via @Arsenal
HAPPY NEW YEAR! HOW ARE YOU FEELING? Ok, ok, I’ll stop the shouting, but I will maintain a quiet energy with the prose because I need you up for the BIG game today.
It’s a huge one, Arsenal takes on Manchester United at home for Arteta’s 3rd game.
I think it’s a stretch to think we’re going to take points from them today. A draw would be excellent work, 3 points would have us all buzzing, but when you look at how their squad is fitness-wise and look at ours, it makes for grim reading.
We are missing a lot of defenders, which is difficult to deal with because even when we’re fully fit, we’re not exactly 90s Milan at the back. There might be some good news with regards to Bellerin who is close to returning, but knowing how fragile he’s been, you’d be hard-pressed to imagine he’ll start.
The manager was keen to impress that the defensive failures at Chelsea; with a very weak backline, were not structural.
“It wasn’t a transition where we had a bad structure or a bad organisation, when we are defending big spaces on equal numbers or are outnumbered – it wasn’t the case at all,”
“We made one half-bad decision [to back off] and these teams, when in space, they punish you, for sure. But the other option is to defend all the time and be there [in defensive areas] and we don’t want that.”
So at the very least, we’ll be prepared to deal with United. They have extremely fast forwards, they’ll probe for counter-attacks and they’ll look to stretch us using width. Arteta only recently tasted a loss against them when he was at City, it was quite a lucky United performance, but OGS had his team of workhorses make last years Champions look very old.
Going forward is where we’ll have to provide something more interesting. Containing their threat won’t be enough, we need to create chances. The good news here is Gabriel might be back in contention, his aggression in the press and all-round threat could be highly valuable to us. I’d also imagine we’ll be seeing a start from Pepe, there has to be some rotation today and that seems like the most obvious place to start. It’s hard to work out what the issue is with the Ivorian because no one will say explicitly, but it reads a blend of work rate and general fitness levels. 3 managers in a row can’t be wrong.
Ceballos is also back in contention, people forget he’s a young player, under a coach that helps him, he might be U21 Championship Dani, so it’s a new start for him.
Xhaka is also fit. Again, not my favourite player, but he’d start in our midfield at the moment. If he doesn’t play, we’ll know he’s off to Berlin. Worry with him is he mails it in as a final fuck you to the fans that booed him.
I mused before the manager started that he’d look for a turnaround project, and it seems he has one, he’s going all out to make Mesut Ozil the star of the show again. Makes sense, he’s used to having lots of #10 like talents to work with at City and on his day, no one can touch Ozil. Additionally, we have no one that gets close to him on the creativity front. We are a more intelligent team with him at his best. The German looks happy on the pitch, he’s put in two dirty shifts, he’ll have another chance to find his level again today and hopefully offer something more decisive.
“Mesut is putting in everything he has and his numbers, physically, have improved so much,”
“On his own he can’t do it. He needs the collective structure, organisation and his teammates. He needs the team to play in a certain way to facilitate his strengths more and more in the game. That’s what we’re trying to do.
“I put him in the team if I see every day that his attitude, desire and understanding of what we’re trying to do is there. The moment that this changes, then he won’t play.”
At the end of the day, he loves living in London, he loves his contract, and he’s a human… he’ll want to be impressing the fans, no one wants to be hated. He might also have the afterlife on his mind, if he tanks another manager, no one will risk giving him the big bucks in 18 months. Wenger didn’t have a machine that worked for him towards the end, Emery couldn’t see past running him into the ground in a shit system… it seems like Arteta has a more thoughtful approach to extracting creativity from him, whilst pushing him to support the system. It’ll be very interesting to see what the physical output looks like today, because he has done a lot of work in a short space of time. Some will say we’ve seen this film before, but maybe with a more elevated thinker in the dugout, it could be a different ending this time.
The main worry I have about today is how another loss will affect morale. Bournemouth was just an unlucky day at the shooting range, the Chelsea game was bad luck with fitness and Mustafi… we really need a result to prove out the hard work and progress. The fans will be buzzing for the game this evening, a classic win would be a great way to start the year, let’s see where we land.
Right, that’s me done, see you in the comments x
Forget to mention.
Happy New Year to yo all.
Watch the Sokartis and Luiz post match interview if you haven’t already.
Its good 👌
Azed, “When Emery played Ramsey, you went on a tirade, now Arteta has done the same thing, I expect your long post on how Arteta doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Don’t let the fact gets into the way of your obfuscation. The medical team had told Emery not to play Ramsey, he overruled them and it backfired. There is no indication that the medical team was against Kolasinac involvement in yesterday’s game. If there is, I would make the same comment: it’s a bad call and being lucky once does not mean that repeating that bad call will not lead… Read more »
“Watch the Sokartis and Luiz post match interview if you haven’t already.”
It was basically them saying Emery is a bum without actually saying it.
Like when kept arguing that Arsenal were top of the running distance last season when official numbers clearly show they were not.
Can you point how many times I have mentioned the above?
Why did Freddie complain about the attitude of the players?
Freddie and Shad were in charge of the player conditioning for 3 weeks, what happened?
Did they also under train the players?
It looked to me as if Arteta told pepe that when the opposition have the ball to just get goal side and don’t let AMN get outnumbered, which he did to good effect.
And when we have the ball for pepe to retain possession and be more patient in his play.
Playing with Ozil , Pepe should understand that if you give the ball to Ozil, you are only loaning him the ball as he always gives it back…
Valentin
Was Emery supposed to train the players to the level Arteta wanted or to the level he wanted?
Is pedro writing an 18 pages, FRONT AND BACK post?
Valentin
Since you are an expert on Arsenal training and conditioning, it will be good to explain to us what happened in the 3 weeks that Freddie and Shad were in charge.
https://www.sofascore.com/arsenal-tottenham/IsR
Another torreira heatmap of him on the wing in one of his few emery starts this season
Kolasinac is becoming a sort of cult hero.
Torreira was excellent.
Best game( work rate) Ozil’s ever had. GX also very good.
Lacazette, no goals but you’ve got to love the guy. Maguire was shitting himself.
Pepe, another step forward.
Luiz has suddenly woken up.
Everyone else, very good.
Arteta………..Thanks!
“Is pedro writing an 18 pages, FRONT AND BACK post?”
Pedro is not done soiling his pants.
Give the man time, there’s lots of built up energy that needs releasing.
Valentin, Pretty sure Arsenal were top for distance covered for first 10-15 game weeks last season… As for player being able to handle intensity required by Arteta, let’s wait till we get some of our injured players back or wait till game frequency decreases… Chelsea rested Mount and Emerson, substituted Willian around 60 mins mark, Kovacic was suspended, before playing us. We were playing with almost same players just 40-50 hrs before…. On top of that they could bring in Jorginho(top 5 DLP at present??) to change their tactics. Of course we lacked intensity after intial burst, especially against their… Read more »
Maybe before doing many blow jobs to Arteta, we could wait a bit longer, see what happens against stronger teams ??
Remember we were over the moon after Emery’s first months… so for myself I prefer to be cautious and see what happens.
But the players seems to be happy, so it’s already a good news.
https://mobile.twitter.com/James_Dart/status/1212640927577202689
Said Benrahma has been doing bits in the championship. Great player to watch
Right now the players need a rest. Would give them a couple days off and then hopefully let Arteta get more of his ideas through in training.
Jim “Credit where credit is due, Ozil was fantastic. When he wants to be, he is unplayable. Remember a moment last night where he sold Maguire down the river and was chopped down.” I think he can do better, yesterday he only did the things on the ball that he has been doing for the last couple of years ….though I have to say ,he was much better off the ball. It’s just what he does , he makes the game look too easy at times due to his superior technique and immaculate first touch . I have never doubted… Read more »
Let’s just remember that Emery left Ozil out of even the Europa league squad this season…let that sink in .
Brooklyn, That was exactly what I said earlier and that Azed disagreed with. Arsenal were top of distance covered and number of sprints until January. I made the point that doing double session in November was a recipe for future injuries and tiredness. This is exactly what happen. Injuries started to take its toll and the team physically collapsed. In the end Arsenal did not finished as top in term of distances covered nor number of sprints per 90 minutes. We had a person in charge of conditioning that was completely new to the EPL, not fully realising it relentless… Read more »
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/mikel-arteta-confirms-transfer-meeting-21198393
Everyone with proper coaching and tactical understanding is improving. AMN isn’t and would be stupid enough to know he couldn’t nail down the RB slot to make it his own.
Personally I think someone behind the scenes has said to him, maybe FJ, that sorts out some errors and the knowledge on positioning and defending, his athleticism will keep him in good shape.
Just loved how we looked content at 2-0 and it felt like we could actually hold on.
Crazy.
Where’s Bamford?
Anyone want to wager that we’ll see a changing of goalposts by our resident Emery / KSE apologist to “prove” that he’s right about Arsenal achieving 10th place “at best” and the club being wrong about sacking the “genius” Emery.
Can we get an unequivocal apology from JM Bapple / Bamford / Mrs Emery?
Who on earth is twerking for Emery? Bring them here. I just want to walk.
“Let’s not blow this win against a poor Man Utd side out of proportion.”
Why are they poor? Because we won?
United have been in great form and hadn’t lost to a single top 6 side yet this season. Bar Liverpool, they have the quickest front three in the league. The reason they looked ‘poor’ was because of how we beat them into submission.
Let’s not blow this win against a poor Man Utd side out of proportion.
Struggling with this and wonder why Legrove has so many posters that wish the temper the excitement of fans. It’s part and parcel of following the beautiful games. We’ve also been on a wretched run of form so we should be feeling optimistic today.
Before the game, many were predicting a comfortable United victory so let’s not forget that also.
China maybe u should check the links you are Posting
First one was from yesterdays game. The last is a game that hasn’t been played yet.
Eh receding that’s weird and seems to be that the link doesn’t load correctly
Anyway if you wanna argue it go check our PL games against spurs and Utd from previously this season. The spurs game is October. Heatmap for torreira is plain as day
Valentin
That was exactly what I said earlier and that Azed disagreed with.
Stop lying.
You said Emery under trained the team. You said Emery changed the conditioning regime, now you are saying it’s the fitness guy.
Dissenter has told you so many times that you are not privy to things that happen inside Arsenal, stop passing your opinions are the gospel truth.
Julen Masach was the strength and conditioning coach that came with Emery and he was fired same time as Emery.
Can you please tell us who the guy that was let go is?
Interesting that some people are saying the players did a drill in the warm up that was basically the replica of how we got Pepe’s goal. Great to hear. Also agree with others saying it looks like Arteta is using Guardiola’s territory defence style press for 5 seconds and then drop into shape. Also you can see the players not even pressing when it doesn’t make sense and then going hard when they saw United players clustered or with their backs to play…that is the key to the press knowing when to go and when to not. When they went… Read more »
China your claim was that Emery used Torreira on the wings, if you can show me a single starting eleven where we started in a 4-2-3-1 or in a 4-3-3 or whatever with Torriera as a winger I will apologize.
Starting in a three man midfield does not a winger make. A winger is a forward
October match against Spurs his heatmap was hugging the fucking touchline dude and peppered with loads of spots all around the opposition box
Please stop reaching because you’re coming across as a proper Bamford about this
1st of October 2019 draw with utd
Cheers
Torreira was magnificent last night.
You rarely see players who just instinctively know where to put themselves to break up play.
Glad to hear Arteta talking about him as a ball winner, wanting to fight for every ball.
Need to give him a partner who can really make things happen in there.
New post!
I don’t even know why you are continuing to argue something that everyone on here apart from Bamford plainly saw and is evidenced by heatmaps Wing play and AM play for some of the rare starts he got Which again is part of the point because he only made a handful of starts all season under the utterly hapless emery because he was a bench player (who remembers us chasing games and torreira being brought on as a late sub? Why would you bring on a torreira post 80 mins when chasing a game if you plan to use him… Read more »
Oh you mean at old Trafford where we started with a 4-3-3 , Pepe and Saka on each flank? Matteo, Torriera and Granit in midfield? Guess Pepe was the DM that day and Torriera the winger Chambers was at full back that day, his mobility or lack of it means he will get caught out a lot when he goes forward and someone has to cover. And please stop with the coming across as bamford nonsense. You made a claim Torriera was used as a winger, a false claim and it was pointed out. Players especially DMs react to snuff… Read more »
Arsenal’s dilemma. Everyone who supports, writes about or even works at Arsenal know that our defence is not fit for purpose. We have attempted in recent years to shore up our leaky defence with low budget options or players who turned out to be duds like Mustafi. The situation has not been improved by the lack of talent coming through our Academy. Arsenal are in urgent need of recruiting one or two defenders in January on account of the long term injuries to both Tierney and now Chambers. Also both Bellerin and Holding have suffered serious injuries and we know… Read more »