I guess I’ve already stated that I’m a little concerned about Arteta. I feel like most of the “gains” have come due to the increased intensity and a little tactical novelty. It seems that the novelty is wearing off and the team can only maintain the intensity for 10-15 mins of we don’t score during this flurry then it’s hard rowing for the rest of the game. I was just looking at his first 7 league games. 8 points. Emery’s last 7 we had 7 points. It’s small numbers, but clearly no “bounce” that I’m hearing so much about.
We already know there has been a bounce in the defensive stats. We were conceding shot dominance in these games previously. Now we are drawing them (although not yesterday)
The issue is our attack now. The movement is poor personally I would rather be a bit more direct and play quicker wide players closer to the touch line and look to break quicker we can’t break down low blocks
It's obviously a huge issue that Laca isn't scoring goals at all, and Ozil isn't assisting any. There's no goals in the midfield, and no goals from Pepe Not cool
I challenge this point a little. I think if you compare common opponents from emery era to Arteta on XG there is little change. Example: earlier this season we were pretty even against burnley on shots. XG was very similar to this game. Same fixture last year (although meaningless maybe) was pretty much the same as well. We are still conceding XG because the opposition has so many attacks in our third since we can’t get the ball forward.
The trouble with analysing this is that the Emery era has different levels. At the end, the team was bottom 10 on data, and that is the team Arteta starts with. Emery started with a top 6 side. By the end, he was conceding shot dominance to bottom 3 sides and relegation style data.
This is only true for this most recent match, which was by far the worst performance we've had under Arteta. If you look at the xG of Artetas first matches compared to Emery's last, we're significantly better in xGA and a little better in xG. But it's interesting that once we're talking about xG you want to compare similar opposition, but your original position on points scored was just comparing last 7 to first 7. Seems like you're cherry-picking here.
By definition a “new manager bounce” is something that would be seen in the first few games. So it’s small numbers by definition. Im not concerned about it as a measure of arteta, but I am merely pointing out that we haven’t seen that and the “newness” is over so any gains will be from the actual changes Arteta makes and not just the wave of energy that follows a new appointment. The other point I was making was separate in order to address the shot count conceded being used to show improvement. If we are comparing shot count or XG, shouldnt we compare similar opponents with similar abilities to generate shots/XG? It’s all small numbers and not saying that one can tell a lot from them, but I think the perception that we are more solid defensively isn’t well rooted in the metrics even if it’s a little easier on the eye. I did the XG comparison, but take it with a bucket of salt. if you compare Arteta’s fixtures to the same fixtures last season (6 games, no Sheffield), we have XG=1.25/match for and 1.6 against vs Emery 1.91 for and 1.6 against. If you compare Arteta’s to the common reverse fixtures this season (5 games, no Chelsea x2) you have xG=1.48 for and 1.15 against vs Emery 1.32 for and 1.18 against. In both scenarios there is little improvement in XG conceded. Of you want to look at totals for their “seasons”, Emery was 1.37 for and 1.62 against vs Arteta is 1.25 for and 1.50 against. By all ways of comparison the improvement is very minimal at best.
IMO if there was a new manager bounce to be had we would have seen it with Freddie Remember freddie came out and said the squad had such bad attitudes half the squad had to be cut, then played the kids who were shit. I don't think the problem was attitudes - and that's why there was no dead cat bounce.
Spurs got a bit of dead cat bounce because they are a decent team which had developed significant team culture issues.
2017/18: 18 shots conceded to 16th place Huddersfield. 19 shots conceded to 9th place Leicester. 15 shots to 17th place soton, 13 shots to 15th place Brighton, out shot and beaten by relegated Swansea. 18 shots to spuds, 17 to united, 18 to pool, That 6th place team? The shot concession was a problem before emery and he didn’t fix it and neutered the attack trying to defend which only made the problem worse Imho. Many thought (myself included) that arteta would take the handbrake off and lean into the attack more since that’s were we’ve spent the most money. Hasn’t happened yet.
I think he is taking the logical approach. We had to stop conceding so many goals and he has achieved that. It's also the easier fix. Attack is much harder to fix
Sure. I suppose that’s where some gains are to be found. But a) I’m not convinced we are significantly better yet and b) I’m not convinced it is sustainable with this group of defenders. It seems mostly that we are closing down the ball more aggressively whereas under Emery we stayed compact. The trade off is that you contest shots and crosses more and therefore suppress them, but the ones that get through find more space and concede higher chance of conversion. From a fans perspective I definitely prefer the shot suppression, but if we are focusing on true net gains I think those are to be found higher up the pitch. We just aren’t operating in the opponents third at all and our counters generally lack precision and commitment. It’s really poor to be honest. Just go look at a late Wenger pass map, even games when we didn’t play great there was almost always more action in and around the opponents box than ours. That changed under Emery and Arteta hasn’t reverted it. In attack it’s like emery’s team minus the cut backs.
I've come around to the idea that one of the biggest changes to the attack is the loss of the Alexis/Giroud/Ozil goal production pipeline. Now we have Auba who is elite but bugger all else. Last season we at least had some goals from Laca
Why do managers insist on putting Auba wide? He is a machine down the middle, and basically a nothing player outside the vertical lines of the 18 yard box.
Yeah, I've been bothered by that for some time. And the best answer I've got is that they're trying to accommodate Laca. And if you play both of them, the conventional wisdom is to play Laca centrally up top, and Auba out wide, for fairly obvious reasons. Which is why I've been advocating benching Laca for several weeks now, so that Auba can take his position. It's not a sure bet, but IMHO it's surely worth trying.
As for Arteta's overall performance, and our 1-point-per-game average, he seems right on the edge of a big danger zone, e.g. bottom of the league table. (I'm not really seriously thinking about the relegation zone but we're inching slowly in that direction whilst teams like Soton who were ensconced there not long ago, have now surpassed us) Some people thought that the remainder of the season would be a free hit for him. But I think the pressure is going to felt strongly, if he can't fashion a few wins soon.
We have to change the shape, drop ozil imo and go more traditional 433 and attack on the break wide and fast we cannot break teams down at all
We don't have the personnel to play lik that at the moment. Who are your mid 3? Xhaka, Torr & guen? Ceballos? Willock lol?
Well, xhaka torreira and ceballos (if he’s the player I hope) or even amn getting a go as a b2b player ozil has been terrible and when you play a 4231 u sacrifice the midfield I would rather have torreira as a ball winner, xhaka playing it from deep and amn b2b or ceballos as a mobile playmaker anything but what we are doing now
Haha. What do you mean from Saturday to Sunday? I'm comparing our position last week to this week... no improvement I believe. 10th place. Also we're now only 7 pts above relegation, and 10 pts below the 4th place trophy.
Haha. What do you mean from Saturday to Sunday? I'm comparing our position last week to this week... no improvement I believe. 10th place. Also we're now only 7 pts above relegation, and 10 pts below the 4th place trophy.