Just saw Mikel's tunnel interview. He looked pissed off. He said "we had them" and "we gave them goals". But then he ended with "we matched their level" and "I have more belief in my players now".
Nah mate, Ligue 1 is a farmers league. Eddie has much stronger back to goal play and is just physically much further along. The team was clearly mentally not at it this game, and everyone except maybe Saliba showed that with their play.
Eddie is a championship level striker. He is not fast enough to beat defenders, or strong enough to overpower them, or lethal enough to make his chances count. He could play in the premier league back in 1997 when everyone played 4-4-2 and his striker partner could server up a chance on a platter for him every other game, but in the modern premier league he is not good enough.
If you were expecting our 2nd half to be as good as our first half, you were always going to be disappointed. There's a ton of games to play. It's far from over. In the first 19 games we proved we have a good system, so I think player fitness and form are likely gonna determine our outcome. And how Mikel manages the squad, which includes... rotation and rests. I hope he's thinking quite a bit about that.
Very quick turnaround until our next game, Sat 12:30 UK time, only 2.5 days away. So someone new needs to get in the mood to start the next thread. Maybe someone who's never done it before? That'd be a nice change!
If we want a league title, we need Jesus back and we need someone better than Eddie. I like him but he is supposed to be a 'poacher' striker and his misses tonight were criminal. Bad miss from 6y and then doesn't cross to Martinelli and all in the first 20mins or so. We are horrendously out of form atm and if we continue like this we aren't finishing top 2.
I believe Balogun offers something that Arsenal don’t really have, he will run in behind on a quick counter. Eddie will make darting runs into the box, but he’s not running past anyone in the open field. For that reason alone Balogun deserves a look in the preseason.
Fun fact: Former Ligue 1 players replicate their production at the highest percentage of any incoming players to the EPL
I actually celebrated this, it was such a bang bang cross, and I am pretty much blind, so I was certain no one could ********that up
Right before the grealish goal. Like this is inexcusable for a midfielder for us to not get a shot on target. pic.twitter.com/LWNm8e4XRN— MO (@raptorAFC) February 15, 2023
So after a few hours to think about it: Ramsdale is all you can ask for. The back line is about as solid as 4 young players can be. MO in the midfield with Xhaka and somebody else (hopefully Partey) is good, and Saka is top notch. Martinelli can make good things happen, but Eddie is not going to be the CF for the EPL champions. He is fine, brings some good qualities; but do you want him or Haaland? Or a few others. Eddie needs to be coming off the bench. With Jesus injured; here we are. How do we score goals? If it isn't a Saka pk (how ironic is that, given the WC) where are goals coming from? I think this is an issue. And I feel like our outside backs attack better than they defend. That puts a lot of pressure on Saliba, Gabriel and Ramsdale. It feels kind of "jail breaky" when the other teams attack. But this team is so young, and pure finishers are so rare, I am not massively dissapointed; just pulled back to earth. They were flying! Now we find out what the Gunners are made of. We need to go back to grinding out results.
Eddie just ain't the answer. Depth, yes, but honestly we are now seeing Arteta ball needs a striker who can get involved with build up. As its been said, its no coincidence that since the Jesus injury Xhaka and Martinellis form has dropped significantly. We have the spine of a great team building but we really do lack one good winger, one good striker and another mid.
The answer last season was set pieces and Smith Rowe. ESR scored well above his xG clip, and his movement created a ton of havoc for opposing defenses, much like Jesus's does. Without that chaotic spark, the rest of the attack sort of withers and dies.
Last season isn't a great example considering how poor Laca and Auba were. Next season we need to replace Eddie with another striker who fits the Jesus mold. Mobile, can be involved in the buildup, has pace.
I think the game illustrated how the run in might play out Arsenal more than good enough to go toe to toe with City, and too good for most EPL sides. But a bit of lack of quality at 9, and don't have that big game experience City have. City are not the machine they have been, but have also optimised to win games like this - i.e. late stage champs league when everything is on the line. Them not being 90 point good opens a door and I guess we have to hope they get distracted in Europe.
The focus on Championship Eddie is valid, but also Arsenal didn't create much xG in this game. We really needed to hold at 1:1
That was the one that broke me (ie, made me yell at the TV). There were at least two other instances when he killed an attack by hitting too heavy of a pass. I'm so hesitant to start bashing Xhaka because for the most part he's been really good this season---certainly exceeded my expectations as to what he could do in that 8 role. But the absence of Jesus has really amplified Xhaka's ceiling in that role. He's just not getting the same kind of time, space, angles as he was when Jesus was playing, and on his own he's just not able to create much in those tight spaces. My primary rant though: FFS, we need to move on from Partey. People often make the Diaby comparison but in a way it's worse. Yeah, Diaby was injured far more severely and far more often, but he had never really attained star status anyway, so we'd only see glimpses here and there of what he possibly could have become. But Partey---we know how freaking good he is and how well he has us play. So when he's out the absence is glaring. Jorginho was fine yesterday, better than Elneny or Lokonga, but he's still not Partey. We're in a bit of a Catch-22 right now (yeah, the reference is intentional) in that we can't go all in on removing him as such a potential point of failure because, despite yesterday, we are still close to a title and any chance of that is going to depend on him when he's available. But this summer, via personnel and system, we need to make him less valuable. Again, I know Partey's absence wasn't the reason we lost yesterday. Obviously, we dominated statistics and the entire first half without him. Nevertheless... Other thoughts, yeah, we're seeing Eddie hitting a bit of a wall. Is it really a ceiling or is he trying to cope with playing every single week or more---something he's never had to do before---and is just finding it hard at the moment. Regardless, I'd be open to seeing some changes up top this Saturday, if for no other reason than to give him a bit of a break.
The plan was never for Nketiah to be the starting striker on a PL title winning club. The plan was for him to be the clear #2 on a club that competes for top 4, which despite the Jesus injury, has been very successful so far. Jesus never would have signed with Arsenal if they brought in another high level striker in the same window, he wanted to be the clear #1. Nketiah never would have resigned - with no transfer fee required - if he was stuck at #3. The moves made sense at the time, the question now is whether Arteta/Edu will be ruthless in improving the team going forward.
1.6 vs. 2.6 according to Scott Willis's stats. I forget how much a penalty adds. I know it's not 1, but obviously, it's high.
Sooo... I was curious about some of the GJ vs Eddie comparison. Went and pulled some by game numbers for EPL comps only... Individually Jesus - 14 starts, 5g, 5a Eddie - 8 starts, 4g, 0a Team performance Jesus - 2.04 avg xG, 2.36 avg G, 2.00 avg G by non-ST Eddie - 1.94 avg xG, 1.75 avg G, 1.25 avg G by non-ST It would take a much deeper dive to get a true feel for what was happening in each of those comps but in general, while Eddie has better G/start numbers, the lack of assists and overall drop in team performance shows just how much Jesus meant to the team as a whole.