I was hoping it would get released tonight. So happy, and yet so painful watching this start to last season all over again
I was gonna try and watch the first episode while trying to work Thursday morning. This is so much better, plowing thru the first episode with bourbon in hand.
I paused after 2 episodes, will watch the 3rd on Thursday. Ramsdale's mom and dad were great. But as far as my money goes, the MVP thus far is the closed captioning guy. The accents aren't a bother as much as the capturing of decent audio can often be a challenge with these types of projects. Regardless, whenever inaudible collective background noise is all that's present, the on screen CC (in English) simply reads: [hubbub] Simply brilliant
Though I forgot which game it was from, I totally remember that moment. And thinking at FT how unusual it was for our photographer to be embraced like that. I couldn’t figure it out by myself. Until The two clips you unearthed today. Well done.
Well I suppose I should be in bed but once I saw that it dropped tonight, I got sucked into episode one which I’m in the middle of right now. Favorite part so far is Ramsdale explaining to Gary O’D how he broke his arm at age 10: skateboarding down a slide. That may say it all about his character and perhaps perfect temperament to be our keeper.
Having now seen all 3 episodes to date, I think it will be interesting to see how much they reveal about what went into the decision to let Aubameyang go. I can't imagine a TV show revealing anything that would be unknown or unique as far as what has already been out there. But so far, after 3 episodes, moving on from Auba hasn't really gotten any attention other than foreshadowing. So I expect the next episode or 2 to be hyper focused on that.
Just watching episode 3. Kinda forgot how big a part ESR played in the first part of last season. Makes me wonder if and when he’ll regain fitness, form, and a place in our XI. Otherwise I’m really diggin the dressing room scenes in general. Just watched AMN lead a celebration after the win at Leicester… who knew?!
So basically highly emotion wank speeches before games might have negative alpha Ross Tucker is excellent on these topics
I'm hoping Arteta learned from his (failed) Liverpool preparation tactics. He may have earned a bit of humanity from the players by exposing his moment of regret, but hopefully that's all that sticks with the players long term. I'm not sure the reverence paid to the holy grounds of Anfield is a good thing for any team striving to eventually overtake a top team like Liverpool. I would much rather hear the manager say something like "F these scousers, Liverpool is a sh*thole and I hated every minute I ever played at Anfield!"
I'm curious how much of Arteta's teams talks are motivational versus tactical. From the doc, you would assume they are all motivational but those make for more compelling TV (in the eyes of TV execs, I assume). And Arsenal may not want Amazon sharing tactical details so we may not be seeing that side. When I played sports in high school, me and my teammates rolled our eyes and joked about our coach's team talks. So I find most of this pretty cringe. But I was nowhere near a high level, professional athlete, and my guess is these guys are wired differently. I think Eliot talked about this a bit on a recent Arsenal Vision.
All the tactical stuff would be done in training and in the initial dressing room speech before the motivational one
I play at a low level and we do all the tactical stuff at training. Before training we have a chat about what formations we are running with and without the ball, and then we do our training sessions that simulate match play. Then on match day, we get in and as we are getting changed the team sheet goes up, 15 minute tactical chat, head out on the pitch for warm ups, and then back into the shed for motivational. I would say 90% of our tactical stuff is done during the week.
This is pretty much where i got to on this issue The top managers (also in corporate land) tend to be elite communicators. But that doesn't mean they are doing "motivational" rants e.g Klopp is more like a charismatic rockstar - the story of crying with Kagawa comes to mind. I recall the stories of Pep and Lahm having deep tactical discussions (the shit Ribery hated). Roy Keane also talks similarly of SAF. Contrary to popular belief the hair dryer was seldom seen. Rather there were multiple leaders in the dressing room. SAF was more likely having a cup of tea in his office with key players - a culture Keane decided he didn't want to be part of. I know the All Blacks stopped doing the motivational pre game talks, as they were felt to be a distraction and of no value. As for the tactical stuff, that has all been covered in the days ahead of the game
Pep Confidential went into this in great detail - especially with "English weeks" where there are 2 games per week and no time for generic training. Everything is discussing and drilling the tactical setups - including customised info for each player. This kind of formula was also shown in the Spurs all or nothing doco with Jose I thought the half time stuff was also quite interesting because it is a lot to do with problem solving - so communications skill is really important in terms of getting players to do what you want them to do
There is only a certain amount of styles and shape so the players should know their role vs specific teams and systems I guess it’s more of a refresher as the schedule gets mad
Watching the opening of episode 4 and watching Mikel’s HT rant, all I can think of is how he reminded me of Pep. And also I trust he doesn’t do that very often because the players might just tune it out. Ps. After that, the inside, candid conversations about the Auba issue was fascinating. And makes the boss look strong willed, principled, and possibly predetermined about not wanting him around the team anymore.
Watched ep 4, christ the journos don't get a ********ing hint do they? A million Auba questions wanting a ********ing sound bite but glad they got nothing. Also we have something very special in Martinelli.
There wasn't too much additional detail on Auba, but there was some. Arteta had a file on Auba where he had a long list of misdemeanors. The board seemed focused on finding a way for Auba to be integrated back into the first team, whereas like you said, Arteta seemed determined to move on from the moment he was first suspended. Lots more Edu in these 3 episodes. Little bit more discussion of tactics, without giving away too much. ZERO mention of the sp*rs match being postponed. They showed the players sitting in the Colney carpark for 45 min waiting for Covid test results before Leeds and talked about Arteta missing the City match (with his team talk via Zoom), but nothing about sp*rs. Every episode has been 48-52 minutes...except episode 2. I wonder if that episode featured a focus on him and had to be edited out given his potential legal troubles?
I would not have guessed before this that approximately 25% of Arteta's team talks are just the word ****ing.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sp...rmband-mikel-arteta/tma01zkf8gde1n3lbh6lcy65n Not a ton of new info in the above article either, but it does dive into the fact that he behaved very similarly at Dortmund in the months leading up to his transfer to Arsenal. It could be that all Arteta can be faulted for with Auba is doing his homework, understanding the player, and being prepared.