Saka's not an ahole, if you ask him what players he learned the most from, he's going to say nice things about his teammates. The questions is, without the example of David Luiz, would Saka be a worse player? He'd be just fine. They got rid of him because he was due 350k a week for another 18 months and his performance on the pitch didn't justify that pay. Arteta put up with him and named him captain when he was scoring 20 goals/season.
My feelings on Jorginho transfer have run the spectrum from “do not want” to “meh” to “maybe there’s something here” over the last 24 hours. Like others have said, he’s an upgrade on Lokonga and Elneny, and he seems motivated to win the Prem since’s he’s never won that. This clip from 3 yrs ago gives me both comfort that Arteta has like him for a while…but I worry Arteta has been an admirer perhaps too long… 🎥| Mikel Arteta and Jorginho after a 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge in January 2020. #afc pic.twitter.com/8cKnaW4elQ— Arsenal Buzz (@ArsenalBuzzCom) January 31, 2023
Arteta was part of the team keen on him when he was an assistant at Man City as well. As said, is he going to be worse than the dross that Sambi was serving up? Answer is no for me.
I meant more how it will be structured Obviously a lot of the financing happens off the books now where we can't see it - e.g the stadium is off the books.
I think you are overfitting the youth strategy Obviously it is best if you can get players young, and they age into the 24-28 zone, but also a squad needs odds and ends players, and you might have to rummage through the bargain bins for some of them.
Yes - the age curve is near perfect. I think people are also ignoring the importance of 1-2 "veterans" - Schweinsteiger comes to mind who was excellent in his late 20s and early 30s before going off the cliff (suckers Man U). Toni Kroos even more so - he has been quietly excellent in his 30s, and instrumental to playing liverpool off the park in the CL final. De Bruyne is another. This kind of experience in midfield can't be replaced by a guy who is 23. It's interesting Xhaka has taken that next step, which i certainly never thought the was capable of, but surprise surprise, when he plays with good players, he is much better
He plays in the Kroos role! Left side, deep in a double pivot. Typically casemiro, as the more mobile player, defended ahead of him, and Modric is on the right side. He's definitely fairly unique in how he has changed during his career from a much more attacking play maker and goal scorer at Bayern (a bit like Martin O) to a true central midfield orchestrator. In any event, my point was CM is a very hard position, and even Kroos, a once in a generation midfielder looked somewhat out of place when he moved back into CM
Athletic now has the Tick Tock on the midfield saga This wasn't a priority but now Elneny is out for the season. Seems like Arsenal saw Caicedo as a project player/talent who could eventually replace Partey. Brighton had no intention of selling. Arsenal messed up there. Caicedo tried to force an exit which backfired. Rice will now presumably be that player if they can get him in the summer.
I’m wondering if we will see another side to Jorginho now with him playing in team who play beautiful free flowing football ? He was presumably pressurised to play safe , simple , no risk football . The guy is Brazilian after all and he’s a highly skilled guy ..
I think if you're talking about overall knowledge very generally --- sure Gary Neville knows way more about football than I do. But the problem with most of these pundits is that they're lazy and thus default to bromides and tropes about players, managers, tactics. They rarely do their homework and dig down about a player or how a specific team is actually playing. We do that with our team because --- well --- that's what we do. We live and breathe this shit (or many of us do). So it's frustrating when pundits say stupid shit that we know is stupid because we're in the weeds with regard to our team and they don't engage in anything beyond a surface level view. Prime example: Neville last season saying he doesn't understand what Arsenal is doing with their transfer policy. Well, don't be a lazy asshole and actually study why we're doing things like Carragher or others at least seem to do more often. I realize that requires watching A LOT OF FOOTBALL. But FFS, that's your job at this point, innit?
I heard this same story (listened to the whole Athletic pod about with Ornstein and Naylor---the Brighton reporter getting shredded on Twitter for his "no-shit-Sherlock" take). But I disagree with your bolded part. How would we know unless we asked? And despite the reports of multiple offers, from what I read we only came back with one additional and then said "okay, we understand" when Brighton said ********off the second time.
I don’t think he was ever a deep midfielder and I always felt he was carried a lot of his Madrid career. He played with one of the best 6s ever in Casimero and one of the greatest CMs ever in Modric, who is still carrying him at near 40.
I think my major point is that a lot of these guys have a TV act, which their producers pump up. Watch Jamie Carragher on the Sky show with Neville and then watch him on CBS’ Champions League coverage. It’s damn near two different people. Neville was actually liked when he started because he wasn’t Andy Gray, but has now become him.
One of the other issues is that performance leadership is itself not well understood. Neville as someone who played at Man Utd knows what a High Performance culture looked like, but doesn't know how to create one - which is why he said engaged in silly tropes about "Ole knowing the Man Utd way". An example from personal experience. It became clear from sports that rest and nutrition are critical to performance. It is known the same is true in business. Therefore corporates should copy that idea - e.g allowing naps in the day, and fighting presenteeism and hours culture. But that goes against long established anglo saxon tropes of hard work and self denial (think Roy Keane) - therefore most managers get excited about this idea, but then default to the usual because it is politically safer. Actual performance culture is often about taking risks and not being afraid of failing - think Liverpool throw in coach. Yet this idea was widely mocked. And that is the hard part - like what ideas are helping and what is hurting? I am sure if Arse win the league, everyone is going to double down on motivational posters
Casemiro was usually found ahead of Kroos, both in defence and offence. And the idea Kroos was carried by those 2 guys is just silly.
Also their double act took off because they analysed tactics in a new and fresh way and there was an audience for it Now the coverage feels quite behind the times IMO
That's a valid point - I was just conveying the Athletic reporting which said the relationship was now damaged because Arsenal thought Brighton were bluffing.