The Arsenal vs. Liverpool, Premier League Matchday 27, 16 March 2022

It's more that I think Tomiyasu is very good positionally and may have been in a spot to stop each goal.

Ahh, well agree to disagree.

 

Movement off the ball both on offense and defense were the difference btw Liverpool and Arsenal. We need a better version of Laca, it's that simple. Bring in Tammi Abraham and we will have a different conversation. As far as RB I would like to see us sign Livramento, and another decisive right winger. I like Tierney a lot but he has suffered from not having someone that is sharp enough in the box.

 

IDK, I only noticed Cedric's role when Saka chased the ball to the sideline. What did he do before that?

 

Agreed. I thought Martinelli had a good game. Our entire attack prertty much came through him.

 

This is my issue with Mikel. I don't know why it took Auba being a premadona for him to finally give him a shot.

Good defensive performance. MA did his homework for once. We did what we could vs a world class team so not too sad.

Aston Villa next. All eyes on that tough game.

 

Yup. Only 43 hours from now.

Anybody interested in starting the next thread?

I don't mind doing it BUT I'm slightly and atypically a little superstitious about jinxing it, because my runs have not been very long lately.

But it would be nice to have something up by end of today methinks.

 

I still have only watched one replay of this yesterday, but on today's Arsecast they were dishing some scorn onto Cedric for breaking when supposedly we had 10 of our men in our own area. So at best there was one other guy to spring a break with?

I was trying to be open-minded and give him the benefit of the doubt in my prior post, without much visual/analysis time admittedly. But it does in fact seem that it was rather poor judgment from a full back to choose that moment to leave his post. Especially in that it wasn't like Saka was unopposed in collecting the ball by the touchline. To the contrary, Robertson was hounding him.

Someone else said above that if we'd had Tommy yesterday, neither of those goals would've happened. And I do think that's probably true. I think he probably wouldn't have done what Cedric did. Still these are relatively small margins, but margins that Liverpool exploited ruthlessly.

 

In general, both teams tried to take advantage of their opponents’ rightback’s defensive frailties. Ultimately Liverpool were more clinical in exploiting those weaknesses. And unfortunately I felt like Martinelli was quite often pretty isolated which meant it was all up to him. He did alright but he’d have been in better position to take advantage if we didn’t have Xhaka playing in that 8 spot or Tierney currently playing the Tomiyasu FB role

 

interesting, i hadn't thought about it until now but their first goal also went through that channel.

i will say that he far exceeded my expectations when we learned tomiyasu was going to be out and has been a solid fill-in. but i'm with @CarlosKaiser on this one where i think he's been solid and showed that he can be a fairly capable short-term backup RB but there's a gap in class/level between him and tomiyasu. similar to how we have been good but there is a gap between us and liverpool/manchester city still.

 

i think that play in the 2nd half where liverpool made a mistake with the back pass basically encapsulated where he is at.

1) you cannot question his work rate and commitment. he made that a play.

2) he simply does not have the speed burst needed (anymore? ever?) to have reached the ball ahead of allison and turn it into a goal*. that same (lack of) speed prevents him from being striker we need, he is merely the striker we deserve right now.

3) he has the footballing intelligence to, instead of taking a stupid wild shot into row Z, hold up the ball and set up odegaard for a really good shot. unfortunately, allison is not one of the best in the world for nothing and finishing is not odegaard's best trait.

*i will say that, if the condition was better, maybe he had a shot? he would have needed to do a 90+ degree pivot to take that shot and the rain was visible on stream with multiple players (on both sides) having terrible footing in 2nd half.

now that i think about it, all 3 conditions make him literally xhaka (sans the momentary brain farts) equivalent and now i can see why arteta rates him. to me, a 2 year contract benefits us with continuity as well as not needing to buy a 2nd striker, especially if european play actualises. i would hate a 3rd year, though.

 

It’s probably been underrated how crucial Cedric has been in the attacking threat we’ve been posing down the right. But it does sort of hamstring other players to have Cedric being the regular guy—notably Tierney and Xhaka. It’ll be interesting to see what this team looks like with Tomiyasu back in it, because it’s gotten way better since he last played

 

I'm good with all of this. Except what are you saying about Tierney our LB playing Tommy's role, which is at RB?

 

Re #2, I'm not looking at any replay now, but from memory, I can't see how any other/faster player would've been able to score a goal from Laca's position. IDK if I'm in the minority here, but I think he did exactly the right thing in dishing it to Martin. I just wish we had more clinical goal scorers who could receive a shot in that situation and slot it home. That's a basic deficiency we have up top and if we had 2 or 3 people like that we'd be cooking. I'm hoping some subset of Martinelli/Saka/ESR/Odegaard/NewStriker1&2 can develop or bring that skill.

 

I believe he’s talking about the tactical switch forced by Tomiyasu’s absence. Because Cedric is much better offensively than he is defensively, Tierney’s role on the left has morphed into a near mirror image of Tomiyasu’s role on the right. He’s now the full back that stays home more often. With Xhaka playing as one of two 8s it becomes important for Tierney to carry much more of the defensive load on the left.

I actually thought Tierney was quite good defensively in this game. In the last couple of games he has shown their is much more in his tool kit than just bombing forward and playing in crosses.

 

That had crossed my mind, but then when I thought of how many offensive forays I remember Tommy doing, I had some doubt. But maybe Tommy being more offensive was more like Aug/Sep than Nov/Dec? Can’t remember precisely.

 

i think weather/pitch condition didn't help him any but, to me, someone with a better burst of speed (like smith-rowe) could have gotten to the ball faster or in better position to get around allison where lacazette really had to do it on a stretch.

i mean . . . "he has the footballing intelligence to, instead of taking a stupid wild shot into row Z, hold up the ball and set up odegaard for a really good shot."

man, a clinical striker would be amazing.

 

So Liverpool's best players (Alisson, VvD, Matip, Robertson, Thaigo, Henderson, Mane, Salah, Fabihno, Firmino) are all 28-31. Arsenal's entire playing squad aside from Partey, Lacazette, Cedric and Xhaka are 24 and under.

Assuming neither roster changes, when do you think Arsenal will surpass them? I'd still give Liverpool the edge next season, but the season after, when their squad will all be 30+ and many Arsenal players will be entering their early primes, I'd expect it to flip.

That said, Liverpool are smart and will look to refresh their squad to supplement younger players like Diaz and Jota and TAA, so there are no guarantees.

 

We did fine, they were clinical and we weren’t

I was supposed how good the midfield did

Cedric is good going forward but offers much less than Tommy defensively, he’s a lot stronger in the air and physically so would’ve given mane more trouble

also, a better striker finishes that chance laca had where he pulled it back for ode (who should’ve scored)

if we can get a great false 9 with pace who can finish, we are looking strong

 

Vintage bigman terse accuity that

 

I said early on this season that on balance, if you’re looking at the next five years, you’d probably only prefer to be in City or Chelsea’s position over us. Now with the Abramovich stuff adding an extra wrinkle, it’s probably only City. Pool just have a lot of players that should be aging out of prime in the next couple years, like you said.

With that said, there’s really no determination you can make that says we will continue progressing linearly as a team. We all thought we had the next hot thing in Torreira, as an example. Dele Alli and Lingard are examples from other teams of young players dropping off, but their stagnations were probably more predictable.

In general, players are maintaining peak performance levels for longer, so there’s nothing that says for sure that Pool will age out of prime anytime soon, and there’s nothing that says our team will keep developing at this upward rate. This could be the closest we ever get to them, ability-wise.

But overall, I think you’re right—knowing the players like we do, and also knowing that Arsenal seems not only committed to, but finally, actually competent at developing players, it seems probable that this team will be ready to eclipse Pool in a couple years.

But going from very good to elite is the hardest transition, and it involves getting over that mental hurdle of actually winning, and we don’t really have any players that have won much. I wonder if Arsenal might invest in some more veteran leadership this summer, a la David Luiz—just have a couple heads in the dressing room who have won stuff and know what mindset to get the group into. IDK we’ll see

 

Agree with all of this.

I think it's very tricky to make a signing for experience/veteran leadership. I'm sure that's what the club thought they were getting in Willian.

Maybe they can find a veteran player who is looking to go into coaching when his career ends and would embrace the opportunity to player for a manager who just made the same transition. Who would be happy to lead in the locker room and training pitch and not throw a tantrum if he doesn't play enough.

 

i don't feel like you can look at it in a vacuum like that. while some players are good enough to push themselves, others get better/worse with/without someone to push them. and some players' games will need to grow/evolve depending on who is added/subtracted.

most intriguing is whether last summer's window edu+staff was the real deal or if the dice favoured them once.

i am intrigued how liverpool fares once edwards leaves. i mean, the infrastructure will be in place. but having a different decision maker could be a thing.

 

Put another way, if I made a bet with a friend on who finishes higher in the table next season, I'd take Liverpool. But for the 2023-24 season, I think I'd take Arsenal. No guarantees, agree a lot can happen, but that applies to both squads. Liverpool have been elite for 4 seasons now, it is hard to maintain that level without oligarch/nation-state financial backing.

It wasn't that long ago that Arsenal seemed 5+ years away from bring able to compete, it feels a lot closer now, like you can at least see a path.