Slow, plodding, predictable attack. Loose, disorganized defending. I don't think Auba, Partey, even Saka are as bad as they look under Arteta.
I agree, but I think it's good enough that a good, experienced coach would get a better tune out of them. But speaking of a key part of our squad, and one who we'd invested a lot of money and hope in: Thomas Partey. I just saw a clip of the Sky interview he did before the match, and he was asked to grade himself for his Arsenal career so far "maybe 7 or 8?" he was asked. His reply was "4". Ouch! Obviously he gets it that he's way underperforming. But for him to be so honest about that is truly unusual for a pro footballer?... kudos for that honesty! I'd probably give him a 6 at most. But whatever the grade, everyone clearly realizes he needs to show marked improvement... and soon.
This is how I feel too. Everyone is learning on the job. Josh, Edu, Arteta, most of the first team…. My questions are: 1. How do you fix this problem? It’s systemic from top to bottom. They all are newbies who don't know what they are doing. I think it’s a silly to think that time alone magically is going to fix this. 2. How is this acceptable? We were a big club with brand power, money and historical sporting success that is located in a major world city. This is the sort of position that one would expect to find an up-and-coming team that is trying to punch above its weight. We really are too big to be operating like this. It would be comical, but it’s not really funny.
Agree with all of it, but on Auba and Laca, Auba was in imperious form and then Arteta implements "his way" and his form falls off a cliff. But its not just him, NONE of our strikers score goals. We rely on either ESR to run into the box late, or Odegaard to run into the box late, or flukey goals. People talk about Aubas form, but how many teams in the top half of the table have strikers that miss easier chances? Salah and Mane missed easier chances against Everton. They smashed them 4-1 because they generate SO many chances that even if you miss one, you keep your confidence up because Pool know they are getting at least 5 great chances a half. We had 3 good chances. Odegaard scored, Nketiah missed an open goal and Auba missed an easier chance albeit on his left foot. 3 chances in a game. We should have had 3 good chances in the first 20 minutes considering Evertons poor form. We don't create anywhere near enough good chances. I would imagine R9 would struggle to score goals in our system.
Its not. Someone on AFTV had a VERY measured response (refreshing I know) where they said that when Frank wasn't performing, Chelsea sacked him. Frank, a favourite son! And Ole was at the wheel, until he wasn't, another favourite son, and both clubs had NO hesitation in clearing out things when it wasn't working. And they went after significant coaching upgrades. Even Tottenham. They bring in Nuno, its not working, so they sack him and its barely 2 months into the season. But they saw it wasn't working, and they get Conte and get it done. Why is Arsenal bending over backwards for Arteta, who doesn't have a managerial history of success, and has no experience managing a club at all? He isn't a favourite son. He has literally only got Pep every time we play City saying "oh give him time" as a reason to keep him. We are the only club with a "project" and yet when have other "projects" in this league ever worked? We are the only club basically giving out DOF and managerial apprenticeships. You have to ask, would ANY of the other clubs in the EPL take the route we are taking?
That last part is worth discussing, is that partially Arteta/Edu or are they rebuilding and forced to do so while having three HUGE mistakes on the books?
It’s yes to both options, right? Edu and Arteta both bear some level of responsibility for Partey and Auba’s contract, as well as past mistakes like Willian. But since the obvious shift in strategy, I don’t think anyone can have serious criticism of the business that’s been done. The current state of the squad is both still burdened by the bad old business, and is hamstrung by the youth of the new strategy.
The article if anyone cares to read: https://www.crabstats.xyz/arsenal-kpis/ Pretty damning reading. I think this leads me back to the conclusion that Arteta should be fired. He doesn't seem able to build a style of play that allows us to comfortably win matches against anyone: that is, to control possession, regain it quickly when we lose it, and create lots of chances. We do none of these things well. We are still a low-block, transition team, which--I can't decide, is that a reaction to the realities of this squad? I guess in some ways it is? But I also don't see much marked improvement from young players year over year either, and it doesn't seem like we're adopting a signature style of play that Arteta is trying to transmit, apart from low-block transition, which is just not an acceptable style for a team trying for top six, let alone top four. I don't understand why he thinks we can't play a high line with the players we have now? Lack of experience maybe? But how will they learn if we don't try? Having said all that, this is a very different team from last year's--we are the youngest in the league and have essentially turned over our entire backline. The only constants from last year have been Saka and ESR. As far as squad construction is currently concerned (future hypothetical windows excluded), I'd rather be us for the next five years over every other team except Chelsea and City. I still find it hard to decide how much need there is to fire Arteta imminently based on this. He hasn't lost the dressing room, and appears unlikely to do so. We are still reasonably going to challenge for European places. The team is incredibly young, and consequently, some level of consistency and patience for a year could be beneficial for them, no matter whether we keep Arteta next year. I'm more in the "fire Arteta in the summer" camp if necessary for these reasons, but also because I don't find any of the available candidates at this moment to be particularly compelling.
It's truly incredible that we may not be fully rid of the previous regime's transfer mistakes for another two years. Can we offload Auba/Pepe in that time? Seems unlikely. Same for Partey and Xhaka, but Xhaka I'd pin directly on Arteta. Sead fcuking Kolasinac is still on this team, FFS. As are Torreira and Guendouzi, for the time being. What a nightmare.
The summer window was rather impressive but it is forever tainted by not offloading Xhaka when he had both feet out the door and instead extending him. Whole situation was worse when we let Abraham go to Roma when he preferred us.
They gave him a fair crack this year, it was match day 12 when they decided enough was enough and they sacked him. Once they realised he was burning their season they couldn't get him out quick enough. And he survived til the Watford match but for 2 to 4 weeks before that word was he was gone. Staggering when you consider they were 2nd last season, and 3rd the year before. Meanwhile, we persist with someone who is meant to be this football genius.
Smeagol was there for 3 years so a big investment was made in him - but it was kind of a very odd reign At some level, he delivered a par performance you'd expect from the quality of the squad - but also he had good luck that over the bizarre corona period, the competition was in disarray. Spurs were in a serious decline. Arsenal and even steeper decline, and then Chelsea had the transfer ban and Lampard turned out to be rubbish. Only City were genuinely strong in that time. Liverpool really seemed to accept that last season would be an off season for them (I think Klopp may have finally realised he can't run his squad in full heavy metal mode all the time). So this season when the big 3 are very good, just kind of confirmed what the anoraks said about Ole for the last 2 years - he's tactically rubbish and his level is a basic countering side.
The thing that makes it tough is that Arteta is not bad. He just isn’t great. He is like a lot of our players. They aren’t bad players. They just aren't at the level needed to progress. So, we will coast to somewhere between 6th-8th place. We will some. We will lose some. But really, we are just making up the numbers. Maybe that’s good enough. Many fans have bought into the narrative that the players and coach will get better with tome, which tastes just sweet enough and is just believable enough to keep them interested, but we have seen this movie before. The season(s) will just go by. In reality, a lot of players don’t get better with time. They just get older. Just like stupid kids don't get smarter as they age. There are many who just become stupid adults. The ones who do improve will want more and will become targets of more ambitious clubs. These are the problems of this line of thinking to me. Arteta is who he is. He seems like a great guy, but his man-management skills are bad. Anyone with an identity, edge or fire within them has been marginalized except Xhaka for some weird reason. He has turned most of our players into robots with little imagination or creativity. If Saka or ESR go down, the team is screwed. And his team selections and rotations are highly questionable. But maybe that’ll all change next year… Josh is so clueless that he thinks things are fine. And therein lies the problem. They all are in the same boat, so they can’t see the forest for the trees.
His man management style seems to be one of "you're with me or against me" spin the bottle, so he is constantly feuding with someone on the team. These days it seems to be Nicolas Pepe, our £72M man. So he'll be marginalized in a very public manner, like sitting him on the bench while a guy who is leaving the club next month is given a shot - with the excuse that he's doing soooo well in practice! Yeah, sounds like a high school soccer coach trying out a jv player. By the time Arteta is through with Pepe, Guendouzi will be worth more than him. As for Junior, he thinks stable mediocrity is the way forward. I
1 - you fix it by having a top down vision and strategy, bolstered by hiring effective and experienced professionals 2 - it is acceptable since the EPL signed a 3 yr $2.7 billlion dollar deal which means these guys make money as long as Arteta finished Top 6/8. To get more granular, when I put up that list of managers, which one would come to Arsenal in that Top tier group? then ask yourselves which manager in the 2nd tier would come to Arsenal and what would their reign look like? What would a guy like Hassenhutl or Potter do with Arsenal? I'll be honest the grass always seems greener but unless you get the guys in the top tier you're always going to have to live with something you don't like. Hell even the guys in the top tier have their "wtf is this dude doing" moments. Afterall they're human, but of course we expect more and should expect more i just don't think expecting more is realistic based on all the evidence we see. now onto this "we should create more chances". How? by whom?
An article came across my social media yesterday that said that Guendouzi is in the top 5 in all of Europe in ball progression, and he is outperforming all of Arsenal’s current midfielders. He literally is doing the things our midfielders aren’t. To add insult to injury, we are going to sell a 22 yo, talented, box-to-box midfielder for 9 million pounds……. It’s fine. The 28 yo midfielder we just bought for 45 million pounds who neither can pass nor shoot is a really nice guy.
Well, we are way off solution #1, and for #2, the question was why fans accept it? I don't agree with your assertion that this is the best that we can do or that no coach could get more out of this team. Any coach that wouldn’t shoot himself in the foot repeatedly would be better. Our star striker is completely checked out. He has lost a step, but he is missing easy chances. This is a mental issue that one would think that a competent coach with man-management skills could fix. But, I don’t even think that they like each other. Our two biggest signings are playing like crap - one rarely plays at all. The other plays, but sucks. Our attack is predictable. We are running our star players into the ground while underutilizing players on the bench. There is a long list. Why is it that our players on loan are playing so much better? Again, I think we can do better, and honestly, I don’t think that it would be too hard.
Truth it's not too hard if you have owners who know what they want, that's why I think we're really stuck. Too much on the job training going on even at the ownership level.
Some of this is dependent on the team tactics. On FBref, Guendouzi, Partey, Lokonga, and Xhaka all have approximately the same number of touches per 90 minutes, but while most of Guendouzi’s touches occur in the middle and attacking thirds, the Arsenal midfielders have many more touches in the defensive third. Since FBref does not include the distance of carries or passes in the defensive 40 percent of the field as progressive, with more touches in the middle and attacking thirds, Guendouzi has more opportunities to pile up progressive yardage.
With Douzi - the issue always was his defence. He broke into the Arse first team before he was 20 (potential elite player), and is now playing very well at Marseille - but I think probably his level is League 1 midfielder, and is still just a below average EPL midfielder (at ages 20-22). When 25, after years of development - he might be good enough! Personally i think it would be better to be developing someone like Douzi instead of fielding Elneny but Arsenal is gonna Arsenal
Elneny. Nearly always plays a 6 out of 10. Sometimes worse. Once in a blue moon, more. Huzzah. I'd add, I thought Clive on the AV pod had an interesting "rant" about him in the Yanited match. It's at the beginning of the pod and is worth a listen. The Cliff Notes version is that while Elneny's passing may be safe, he too often takes up positions or carries the ball into positions that crowd other players rather than making space for them with the result than being the self-fulfilling backwards or short sideways pass.