney, Saka and Partey are quality steps in the right direction but patience will be required as we need a lot more like them.
I’m really looking forward to seeing Martinelli return to the team. I hope he comes back fully fit and can escape further injury. I also hope he isn’t buried under the weight of expectation.
Really? I’d have thought “areas with the lowest cases of coronavirus” would be in tier 1.
Very goos, Dr F.
‘A clean sheet, and an away draw at Leeds with playing nearly half of the match with ten men is not the worst result’. With you right there despite rumbles of the apocalypse in lesser quarters.
MotM was Arsene Wenger on Desert Island Discs I thought. Of course he’d take a ball to the Island with him, what else is there? 🙂
For football, tier 1 can have up to 4000 fans, tier 2 up to 2000 fans and tier 3 zero fans.
By the way Dr F, thank you for another excellent match report.
I do hope that any decision to allow fans to return to stadiums has absolutely no connection with this
Could you expand Pangloss? I’m not quite understanding.
I’m not quite up to the mechanics of posting links in the new bar.
My link @16 points to an article reporting a sob story from Daniel Levy about how excluding fans from stadiums is affecting Tottnumb – badly if the headline is to be believed.
Ah got you. If you just do copy link that works for me. Then paste into drink.
And hear hear!
I’ve read the Guardian piece now. My hear bleeds. I can’t see that 2000 fans in a 60k stadium will make much difference to Spurs or Arsenal, in fact it will probably cost both clubs money.
I’ll be in every ballot though!
BtM@13. I liked the opening reply on Desert Island Discs:
Laverne: So, how do you fill your time now you’re no longer a full-time manager?
Wenger: I like to watch other managers suffer. “It’s your turn now, mate.”
(Or words to that effect.)
I think that joke made the whole thing worthwhile, but otherwise the show offered little that we didn’t already know. Noteworthy, perhaps that they spent about 75% of the show discussing things other than Arsène’s time at Arsenal.
COYG
This may be a slightly more controversial article in the Grauniad: https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2020/nov/22/cycle-of-impatience-and-change-leaves-arsenal-still-searching-for-an-identity
I’d like to discuss this paragraph:
I’m inclined to put a lot of our current, undoubted and undeniable, problems down to fatigue and poor form, but Liew has a point with his use of the word “partly”. In search of other causes, he’s entitled to suggest anything he likes, but I, for one (to judge by some of the stuff I read, possibly uniquely) would really appreciate a little evidence.
I think this is a reasonable suggestion, but maybe only because I’ve been reading dark hints about it for so long. On the other hand, I’ve been reading those hints for so long that if such dysfunction existed, I can’t help feeling that some evidence of it would have emerged by now.
This is a curious list, “impatience” and “restlessness” are certainly evident in the fanbase, but there seems little point in publishing a criticism of the paper’s readers, so I must assume that Liew believes the club to be impatient and restless. Is he hinting that a change of manager is in the air or, perhaps, trying to incite the fans to call for one? I find “change” and “mindless tinkering” also rather interesting – they are certainly criticisms that were levelled against Unai Emery when he was in charge. However, as far as I remember, the stock criticism of Arsène Wenger was his failure to make changes – generally described as “stubbornness” his lack of a “Plan B”. As to Arteta, I am puzzled by the lack of meeja comment about the number of players who are unavailable due to injury or Covid19 isolation measures.
To be fair to Jonathan Liew, the article starts with a suggestion, probably not meant seriously, that recent games have been a ploy to boost the price for transferring Özil’s contract, and there surely, lies much of the explanation for Arsenal’s recent lack of midfield guile and creativity – but it’s water under the bridge. However much we fans wish things were different – with about half of us wishing that Özil and Arteta would patch up their differences and half of us wishing that Özil would just go (the roughly equal split is a good thing if you want to sell papers) – things are what they are and we will have to wait and hope that Arsenal’s squad, prospects and play improve when the situation resolves itself.
COYG
Pangloss
I agree with most of what you say in your post . Modern football has very short time frames . It would have been inconceivable a few years ago that nine games into the season a manager who won the FA Cup last season would be under pressure . Not now with the Twitterati needing to proclaim after each game .
But your point about organisational dysfunction is one I would take issue with .
We moved out Dein, the great facilitator for Wenger after he fell out with Fiszman , put in Gazidis arch bull-shitter and he brought in a structure which has fallen away piece by piece – Emery, Mislintat , Sanllehi , Fahmy . The Sanchez/ Ozil financial disaster was a result of the indecision while Wenger was being replaced. The board effectively disappeared when KSE bought the company and the chairman left because he was effectively redundant.
In between Sanllehi emerged as the driving force ( he and Vinay were jointly in charge ) and brought in Edu before being construed by Tim Lewis , the Kroenke’s henchman to be wasting money on an industrial scale. Vinay is now the man…for the time being.
Edu has lined his mate Kia’s pockets by giving Willian three years but we’ve added Martinelli, Gabriel and Partey and it’s too early to decide if he knows what he is doing .
I don’t know what you’d class as signs of dysfunction but I’d certainly categorise all that as a pretty good indication of KSE either not understanding English football or not paying sufficient attention to what is going on .I’d expect Lewis to become increasingly influential
TTG
Thanks for the response.
I would, personally, be inclined to characterise all the examples you cite as “Organisational Errors” rather than “Organisational Dysfunction”, but it’s a fine (I wouldn’t argue very much with anyone who said it was an over-fine) distinction, and anyway a functional organisation should be able to sort out errors, maybe rather more quickly than this one has shown itself able to.
Perhaps you could clarify your feelings about Tim Lewis and KSE. Is his appointment an attempt (granted an overdue attempt) to resolve the dysfunction within the organisation, or is he merely a KSE apparatchik who is likely to deliver nothing?
COYG
My area of Kent has gained the highly dubious distinction of having the highest Covid infection rate in the country. Were I to get a ticket for the Rapid Vienna game I’d be travelling from ( probably) a Tier 3 area to London . Does that make sense whether I’ve been isolating or not ? I can’t see the point of these tiny crowds . As C100 says it’s economically unfeasible and it seems to me with a vaccination programme in sight to be better to keep a conservative ( small c) policy in place rather than create potential infection for very little benefit .
Nevertheless I wish my friend Countryman a very enjoyable visit . Watching an Isthmian League game with my grandsons a few weeks ago I realised how much I’d missed the visceral excitement of live football .
With only 2000 tix available TTG, it’s probably only a one in fifteen chance I’d get a ticket in the ballot. If I do, I have a new Arsenal face mask to wear courtesy of the members pack which arrived today!
Pangloss,
Firstly the dysfunction point. I see where you are coming from . If an organisation is soundly constructed but the individuals in place do their job badly that is a case of errors within an organisation which more competent people would not commit.
But Arsenal have chopped and changed their structure, their philosophy and their key personnel and as someone who earned a modest living as a management consultant I would diagnose dysfunction within such an organisation.I wish they’d employed me to both avoid these mistakes and also given me a free season-ticket.! 😃
As for Tim Lewis he appears to be a hard-nosed operator . A senior partner of one of the big law firms rarely allows themselves to be used as an apparatchik but the key is how much power he will be given by KSE to identify and effect change . I think he got Sanllehi’s number early doors ( £72m for Pepe?) and I understand he was the driving force behind the strategy that triggered Partey’s release clause. But I’ve yet to meet anyone who actually knows him
TTG – we seem to be close to complete agreement. One point of difference however, I think “dysfunction” is a slightly strong term for an organisation that makes a mistake and then acts to correct it. As for Tim Lewis, well you know what they say – one man’s henchman is another man’s apparatchik.
I think this is the end of it isn’t it? Well done Pepe.
Excellent post match report Dr F.
A commendable point in the end, against a very physical and well coached Leeds side on their own patch.
I don’t think we have paid enough credit in the drinks to how well the home team played, particularly in the first half.
Granit and Dani were constantly pulled out of position in midfield, leaving plenty of empty spaces in behind for Leeds to create overloads.
They played exactly as you would expect a side to do, desperate to avoid 3 losses in a row.
Yes they were overly physical sometimes, but the EPL is not a tea party, and we have certainly dished out plenty of our own over the years, so we can hardly complain.
I thought we had done well to get to half time on level terms, and with Saka and extra firepower on the bench to call on, i was looking forward to an intriguing 2nd half.
But with Pepe’s brainstorm early doors, it threw a mighty big spanner in Mikel’s plans.
There are no excuses, but i really do wish there was a retrospective punishment available to the FA, for players who clearly ” fake ‘ injury to get players sent off.
Rolling around on the floor in agony one minute, and then running around like a spring chicken the next.
Very unedifying.
So under the circumstances, playing virtually the whole 2nd half with 10 men, we did well to hang on for a point.
A final word on young Saka, who i thought was superb in his 30 minute cameo, he is just a pleasure to watch, and I only wish we had 3 or 4 more like him.
He looks much more at home on the left side of the pitch linking with KT, and worth remembering that he was electrifying in the latter part of last season, laying on goals and chances galore with killer passes and crosses.
That is his position, and hopefully now Auba is in the middle where he should be, once we get Partey back, and get the balance of the team right in the front half of the pitch, I think the goals will flow once again.
The objective has always been the same, if you can’t win, make sure you don’t lose, and against a Leeds side that was well up for it, and being numerically up against it for a long period, the boys can be proud of their effort to hang on.
So to me, a point won rather than 2 dropped.
Spot on, Clive.
Thnks BTM
Hope you are her Nelliness are both well.
Like your good self I am an unashamed fan of Adrian Clarke’s ‘ Breakdown ‘ game analysis on the Arse website.
Another excellent summary of the Leeds game is up today.
I think “dysfunction” is a slightly strong term for an organisation that makes a mistake and then acts to correct it.
Unless there are a lot of mistakes and continual correction, then it is dysfunction. And it gets worse if you make mistakes correcting mistakes other people made before you arrived.
It all starts with the sale of the club, in my opinion, and the move to the new stadium. That little period, with an uncompetetive team, then splurging the cash on junk a few years later as Wenger clung on to a job he should have left ten years before he did, is the foundation of everything.
Bad choices of personnel on and off the pitch, a distant owner, back stabbing in the board room, failing to get shot of all the dead wood around the squad etc etc.
Nice little Nacho interview here
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/nov/23/nacho-monreal-ive-never-been-a-star-but-i-gave-my-all-for-arsenal
Nacho Monreal, an Arsenal legend and dependability personified at left back. Thanks Cynic for the link, I enjoyed reading Arsenal reflections and finding out what’s going on with him at Real Sociedad. I hope they can ‘pull a Leicester’ or at least finish higher than Unai Emery’s Villarreal.
Re C100
I think this is the end of it isn’t it? Well done Pepe.
Does he get to take his own toothbrush to Norway? 😃
It’s a fulsome apology , hopefully he will learn
Clive,
Super analysis of the Leeds game . We desperately need some of the fluidity that Leeds have in our team . The fluid has drained away of late
Morning TTG
I’ll take a lack of fluidity over backdoor security in the short term.
Defence had to be fixed first,followed by defensive midfield. Mikel has addressed those issues, with only 10 goals conceded in the 9 fixtures so far.
Given that 6 of those came from 2 games, with Partey only featuring for one half out of 4, i think we are doing okay.
Just a shame we couldn’t get the offensive link player for the front third last summer.
But i am sure Mikel and his executives have earmarked their targets for possibly Jan window or more likely next summer.
Patience will be required, with short term pain and a deal of frustration a necessary evil,
before we reap the benefits on the pitch.
thanks for the Nacho link. Great
to see him doing well. Be
nice if he could get a league
winner’s medal.
Thanks everyone for the kind words.
I agree with you all about the vital need for a high quality chance-creator in an advanced midfield position. The ability to pass through the lines and right on the path of an attacking player running in is the best way to create high quality chances. All the others — crosses, cutbacks, triangles around penalty box, pressing to force mistakes etc. — are also important but without that primary mechanism any team will be bereft of goal-scoring opportunities. That is why Arsene used to stock up on players like that and that is why even when we were playing otherwise poorly we still used to create so many chances. If Auba was playing with a midfield with any of Cesc-Rosicky-Jack-Santi-Arshavin (or for that matter, even Alex Song who learned to become a good progressive passer) he will be scoring goals every match. In the Leeds match our best chance came from exactly that kind of pass — Bellerin to Saka — and we rarely see even one of that quality passing in our games nowadays.
Hopefully we will recruit one such player in the January window and have him play in front of Partey (and another MF player, Dani or Elneny). Have Saka-Auba-Willian/Pepe/Reiss as the starting line-up for the front three. And then we can play both counter-attacking as well as on the front foot against low blocks. Without that chance creating player we have no chance of getting top 4.
I note 3 promising Academy players are on the plane to Molde.
Azeez, Cottrell and Balogun, whether they get on the pitch is another matter.
Good to see ESR is also on the plane, hopefully some meaningful game time for him.
Quite why KT is in the travelling squad is beyond me, given the amount of football he has played recently.
But with his back up in quarantine, not a lot of options , although AMN can fill in as he has done previously.
Clive
We are short of left backs with Kolasinac testing positive for Covid . I hope Tierney will stay on the bench . That boy should have some air miles!
Dr.F
I was thinking this morning that the decline in our CL fortunes and our creativity corresponds very closely to the disappearance of Santi Cazorla . That little fellow was a really terrific player and the conductor of our orchestra. I think his goal against Hull at Wembley was hugely important in changing the fortunes of the side . Without that comeback I think Arsene might have left earlier .Even now I think he would be of much more use than Willian !
Excellent call @41, TTG.
The modern parallels between football and religion at both individual and community levels are well argued. I certainly believe that Saint Cazorla (sic) should be prominent in our pantheon.
Santi is in my top five Arsenal players ever. I love that little man.
Saka has avoided serious injury. Not fit for tomorrow but no knee ligament damage.
Thanks for another fine report Dr.F, though the headline itself says it all. I agree with your comments @39 that we have no chance of top four place this season if we don’t recruit a creative midfielder. Even if do do get one in the Jan widow I don’t think we will make top four this season. I would be happy if we qualified for the Europa cup. We need a few more quality players in other positions in the coming windows if we are to become really competitive. I think Laca is past his best and Nketiah, Nelson and Willock are short of the quality needed. I hope Arteta is financially backed by the management in getting the needed players, else we will have to resign ourselves to watching mediocre displays week in week out.
Wow. Charlie Patino. A future Arsenal star?
rest in peace, diego. you know now whatever it is the hand of god.
Frankly I’m amazed he made it to 60.
But what a great quote by David Baddiel
waste of a good half-ton.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>