I’m like bergkamp m8, only at the speed of a drifting continent Ps I don’t care about loyalty etc and all that now
Agreed. It compensates for Wenger's absolute dependence on FBs for width, and it's also the easiest way for Wenger to deal with our CM getting run over every game by mediocre opposition. With three at the back it just matters less that we get dominated in the middle even though it still happens every match. Kinda how we won the Spurs match--just conceded the middle of the park from the jump. However, considering our resources I would like to have a functional central midfield sometime in the near future...
It worked against Sperz because they weren’t good enough to pass out of a high press. Ditto United. Much more dangerous to do that against City.
I agree, specifically because I think this fits our talent best right now. Neither Ramsey nor Wilshere nor Xhaka are world beaters right this second but I think we're best off playing all three with the thought that the numbers will compensate for defensive weakness (or lack of range in Xhaka's case). Combine that with three at the back and the FB's are at liberty to overcommit when the situation arises. There's likely to be players behind them who can get wide on the cover if need be. Or they can stay in the middle and hold shape against what might otherwise be a dangerous situation if that's the best choice. I don't think we're getting enough goals to justify having three forwards.
I don’t get the Mustafi hate. He made a mistake against United, but he’s been mostly good this season.
Hasn't Mustafi been the best defensive distributor we've had since he came here? Maybe excepting Per? I see them and I raise you my hands
He’s terrible playing the ball out. Tries way too many ambitious long passes that rarely connect. Mertesacker is a far superior passer of the ball. Chambers and Koscielny are both better, too.
This is incorrect: Arsenal touches and turnovers pic.twitter.com/UG1sYoU834— Scott Willis (@scottjwillis) December 4, 2017
Now there's someone who I've not been real keen on. That said, his # of touches is off the charts and his resulting turnover ratio is one of the best (lowest). I wonder what the time period of this chart was? That's something that people could do a better job of when siting stats: Clarifying the source, the criteria (e.g. date range), etc. Sometimes I get the distinct impression that citations are carefully concocted/cherry-picked to support the point.
Umm, what? It says he doesn’t turn the ball over much and consistently makes himself available. Elneny is positionally suspect in defense and transition.
Checking season to date numbers on whoscored.com, the numbers are similar to those on the tweet, with many of the numbers improving slightly, suggesting the data was compiled from earlier in the season. Of note to one of the focuses of this discussion is that Elneny's dispossessed number dropped from 2.9 to 0.8 per 90. In addition, in the season to date numbers Kos has slightly better numbers than Mustafi and Per has significantly better numbers.