Day two and the pain is still pretty intense.
I find the defence of the manager quite baffling, especially considering how strong the evidence of his failings has been. Underlying and data and literally what you’ve been watching all season tells a clear story. So spare the detailed unpicking of his body language or the theorising over why he said nothing in the changing room after the game.
Granit Xhaka, a man who has been front and centre for most of the experience is even a touch deluded about it all.
“I think we had a good season, if you take off the five last games in the Premier League.”
Oh my Granit, oh my. That said, he refused to answer the question as to whether we improved this season under Unai Emery. Well Granit, I can answer you, simply, no we didn’t.
I’m stealing some of Gambon’s posts that explicitly lay this out with hard numbers.
Regardless of how the season ended, Emery has failed to move the needle in terms of performance. Less goals scored, the same conceded, less shots, more shots conceded, less big chances, more big chances conceded, lower xG, higher xGA, By all performance metrics it isnt working.
— Gambon (@TheMightyGambon) May 30, 2019
By all accounts, the above is pretty shocking. You can say what you will about Arsene Wenger, but it was clear the problem with him in his last 2-3 seasons was his drifting further and further away from the basics. We mostly blamed poor tactics, a lack of preparation, a blindness to squad needs (which Sven went a way to fixing) and a loss of fire that once drove him to greatness.
When we hired in the new person, we hired in a ‘coach.’ The point of a coach is that they should have the ability to move the club forward without spending £400m. We even had the argument last year that we couldn’t hire in someone like Allegri because he’d want NOW money. Emery was the coach. Training would be high energy, he was a prep machine and he wouldn’t allow the players to be cowards.
So aside from it being clear that performance indicators have dipped, and it being obvious that the culture of the club hasn’t been shifted in an entire year, the other item people keep on comparing to is Liverpool.
Klopp came in, moved Liverpool from 10th to 8th. A poor return they say, that was rectified with time, money and patience. Yes, but remember, those three elements are a reward for tangible progress.
Again, we are in single data point territory. Football fans are utterly terrible with stats, so let me paint a picture using someone else’s.
By contrast, this is what Jurgen Klopp did in his first 30 games, with no pre-season and no transfer window. Emery has had £70m and a full, long pre-season. Klopp was still able to improve performance levels with a poor squad that were not his players. pic.twitter.com/OlXzATNuXX
— Gambon (@TheMightyGambon) May 30, 2019
Just to add to the above. As the season wore on, Klopp’s Liverpool side greatly improved. His team scored 52% of its entires PL seasons goals in the last 13 games. The fans were being electrified with rock and roll football. You could clearly see that without buying players, that Klopp was impacting the players, the culture and the energy around the club.
Additionally harping back to the goals conceded issue, I find it slightly worrying that we’re expecting a coach with limited defensive pedigree to fix our defence. At Sevilla, over his three seasons in which he finished 5th, 5th and 7th… he averagely shipped 49 goals a year. He look over a defence at PSG that had conceded 19 goals, when it was handed over, it clocked up to 27, then 29 in his final year.
‘BUT WHO WOULD COME TO ARSENAL FOR £6M A YEAR’
I have to tell you Arsenal fans, this is the most middle class ‘I live in a bubble’ comment I read.
Arsenal is a powerhouse club. You can bitch about it, you can say its dead, you can say we’re not attractive… but you’d be so fucking wrong. If Liverpool can attract Jurgen Klopp to live on Merseyside with a team that was sitting in 10th, with the promise of zero net spend for 2 full seasons, then Arsenal are not going to have a problem hiring in a top manager to take us forward.
Yes, the owner didn’t go to the game. But really, what are you bitching about there? Its YOUR sentimentality you’re whining about. Stan K isn’t in the day to day of any of his clubs, and why would you want him to be? Raul and Vinai run the show.
Stan can be called many things, but uninterested seems a bit of a meek jab. He invested as much of Arsenal’s self-generated money as he could have, we are the 3rd highest net spenders in the league over 5 years and we have spent more net than Madrid over 10 years. We have a £230m wage bill compared to Spurs at £140m. We fired Arsene Wenger and his team at a cost of £17m last year. Stan signed off on Ozil at £350k a week. We built a new structure at the club at great expense, and to be fair, the structure is modern and forward thinking. We paid £2m for a head of high performance. We brought in Sven for £2m a year. We revamped the training facilities at great expense. We are not lacking money and the myth that Stan is all about profit just doesn’t stack up against any sort of inspection.
‘he should write us a cheque for players!’
Look at what is happening to Manchester City with regards to flooding the club with cash injections that are allegedly not what they seem.
Anyway, my point being is this: It’s poor leadership to look at what Emery has done in his year, and think the right move is to carry on as is.
He was hired as a coach, his coaching has taken us backwards.
The easiest and most impactful thing we can do is change the manager. Rethink what we’ve lacked and make a bold decision. We will call it the Bruce Rioja moment.
We need a true leader. Someone who will bring some swagger back to the club. We need someone who the players want to fight for. Someone players desperately want to play under because they know they will improve. Someone in the mould of you know who down the road.
We also need someone with a distinct vision of how the game should be played. Emery’s chameleon approach is non-committal. How many teams have successfully been able to implement both possession football and counter-attacking at the same time? It’d be a monumental achievement to make that happen, and we certainly couldn’t do that on a budget.
My big worry is clearing out problematic players is all well and good, but if you are replacing into a blurred vision of football, you are actually further damaging the club. Emeryball is awful to watch. It’s not the next level. But we appear to be going hard at giving a failing manager the keys to our next 3 years. That is a terrifying prospect.
Is chameleon football part of The Arsenal DNA?
I had hoped not.
I was hoping that the good bits Wenger left would remain. I want Arsenal to play the most electric brand of football on the planet. I want Arsenal to embark on a transfer policy that prioritises the best young players that boast extreme technical capabilities, combined with outrageous power and pace. Give me what Ajax and Dortmund have, but bump it up two notches.
Instead, we’ll fall back on ‘class’, which is code for ‘lack of ambition’, and we’ll kick to tough decision can down the road for next season.
It’s a brutally miserable view, but the MD of the club apparently sent out an e-mail asking for people to get some perspective on yesterday. Someone ask Petr Cech whether that happens at CFC after an appalling showing at a final? Barcelona? Madrid?
The real perspective is we’re not built for success. We have a fancy structure, but as I keep on saying, if you do not fill that with the very best people, you are in trouble.
That said, the one HUGE positive I can give you is the noise around Edu is very positive. Firstly, there’s no kingmaker aspect to this hire. Raul is hiring him in because he’s good. You don’t do great things at Corinthians, then take a job with Brazil to be told by Raul you have to sign Ever Banega. Edu also has a lot of sauce about him, the guy looks money, and he knows the DNA of Arsenal and Brazil.
… but he has to be allowed to take an axe to the substandard people at Arsenal. He has to implement a vision, set aggressive targets and hold people accountable for delivering them. We cannot continue to skip along into the footballing abyss pretending our problems are going to be solved by throwing a boatload of cash at people that don’t know how to send it.
Right, that’s me done, see you in the comments.
DM
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Tr4phy
Marko I’ll guarantee you that Willock will not be loaned Neither will Maitland NilesWishful thinking on your part We have £40m to spend. Emery failed to attain champions league status Have you not been watching us over the last 6 weeks? We are about as appealing as thrush thrush right now and the club have made clear to expect youth to be pushed forward next seasonIn short: don’t get your hopes up for shiny new toys, you’re going to be disappointed. Same shit different manager. The club have been talking the piss out of fans from the day we moved… Read more »
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I’ll guarantee you that Willock will not be loaned
Neither will Maitland Niles
You love a good average player don’t you Don. AMN shouldn’t just be sold he should be shot out of a cannon from a speeding train over a nice meadow filled with thorn bushes.
We’ve all heard the gambon stuff before it’s not new or shocking Pedro. What is shocking is the expectant improvement inside a season at Arsenal. Agree or disagree I think more and more people are realising that it’s not a quick fix to sort out Arsenal after the latter part of the Arsene Wenger era. It also doesn’t help that we have an owner totally uninterested in the goings on at Arsenal
Marko
Am I wrong? Did Willock out perform the rest of our midfield?
Will he be loaned next season? How do you know he’s average? I’m sure you thought Milner and Henderson were average until klopp has them dominating Barca fucking lona
Willock could very well turn out to be a great midfielder for us. You won’t kniw if you don’t give him the chance
He’s certainly not fazed by the big occasion as evidenced in the final.
As an aside i think Emery was trying to pass a message when he said the below in that interview with El Mundo or something
“I want to ensure that the defeats hurt more, because it is a step to improve competitively. I want the mourning of defeat to be greater than two hours.”
Peter Cech also touched on it
Seems our players reaction to defeat leaves a lot to be desired, they just accept it and move on.
Ive stuck up for Emery all season as in all honesty we’ve been poor squad wise for years. But I did expect some improvements and unfortunately he has failed to deliver. Not just the last 5 games but the Europa League final was an absolute disgrace against an average Chelsea team. If he can’t improve the squad with 70 million then what the fuck will he improve with basically same team plus 40 million to spend. Truth is his times up at Arsenal and it would be unfair to him as well to prolong his stay any longer.
Marko
Yes we expect an improvement with a “better coach” and £70m spent on defensive players
Not regression
Otherwise why bother hiring emery at all
This summer I’m more interested in who we can sell, instead of who we can bring into the club. I remember 2000-2012 when we would head into the summer worried we would lose a big name from the club. With this current team, is there anyone that you feel the same way about? Lacazette…maybe?
A cracking post. Like I said earlier in the comments, it is difficult to even come up with one reason why we should persist with Emery.
Attributing the failure and collapse entirely on the players and the management is selective myopia.
I seriously hope the silence from Arsenal is towards Josh and the Management giving a serious thought to the Emery experiment.
Marko
On AMN
I disagree. He’s not a right back and he’s done well there. Better than jenkison and Lichtensteiner who’ve both played right back at top league level and champions league for years
If you’re expecting the boy to immediately turn into Cafu then you’ve set your expectations too high
Funny because you’ve set the bar so low for emery, I wonder how you ever had a gripe with wenger at all. Emery can’t put coach his weakest season in 22. Sad but true
“Exclusive interview with Liverpool owner John W Henry on all Sky Sports News platforms now. Says winning Champions League won’t make up for missing out on the title. Liverpool will go again and invest this summer to make sure they win Premier League next season”
Dissenter, there’s what I’m talking about regarding mentality and approach.
Compare these utterances with Vinai’s INTERNAL message of ‘stick together guys, we’re mint’.
“What is shocking is the expectant improvement inside a season at Arsenal.”
Are you serious? Fans can’t expect even a small improvement in 50 odd games.
Get your head out of your ass!
“We’ve all heard the gambon stuff before it’s not new or shocking Pedro. What is shocking is the expectant improvement inside a season at Arsenal“
Heard it all before but you don’t seem to wrap your head around what’s being argued.
Look at the trajectory of improvement with the respective managers. Then answer why Emery wasn’t able to deliver a positive curve but Klopp was – with less games, no signings, and no pre-season?
It’s such a glaring point at this stage, it’s not speculative, it’s not deluded, we haven’t improved.
I refuse to get into a debate with anyone with regards to AMN anymore. He’s so blatantly bang average it’s unreal. Either they don’t see it or they can’t see it. Either way it’s a waste of my time to discuss such an obvious poor player.
“Attributing the failure and collapse entirely on the players and the management is selective myopia.”
You witnessed something you have witnessed again and again, what’s the common denominator here? Yes the players …there is a reason some of us have it in for the players while ignoring the manager who has been here a year and has probably just a year more to go if he does not deliver
Marko
As it is with anyone who refuses to see what a catastrophic failure Unai Emery has been as manager of arsenal.
“We have good players, we need a new manager to get us the results.”
“Oh, it’s the players!”
“It’s such a glaring point at this stage, it’s not speculative, it’s not deluded, we haven’t improved.”
Yea probably because your key players have hit their ceiling and have no room for improvement
I mean if every player can be improved why do most coaches do a squad overhaul
Pochettino has brought in 23 players at Spurs for example
If 5 players at 70m is the magic number for improvement why the need for 18 more
Bunga
Exactly!! Nail on head
Rh
Every single player in our squad bar Cech and jenkinson can be improved by klopp or pep or klopp.
“We have good players, we need a new manager to get us the results.”
No one here has ever said we have a good squad, yes some think the U23 are mint or we should have kept “super jack” but most of the anger towards Wenger was his poor squad building and waste of money of average to poor players
“Every single player in our squad bar Cech and jenkinson can be improved by klopp or pep or klopp.”
Whatever makes it easier for you to sleep at night
Yet Pep has spent 600m at City who had a better squad than ours when he joined
Receding
“Yea probably because your key players have hit their ceiling and have no room for improvement”
I’m struggling to understand your point.
Are you suggesting all our players played at their maximum this season?
Gambon just highlighted we performed better last season, so immediately that suggestion is untrue. I think you’re stretching the truth to epic lengths if you’re suggesting our players maxed out their inputs this season and couldn’t have been improved by alternative coaching – or any coaching may be more accurate.
” Edu also has a lot of sauce about him, the guy looks money, and he knows the DNA of Arsenal and Brazil.”
Looks seem to mean a lot to you Pedro, this is football not Mr Macho or Mr Universe. I don’t care how ugly you look as long as you deliver on your KPI’s
Honestly there was no improvement. Improvement would’ve been finishing 3rd like we should’ve with the last 5 games but the players and Emery failed so they should both be axed. Why reward such a pathetic way in which the failures transpired with another year of lets face it, the same shit. We can start over. Other clubs sack their failing coaches + players so why not us? I don’t see what the fuss is about. Axe them and move on. Sheesh! Peace out!
Then answer why Emery wasn’t able to deliver a positive curve but Klopp was – with less games, no signings, and no pre-season? Both are not comparable. I honestly don’t know why people always did it. What Klopp inherited and was able to do at Liverpool isn’t the same as what was at Arsenal. Plus they’re different managers. Klopp is a better manager. The comparison was always pointless I thought. A better comparison would have been Emery to the other candidates last summer but that’d be hypothetical. I’ll say one thing though if Emery inherited some hard workers like Henderson… Read more »
“Other clubs sack their failing coaches ”
Other clubs sack their winning coaches. I thought after Wenger we are entering this new territory for us.
Looks like all we want to do is reward failures.
“But we appear to be going hard at giving a failing manager the keys to our next 3 years. That is a terrifying prospect.”
Nothing terrifying here
He has one year left on his deal and an option for a third which i reckon is based on performance. If Raul sticks to his words and Edu is as good as you think his performances will be well evaluated
There was always a chance we would not qualify for the champions league this season, i don’t buy into the pretense we all thought it was nailed on, it wasn’t.
4 points in 18 points available.
Not a single so called top club.
That should be enough regardless of the europa result.
“Gambon just highlighted we performed better last season, so immediately that suggestion is untrue.”
Did we now? Well that’s news to me
Last season was the worst i have ever seen Arsenal, but you are of course allowed to draw your own conclusions or in this case follow gambon’s
We are not built for success, says Pedro. Then he goes on to berate Emery and absolve the owner. The irony is glaring. Emery’s coaching has taken us backwards, says Pedro. May very be true, but pales in comaparison to how aloof Kroenke’s ownership has stagnated us for a decade. Perspective please, Senor Pedro. Emery may be crap, but Stan is a crappier. And yes, he’s in it for the bottom line only. He pretty much said so a few years back in an interview when he didn’t agree that winning trophies was the ultimate measure of success. Mediocrity has… Read more »
Gambon just highlighted we performed better last season
… you do realize that we have some players that have been declining year on year right? Ozil 9 then 8 then 3 assists. Monreal and Koscielny obviously steadily declining. That certain aspects of this team is worse from last year isn’t a surprise because you have the same declining players. I’ll make a bet with you if you see Mustafi and Kolasinac and Monreal and Koscielny and Ozil in Arsenal’s team next season you will not see an improvement.
Peter Cech reckons a lot of good work has gone into this season and we will reap the rewards going forward
Sokratis thinks the same
Two experienced heads who have been around and played under some very good coaches
Forgive me if listen to what they have to say more than i listen to you Charles
And all this Klopp nonsense has to end, he is on a different level to Emery
Emery is on a different planet to Arteta the man he beat for the job
Anyway this whole thing is pointless he’s not being sacked this summer. Maybe next but not this. It would set some precedent to prospective future managers improve us and have us playing good football inside one season or else. And us a Europa league team with Europa League players. Poor old Paddy Vieira or Nagelsmann are destined for failure
You ever heard of Goodhart’s Law? In it’s truest form it’s “Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.” but the lay version is “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” This is relevant, because you hold up goals scored, goals conceded, chances, xG etc as why we didn’t make progress. Yes, you want to improve on these metrics, but you can’t make them targets because then you start peppering shots from the half-way line, or playing a flat back five to stop other teams… Read more »
Marko
I find it hilarious that you are so backed into a corner on Emery that you just refuse to even accept you may be wrong.
This constant deferring of improvement until further down the line.
You seem to think that a team should be no better after 11 months, £70m, 50 games and 200 training sessions?
So how long does it take? 16 years? 120years?
Should we expect to concede 48 goals in the year 2214?
Biggles,
No one targets xG.
It’s a supporting metric to get under the skin of true performance.
Sometimes you can beat it, but generally, xG gets corrected over a season.
Emery and OGS found this out.
I wrote about it at the time… my take was we’re either going to come out the back end of all this xG luck and get better as Emery’s ideas settle, or we’re going to get a massive correction.
We landed the correction.
RH, you don’t seem to care about KPIs when it comes to Emery?
Receding
Take what players in a team are saying about the Club with a pinch of salt.
It is a dictatorship at football Clubs and a manager decides factoring how much he likes you. So players usually are buttering up.
Like everyone, Pedro is entitled to his own view, and that view is that the principal problem at Arsenal is not the squad but Emery. That’s fine, he’s a well-informed and opiniated blogger with a substantial following. My fear is that his views are aligned with a faction of managers within the club. I’m not sure that they’re the decision-makers, but they would certainly have an input into the decision making process. And because it’s cheaper to hire and fire a manager than it is to radically re-shape a squad, that faction is likely to attract the ear of Stan… Read more »
Champagne, that John Henry comment is for the players, the staff and the fans.
We mean business.
That’s winning mentality. Shoot for the stars.
“Sometimes you can beat it, but generally, xG gets corrected over a season.”
Pochettino has beat xG through out his tenure at Spurs……
I’d like hear your explanation on that.
Emery should first try to find his own style instead of copying and mixing other managers’s styles.That wont Ever work.If we can get Allegri then we should definitely axe emery(highly unlikely though).Yes klopp had improved liverpool but they still finished 8th ,8th!.Emery bottled it towards the tail end of the season but that was also the result of injuries to key players and fatigue.Emery’s training and indoor work was too much for the players and didnt he know that theres no winter break in the Prem(thats a mistake on his part which he will definitely correct the coming season.).Anyways whatever… Read more »
Pedro Come off it you are being ridiculous in your analysis of Emery’s track record this season. Okay we had a disappointing end of season and a particularly bad performance in Wednesday’s game. However, the idea that we were worse than last season as implied by the so-called stats of Gambon is nonsense. We won more games and lost fewer than last season + more points and we beat Chelsea, Spurs and Man Utd this season. Also we reached the Final of Europa Cup which we did not manage to do last season. What is true is that there are… Read more »
“RH, you don’t seem to care about KPIs when it comes to Emery?”
Ha ha ha
Words, I’m not saying there is one problem to fix at Arsenal. I’m saying the manager is the easiest to fix short term… and that trying to fix the other problems with a bad manager isn’t a plan.
You seem to think that a team should be no better after 11 months, £70m, 50 games and 200 training sessions? No I’ve never said that you shouldn’t expect improvement my argument has always been we haven’t improved with certain players still at the club I’m not surprised at all. That people expect improvement with a core group of poor players some of whom are undoubtedly declining is a bit of a stretch. I’d be making the same argument whoever the manager was. It would have been great if Emery was able to improve many aspects of our play inside… Read more »
RH, you don’t seem to care about KPIs when it comes to Emery? I do We started the season quite well, yes the numbers weren’t adding up but there was a change in general attitude and application, that disappeared the minute we lost at Southampton. These group of players love an excuse to perform at the very minimum, they fell back to their usual selves. We brought him on to compete for a top four finish, a club like Arsenal do not need a special sauce manager to beat Brighton and Palace at home, players doing their jobs should see… Read more »
Stroller, so-called? Or actual stats?
Being offended by hard data is very weird.
Replacing the manager is secondary to, and a distraction from, the urgent and primary task of applying a scalpel, nah scrap that, a bone-saw to this squad, removing the decaying tissue and replacing it with vigorous fresh tissue.
“there is a reason some of us have it in for the players while ignoring the manager who has been here a year and has probably just a year more to go if he does not deliver” Yep, and there is a reason all of us who wanted Wenger out, and were content with Emery, still predicted us to finish 5th/6th this year. We have two limited strikers whose sole purpose or talent is converting chances and not much else. Absolute poverty midfield. Of course we are going to out-perform XG or straddle the line. There are no Hleb and… Read more »
Emery is destined to fail anyway there’s already a percentage of the fanbase turned on him so it really is a matter of time before he’s ditched. Next summer though not this. The question will then become will his replacement have a season to show he is up to the job?
Pedro, seeing overall results correlate with a metric that was an outlier when averaged over a shorter time isn’t the same thing as saying Emery missed any kind of KPI. That’s basically my whole point, which you’ve more or less just gone and said the same thing. Which brings it back to “it’s the squad”. A place higher in the league, more points, making a European final instead of a semi-final… that’s all progress in KPI terms. Marko’s point about the decline year on year of certain players like Monreal is true. We can all see it on the pitch.… Read more »
And what even makes Emery a bad manager ??? I don’ get the persistent bad manager jibes
This man has paid his dues as far as football management is concerned, i don’t get the blatant disrespect. Yes Pedro you don’t fancy him but at least stop making it seem like we hired a fraud who has never achieved anything of note in football management
It muddles up all the good points you are making
LThe comparison was always pointless I thought. A better comparison would have been Emery to the other candidates last summer but that’d be hypothetical.“
Speaks volumes. So instead of benchmarking a strategy against another club with similar infrastructure and means. You’d rather argue hypothetically. Elite stuff
” I’m saying the manager is the easiest to fix short term… and that trying to fix the other problems with a bad manager isn’t a plan.” You don’t win the Europa league 3 times if you are a bad manager. Koscielny is 33 Monreal is 33 Sokratis is 30. Ozil, Mkhitaryan and Elneny are useless. We still run a self sustaining model. If you think the best use of limited funds is to sack a manager and take a gamble on another without getting in quality players, then I have nothing to say. By the way, check Liverpool’s xGa… Read more »
“There are no Hleb and Rosickys in our squad constantly calling for the ball and attacking defences and opening teams up.”
A player like Hleb will be like an injection of a performance enhancement drug to this team. a player that can take two to three opponents out the game with an outrageous bit of skill
Yet somehow Pep bought him and failed to get the best out of him..riddle me that , going to great lengths to convince a player and not using him
“By the way, check Liverpool’s xGa before and after VVD and see what quality players can do to xG.”
Or just check what Jurgen Klopp was able to do with 30 games, no pre-season, and no money.
Pedro There is a disconnect between the problems you identify and your solutions, In fact, a gaping hole. It reads like a bit of PR, exciting but empty. For example, who hired Emery? Stan, the man you absolve of all blame. Who approved him? Raul, the man whose appointment you celebrated. What make you certain that their replacement for Emery will be any better? The problems at Arsenal when Raul/Emery arrived seem to me to be (and still are) far worse than those faced by Klopp at Liverpool. He inherited Coutinho, nobody earned £350 K per week. Utter ruthlessness is… Read more »
I wonder though if going forward the next managers target will be to improve our xG and all that as opposed to points or league position.
“Or just check what Jurgen Klopp was able to do with 30 games, no pre-season, and no money.”
With an identical squad??
With fullbacks who aren’t fullbacks??
A midfield who can’t get out of a press??
Two creative players who are semi retired??
Emery glaring failure is setting up a tight defence. Pedro’s analysis of his past record clearly shows his warts.
Bould was retained for continuity as well as for for defensive acumen. Emery apparently is no less a manipulator than Wenger and somehow infiltrated his old defensive shit coaches intoArsenal and the results are obvious and Bould is pushed into insignificance.
Perhaps, until a DF came in Kroenke Jr. at whose behest Bould was retained should have interjected to set things right. That’s the advantage of having passionate owners instead of dry sponges.
More points than last season, further in Europe, is a successful first season with this listless squad. I don’t care either way about Emery but I think it really stupid to fire coach now because we are going to bring in another coach new to England and then we have another wasted year while new guy gets up to speed on what it like in premier league. No one would be complaining about Emery if we won one more game this season and qualified for Champs League. The end of season was horrendous but that was due to lackadaisical players… Read more »
We scored similar goals to last season even though we took fewer shots. According to data, we beat our XG but to anyone who is more interested in why that happened(that is people that don’t have an agenda), we upgraded in the striking department.
If Giroud and Aubameyang take the same number of shots, its almost certain Aubameyang will score more…
Would you say Aubameyang is beating XG or would you just accept that he is a better striker than Giroud?
You cant improve a team without improving the xG vs xGA differential.
You dont seem to understand this Marko, thats the problem.
Youre effectively a flat-earther when it comes to this stuff.
Speaks volumes. So instead of benchmarking a strategy against another club with similar infrastructure and means. You’d rather argue hypothetically
I’d rather not argue at all. I’d also rather not make a comparison to a great manager who has done a remarkable job in 4 years with a good manager who’s not done great in one. The scenarios are completely different I don’t know why people are going to compare the two
Klopp had players at Liverpool that were very much in his image. The likes of Henderson, Milner, Firmino Can…gave him an athletic base to build from. It’s not as is he’s bought a load of flair players since that are wildly different from them. Wijnaldum is another worker in their mould.
i meant a big ozil fanboy up there .*
“Or just check what Jurgen Klopp was able to do with 30 games, no pre-season, and no money.
I thought we were talking about xGa’s and xG?
Azed
Auba & Laca didnt exceed their xG at all.
They scored exactly the number of goals that their shots and shot locations deserved.
So that doesnt explain it.
And if Emery is poor coach, what about Poch and Sarri who barely finished above Arsenal with considerably better squads?
Azed
We are.
Klopp slightly improved Liverpools average xGA and massively improved their xG in his first 30 games, with no pre-season, and no transfers.
Arsenals xG and xGA is worse now than it was at the start of the season.
Of 38 players listed as on Liverpool’s books when Klopp took over, 16 of them are still there. A few of them are out on loan. Of those that have left, some were on frees (Can), some were sold for huge money (Coutinho), some have retired (Toure). Looking at our squad right now, how many would you still expect to be here in 4 years time? Leno, Torreira, Lacazette, Bellerin. Maybe a couple of youngsters who might still be on the books and out on loan having never made it. The Liverpool squad that Klopp took over was better than… Read more »
“And if Emery is poor coach, what about Poch and Sarri who barely finished above Arsenal with considerably better squads?”
Come off it
Are you suggesting we only missed out a third place finish by three points??
Are you saying we scored more league goals than Chelsea and Spurs??
Are you saying we finished higher than Spurs and Chelsea in the top six mini league??
Are you saying all this happened with a manager in his first year of English football managing long term injuries in defense?
Surely that can’t be right
“Last season was the worst i have ever seen Arsenal, but you are of course allowed to draw your own conclusions or in this case follow gambon’s“
There’s no following of anything, I’ve my own view on it but it’s been buttressed empirically by Gambons analysis.
But you’re not sniping on here, def not.
Gambon
Buying better players would automatically improve you xG and xGa.
Having prime John Terry instead of Mustafi would instantly improve our defence without coaching.
Emery never plays with a back 3 but due to the nature of our players, he was forced to change his system. XG and XGA don’t take that into consideration.
Do you think Klopp would be able to play his heavy metal football with a midfield of Xhaka and Ozil?
“Or just check out what Klopp was able to do – no preseason and no money”
Actual goals against 2014/15: 48 (before Klopp)
Actual goals against 2015/16: 50 (Klopp’s first season – no preseason)
But no doubt you’re happy to ignore the actual metrics and focus on the Expected metrics.
You dont seem to understand this Marko, thats the problem.
I could swear we’ve had a better points total and better points against the other top 6 side. Anyway forget it no improvement whatsoever. Time for Godzilla
azed
Your points are completely irrelevant
Klopp managed to improve performance significantly WITHOUT buying a single player.
Emery has made no improvements despite a pre-season, £70m spent, and 5 new players.
“But you’re not sniping on here, def not.”
Oh come on man
Man up and make your points, enough with the sniping nonsense
Is this a cry for attention from Pedro??
It will be a pity if you genuinely believe Arsenal were a better team last season than this season ..a real pity
Marko Then why bother changing managers at all? What’s the point if we have the 5/6th best squad? Why did we waste our time with emery? All we needed was a new squad. Look. Emery has been hired to improve these players. All we had to do was win 1/6 games v mid table teams. Had the stall been set out correctly we’d have achieved champions league football. The final would have been a nasty end to the season but we’d have achieved our goal. The man failed. He had an easy run in with players who have been dismantling… Read more »
Marko
Godzilla was quality.
Gambon quick question what happens if after another summer of purchases our xG and all that improves next season what then?
So we beat Spurs, Chelsea,Napoli,Valencia because we have good players and we lost to Brighton and Palace because we have a bad coach
Solid argument …you win today Un na nai
The only hard statistics are goals for, goals against, points total, and league position.
Everything else is either a derived number (e.g. expected goals) or illustrative (“shots faced”) and therefore only indicative and secondary
Words
Conveniently chosing to ignore the 11 extra goals Liverpool scored vs 2014/15
Then why bother changing managers at all?
Cause Wenger was a cunt and he had us declining. Contrary to what his xG was we were declining
“Gambon quick question what happens if after another summer of purchases our xG and all that improves next season what then?”
Erm, i dont really understand this.
Maybe i should start telling people what my expected income is against my actual income
That should improve my credit rating
Pity at the end of the day i still wouldn’t have enough to offset my debts
By using the terms “indicative” and “secondary” I don’t mean to dismiss those stats, but to put them into context.
They are useful for coaches to indicate areas of performance strength and weakness. They are not necessarily foolproof in saying whether manager x is “shit” or “special sauce”
Receding
So we lost to Palace, Southampton, Leicester, Wolves because we dont have good enough players….
….but beat UTD, Chelsea, Spurs, Valencia and Napoli because of our awesome manager.
Thanks for clarifying