Measuring Success - The Arsenal (Emery) Barometer

This is all good stuff, but this the wrong thread. The finance thread or possibly the transfers thread would be better suited.

If there's anything we know about Emery it's that he's "just a coach". The issues just raised are beyond his purview.

 

I still think Emery needs 2 years. He came into a shitshow, has a massively flawed list. How many managers could come in here and not spend 200mil to fix all the issues and instantly have success.

The only negatives with Emery was he prioritised EL over EPL and in the end it cost us, the end of the season run in should have had us finish 3rd, especially with Chelsea, Spuds and Yanited all shitting the bed in the run in.

Instead, we get 5th, and have to rely on a EL win to make the CL where we were missing Ramsey, who was our most important player, and Mikhi, who was decent in the EL, vs a Chelsea who weren't far off full strength and have a Hazard wanting to give his club a farewell gift.

 

There is no way that's his only negative. For a start, why could he not improve our defense even though he spent big money on a new GK, CB, DM, and even a backup DM? This is after he said he knows how to improve our defense.

Forget our own expectations. Emery said he wants to:
1) Improve the confidence of our defenders
2) Make our team more compact

Do you think he even achieved the goals he set for himself?

 

Torreira, Leno, and Sokratis were not big money signings. Torreira would have probably cost more after his WC, Leno turned out to be cheap relative to what other teams were paying for keepers, and Sokratis just wasn't that much money.

Maybe he's not a good coach but Arsenal is being outspent by wide margins.

 

Ted was on the Arsenal Vision Podcast. Was a really interesting listen, and had a lot to say about the club. Key points:

1. He wasn't a fan of Emery - thought the fifth place finish was lucky, and performance was more like a seventh or eighth place team. Could see a lot of regression next season. He did qualify that by saying the defense got a lot worse after Holding got hurt, and Holding had started to look really good before he got hurt.

2. Thought the Boardroom drama was indicative of problems behind the scenes. His take was that Arsenal have lots of really smart people, but no overarching "vision" in terms of how to play or how to build a squad, and it showed in terms of transfer targets last summer. The Sanllehi interview, where Sanllehi suggested that Arsenal was using stats to vet targets after they'd been identified, seemed backwards to Ted.

3. Ted really respects StatDNA.

4. Ted liked some of the rumored younger players that Arsenal have been linked with this summer: Alexis Claude-Maurice, William Saliba, and Samuel Chuwueze. Refused to comment on Nkunku because of the PSG connection.

5. Ted's take on Arteta is perhaps the most illuminating. He led with this, and he basically said: "People at Arsenal said Arteta was really smart when he was at Arsenal, and people at Man City now say Arteta's really smart and they regard him very highly. Arsenal have an aging squad in need of a rebuild, so you might as well try to rebuild with someone who might be a long term asset at manager - there's no downside to an Arteta hire."

 

Looking forward to listening to this on my long drive to the station tonight. I started it, and heard the bit about Arteta. I still feel the same about him... he COULD be great, but do we want to be his guinea pig, his first job? I still say "no".

But it all makes me think that the next new lively thread around here be titled something like "Beyond Emery".

 

True, compared to the UCL elites.

However, they were big established signings in areas we all said Wenger failed to fix. GK, CB, and DM were glaring weaknesses. Emery identified these areas as weaknesses as well. Even the backup improved. Wenger had to work with Elneny, while Emery had Guendouzi to work with.

He was provided the funds to improve them. Now, the funds were not high enough for us to expect him to challenge for the title or anything like that. However, it was plenty high enough for us to expect Emery to improve on Wenger's worst ever defensive record.

Or do you think it was unreasonable for us to expect an improvement in that department after spending all that money on defensive reinforcements?

 

I agree that the defense was worse than it should have been. I don't know if Emery didn't set it up well or if the personnel didn't do their jobs or if he couldn't implement a style with the players we had.

 

What did Ozil say? I'm going to assume the "you're not a coach" thing is made up.

You should listen to the pod. Ted said "You never really know what's going on inside a club if you're on the outside" and "it's really hard to know who gets credit for which transfer". Also suggested that Mislintat may have been a prima donna and took individual credit for things that were team efforts.

I'll take a wait and see approach, but I personally would like to see:

1. A proactive approach to playing - a defined playing style that we're committed to, and that we deviate from occasionally. However, the approach should be more proactive. Having a defined, proactive vision, especially in attack, likely makes recruitment easier, and reduces the load on coaches, especially when you're playing in Europe and thus have 2 games/week for a huge part of the season.

2. Long term recruitment with the above in mind, with an emphasis on recruiting players that are 19-23.

3. Using data both to identify targets on the front end prior to scouting, and using data to optimize playing style.

I think we've done some of 2 with the signings of Guendouzi and Torreira (and Holding before that), but it's really cart before the horse if you have no idea how you're going to play.

 

Specifically

Tall, strong footballing cb
Athletic fullbacks competent at crossing early
A dm who is strong and can receive on the half turn and pass
Strong and technical cms
Fast goal scoring wingers
Deeper lying forwards (cheaper than elite strikers)

 

That’s recruitment. Forget that for a minute. Think about how you want the team to play.

 

Buddy, you're speaking to bigman. It should go without saying that all signings must fit into a diamond formation.

 

Yes. But overall strategy is about finding a diamond in the rough, lest we end up with a cubic zirconia

 

Re: Arteta, I have a new pet theory about him. Gazidis wanted him real bad and basically had it done but someone came in late (probably Sanllehi) went over his head to Josh Kroenke and got it overruled in favor of a safer alternative. This led to Gazidis peacing the fcuk out.

Makes sense to me because it explains Gazidis's bizarre actions (as bad as I think he was, his abrupt departure in the middle of the season was not in keeping), and also we know that Arteta and Gazidis were tight.

 

You are the corniest and I respect you for it

 

433 press with wide forwards

 

You're doing a nice job of channeling Elliott@ArsenalVision there.

 

Legal training leads to convergent thinking.

 

Tea leaves

 

Both Darren Burgess and Shad Forsythe are leaving, which only lends more smoke to the notion that there is something deeply, deeply wrong at the heart of Arsenal management. Nobody wants to work here!