I just saw the replay for the first time and actually it was a Martinelli, who lost his man TWICE on that goal. smh Edit: but later Thierry was slamming Tomi for his neglectful role. Interesting
Ted weighs in: It's been weird to watch Arteta - who is a bright, but still fairly young head coach - learn new lessons on the job every season.This year obviously very much about squad management, but also... it's still REALLY hard to compete at the top of the PL + CL on Arsenal's budget.— Ted Knutson (@mixedknuts) April 17, 2024 To be fair to the recruitment dept, they are STILL cleaning up messes from different regimes that will mostly be gone soon.But Arteta's choices around blooding squad players and more academy kids probably needs to move toward Wenger's style sooner rather than later.— Ted Knutson (@mixedknuts) April 17, 2024 I think this is right. Arteta's weighed too far in favor of playing a first fifteen or so (first XI + Kiwior + Trossard + Jorginho + Tomiyasu), and not given nearly enough minutes to ESR, Nelson, Vieira, Partey, etc. Some of that is injury related, but some of those guys needed to play just so the likes of Odegaard and Saka could get a rest.
The reason I am not laying into Arterta for not rotating more is that ESR, Nelson, Vieira, Partey etc. are trash. They are so far off from playing for a team that is competing at the top end of the table, that it is just not worth playing them. I don't know if any of them even belong on a side competing for any spot in Europe let alone for the title. Where Arteta and Edu do deserve criticism for is the squad building. We have been horrendous on that front and wasted enormous amounts of money. We paid 25m for a keeper from a championship team who lacked the qualities we wanted, and we replaced in 2 years. 37m on a waif from Portugal who gets injured in a stiff breeze. 65m and 275k a week for a player brought in as CM, who turned out to be incapable of playing as midfielder, and not good enough to be a starting striker. 95m on 2 city players who are injury prone, and are somehow the only 2 City players who who can't cope under pressure, and neither retain a starting place 2 years later. With an almost fully available squad, the the only real subs we could make were Jesus and Trossard (and Eddie was just a kitchen sink/last grasp sub). Not to mention whatever is going on at the academy level that it hasn't given us a player worth giving 5 minutes of game time to since ESR and Saka stepped up. (Nwaneri doesn't really count since he only got to play once to convince him to renew with us, and once as a reward for renewing).
I think Martinelli was only at fault for not putting himself between the goal and Kimmich, but that was last resort. The real issue was Tomi falling asleep. As for the match. We have a chance generation problem. We can score a lot of goals off half chances but we don’t create chances like the top-top clubs do. Until then, this is our limit. Declan Rice did not have a good KO round and he stood out more than anyone else, imo. He is going to have to develop more edge in his passing if he is going to be the player we hope he can be. This system puts too much pressure on the wings.
we just don’t have the knowledge and experience for europe yet. i never expected we’d make the semis. this also should be a lesson that top european sides like Bayern and Real are still better than us. i think people get in an EPL hype bubble at times.
My biggest slight on Arteta has been squad management, and that there were games we were smashing teams and he still gave Saka etc the full 90. Saka looked gassed against Bayern. Why did we resign Nelson only to not give him minutes either against shit teams or when the match is basically done and dusted. We do now see that we need a dedicated striker. Kai is great, but Jesus is not. Really going forward if our front 3 is Martinelli/Kai/Saka they need Trossard/New 9/Jesus as depth, keep Jesus on the wings and not through the middle. And we probably see the back of Eddie and Nelson which is great for FFP but means we need to replace them. That said with their little contributions this season they won't be missed greatly.
The big point that lands from Ted is all this has been done on smaller budgets than the likes of Bayern have. Sure we've spent heavily in the previous 2-3 summers but still not in the big picture when you compare the long term assets the likes of City, Real and Bayern have. The reason why we have Jesus at 9 and not someone like Kane is because we don't have those top dollars, so we have to get creative. Rice is really the clubs first mega purchase since early phase Weng when we could still sign euro elite players. So now we see fine margins. Last season was an unexpected jump. But Arsenal maintained it and we are just 2 points off the top challenging for the title at the death. CL semis was a step too far. IMO it's odd to rag so hard on players who got us here. When he talks about the messes of the past regimes I presume he means Partey
He's probably still 2-3 years from his peak in terms of midfield craft, but i think the main issue is he doesn't have an elite tier partner who can crack the press and distribute the ball
Guys, can I just say the responses here to a really disappointing week have been pretty measured and well thought (even you @Rewinder ), especially in contrast to the dumpster fire that is Twitter.
There is nothing to really criticize from Sept 1 - now. I can't say Arteta was dumb for over playing Saka and Odegaard. Who else was going to play if they didn't? I wouldn't be comfortable giving Reiss and ESR 5-6 starts in the league. The Timber and Tomi injuries forced Ben White to have to play all the way through. Partey was unavailable for more than 3/4 of the season, so Rice and Jorginho got pushed into playing more minutes than we probably intended. If there were things we could have done differently that would have put us in a better situation now, I'd have no issue calling out the manager over it, but there wasn't. I will criticize Arteta and Edu for the Havertz purchase because it was an enormous amount of money and we still need a LCM and striker this summer. Even then, that is something that affects this upcoming transfer window and our ability to plug all of the holes in our squad for next season. It wouldn't have prevented our squad from being as physically drained as they are at this stage of the season.
I know there are arguments for a couple of teams in the Europa League, but presumably the quarter finalists represent the 8 best teams in Europe and there were at least a couple of teams on the other side of the bracket that I believe Arsenal could have beaten, so yes, our responses should be measured. Under Arteta we have progressed from finishing 8th in the Premier League to one of the 8 best teams in Europe in three years. Definitely ahead of schedule.
And how could you be convinced when the squad players never play consistently? We signed Nelson to a £100k per week deal and he has 300 minutes in the league all season. But if your take is right, then they've got to start prioritizing competitions better. Otherwise, this happens every year: 🤔🔴 pic.twitter.com/HsS95DUK9W— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) April 18, 2024
I don't who you mean is ragging (Ted or peeps on this board) but I do agree. These players have brought us to where we are which is near the top. And they were overused and tired so we should cut them some slack. That last-minute corner by Saka low and into the first man, is perhaps emblematic.
Yeah I mentioned that once or twice above. Mikel relying "too heavily" on 11-14 players goes hand in hand with the quality in depths we have or don't have. I think there's an argument to be made that he knew that we wouldn't get as far as we have if he'd rotated more throughout the season. OTOH it's a fair argument that he shoulda rotated more, give 2nd-stringers more of a chance to devlop/prove/contribute. We'll probably never know... unless he were to start rotating more now, and we returned to winning. That's why I hang out on BS and not X. Well actually there are many other reasons why I've never gone for X but that's another story, having absolutely nothing to do with the Arse.
Only if your overall win rate is better than Arteta’s. In fact we need someone with a win rate of 100% for the last 6 games.
We play with only one six. Rice should be the line breaker, and he isn’t right now. He needs to improve that part of his game because we are easier to play against without it.
I chalk this loss up to experience at the big stage. We had 2 players who have played at that level, Havertz and Jesus. Everyone else was new to it and Bayern has a strong pedigree like Madrid. We are close to being with them, we have gone from laughingstock to losing by 1 goal (and we gifted them 2 goals!)