Bingo. You look at the goal scored and see his lack of lateral pace. He was good today but he ain't fast.
Guendouzi's positioning was suspect after he came on. I hated the sub, Much rather had Nene come on and sit.
Yeah, this. More than anything, it seems this game might have exposed us as a paper tiger on the offensive side of the ball. If Ozil, Miki and Iwobi aren't major plus contributors for us, that basically leaves PEA and Lacazette. That makes us a lot thinner than we'd like. We've got Reiss Nelson heading our way over the horizon, but hopefully we get something sooner, for the sake of our results this season as well as finding the right system for the years afterward.
Just listening to Arsenal Vision podcast right now, and Clive said he loved the coaching decisions for Bournemouth, which included how he dropped Ozil. He said that when Emery was doing his presser, he used the word "intensity" a ton. Clive said that the top 3 working teams in EPL are: us, Bournemouth & Spurs. And that's why Ozil was left out (and I'd heard that from other pundits as well). So, all that said, I think it won't be a surprised if Ozil starts at Vorskla (what I thought when I saw him left out Sunday) and then maybe back to the bench for Spurs. Thoughts?
Easier trip now that it's been moved to Kiev. But regardless, my thoughts are that I disagree with benching Ozil. I don't see how Mkhitaryan provided any more intensity on the defensive side of things. I know that Anam's column said that he took up good defensive positions often during the match, but I don't recall positioning ever being a problem with Ozil. Moreover, Mkhitaryan was just as guilty as anyone else on Bournemouth's counter goal. No, I wouldn't play Mkhitaryan and Ozil in the same XI right now --- I get that. But I wouldn't bench our player that is most capable of unlocking a defense with one pass.
Clive only ever speaks in platitude, and rarely does more than veil his obvious dislike of Özil. Usually it takes the form of ‘we know he’s a talented player, but...’, which is sort of the equivalent of I can’t be racist because I have a lot of black friends. Also, Clive is just a fan. He doesn’t know anything you or I don’t. So yeah. I’d be shocked if he started against Vorskla, and very surprised if he doesn’t against Spurs.
I remember a while back (this was probably 5 years ago now) doing a quick and dirty compilation of the results with our most common assigned refs in comparison with our averages. I may have even looked at other ‘big 4’ teams iirc. Dean’s data with us was shocking. Fun times.
Emery only has had one window to get things right with this team, and we knew the team had structural problems. The good thing is Emery seems hellbent on figuring it out, switching personnel and formations fairly often. I think he’ll figure things out, but I may take another summer window.
I agree. At the end of the day, you can’t win if you can’t score. Ozil is our best playmaker and our third leading scorer - I think. He has to play. The flip side of the coin is Ozil is a world class player who often does not play at a world class level. When he is on, he’s on, but it’s too sporadic for his ability. How does a manager man-manage a player like that? Ozil doesn’t seem to respond well to being publicly called out (Jose's strategy to man-management that gets him in trouble), and I don’t think coddling him (Wenger style) will get the best out of him. I’m not saying benching him for a game or two is the answer, but maybe Emery thinks it will shock Ozil’s system into gear.
I agree with much of this. I'll add that while he's definitely world class, he's much different type of player than one thinks of when one typically uses that term. I respect your footy savoir faire to know you know that, but for the sake of clarity by that I mean he's a complementary player extraordinaire. He's unlikely to win a match all by himself the way Ronaldo could in his prime or Henry or Messi. But yeah, there are definitely matches where it seems he could be doing more. And I don't know what the answer is for the best way to handle him. I'll admit that I love his style of play enough (yes, a bias) that I hope Emery finds a way to make it work.
At the end of the pod, Clive ended up saying that he really would like to see Ozil play at home against spurs. So I wonder if your impression of his general dislike for him is accurate. Also I think the use of Mesut Sunday will be very dependent on the formation dictated by the opponent. Whatever happens, the personnel/tactics decisions Emery makes for the next few games may end up being even more interesting/surprising than usual.
THAT IS DISGUSTING!!! ...an the fact that this a-hole who is clearly anti-Arsenal be on charge of by far one of the biggest matches of the season, do any of you remember the match he refereed when we were away to Chel$ki a few years ago where he let Diego Costa literally get away with murder and sent off both Gabriel and Santi Cazorla for doing hardly a thing that would warrant such bullshit??? Hey North, maybe you should send in the clips to The FA so we can get him sacked from refereeing for life for his biased officiating, just like the WWF did when they banned Danny Davis for life for HIS biased officiating, I present my case on Danny Davis, who screwed The British Bulldogs out of the Tag Team titles against The Hart Foundation:
Hmm, going back years I always heard the results of wrestling matches were scripted, rigged, pre-determined. No??
Of course they are, but very few have ever had a storyline of a screwjob built into the script, yes we know it's entertainment but every once in a while the script for a match (mainly a title match) has a different twist than being unpredictable or dramatic, another match of interest involved WWE Hall Of Famer Bret "Hitman" Hart, who in real life his contract with the WWE came to an end in November 1997 and they could not reach an agreement. Bret Hart was headed to WCW, THE #1 rival promotion at the time, so before the Survivor Series PPV in Montreal, the infamous script now well-known as "The Montreal Screwjob" was born, as Hart defended the WWE title against Shawn Michaels, and during the match, Shawn Michaels had The Hitman in his patented submission hold, the Sharpshooter, and the referee (Earl Hebner) called for the bell indicating submission even though clearly Bret Hart never tapped out. That is the Screwjob that I sure hope Mike Dean does not try to emulate against us in the Derby this Sunday.
I agree, but the point is that the rejiggering the formation and the tactics might not help us as much as we'd like in the long term when the pieces that we're rejiggering aren't going to be here then anyway. That, and I don't know really what to think about the 30MM thing yet.
The upshot is, in the state of the game now you can't justify a player who's a creative asset and nothing else. Either you have to defend or score, and Ozil doesn't do much of either. Kinda like how you can't justify Ramsey either. The workrate is great, but still either you have to be positionally sound, or score a lot, and Ramsey does neither. It seems like the best thing for Ozil at the moment is a pitch count. He may not have enough left in the tank for 50 games a year, but tell him he can play thirty games as long as he defends while he is out there. It doesn't seem the best long term but maybe the best for now.
LOL WWF first hit NZ big time in 1986 - was a sensation And maybe the only time hard men could wear hot pink tights
Personally I think Ozil is low down the list of problems. Taking him out of the German side has not of itself fixed anything. What has helped was bringing in two very exciting wingers and a dedicated 6 vs Bournemouth I think the Xhaka problems were once more to the fore. He's just not good enough at playing the key passes and triggered dangerous transitions with poor diagonals. The team really still lacks a proper winger and then that defence ....
And you can't win if you don't keep the other team from scoring, or at least scoring less than you. It's a balancing act. And many think that was the calculus Emery was engaged in when he left Ozil out. Plus the fact that we had to run our socks off against Bournemouth, as we likely will against Spurs up next.
yes but he is very good to put the long ball through for a PEA counter. I think that's the idea anyway