We now have solved the central creative issue with esr who offers pace and penetration (pause) as well as a pass if we had not banished ozil, I think we would be 8-9 points better off than we are now
Which continues to be nuts. They appear to have a real issue with the sunk-cost fallacy, as evidenced by our refusal to cut our losses on mistakes, but they also compound that issue with stupid shit like this.
Given what we have seen from 31-year-old Aubameyang and 32-year-old Willian, I have my doubts that 32-year-old Ozil would transform this club into Liverpool.
Arsenal were never as bad as some people were making out (although they can not be classed as good). Their season has "turned around" because two of their last three matches were against teams in the bottom-4.#Arsenal— Simon Gleave (@SimonGleave) January 3, 2021
#Arsenal have 5 points MORE this season than they managed in 2019/2020 against the same (or equivalent) opposition. Perhaps the Gunners are actually better than last term? https://t.co/1gDc1CzZSh— Simon Gleave (@SimonGleave) January 4, 2021
Well you can see that we have been dysfunctional for a while attacking. Wise. Now we have more tempo and multiple runners and players who can dribble the attack has improved like @mebeSajid saus, players like Pepe and Willian slow it down where as saka has mandem on their heels as does martinelli which causes overloads and help defenders (basketball ref lulz) to move from their assignment unless Pepe learns to play with more speed then we have to sell him. Although I proposed the idea of him as a striker or false 9 in an interchangeable front 4 with him, martinelli, esr and saka
Yes - you can see for the first time fast and direct passing and movement breaking teams down. It really started in the Chelsea game. Even though he is old, Willian should be able to do that much even if he can't take players on. He looks checked out to me.
We do well when we play like this, it's the sideways and back passing thats lets us down. It's also a bit worrying that Arteta was a bit forced into these changes to the youngsters starting,I wish he could have seen what we all could see and just changed it any way.
If he learns from these changes, forced or not, to give young players a chance, he will become a better coach.
Source? The y-axis doesn’t match whoscored.com data. In addition, why isn’t Tierney on this graph? If he’s excluded because he spent much of the season as the left sided center back, then you have to recognize that Bellerin spent much of the season as a wing back. I don’t have a position on this one way or the other, but the data looks suspect. We need detailed explanations of what comprises a dribbler successfully tackled v one successfully stopped.
I think Ozil would have undermined Arteta's process. The problem was the bet he and Edu made on Willian. For someone of Willian's experience and quality, he has been nothing short of a disappointment. I think at most Ozil should be a squad option, if that. It's better for Arsenal to look at academy options and young players receptive to Arteta's ideas. The experienced players are more set in their way and it will be difficult to make them play with the same level of energy and zeal Arteta would get out of a younger player.
This is so much a disingenuous take. We’ve been struggling so very badly against these exact kind of bad teams, it’s ridiculous to dismiss the results as expected. This is why people hate data.
I think calling it disingenuous implies intent, and it's not clear there is any. It's a really dumb take.
One common issue I seem to argue with on Arsenal FB pages was when we were shit due to no attacking CM or AM, and we were losing, people would point out we were doing better V the same teams. But that ignores the fact that United when we beat them were completely garbage at home and untouchable away, that Sheffield U is much worse this year than last year, that you can't compare Leeds to the bottom 3 teams last year as they are way too unpredictable. We might end the season better than last year, but comparing this time last year to this year is folly because the team is different, no fans for momentum and different players.
Great piece about defensive improvement on set pieces: https://www.statsperform.com/resour...-arsenals-marked-improvement-from-set-pieces/
Yesterday's presser by Mikel: https://www.arsenal.com/news/arteta-fa-cup-southampton-smith-rowe It was wide-ranging and I suppose I could've posted it in tomorrow's MD thread, or in the Transfer thread, but I decided on here. It was quite a polished, professional "performance" by him. And I found it an enjoyable listen... not uncomfortable like when we were on our poor run of matches. He talks about many players, going in different directions: Sokratis, Ozil, Cedric, Balogun, etc. And he maintained a supreme confidence right through to the end. Except perhaps a little wobble with the very last question... He was asked about his effort to root out the recent leaker (e.g. Luiz-Ceballos fight) and he made a long nervous pause, until he finally grinned a little and said "I have a sort of idea yes (who it was)" and then asked if one of the outgoing players had anything to do with it and he said "no comment".
Wish i could do polls inside threads. If we are outside the top 7 by end of the season and fail to win Europa, Mikel has to go, right? Or have we seen enough to want to keep him in the event of this terrible outcome?
Why not just make a new poll thread? I bet I'd vote. Seeing as I was the OP for a series of #WengerOut polls we did a few years back.
I guess my question is—if you have the exact same squad now, with the same management setup of people around them, is another manager going to do a better job? Like, to me, the problems with this team are pretty clear-cut and not many of them are easily fixed by Arteta’s management, even though he’s tried. We simply can’t fit our three record signings into one XI together because they don’t complement each other’s play at all and completely imbalance a side around them when they do play together. Further, none of those three players is a competent passer, so they’re effectively useless in buildup play. Beyond that, our most consistently available central midfielder has a play-style that is almost comical in how uniquely flawed it is and how easy it is to force him into errors. Beyond that, we seem to have a whole squad of center backs who are ready and able to shit their beds at any moment and give away a cheap goal from an individual error. Much of the time when I see people talking about changing the manager I feel like it’s code for getting a clean slate—a change that predicates major turnover in the squad and in management. But as much as I think Arteta has man-managed this squad atrociously, his subs are sus, and this team is still clearly dogshit, I don’t see another available manager realistically making us better absent a major squad overhaul and firing all the other dipshits we have in the management setup. What if we just did those things that are obviously needed, kept Arteta in charge, and see how it goes then?