The new temporary era of Freddie Ljungberg starts today and I have to be absolutely honest… I am VERY excited.
He’s making smart moves, Per Mertesacker is his assistant, he might be bringing Gilberto in for a helping hand, and he told the Arsenal.com team he was all about putting smiles back on the faces of players.
Freddie has gone on the record as saying he thinks players are happier when they’re playing exciting football, we know he was raised on some of most explosive attacking football the world has ever seen, so maybe we’re about to witness Wengerball 2.0.
He has the opportunity to make a claim for the job, to do well, he’s going to have thread the needle of some very tricky situations with the players and the football. Here are some items he’ll be looking to clarify.
The Xhaka thing:
There will be a blank slate for Granit Xhaka. It’ll be very interesting to see how a man with a more attacking vision sees the Swiss. A lot of the ‘he’s highly rated from within’ leaves me aghast. It doesn’t make sense that a player with so little discipline and so many errors in his game could be seen as this absolute essential to the team… but I guess we’ll find out. If he’s in the side, what is he doing and how are they going to protect the team against his bad habits?
Pressing:
Freddie likes high octane pressing. So did Wenger and Emery. No one can keep it going for longer than 3 games. How will Freddie discipline the team to press consistently, or at least in strategic moments during the game? There are big question marks as to whether his first-team forwards are even capable of this. Is Auba going to turn into that sort of player at 29? Does Lacazette have the stamina to do that? Or might the coach pull a wild card and start his younger players. He’s far more likely to get the sort of behaviour he wants our of Saka and Martinelli.
Pepe:
Our very one-footed wide man has looked pretty poor most of the season. It’s hard to move into a tough situation and perform and he certainly hasn’t managed to raise his game. He looks shot of all confidence, but maybe a new coach with a more exciting vision could spark something in him that we haven’t seen yet. He’s certainly not a bad player. If Conte could get Victor Moses firing, then there is hope for Pepe.
Transitions:
Our short game from the keeper has been slow, ineffective and quite frankly embarrassing. We struggle to transition out of defence most of the time, then if the ball makes into midfield, the gaps between the attack are monstrous. Freddie is going to have to get in the weeds with some real basics here, because we don’t move the ball through the phases with any sort of consistency. How is Freddie going to look at this problem, will he go more direct? Will he shorten the passing lanes? Will he bin the short passes out the back? I’m very interested to see how quickly he can impact the way we move the ball. I’m also hoping that we start playing through the middle again with some exciting one-touch combination passing.
The same in reverse. We often have no real shape when we’re hit on the counter-attack or even just under sustained pressure. Midfield is our biggest problem, the two deepest players, whoever they are, offer very little protection to the defence, either by taking up positions that are too deep, or just not being present in the right places. We do not defend as a unit, it’s a lot to expect in a few games, but it’d be nice to see some thinking go into action there.
It’s not really worth hitting you with the management stuff because it’s all very early stages, but I think one thing is clear from listening to Josh K, they will be overjoyed if Freddie can take things until the end of the season. Better choices will be on the market then and Edu, Huss, Raul and Vinnai can take their time over a decision.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, there really is no plan on the manager and we’re accruing a shortlist now because no one was thinking about exiting Emery this season. A staggering oversight when you consider that a proper club would have booted Emery in the summer. The football was quite clearly going nowhere, all the data pointed to total regression, and behind the scenes things were just as dire. Zero control. The bus driver running team motivation talks perfectly captured the managers’ approach. My point here, even if you truly believed in miracles, you’d at least get a backup list of names just in case.
The more worrying point for me about the shortlist that’s emerging is there’s no rhyme or reason to the candidates that we’re looking at. Nuno is a counter-attacking specialist that doesn’t believe in pointless possession. Allegri is the ultimate ‘get the job done’ pragmatist that builds systems around the tools he has at his disposal. Brendan Rodgers is a high pressing possession-based practitioner. Arteta will be Manchester City like entertaining possession-based attacking football. There’s no theme here, which likely means Edu doesn’t have a plan that he’s executing against.
If the club doesn’t know what it wants to be, how are they judging candidates? Your strategy can’t be a manager, because if that’s the case, your costs are huge every time you hire in a new philosophy. Chelsea, up until lately, always had deeply pragmatic managers that played a certain way. AVB, Conte, Mourinho are all cut from the same cloth. Barcelona always hire in specialists in of attacking based possession football because that’s their DNA, but beyond that, those values Cruyff instilled give the club stability. Every layer of the club believes the same thing. Every coach plays the same way. The scouting network knows what they are looking for. The fitness coaches know how to plan.
There’s a lot of talk about The Arsenal Way and whether that exists. It doesn’t. Edu is supposed to define what that is so we can build out talent that maps to the vision. My view is we should be a youthful execution of high octane pressing and intelligent possession-based football. We should be the most exciting team to watch in the world. We will never compete at the higher levels for elite adult talent, so we’ll have to grow it, or attract players like Martinelli and Guendouzi and ask them to give the first part of their careers to Arsenal. Young players need minutes and elite coaching. If we set a clear vision, it’d give clear parameters on the type of coach we need. It wouldn also focus what you’re looking for.
- Someone open to a longer-term project
- A manager happy to work on a budget
- Someone who can work with data analysts and support staff
- A person that can galvanise, not divide a backroom and a squad
- A clear communicator
- Someone that loves coaching
- Has a clear-eyed vision of where the game is going and how to keep up
- Someone with patience, because they’d be working with younger kids
- Someone with examples of how they’ve developed players
- A vision of how to implement a pressing regime
- A view of football that’s exciting
It would dictate the sort of fitness approach we’d need, it’d give the scouts a very clear brief for who and where they should be looking for talent, and it’d be a clear message to the fans… this project is not for now, we are building out Arsenal to be a Champions League final four outfit in 5 years. Bear with us, this is going to be spectacular.
The ‘cast the net wide’ and see what we like approach isn’t purposeful. When you don’t know what you’re looking for, you can be easily seduced by cheap Powerpoint presentations, great Wikipedia pages, and the sweet charms of Raul who can definitely vouch. We are better than that. I hope as the club push on in this process they get a little more specific about what they want, because a warm body won’t cut it. Not for the next hire.
One managerial story that I do find amusing is the Brendan Rodgers one. We all know he’d be desperate to move to a top club again. He’s doing a great job at Leicester, a club I feel is his level… but my point of raising this particular story is that he’s on the back page of one of the red tops with a headline alluding to Arsenal being his dream job. That is poor judgement to let anyone go off the record for you in such a blatant way. I wonder if that’ll impact the focus of his players, it looks very much like the mistake Marco Silva made when he was desperate for the Everton job despite being under contract at Watford. Didn’t end well there. Confidence is fragile at a football club, if the players think you’re purring over another job, things can go south very quickly.
Anyway, a huge day for Freddie, Per Mertesacker and the fans. I cannot wait to see what the sexiest man in management has to offer us.
Right, jump into our podcast before the game, it’s a cracker. We talk about Raul, managers, problems with Emery and our favourite targets. You can bypass the cost by giving it a 5* in iTunes.
See you in the comments!
Subs Freddie
We pass the ball like it’s a live hand grenade.
A guy called Pukey is running the show.
Pukki again
Has better touch than Auba lol
lol need to calm down a bit no shape at all being pulled apart
This is a team who’ve been getting told we must come together in our way for nearly two years
No wonder they are so disjointed
70th min subs. Optimum time apparently.
Leno auditioning for Bayern.
Has better touch than Auba lol
My 3 yo has a better touch than Aubameyang
ahhh the customary 70th minute subs how I miss that
Even Wenger would have made changes by now.
Someone needs to pinch Freddie and remind him that he is allowed to make changes.
Mustafi is terrible, why can’t s Freddie doing this to himself?
lol you can’t fault Xhaka’s effort there.
He’s just not very good off the ball.
Mustafi has been horrid today. A player who hasn’t scored since September has had his cheeks today on toast.
Also absolutely fuck Freddie Ljungberg off. Useless fucker still hasn’t made a sub despite passengers and awful players playing
Arsenal managerial interview process should now be:
Stage 1 – Would you pick Xhaka?
If successful
Stage 2 – Would you pick Mustafi?
If the answer to both is “not if my life depended on it” you’ve got the job.
“Bitter pill for some of you….…but Freddie, and whoever follows, have to first unfuck the muddled methods 18 months of Emery has imparted”
So much for the no agenda freebie spiel earlier on.
See the same wank players playing wank and it’s a dig at Emery as refuge reflex.
Receding
I said it was encouraging and stated exactly why. Don’t know how much clearer I can be in stating there was no expectation of much change from my POV.
You’re drawing that up as a good performance, consider me uninterested in you labelling anyone an embarrassment.
Other than being a fox in the box Auba offers f all
70th min sub… is Wenger tactic 101. Should be the name of his auto biography really.
Mustafi’s face worries me.
He could be the guy lurking behind you at an ATM or the guy who brings you the newspaper.
I don’t like it.
Freddie we need freshen up
Need fire power if you want to win that is
Willock injured. Torreira on
69 minutes and 47 seconds for the sub – has Ljungberg been possessed by the ghost of Wenger.
Honestly, if I were an opposition player seeing Ozil trying to press the ball, I would just burst out laughing.
70 minutes sub????? Wenger make 2
Willock for Torrier! No.
70th min. Yes!
So we’re happy with the 2-2 I guess? Against the 19th places team?
Oh Freddy.
Bernd baby Bernd keeper inferno
Torr should stay as CDM.
I was expecting a reaction performance from the players, forget Freddie for new.
This isn ‘t good enough.
This is an evenly contested game between us and our future rivals but its still there to be won.
Paulinho
Not a hard one to understand is it?
Freddie has taken one training session, I have zero expectations of him making any sort of change in that time frame. I actually don’t see him having much of an input period for reasons that have been mentioned more than once.
You meanwhile continue to trumpet this as the “worst squad since 1994”. Absolutely steeped in agenda with your player poverty garbage.
Ozil off. Martinelli on
Nothing about FL today has suggested he should even be allowed to take over interim.
Mustafi again!
I agree with Dissenter.
Regardless, this is just woeful as a marker.
Normally the new guy sets a buzz going. This team is finito I’m afraid.
Lol another Mustafi classic!!
Cmmon Fred.. Martinelli for Laca.
“ This is an evenly contested game between us and our future rivals but its still there to be won“
Left. I love you.
Champagne charlieDecember 1, 2019 15:10:10
Bitter pill for some of you….
…but Freddie, and whoever follows, have to first unfuck the muddled methods 18 months of Emery has imparted
>>>>
What a surprise. Yet you never once said the same thing about Emery having to unlock years of Wenger’s inept defending and shit players like Mustafi and Xhaka who are – oh yrs; still here fucking it up.
Agendas and all that hey.
Cut to the chase we have no mid field worth it’s salt Not able to feed the front properly and consistently. Meek.
Auba does f all yes but he can shoot. Laca becoming the opposite.
Mustafi stops playing.
Nightmare man
Pepe. Martinelli. Go three up front and take them.
Why the cowardice?
Jesus.
Mustafi again man
Jesus
Xhaka and Guendouzi have no recovery speed. Hopeless combination. Think we’ll knick it though, getting Pepe and Martinelli on now.
69 minutes and 47 seconds for the sub – has Ljungberg been possessed by the ghost of Wenger.
Don’t forget abject Mustafi and Xhaka performances and Özil drifting aimlessly in a game and getting 90 mins.
“” Other than being a fox in the box Auba offers f all”
I know.. He’s so annoying.. All he does is score plenty of goals
Chambers has a very unique manner of turning every prospective attack into panicky defense .
He’s been shocking today.
They need to help the new manager FFS.
We are a midtable team at best. Our defense is worse than the bottom three.
GOH
Freddie looks content with a point. All he needs to do to complete the afternoon is begin his post match interview with
“Birst of all, Good Ebening”
Pedro
You need to make a change to the site. I keep getting “duplicate comment” messages when I post that Mustafi / Xhaka have fucked up again.
Leno has poor long ball distribution. V poor.
Where’s the subs
Two chances to make things happen
Freddie surely can’t be happy with a draw??
Freddy making Smery look okay.
Post Unai I thought we’d win this comfortably it’s f**king Norwich!!
I am now deeply saddened by what I’m watching…
Players on that pitch do not deserve to represent Arsenal FC
Sadly no one within power at the club is aware of this…. depressing
I want PEPE the. Batman.
Lets win this shit… come on boys..
Charlie – There is nothing Emery-related to undo, and you will see the same shit from them regardless of how long Freddie has.
Apparently Wenger left us in fine fettle after twenty years, yet fly-by-night Emery has us in disarray. Right.
ikr GoH?
fuck this shit
where’s Pepe?
why Saka?
Makes sense Freddie is playing Saka. He knows him well.
lol at that Mustafi comment above.
Freddie must not want the job by persisting with him..
Utter shite for everyone to see along with Xhaka
“What a surprise. Yet you never once said the same thing about Emery having to unlock years of Wenger’s inept defending “
That’s exactly what I stated Emery was tasked with, but sure as shit you missed the memo what with putting your flip-flops on the right foot in the morning taking up the majority of your brain power.
Auba has 2 goals but to some he does fuck all. Without those goals, we’ll be 2 goals down. Without his goals this season, we’ll be in a relegation fight.
Saka on for Guen
Who’s rhe provider
why is this still low crosses?
I mean why the fuck is this tippy tappy bullshit
wrong wrong wrong
nein nein nein
He left Ozil and took off Guendouzi?
Okay…lets see how that goes
Ozil and Laca been both a waste. Shouldn’t have stayed this long. Would love if they do something good in the final 15 mins.
Left
You’re cracking me up today.
Guen couldn’t believe that he is off
You meanwhile continue to trumpet this as the “worst squad since 1994”. Absolutely steeped in agenda with your player poverty garbage.
Aren’t you doing the same thing by saying “I have zero expectations of him making any sort of change in that time frame. I actually don’t see him having much of an input period”
Ljunberg is not any different from Emery… He is shit if he can’t trust his wingers to go at Norwich at this late stage
What a surprise. Yet you never once said the same thing about Emery having to unlock years of Wenger’s inept defending and shit players like Mustafi and Xhaka who are – oh yrs; still here fucking it up. Benny He had 18 months and made us worse He changed the entire midfield and it got worse He got a new keeper, two new centre halves and a new left back and we got worse He got his new widemen to aid our strikers and they got worse. There’s no defending that. Wenger got worse than his previous glorified self Emery… Read more »
Right, so the £70m man isn’t even fancied in a must win game against the 19th placed team.
Wow. Whoever scouted that poor bastard needs locking up.
Xhaka will get the winning goal.
Saka??
Not sure about that at all
ooooof lads almost a backheel goal again but that is wrong we should be shite not attack or anything
shite shite shite
moan moan moan
And back we go
“Hmmm. Seems to be a flaw in your argument.”
No argument, fact. wake up Dorothy
just drive into the center la stab them straight into the heart
Come on Ozil… fk is that weak shot…
You can’t blame Freddie too much.
He has been : 1) Wengerized, and 2) Emeryzed.
He’s totally fucked up.
80 min gone. Still looks disjoint when it gets to last third. Nothing much to Auba as the striker.
Why is Auba in the RW?? Leave that to PEPE or Martinelli
Marko
Where’s the agenda in saying Freddie won’t have any impact after one training session?
Seems common sense. Remember you, and others, saying Emery had Wenger’s mess you truck through? Why is it any different for Freddie?
We play like we know we’re still getting paid at the end of the day. Know what I mean? There’s no hunger or desire.
Without pride in your own performance, it’s just a waste of time.
Look at the way Wright played and Vardy. Late starters but holy shit, hungry like the wolf.
Our lot just look happy to be getting cash money. Sad.
OlumideDecember 1, 2019 15:36:14
Auba has 2 goals but to some he does fuck all. Without those goals, we’ll be 2 goals down. Without his goals this season, we’ll be in a relegation fight.
Penalty and a tap in
He’s also wasted Possession in promising positions
The fat cunt Raul is watching
OlumideDecember 1, 2019 15:36:14
Auba has 2 goals but to some he does fuck all. Without those goals, we’ll be 2 goals down. Without his goals this season, we’ll be in a relegation fight.
Penalty (fucked the first one) and a tap in
He’s also wasted Possession in promising positions
He was lucky to get either
With Mustafi, Kolasinac, Xhaka and Ozil all on the pitch at the same time, are any of us really surprised? Wenger’s legacy. Throw in Luiz and Guenslowzy slowdozy, Chambers not quite being up to scratch and even Guardiola and Klopp would struggle. We have about the 6th best squad in the league and it shows. Freddie bottled the chance to show he wasn’t merely an extension of Wengemery incarnate. Should have been brave and ditched Xhaka, Mustafi, Ozil, Kolasinac and gone with Torreira, Saka, Martinelli, Pepe etc. This is not what I was expecting or hoping for at all. Very… Read more »
Chambers looks shot.
Lost the ball easily there
Aubameyang playing right-back. Thought Emery only did things like that.
Just remember, this is a man who sat there idly while Emery was tanking. There was gonna be no magic wand here.
Un na naai
Lucky or not, he scored 2 goals. He has done his job. If the defence were doing theirs, we’d be winning this game.
Very good defending by chambers twice there
Kola is the only defender who is OK today
Wtf is this
Norwich all over uS
Kola.. head butting fools, now. hahaha oh man.
Pepe would do well to instruct his agent to find him a new club. He’s underperformed so far but Emery and Freddie haven’t helped at all.
Seems common sense. Remember you, and others, saying Emery had Wenger’s mess you truck through? Why is it any different for Freddie?
It’s not the difference is it’s you who’s saying it you who claimed Arsene didn’t leave us in a state but Emery has. It’s consistency you know.
Martinelli on for ozil.
Too late.
Zero provider from mid field
chad Kola vs virgin McLean lol
just need one good chance to catch them off guard
yeah Martinelli to score
Ozil continuing to be a complete lightweight irrelevance.
Ozil with another game where he did fk all.
Ozil should’ve been subbed 10 mins ago.
Can we give the ball awau any closer to our goal. I mean may as well gift them an own goal while we are at it.
Freddie is rather clueless to be honest
He put in Martinelli in the 88th min?
Why wait that long?