Here's Mikel's post-match presser after today's win over United. It's refreshing, how there's virtually zero communication barrier between him and the journos, how he responds so quickly, how his answers are concise, how he just seems to ooze confidence and control. I know this is his honeymoon period, but all I can say is... YES!!
The thing that drove me nuts about Wenger was how he never revealed anything during press conferences. He was a very capable speaker, but his style was to just give meaningless sound bites to the press. "Obviously I'm pleased with the result today, the team played with passion, blah blah blah" Then Emery comes in and does the exact same crap, only it's because he doesn't know how to say anything other than meaningless sound bites in English. Finally, we have a manager who is comfortable giving some crumbs of insight into what's happening at the club. Whether this will continue or not remains to be seen, but it will go a long way towards the fans willingness to accept his actions and his approach with the squad. In the absence of any insight, Arsenal fans have no problem making up their own narratives about what is going on day to day, and I think that was a huge part of Emery's downfall.
I guess I was thinking about his final 2 months, where the fan calls for his head were growing and growing and all Emery could say was the same crap day after day.
I agree with Tonerl, it wouldn't have mattered much because the performances, even when we scrapped a win were so insipid, other than those matches against Spudz.
A. Which should tell you something right there. When a manager and his team have their backs to the wall and everyone outside the inner circle knows this then the public discourse offered can't simply be "the same crap." Especially coming on the heels of regime change where you know there has to be a demonstrable indication of progress. So if the results on the field aren't providing evidence then the manager must have an explanation. B. Sports teams aren't typical commercial businesses. They're dependent on a special relationship with their core fans. While some of these may be prone to conspiracy theory they're mostly just applying learned analysis to each situation in relation to the team's past and the performance of other teams. They don't need to see every practice to judge results on the pitch, to interpret pundit opinions, or to read and hear quips from the players themselves. The team needs to respect this because while winning is critical keeping the core fans happy is equally vital. Emery and Co. know this is the nature of the business and that they're responsible for reacting to these forces. Such relationships are the lifeblood of every club. Run afoul of those and you should expect to be given your hat.
Just watched today's presser and here are some other adjectives that popped into my head: clarity, candor, comfort. And positivity! I'm still very much along for the ride with Captain Black.
What budget is he being given this window? I suspect not much. The squad is injury ravaged and he is still doing well but eventually that will come back to bite us. What targets is he asking for in January? CB? Midfield...
hard to see it being remotely substantial given what they provided to emery and the lack of funds from outgoing transfer.
I assume close to zero if not zero. However he made that comment about chambers injury forcing them to change plans in that position so who knows. Maybe KSE will surprise us? After all they must've saved money on Arteta vs Ancelotti right?
Arsecast from Friday is fascinating - has Michael Cox talking tactics. Worth a listen, but key points: 1. Performance is way better than it was under Emery - results haven't been there, but the performances have. Does look like the team has a plan. 2. Arteta is using Torreira more intelligently. 3. Overloads on the wing are much better than they were under Emery. Cox only speaks for about 25 minutes, so worth a listen.
It is amazing the extent to which he has "fixed" the defence so quick We were conceding shot dominance to relegation level teams On the weekend we only gave up .4xG huge turnaround
Once again I am somewhat bewildered that a discussion about "tactics" doesn't differentiate between tactics, strategy, "style", system. structure, etc To be fair Cox himself says that in football it all tends to go in one melting pot but stuff Arseblog refers to do to with style, positional play etc - lots of that is not tactical. IMO the thing Arteta is fixing is the stuff at the higher level than tactics. i.e. what systems and structures will the team use all the time, whereas tactics is typically more detailed
Why not? I find some of them to be entertaining regardless of whether they provide deep insights. They can't all be Carlin's Blueprint for Armageddon.
Yeah, I can’t listen to a lot of these things some guy chatting for an hour. Takes about ten mins to discuss a game
True, true. Both Arseblog and ArsenalVision are very guilty of this. Lots of rambling. Though I still listen/enjoy them. Totally Football Show tends to trend towards more brevity or concision, and also BBC's Football Daily... but that's partly because they tend to do round-up shows where you can't spend 30 mins discussing a single match. So Andrew & Elliott if you're listening (I'm sure not) maybe you could tighten up your bi-weekly podcasts? At least bring them to under 1hr!
I think what they manage to identify (in a confused terminology way), is that Emery was actual huge on tactical changes game to game but was very poor on the stylistic / systemic stuff that you have to get right in the modern game. This is what Jose talked about during his pundit time (revealing how clueless Neville and co are about management) There is some stuff modern teams have to do well, regardless of philosophy or game tactics - spacing - pressing - compactness - use of half spaces - packing & movement - transitions We've been bad at this stuff, regardless of the specific game tactics or personnel. Arteta has fixed so many basics where lets face it, less talented sides than us were simply far more organised. That's why we were conceding shot dominance to relegation level sides. At the end of his interim time, Freddie tried to claim this was about attitude and played the kids - but IMO that was always crap. Before Arteta arrived, we simply lacked this IP in the leadership team.
Also .8 vs Utd The Chelsea game was less good with 1.8 conceded But we've been conceding over 2+ xG to bad teams!
It's kind of a shame because Zonal does actually do detail quite well, so the role of a quality interviewer is to give him the chance to talk about it.
Poor day of planning, lack of preparation and substitutions from the boss. Why no Pepe, why no LT to start instead of Guendouzi and Ozil is shot. What's the point of Willock like really and Eddie in the 88th??