Happy New Year to one and all! I hope you are nursing a bad hangover this morning. I wish I was. My bedtime was 0930 last night after picking up plane plague. I spent a load of money stocking the fridge prepared to battle, alas, the battle was lost. Now it’s dry January and I’ve got illicit goods staring at me every time I reach for the Athletic Greens pot.

Let’s talk about 2024 and some of the things I’d like to see happen this year.

The key premise is there are two areas of improvement I’d like to see. The first one is for the club to go hard at restoring the fraying relationship with fans by fixing the things they have broken in-stadium with tickets and going back to their 2022 mandate of making sure the stadium is red hot at every game.

The second one is about the Sporting Department going hard this summer to shift the squad rebuild project from IN PROGRESS to FINISHED PRODUCT.

If we can achieve those two things, we’ll be unstoppable for the next decade. If we don’t, it’ll be leaving things on the table unnecessarily.

WE’VE GOT OUR ATMOSPHERE BACK

You can hear the stadium noise through the TV, but people pretend you have to be there to experience it and understand the complicated nuance of it all. Well, I went to two games over the winter break and can confirm – the atmosphere ain’t it this season. To be more specific, I sat around different groups of people and mingled in the concourse both times and the lack of noise was a hot topic on every occassion.

Arsenal sends its surrogate fans out every week to explain away why each week the noise levels seem to get worse, but the consensus of not-very-online fans I hang out with is that the new systems put in place have been a flop, and the atmosphere rarely hits the heights of 21/22.

I understand why some of the new ideas were put in place. There was a lot of touting over the past two years and there’s always a desire to have as many people pass through a stadium as possible… but football is different to other spectator sports >IF IF IF< a fizzing game day atmosphere is what you are seeking out. Racing, boxing, and music festivals are annual events in the main and people don’t tend to do it 5+ times a year. A ballot system makes sense in those events. You are seeking fairness in distribution because everyone should be on an equal footing for something that happens once a year. If the only way to get to Taylor Swift concerts was if you’d been before, you’d cause reputational damage, and it’d cost you money in merch sales because you’d be speaking to a smaller market. More to the point – how good a Taylor Swift concert is is not dependent on who is in the crowd.

Balloting systems in football work on paper because you can put a slide up in a meeting and say ‘we have delivered tickets to 60,000 new people who will have memories to cherish as they spread the gospel of Arsenal around the world.’

… but what does the sporting department want? To spread the gospel of Arsenal? Or do they want a red-hot atmosphere every game to give the players some of that home-ground advantage?

‘For tomorrow {West Ham}, please go to the stadium and get it rocking. Get behind the team, inspire them again and the team is going to try to do everything that we can. It’s going to be the last game of the year in front of you so it’s a special moment so let’s make it beautiful’

That’s Mikel Arteta begging for noise. At both the Brighton and West Ham game, Martin Odegaard and various other players tried to rile-up a dead stadium to get more behind the players. Who is the most important man at Arsenal? Mikel Arteta. Who has rebuilt the relationship with the fans to achieve new highs with the atmosphere in the stadium? Mikel Arteta. This will absolutely be a discussion point in the corridors of Colney, if you don’t believe me, watch Martin Odegaard at a home game.

Arsenal had created something magic. They turned around a dead stadium full of toxicity into the best noise machine in the Premier League. Vinai was so pleased with it he bragged about all the amazing things he’d done to help make it happen at the club in a New York Times article titled HOW ARSENAL FOUND IT’S VOICE.

So what happened next? Arsenal took something that was working perfectly and tried to fix it with ideas that didn’t match with the objectives of the sporting department.

Ashburton Army might not be your cup of tea, but who cares? They were noise makers, they had ideas, and they delivered. They complained recently the club stopped talking to them, didn’t approve their tifos, and they’d had their ticket allocation cut. There was a particularly stinging moment during the West Ham game when their away fans sang ‘where’s the wanker on the drum!’ and AA had to respond with a sheepish song. They have been neutered.

The crowd on the internet that say ‘how can you give them credit for the atmosphere’ absolutely lose me. The atmosphere at The Emirates had been TERRIBLE for the entire existence of the stadium. Then Arsenal gives a section to young noisy fans, things get better, and people want to deny the vibrancy of ‘ultras’ had nothing to do with it? Even if you think there are 5 ingredients more important than that… you couldn’t scientifically conclude which one, because your conclusions are feelings-based. So why break any of them?

The club should have looked at the lab experiment they permitted to run, patted themselves on the back, then said ‘how do we scale this?’

There were grim PR issues with AA you could point to. Well, don’t punish everyone, just those that were caught. If AA is too much to handle, seek new groups that could partake in a more inclusive section. Most MLS clubs that have elite supporter sections of 3000 or more will have 6 to 10 groups within a section. Those groups are like social clubs. You can have a latino group or a group that gathers around music – it doesn’t really matter but more groups is better because bad behavior doesn’t represent the whole section. The club gives a cheaper allocation of tickets in exchange for relentless noise for 100 minutes on game day. It is a good deal and the output is global fame. It shows that Arsenal is an old club with a young edgy vibe about it. Sponsors want to be part of that. So do premium ticket buyers.

The answer to a first season of success so good the NYT wrote about it should NOT have been to reduce the ticket allocation and make the noise generator part of the stadium smaller.

As for the balloting system. It’s complicated and the randomised nature means loyal fans who understand the stadium don’t get to go as often. So the stadium always feels like a bunch of brand-new people coming together. Red hot nights are few and far between. Because the process is complicated, people don’t fill their seats. The Brighton game had empty seats scattered all around the stadium. Clamping down on touting by implementing painful rules has the counter impact of making it harder for normal fans to give tickets away. Touting tickets is a sign of success, 10 years ago, I couldn’t give my seats away. Touts are still making the new system work. For them, it’s an inconvenience that’s worth the time. You’ll never stamp them out – but you will make it hard for friends and family to spread tickets between them at late notice. People literally buying burner phones to make things work is not the sign of a process that is working well for the fans. New tech is supposed to simplify, not complicate.

Again, these moves all look good on paper – less touting, more control, better marketing funnel opportunities with people signing up for memberships, more new fans walking through the gates.

… but if the sporting department of the club isn’t happy. No one is happy and your great metrics will not be celebrated like they would at non-football organisations.

I also feel like all of the above has lead to a lot of angst amongst supporters in general. Making things harder for people is never a good thing to do. Arsenal made things harder, crushed the atmosphere, and basically said ‘we don’t really care about that part of the experience.’ The relationship between fans and club really improved over the last 4 years, but it looks like it’s creaking at the seams a bit. There’s still time to fix it, but you need the objectives of the corporate side to align with sporting desires. You also need to correct areas the fans see as painpoints. Sometimes, you have to take and L to earn a W. It’ll be interesting to see if Arsenal will own the error, especially if Arteta is banging the table like the fans.

THE FINISHING MOVES

Arsenal fans have been very patient with Mikel Arteta and Edu. They let the two of them have a very bad year of mistakes and poor results. They got behind young players and elevated their game with unrivaled support. We were rewarded with a system that took us to second last year.

The job Arteta has performed has been immense. Incredible. He is a once-in-a-generation managerial talent we brought in at the ground floor.

But this year, he has to be delivering the final touches to the squad. We can’t be going backwards to go forward this summer. The fans need to see the familiar problems of the last 4 years addressed so we can finally cook as a team.

There are a few areas I’d like us to seriously look at.

FULL BACKS: We have to move towards robust fullbacks at some point. Zinchenko, Tomiyasu, Kieran Tierney, and now Timber have availability problems. Timber was VERY robust, but I’m putting him in here because the start was a knee blow out for him. We can’t keep stuttering in the league because our fullbacks break. Arteta needs to invest in players who can manage more than 6 games in a row before exiting for 3 months. He also needs to address how he manages delicate players with his training methods. The best teams have the most robust players. City is the benchmark, they rotate well, and their players are always ready.

MIDFIELD REBOOT: Big Mo, Jorginho, and Thomas Partey will need to be changed up this summer. It’s going to be a massive ask to replace Thomas Partey, but again, the priority needs to be a warrior that never gets injured. We also have find back-up players that are of a high level, but also happy to play limited minutes because Declan is a warrior and never gets injured. Arsenal cannot be giving any of those three new deals. Particularly Partey, who derails us, but always finds the energy to make it for Ghana.

ATTACKING PIECES: We signed Reiss Nelson to a long-term deal last summer, I told everyone Arteta didn’t fancy him, and guess what, he doesn’t fancy him, and he never plays. Trossard has showed in spurts that he can deliver numbers, but he can’t put Martinelli on the bench right now. We need to get serious about the players that sit behind sub-22-year-old wingers. How Saka doesn’t have a back-up after 3 years of trying is beyond me. Even elite players need competition, but the reality is they need to rest.

Then there’s the striking issue. We don’t have a forward that can score regular goals. Eddie hasn’t hit the level this season despite loads of minutes and Gabriel Jesus is a hipster striker who does everything bar consistently put it in the net; he’s the ‘if you don’t get ____, you don’t get football’ player of the 2024 squad. This summer, we need to address that issue head-on. I want a bully, an aerial duel monster, and a guy that wants to play as a centre forward, not a roaming chaos merchant, and I need to see non-penalty goals and greed in front of goal. I strongly believe that’ll be Ivan Toney and I’m here for it. But we can’t exit the summer without that piece. It’s the crown jewel of this project. Once we can these attacking players in place, we are ready for the next 5 years.

People say ‘why didn’t we do it this summer?’ I hear you. But the whole project has always been about a slower build. We don’t have cash injection owners, we don’t have nation-state money, and doing everything at once certainly didn’t help Chelsea get to the promised land.

Arteta needs to finalize the project and he needs to bring us a big trophy in the next 3 years. If he does that, he’s cemented his legend. We will be able to finally say we got our Arsenal back. As fans, we need to give him this time. I can’t believe some of the embarrassing carry-on I’ve read from fans threatening to withdraw their faith or slobbering over Tottenham Hotspurs. We have the best young manager on the planet, dragging us into the elite level, and he’s done through sheer force of personality at a club no one thought had the guts to back a manager.

We’re on the right path. The core of our squad is scary. The system is the right one. Address the two things above and I think we could have a very exciting 2024 and beyond!

______________________________________

What a way to start 2024! A pre-written post about a god-awful game against Fulham away from home. It was the worst performance of the season, tinged with even more regret, knowing that Zinchenko is having a scan on another calf injury.

I don’t even know where to start with this game, but I’ll try to frame it in a way that makes you feel good about January 1st.

That was our first truly awful performance of the season.

We didn’t deserve anything. The manager didn’t set the boys up correctly, the team didn’t have any urgency or in-game management, and the subs seemed to make us worse.

(more…)

Arsenal takes on Fulham VERY soon. This feels like our sort of game. A team that has leaked a lot of goals lately, they’re kind of out of form, they don’t have Mitrovic, and we’re red hot performance-wise and need a livener to kickstart our forward line.

Fulham away won’t be easy, but it’s hardly Anfield.

These are the sorts of games that showcase your title credentials. West Ham at home was an aberration only if we rectify the problem with a solid win. To be honest, any sort of win. If you lose, we show that we have a soft underbelly. Two losses on the bounce against mid-table teams is top 4 fight behavior. You’re slumming it with Villa, Newcastle, United, and Chelsea.

Arsenal needs to show they have Manchester City mettle.

The most important element this season for me is that we haven’t had a really bad performance. We’ve controlled most teams this season. The games we’ve lost have either been down to bad luck or shocking refereeing. I feel like that is important when you’re watching some of the other clubs around us ride the luck train.

(more…)

O

Arsenal fans, we’re a funny bunch. We lost to West Ham and all I see online is people looking for every single stat that marries to the idea that we’re not good enough this season and Arteta has it wrong with his squad.

We’re 18 points worse off than we were last season.

Our non-penalty goals sit below Forest.

The dominance against West Ham, was, in fact, an illusion.

Don’t talk to me about elite mentality of our players if you can’t look at Arsenal sitting two points off the top of the league in December and be slightly confident in our ability to improve from now until the end of the season.

We banged the first half of last season and we faded. We haven’t banged this season and we’re 2nd. We added a new left-side 8, a new keeper, and a new 6. We’ve wrestled with injuries all season.

Yet there’s not a single game you could tell me we deserved to lose.

Every time people write this Arsenal side off, they go one better.

The same folk claiming we’re in dire trouble were the folk who said missing out on top 4 to Conte’s Spurs was the end, that not signing Vlahovic was a death knell, and they probably spent the first chunk of this season claiming Kai was the worst signing in our history.

There’s too much of a market for claiming the Arsenal project ain’t right. People are far too quick to tell you 40 points halfway through the season isn’t good enough. As fans, we spend too much time worrying about how good everyone else is instead of marveling at what we’re building.

Where are those that said United would bang? Where are those that kept ringing the alarm bells over the progress of Newcastle? How about those in a frantic panic over Chelsea? We forget about them.

Arsenal have problems at the moment, no doubt. But they are luxury problems. We have a system that is producing the desired outcome. Namely, we’ve gone from struggling to create chances earlier in the season, to creating chances that aren’t being taken.

Now, there are a few ways I would break down the chance-taking issue.

Underperforming Talent

You can’t ignore the reality of some of our fave young players – they aren’t doing it like they were last season. Saka hasn’t hit 5th gear, Martinelli is delivering nowhere near the output this season, Gabriel Jesus is a massive disappointment in front of goal, and Trossard ain’t quite there. Kai has only just started to find the back of the net – no doubt his height and power would have been useful in that West Ham game.

So here’s the faith part of this issue: Do you believe that is a talent issue – or do you believe it’s a form issue?

If it’s talent, we’re doomed.

If it’s form, that can switch in a heartbeat.

Talent Issue

Too many people spent the Gabriel Jesus summer that I called ‘Tall Boy Summer’ telling me that it didn’t matter that for 75% of the prior season Jesus played for City, he was tracking BEHIND Lacazette.

‘Umm, actually, that’s not really his game’

Great, well, we’re now in a situation 2 seasons on where our main striker spends most of his time anywhere bar occupying the centre forward position. That’s not to devalue the greatness of Jesus, but it is a reminder that City shipped him out, and Pep won the title by signing a finishing monster.

Eddie Nketiah, a fine player, but his number one attribute as a young player was hitting the target. He doesn’t do that often enough when he’s given ample chances. If anything, he’s become too similar to Jesus. The team functions well with him in it, but he doesn’t offer anything different in terms of profile.

We also have another glaring weakness -> We re-signed Reiss Nelson to a long-term deal, and as I said all last summer, Arteta doesn’t really fancy him. We preserved the value of a player no club had tried to sign in 5 years. This year, his minutes have been fleeting, and pretty unimpressive.

The result of both of the above problems is there is no pressure on Jesus or Saka when they play badly, there’s nothing to come off the bench that truly threatens, and we’re an injury away from having a very long-term bland replacement to either that wouldn’t help us to the title or Champions League.

So what’s the answer?

Arsenal’s for has gone from starting the season with low chance creation, low output. To high chance creation, low output.

You can look at it pre and post Wolves game. This analysis from Billy is great.

There isn’t one, perfectly linear story to Arsenal’s attacking issues this year. There are two: before the update (fewer chances/shots, more pens, better luck) and after (way better everything — 12.32 more open-play SCA + 6 more shots per game — but worse luck and misses). pic.twitter.com/4J61wlgPBc

— Billy Carpenter (@billycarpy) December 30, 2023

The form has to turn. Big players need to step up. Arteta needs to find a way to get people back into the swing of things in front of goal.

We’re either a team that overperformed expected goals scored last season (+11.49) because our players are top-class – or we’re a team that outperformed expected goals last season because we were lucky.

If we were lucky and scoring less non-penalty goals than Forest this season is where we are – we’re in trouble. If my hunch is correct, we’re just going through a rut. It’s the same rut that has us conceding goals with less that 3 shots on target far too regularly considering our impressive defence. I don’t think high chance creation with this team will always deliver low goal output. Just like I don’t believe every team that has 3 shots on target will score at least one goal.

We also have to get real about the talent gap. Arsenal lack a killer. We need an output machine as a striker, but deeper than that, we need someone who wants to play there, occupy defenders, and be an absolute monster for us like Haaland is at City.

We also need someone who can fight Saka for minutes. I would favor a pace terrier over anything, but that pace has to have a brain, and a taste for output. Who can be our Jota? I want more players in the side that have that Mo Salah lust for scoring goals.

I heard one of the reasons Arsenal signed Reiss down to a new deal was that he offers unstructured play in a very structured system. That’s great for coming on in the last 20 when we’ve explored all our other choreographies. Not so good long-term. Is it possible for Arsenal to sign a player with a bit of that Robin Van Persie WHAT THE HELL! Who knows. But I feel like we lack a bit of wow factor in attack sometimes.

So what is NOT the answer?

To panic.

Arsenal dominated West Ham in every single way bar the goal. If we score in the first 5 minutes, they give up, and we hammer them. Instead, they take an incredibly lucky, and ride out an improbable win.

Those games happen in football. If you played the same game tomorrow, we’d win 3-0. Our approach is to control games, create chances, and win points. We do that… a lot. West Ham defended well (because they didn’t concede), but don’t tell me Moyes is looking at that performance as standout… because letting a team have 30 attempts at goal with 8 shots on target, 5 of those chances classified as BIG CHANCES, is not great. Letting Arsenal break the record for most touched in the box without scoring isn’t a ‘hell yes boys’ moment. They were lucky. Play that game 100 times again and we win it 99 of them.

So back to Context FC.

If we win tomorrow, we’ll exit the year the same as we did the last: top.

The answer to our current ‘nearly top of the league’ crisis is for top quality players to shake themselves out of the scoring rut they are in and be more ruthless in front of goal.

There’s also one more area that gives a little bit of promise: We’re top of the league for errors leading to goals. I think we’re up to 5 this season. We’ve managed to achieve that whilst having the second best defence in the league. Unforced errors can be ironed out of a system. Part of this can be blamed on accidents and I’m sure part of it can be apportioned to new players learning a new system (Raya has 2). As the system bakes into people’s brains, the hope is great players stop making horrible errors.

Sharpen the finishing, stop conceding from 3 shots on target, and we’ll be right up there come the end of the season.

Ok, that’s me done, see you in the comments.

P.S. Thomas Partey definitely out until AFCON, but hopefully there might be good news elsewhere.

P.P.S. I’m BACK in America. Podcasts will resume. I’ll get the e-mailer setup again as people have been requesting it. We are go, go, go for 2024.

Happy Boxing day to you ALL!

How was your Christmas? We had a good one. My brother and dad bullied me back into UK drinking habits and I am feeling the pain. Brits never stop, they don’t forgive fly-tipping, and they move at Martinelli-like speed on the drinks. Tough comeback for me.

Gotta say, personally, going to Boxing Day games has never been my cup of tea. The games feel like a bloated hangover; no one is really in the mood, and you can end up with some unfestive moments. Like Newcastle having trouble with Forest right now (2-1 down after a great finish from Chris Wood).

(more…)

Happy Christmas, one and all! If you’re one of those that doesn’t celebrate, why not give it a go, right now?

Go to the fridge, open a beer, and that’s basically it. You are doing Christmas.

So what have we got today? A very brief post.

I know that all you’re thinking about on your first-ever Christmas is the gift of new players. Here’s a narrative for you to keep hold of until the summer.

We’re very unlikely to move on a striker this January. This will be like the Vlahovic window. Too much has to go right for us to bag the talent we need.

1. You have to hope a team is willing to sell midseason in a league where the consequences of relegation are very real
2. You have to hope that the team has a replacement or at a bare minimum – no major injuries (Mbuemo out)
3. You have to be in good shape with FFP (or whatever its new name is)
4. You have to be willing to pay a premium.

My understanding is still that the top target is likely going to be Ivan Toney.

There are a number of reasons this correlates quite nicely with Declan Rice.

Reasons to Believe (more…)

I’ll spoil the content right away for you: that was a brilliant, brilliant performance by Arsenal and any complaints show how ridiculously far we’ve come as a club.

People hammering 4-time Premier League winner Oleksandr Zinchenko for his error need to think about how much good-football-privilege you need to have to go there. We’ve had to watch Andre Santos in the last decade, now we have a Rolls Royce left-back who got done by a start-to-finish wonder goal from the best winger in the league at the peak of his powers. I can’t be having that. Is his defending as good as Tomiyasu? No. But can anyone in our backline open up a game like him and play with consistent bravery even after an error? No. Zinchenko is our TAA, a net plus that will always get into the big games because he is so, so good.

Worst of all, Zinchenko has IMPROVED a lot defensively.

Tackle Success rate – 78% – Top 10 in Europe (@Fbref)
Compared to Trent’s – 39%

Trent is widely known to create enough to “make up for it”.

Zinny inverted much more last season, factor to why we’re less free flowing. pic.twitter.com/AHZPaOePas

— Arsenal Media (@ArsenalMediaX11) December 24, 2023

As fans, we’re moving into Luxury FC problems. It is mad to gripe about a draw at Anfield with a team like the one they have, with a manager like Klopp, playing in a cauldron that had gasoline poured all over it.

Does that mean I won’t talk about those luxury problems? No way.

Bukayo Saka needs to have a chat with a dark arts coach. He’s too kind. Butter doesn’t melt with this man and it needs to vaporise if he’s to find the next level (which is very high). That moment when he broke through on goal he had two chances to make bad things happen… he could have slowed down for a Joe Gomez clattering, then he could have gone over Allison and landed another penalty. Those are the dirty tricks Liverpool and City has with older, more seasoned professionals.

Saka had a really solid performance outside that. I thought he looked a menace all game, he moved with grace, opened up space, but was a little off with final decisions. Still, this is Liverpool, it’s always gonna be a game of fine margins, next time, he’s getting a winning assist or goal.

Martinelli was a little problematic for me. He’s a wonderful player, but still very much a head-down merchant. He doesn’t look up and scan, so even when he’s beating people in his one-vs-one attacks, he doesn’t know where to put the ball. His next level is better awareness of his surroundings. He’s a Ferrari engine, with an Amstrad chipset. I wouldn’t be shocked to see him dropped for West Ham. Still, always frame who he was playing against and how old he is.

The main difference between Arsenal and City is the age of our professionals. Saka and Martinelli are 7 years away from their peak. Exciting, because their levels are so high, sometimes frustrating because in big games, they don’t have the tools someone like Salah has. The goal they scored was really good, however you cut it. Perfect long ball, the perfect player receiving it out of the air with a deft touch, Zimchenko struggled to show him down the line, he allowed the cutback, and the finish was out of the top drawer. Zinchenko should have done better, but remember, Tomiyasu made a gross error against City last year. Big teams punish you, and it hurts. The criticism is far too harsh for a defender who played in a starting 11 that reduced Liverpool to their lowest xG conceded at home of the season.

Declan Rice. Need I say more? You already know the review. It was a draw last season, but the difference this time of year was the defensive solidity we had. He was THE guy. Kai was also excellent, but he doesn’t combine all the attributes Declan has… and he doesn’t have that Patrick Vieira aura. I just can’t get over his size, power, speed, all wrapped in a bow made of TOTAL CONTROL material.

William Saliba and Gabriel also need a shoutout. I feel like Gabriel is Andy Murray in a Federer era, he was so good yesterday. He’s cut out the errors this season, he’s playing at a really high level, but he’s always overshadowed by the main man… Bill Saliba. Is it weird to call him the Dennis Bergkamp central defenders? The way he moved the ball around, his fierce concentration on his surroundings, and the classy way he passes just remind me of the Dutchman. We just watched the two best centre-backs in the world and I think Saliba showed he’s better.

Gabriel scored the goal though with a towering header – so he can share the crown.

Let me also say that Eddie’s cameo was really, really good. No goal, but he added to our attack with his direct running and some clever ‘smack me over for a foul’ play. He’s a good player we’ll need for the second half of the season, because we’re very unlikely to get a striker in before the summer.

Away day results haven’t gone for us, but the underlying metrics are Premier League winning. xG conceded (shots on target conceded) in tough away games: Liverpool 0.98 (3) Villa 0.63 (3) Newcastle 1.12 (2). Arteta won’t like the lack of points, but losing two games and drawing one off of 8 shots on target and just under 3 xG isn’t sustainable. We will turn losses into draws and draws into wins. We are doing so, so well with a team that is nowhere near peak.

Arsenal are hard to play, just listen to players talk about us. The team is big, relentless, and trained as well as any in the world. We need to be in the race until the last day this season and we need to be ready for a City ramp-up. My gut says Liverpool fall away, they are at their max now. Arsenal are still in 3rd gear with two more to go.

What a moment to be an Arsenal fan.

Ok, that’s me done; check out the podcast below. This one was SPICY.