I was down for giving arteta a chance, and I’m willing to give him time but I think he does deserve criticism when warranted8 I commend what he’s done to help the CBs. They seem much better and that has helped a lot. He HAS to figure out a better way to get the ball out of our half though. I’m all for playing out from the back, but we are conceding to play in our half against pressing teams (80 percent of prem now) and betting on the one move that pays off. This was a huge criticism against late Emery and yet I hear none against arteta so far. It’s one of our biggest issues. Opponents have so much less ground to get the ball to our goal vs us to theirs. I guess he’s just figuring things out, but I also think his subs have been pretty poor so far.
We’re not struggling with that to anywhere near the degree we were under Emery, and it wasn’t just ‘late’ Emery. We’re not a great or even good team under Arteta yet, but we are far better than under any period of Emery’s reign. Already. There’s a British shitload of damage to repair, and just getting to functional in this timeframe is, frankly, astonishing.
I disagree with this. I see signs that we're already a better attacking team than under Emery. The xG and shots per match are already showing we're a bit better. It's not going to be a straight upward progression, but it seems to be improving.
Don't forget the Liverpool game at the beginning of this season when we couldn't advance the ball beyond the 18 yard box, much less into the attacking third. The personnel we have are not top quality. None of the players we have are coveted by any of the top teams in Europe.
Unless Pepe starts scoring and assisting like mad I don't see the market for either of them. It's a fine line, but imo it' the difference between a team accepting them if we offered and chasing after them. Compare to 10 years ago when we were beating away approaches for half the players on the team every summer. The talent level is not the same as it used to be.
It's only one source, but our xG is slightly down with Arteta thus far: xg pre Arteta;18 games1.31 for1.45 againstxg Post Arteta; 5 games 1.26 for1 against(Source - Understat)#TouchlineFracas— Touchy Gooners (@TouchyGooners) January 18, 2020 It's probably not significant, but it's definitely not better either.
There seems to be decent evidence of huge defensive improvement Late emery we were being outshot by relegation level sides 1218834062430949376 is not a valid tweet id
I disagree. If you have the statzone app, go look at our passing territory in conjunction with the player influence. While I don’t have the aggregate data, we are consistently passing the ball in less than 50% of the pitch under arteta and we have very little influence in the opposition half. What was bad under Emery is still bad. So this raises the chicken/egg question. Is it the players? Different system, different coach same issue. We have no ability to advance the ball through the middle of the pitch. Whereas before we thought this was just the Emery way, I’m maybe thinking this is purely a personnel issue and Emery was just leaning into the flanks. Arteta himself recognized this as an issue and said it was priority to change it. Yet, no change in this particular aspect that I can see.
I think the problem is two fold: 1) Lucas Torreira is bad at this, so if Xhaka is dropping into a back three (and he is), then there's no ball progression into Ozil, and 2) Ozil can't play in a midfield three.
It's only 5 games in my dudes Kloppo took well over a year to fix liverpools defence. Arteta is focussed on stopping us losing games by conceding superior xG. He stopped the bleeding. Attacking patterns take much longer
Imo, we should look at a good cm and go 433 which solves spacing issues we need a winger too lw and a passing ceb with pace and power ozil looked ok in small parts but 4231 is dead imo
I’m not impatient, I’m just a little annoyed at the notion that everyone is excited that there is “a plan” and this is one critical element that I haven’t seen any plan put in place as of yet. As @mebeSajid pointed out, the dropping of xhaka deep only seems to exacerbate the problem. Also, I think it is key to our inability to play strongly with a lead. When the other teams press harder, we play even deeper in our own half. I get that we don’t have a Santi to play through the press, but I think he should have a tactical plan to get the ball up the pitch and away from our goal.
Well as I pointed out, Arteta's main work is to stop us conceding so many shots. And it is working, without any significant difference in the attack
I feel like fixing Guendouzi’s positioning and playing Xhaka and Guendouzi would fix some of these problems.
We need midfielders so bad. Even though they've been playing better under Arteta none of the guys we have are complete players.
That’s just it though. I’m not convinced this isn’t a false dawn as well. While the number of shots has dropped, when you look at the common opponents it’s almost the same XG conceded as Emery with the one goal advantage mostly down the pen conceded to palace by chambers hanging his leg out unnecessarily. So in terms of XG conceded, I’d say there is not much to write home about so far. Palace and bournemouth have the worst attacks in the league this season so aren’t real tests. Chelsea did just as well against arteta as Emery last season. All in all I’d say the jury is still out. We definitely are working harder which is good, but I worry that it’s unsustainable with this squad.
If this squad has been mediocre under 3 managers then it seems the problem is not with the manager, right?
To a degree. I think it is a squad that a good manager can work with given the time. We are definitely in the top six on quality, but some of that quality is tied up in tactical conundrums (ozil, torriera, xhaka, Laca/Auba, kola) and injuries (bellarin, holding, tierney). I think these factors make us really a 7-8 place team and that’s likely where we finish. When was Liverpool’s last injury crisis? Robertson, mane, VVD, etc are available for every match. They have a ton of options in midfield as well to rotate as needed. We are miles behind this.
I don't think you can say that. First Late Phase Wenger and Emery were both clearly mediocre. Freddie and Arteta - too few games to judge But also the squad of late phase Wenger is very different to the squad we have now. And we did not manage the age curve well. We have way too many young players and old players and few at peak ages
I worry that the comparison to Emery is not apples/apples Emery inherited a top 6 side, and presided over a decline so steep that by the end, Arsenal were conceding shot dominance to bottom 3 teams. Arteta inherited a lower table side, on a slide to the depths of the table. So to compare him with average Emery era data is not fair. He should be judged against the crisis data he inherited.
Add to this that he came in at arguably the worst, most congested time in the middle of the season. He has had no preseason to shape the team, and has had fewer options to train the team due the schedule.