Kaya writes for Football London with Chris Wheatley. He attends the press conferences, or maybe joins via Zoom, not sure how they are doing that in the UK. If you give Arteta the benefit of the doubt and rotation was necessary for Sambi, then why not AMN? AMN has 2 PL starts and 268 minutes played to Elneny with 0 starts and 63 minutes played before going 90 yesterday. Seems clear to me he chose Mo because of what he did a year ago, and given how Man U have a new manager and many players have changed since then, it makes very little sense to me.
Two new fullbacks, it makes sense to get him out wide to attack players who may be rusty after not playing. The real enemy was the lack of midfield solidity. When you have the combo of Partey/EN/Odegaard you essentially play with a lone 6 in transitions. If you play El Nenny you have to play a player who's smart/mobile enough to make a two in transition for defensive purposes. Look at City, when they play a lone 6 in Rodri they have a "do it all" mid in Bernardo who btw imo is the best player in the EPL right now so Im just speaking of profile more than ability if that makes sense. AMN may be that guy, Lokonga on limited sample size looks like he can be that guy. Also remember, Rodri today was not Rodri who came in to City. Lokonga looks like Arteta wants him to be that guy.
I agree that it was a bit of an odd decision to start Elneny. But I sure hope it wasn’t made simply and purely based on his history at OT last year. Arteta mentions in same quote that training form was also an input. For now I’m giving him the benefit if the doubt. But in monday-morning-QB hindsight I would’ve rather seen Tierney instead of Tavares, and AMN in MF, maybe paired with Sambi instead of Partey who had a stinker.
The 2nd goal was on Tavares but it's a lesson he should have learned, because it's something easy to grip on tape. He commited to going forward on a ball that was difficult to secure, from a position of high risk. These are the sorts of things that Wenger was talking about young players costing you points. On Partey I have stanned on Partey for years, but he isn't and never was the sort of person to be "The Guy". He was also a sort of upgrade on El Neny, or who we should have got in the first place. Instead of El Neny or Xhaka, so we could get real ball playing CMs. I think this teams results transform when equipped with a better striker. You could see the moment that Maguire and Lindloff realized Auba wasn't going to sprint passed them, because they started playing higher and we started coughing up possession. What we needed after the goal was Captaim Auba taking command and driving at their defence and getting the younger guys to go for kill. But, because he isn't physically capable of that we went back to our cagey 50/50 battle letting ManU back in. In this match I think more than the rest the psychology was important, and we haven't been good at that since we lost the reputation of being bastards to play against.
But he actually secured it just fine and it was a good interception. The mistake came when he played it to ESR, who wasn't in the best position to receive that ball and had a bit of a sloppy touch. In other words, Tavares's front-footedness wasn't the issue there, it was what he did immediately thereafter, which doesn't really undermine your overall point but is worth mentioning nonetheless. Yep, he's a great (or can be) complementary piece for building an elite midfield but not "The Guy" on his own. I agree with your point that an upgrade at striker could very well transform this team. But there are some stats out already showing that Yanited wasn't really even pressing us or if they were it was marginal. We were giving the ball away needlessly and often unforced.
I think White was pretty poor in the crucial moments but I mostly agree. This was more a match of lacking ability possession-wise through the middle. Elneny/Partey as a combo offered zero ability to transition, hold possession, or maintain territorial advantages by pinning the other team's defensive shape back. This was compounded by Auba not offering anything as an outlet player, either by overloading via coming short to accept balls, or showing runs off defender's shoulders. There are a lot of questions about why we don't take it to other teams when we go ahead--but IMO, phase-wise, we're not that different between neutral game and positive situations. It's just that a lot of our go-ahead goals are from set-pieces. It's not like we're really threatening from non-transition, non set-piece situations regularly at all, so it makes sense that we're seeing a lot of pressure after we score goals because our goals are not coming from open play with us consistently owning territory or possession. This has a lot to do with the weaknesses of our CM and ST positions. I think even if you play Laca up front you might begin to see a positive swing for us, because of how little Auba is giving us in build-up right now.
Second highest player at the club, got to believe Arteta expected him to be "The Guy" when he signed him.
Lacazette's conditioning is awful. It's either start Laca and bring Odegaard on for the final 30+ minutes, or start Odegaard and bring Laca on if needed.
I hate to seem like i'm picking on the guy but El Nenny's replacement was not Partey they're two entirely different people. By the way, and this may sound crazy, but I think Lokonga/Xhaka is the midfield that will bang for us as the young people say.
Just made the next thread: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/everton-vs-arsenal-epl-06-dec-2021.2118643/
Auba seems to be done. Not suprising he hit the cliff - similar thing happened with van Persie. RvPs level was so high, that it wasn't obvious that his first Utd season was a decline on his last Arsenal season. His second Utd season was even worse Pierre Emerick Aubameyang1st 30 PL games - 20 goals2nd 30 PL games - 20 goals3rd 30 PL games - 15 goalsLast 37 PL games - 13 goals— Orbinho (@Orbinho) December 5, 2021
He’s also doing the classic Alexis Sanchez thing of wildly running at defenders by himself in an effort to convince people he’s “pressing” and actually working hard. It’s a pretty good sign that this is not called for when none of the other players around him are running
It really feels like he was forced to buy him after missing out on so many others who were better, but Laca is one of the worst buys of the Wenger era.