BBC gave MOTM to Lucas Torreira. Interesting. I thought he was good defensively but not so great offensively. Maybe I missed some of his contributions today?
Disappointing match, mostly because I thought we played better than I've seen us play all year, we we completely dictated play in the first half, but our final balls and finishing were really poor. Ironically, it was much more like a Wenger away draw than an Emery away draw. But there was a lot of improvement in only one week of new management that has me feeling fairly optimistic. Our defensive shape was mostly good, and our attack actually featured movement and incisive, vertical passing. We were fairly enjoyable to watch which was the first time I feel like I can say that since the Tottenham match around this time last year. If I'm being generous, I'd say that Arteta had Laca and Auba out there at the same time to prove that he's being open-minded to the star players being able to prove themselves under him. If I'm not being generous, I'd say that he didn't put out a well-structured attacking front and that the Laca/Auba pairing is incompatible right now, given our other pieces, and that he should know that. But we will see with our next matches.
Ugh. Embellishment. Really? That looked like it hurt and as troubling is it looks like he's being targeted with defenders being told to just kick him.
I dunno. I was just speculating because one minute it looked really bad, and the next minute he was running around without any apparent major damage. Honestly I only saw the tackle once. And because I watched the match live on my Roku I am not able to rewind like I normally do with my DVR. It just looked like a rough, clattering tackle, with some scissoring going on. But it didn't look like the kind of thing that would do in Pepe's ankle or knee. Were there any questions or reports on his condition after the match??
Would’ve been nice to get a better result, but I’m encouraged. This was so much more pleasant/less painful to watch than what we’ve been getting, and we had shot dominance that wasn’t driven by score effects! A couple of tactical shifts are already in evidence. The most notable being the use of the fullbacks. On the right, Maitland-Niles generally became an extra center midfielder in possession, while Nelson stayed high and wide, an obvious Pepism. But on the left, Xhaka was dropping into a de facto back three (on the left, with Luiz in the middle) while Saka became the high/wide ‘winger’, allowing Auba to fill the left channel as a striker in a 2 might do.
I should also point out this probably bodes well for Bellerin if Arteta intends to do this as a default. His passing is really good, but he’s not actually the dynamic flying attacker that we pretend he is.
In what way? His completion percentage was decent Yeah, the use of AMN as an inverted wing back was an obvious Pep inheritance, and doing that with a better passer than AMN will hopefully reap rewards
According to Stats Zone, his completion rate was 88%. Only one misplaced pass in our own third which is where you want him to be safest with the ball.
He was everywhere today: Breaking up play, intercepting, tacking, harassing. Stayed home a bit more, it seemed. He was good at setting tempo and although he's usually in the 90s percent, I can live with 88.
I believe the data - maybe I was just getting mad with his seeming inability to achieve vertical passes and then a particularly awful first touch ruining a nice key pass.
Just saw this on reddit now, pretty fascinating changes--our average position vs Everton on top vs our average position vs Leicester: Quite clearly shows a dramatic improvement in shape, and proves how much we dictated play too
He was playing as a DM, first and foremost, as far as passing goes, you want him to not lose the ball. 68/77 overall 14/15 defensive third 43/48 middle third 11/14 attacking third
Thanks for those stats. I added %'s to your numbers above. Quite good overall, and especially towards the back. The poorest being in the final third. All of which seems to confirm my impression from watching. And which made me raise an eyebrow when BBC picked him as MOTM. But I'll admit that I wasn't watching the game with razor sharp focus. But, like Jitty, one or two of his f-up's during attacks stick in my mind a bit. In any case, I'm still willing to give Lucas some more game time and chances. I've always like his style & attitude. Just wish he was 8" taller... but then we wouldn't have his nice song. Sadly, his supposedly poor settling in London may just be the determining factor in his future with us. That plus Arteta's opinion of course!
I thought I was pretty obviously channeling biggie there You guys know I love me some data over eyeballing So yeah I was wrong about his passing.
Everyone’s numbers are poorer in the final third because 1) it gets more congested and 2) that’s where players take more chances to make things happen..
This is a great example of why impressionistic eyeballing is poor when evaluating a data set of 77 passes What stuck in my mind with hindsight was a particular couple of fails and that colours my view of all the rest. In reality I probably didnt notice the rest of his passing
We may be about to get a before and after case study of high performance And it will be very funny if coddled xhaka and ozil are at the heart of it