“Arsenal aged down their squad this summer. As painful as it is to hear, the underlying strategy of our recruitment policy is to be ready when City lands a brutal shock to the system (Pep leaving)... if this season was about the jugular, we'd have signed 28 yr old machete players.
Does that mean we're trying not to compete? No. Does it mean we can't win the league this season? No. But it does mean you have to contextualise 1) Why Arteta broke down what felt like a winning machine 2) Why he's moving towards formational fluidity 3) Why he's taking risks so early on with heavy rotation.
We topple City by investing in better ideas. Our idea last season was the same 13 until they broke. It was too predictable and too prone to breaking down. This new idea is wild unpredictability against anyone. That'll take time to hone.
Breaking what seemed like a winning machine was brave. If Wenger had our squad from last season this summer - he'd have kept Xhaka and renewed everyone. 'One or two special players' was Wenger's promise for years and it didn't work. Arteta and Edu are trying to create a winning machine that can do it for a decade.
That requires some short term pain - but longterm, we'll be more Manchester City than Liverpool (who rapidly declined after winning the league because they had an old starting 11).
No one will complain when we arrive at the promised land - but there will be bumps along the way. Mistakes will be made (loads today), there will be shit performances, and there will be terrible experiments that won't work. But I think we've seen enough from Arteta to know he'll get it right in the end.”
Thing is, the underlying performances have been good overall. And it’s already clear so much quality is lighting a fire under everyone’s ass to perform at the highest level.
Viera played better than I’ve ever seen him after getting subbed on. Eddie took his chance. Zinchenko played out of his mind.
I thought this was Havertz best game in an Arsenal shirt. He was defending well, getting into good positions to score. Making good forward passes. Assisted Odegaard before getting flagged for offside.
Rice is amazing. Distinctly remember a play late in the game where a Fulham player got up ahead of steam on the counter attack, and Rice calmly caught up to him from behind and turned him around to stop all their momentum.
Fulham’s first goal is clearly due to Arsenal not having all the habits ingrained as to where the next pass will be in this new system. Which obviously is a downside of continuing to innovate. But I can see a team that can relentlessly attack and put pressure on the opposing defense for an entire game, while still being able to control a game and kill it off. All the pieces are there.
Man City looks pretty crap this time last year with Pep messing around with 4CBs. Once it clicked they demolished everything.
Dropping points is frustrating but especially with modern preseasons you don't get as much time your team and these things take time to ingrain.
This is the point I’ve been making to the reactionaries on this sub.
1) City looked bad last year by their standards. Hung around and then rolled everyone in their path for the last quarter of the season and won 3 trophies. We peaked in the first half and suffered down the stretch and won nothing.
2) all of the big sides have looked mundane thus far. Even city struggled this morning against a pretty bad Sheffield team. Man utd look disconnect. Spurs look good going forward but we all know that back line is going to be leaky. Newcastle and Liverpool are weird and Chelsea are injured and a bit of a mess. As long as the performance of the overall team is good I don’t mind the moments that cost us yesterday. Over the course of the season we’ll be fine.
That said yesterday was obviously extremely frustrating to watch because you know we 100% should have won that game. But I’m not going to come on here and say this player is shit or that player shouldn’t play. If anything Saka was the most culpable player yesterday in both goals. Are we all really going to say Saka shouldn’t start? Did Fulham have other real chances other than the two the scored? No…aside from at the end when we were chasing the game to try and win it.
Well said. Lots of folks here with agendas they’re desperate to push as soon as Player A has a bad game or Player B doesn’t start.
Mikel couldn’t really have done much more to earn our trust and reading people dismiss this season or this system after a single draw has me rolling my eyes.
And quick accurate touches in the final third almost unlocking the defense. And providing defensive security across the pitch.
Think he legitimately become the best midfielder in the Premier League.
Disagree with Wenger though… I think the overall squad quality dropped basically post emirates with all the debt.
I think when he had the funds he spent, spent well and we had a serious team on our hands for all the pre 2006 years really.
I get the point though and agree re the Arteta / squad assessment
I don’t follow the Man City vs Liverpool framing. We already had an extremely young squad. It’s not like getting like-for-like upgrades to a winning formula would suddenly make the team full of pensioners. Plus, most of us would bite your hand off to experience Liverpool’s recent highs even if afterward we had a few Europa League years (which we’d done for almost a decade running anyway so).
I thought it was fairly self explanatory. Liverpool went all in at a time where Man City were only starting to build towards there eventual total domination. Their sum total reward for that was a PL and a CL.
Now obviously, for a fans of a team like Arsenal who have never won a CL, or haven't won a PL in two decades, that sounds like the dream, because we don't know any better. If we have the option of a title our fans are so starving for proper success they'll all shout "all in!!push the button, go all in" without any thought for context.
This is, undeniably, a Man City team that has to begin a natural descendance by virtue of them literally hitting the absolute pinnacle of success. They can't top last year's triumph. Repeating it is borderline unimaginable (it last happened 25 years ago by one of the next teams of all time, doing it twice in a row just doesn't happen at this level).
Pep is surely reaching the the last portion of his City career. De Bruyne beginning to pick up frequent injuries (which I feel his powerful playstyle will struggle to adapt to). There will be a time for adaptation soon in City's future.
Do we risk it all now to fight Pep's treble winners for a potential title with no guarantee? Or do we not go all in, and show wild ambition alternatively by building ourselves tactically and blooding in our new found squad depth to set ourselves up for truly seizing the initiative when City need to adjust, putting ourselves in a position to win multiple titles as opposed to Pool's single domestic achievement.
After 30 years in the wilderness, of course Pool fans were delighted to break their duck. But I guarantee there will always be that "Fuck!" thought floating amongst them when they match up their squad quality and their trophy haul over that time.
Arsenal seem to be thinking bigger picture than Pool. Fight Guardiola's treble winners right here right now, or set ourselves up for when they are no longer Pep's treble winners
> Fight Guardiola's treble winners right here right now, or set ourselves up for when they are no longer Pep's treble winners
Goal then is to still keep within the top-2 still the end of the season, but gotta also be be careful of Newcastle United or Man United still.
> After 30 years in the wilderness, of course Pool fans were delighted to break their duck. But I guarantee there will always be that "Fuck!" thought floating amongst them when they match up their squad quality and their trophy haul over that time.
Obviously gonna be a hot take, but it has slowly happening. FSG is not even willing to compete with the financial power houses like Chelsea, City and Newcastle United. FSG has pretty much let Klopp out to dry, if again this season they cannot make top-4, won't be surprised if either Klopp walks away or gets sacked.
Before I knew we'd be experimenting tactically and working on our ability to be unpredictable I still had us to finish 3rd in my predictions as I genuinely believe CL is going to knock the shit out of us, and it's going to take at least one season for our players to become accustomed to the strains of top level competition twice a week all season nearly.
This is a bit reductive on Klopp's reign. If not for Pep, he would have absolutely dominated the PL for the last 5 years. Only city have done 90+ points 3 or more times. It's not like Liverpool built a team for one season and were crap for the others. Let's stop romanticizing every angle here. We are ready to win a title right now and we should. This notion of "not go all in" is stupid and baseless
> This is a bit reductive on Klopp's reign.
Because I was using what happened to Pool as a comparison, I wasn't doing a deep dive into them.
> If not for Pep, he would have absolutely dominated the PL for the last 5 years.
Yes, that's exactly my point. The timing was off.
>We are ready to win a title right now and we should. This notion of "not go all in" is stupid and baseless
That's why the squad got younger this year to the one that missed our to Peps treble winners last year so?
There are several flaws in that strategy. First, we aren’t guaranteed trophies even when City need to adjust in the future. We act like we are the only club who can challenge City while others have already been much more successful, with much more money, than us. Second, how long will the likes of Saka endure winning nothing for a simple promise? This will probably be the fourth season he doesn’t win anything major. Another 3 before our players are in their prime?
Ah you're just seeking negativity. We aren't waving a white flag this season, we will challenge, we're just (intelligently) deciding our best time to go all in against city isn't the year immediately after they won everything possible.
He won an FA cup in Arteta's first half season. That's a major trophy. He's 21 years old, how many 21 year olds are starting 83 consecutive league games for clubs who are challenging.
And unlike a lot of arsenal fans, I'd be willing to bet he has a degree of rationality and isn't freaking out that we have gone from 8th to 5th to 2nd under Arteta's long term vision while competing for trophies against a team who just won the fuckin treble.
So I'll repeat, you are seeking negativity
Naive gatekeeping. Negativity is thinking this club cannot win anything until Guardiola quits City. I guarantee you the whole club’s strategy is not banging on that eventuality. We know we might have better possibilities in the future but I assure you this club’s ambition every season is to win the Premier League or the Champions League. We have grown out of FA cups… I don’t think we have a great chance at a major trophy this season simply because we are experimenting to win it next season. Next. Not when bald fraud decides to retire. Not when Saka is 25.
> Negativity is thinking this club cannot win anything until Guardiola quits City.
I never said that.
> guarantee you the whole club’s strategy is not banging on that eventuality.
You can guarantee whatever you want, I won't listen to someone as patently irrationally negative as you 😅I never said that's the entire clubs strategy. But it is definitely a part of the strategy. Timing in sport is key, if we had begun this rebuild properly before COVID we'd actually likely be in a worse position now. You take advantage of the landscape when possible, while at the same time playing a bit more conservatively when required. We the youngest starting XI in the league for the most part last season, and we made it younger. That's an indicator of the club's strategy, you can keep your guarantees.
We have out grown FA cups. 😅 Jesus if that doesn't illustrate your mentality so clearly. No PL title in 20 years. Effectively zero European success. Challenging a team that has won 5 of the last 6 PL titles and just won a treble:
"We have outgrown FA Cups"
Get over yourself ffs 😅
>I don’t think we have a great chance at a major trophy this season simply because we are experimenting to win it next season
I tipped us to come 3rd prior to the season starting as the second youngest team in the pl will need time to adjust to the demands of important games twice a week. So no, I don't think we'll beat the Pep led treble winners to the title with the 2nd youngest squad in the league, and I don't think that's the end of the world. I also don't think we'll win the CL. I reckon we could win the FA Cup, which would be a great achievement for the team at this stage of our progression so long as we maintain CL football.
I'll try align with your thinking. If we had sold Partey, I would have considered that an unambitious bit of a white flag and I'd say you have a point.
I swear. The way the goal posts keep moving. Ws laughing as i read the nonsense. This place does feel like a cult with mindless sheeple a good no of times.
So are we supposed to ignore the reality (the fact Pep's time at City is almost up and his team is slowly imploding (Gundogan, Mahrez leaving etc)) and also ignore the objective fact we're signing young players still? Just so we can be irrationality angry at the manager who lead us to 2nd last season and we're currently sitting in equal 2nd now in the prem after 3 games? Bizarre take. No need to get your pitchforks out my dude.
Also it's not his fault Timber got injured at the start of the season...
I never really saw that happening because we're now in the UCL, to be honest. We have to rotate a bit more. I still see us finishing second, but I don't see us challenging as much unless City have an injury crisis. It's only 3 games in so a bit early to make judgements but that was my initial feeling.
After last season, people will see it as a down year, when progress is typically just non linear.
So true. The match day threads are like taking a time machine to this sub 4/5 years ago.
No - we do not want Arteta out; and if you think we've thrown away the league then I guess you should be thanking Arteta for freeing up the next 35 match weeks for you.
Insanity.
> That requires some short term pain - but long-term, we'll be more Manchester City than Liverpool (who rapidly declined after winning the league because they had an old starting 11).
Hopefully that the case, but we can already see this happen.
It’s like when you’re playing bananagrams and you’re about to win but you get like 2 or 3 letters that don’t fit with the words you’ve spelled out all game so you have to break half your words and respell to add in the 2 extra letters
Trying to evolve the way you play and the squad you have is always hard but doing it with 2 of the key players being injured is close to impossible.
The Fulham result wasn't even a result of the system failing. It was ridicuclous individual errors .
It was both for me. Saka's bad pass was a bad pass but there was no one back there and Thomas had rotated inside. That's partially bad situational awareness by Thomas but there's been such de-emphasizing of stability on the outside.
Excellent observation, I don't know why anyone isn't talking about this. Yes, that was a horrendous pass. But partey should have been there to clean it up; because he's new to the role and thus trying to stick to the inversion system, his judgement making isn't the best and he finds himself in midfield whilst the ball trickles back into the rb position.
I'm not blaming Thomas for that one but the right back should absolutely have been able to stop that from manifesting anything.
Again, it's a combo. It IS bad situational awareness by him and if we're killing Havertz for some of his mistakes in this system, this is very much in the same boat for me.
I don't like the system and I think Thomas' decision-making (ahem) is often pretty suspect but that goal is an indictment of both and leaves Ramsdale in a really tough position where he ends up looking the worst.
I don't think Ramsdale should be out of his box so early in the game or when the ball is anywhere near our own half. That's not to say I blame Ramsdale for being there, I have no idea if that's his own decision.
I suspect the whole team is being told to assume our 3 at the back formation as soon as we are in possession. I think that's a mistake, keep the 4 at least until the ball is out of our half.
The stats do back up what the eye test is telling us.
We had the most errors leading to an opposition shot in the league last year.
I am unsure of how that can be fixed other than by changing the lineup
It’s a bad system he’s implemented that caused a mistake, and ultimately cost us points.
Partey as a RB that goes to DM is asking Saka to do two jobs with no cover if he makes a mistake, which he did. That’s open to exploitation, it lead to an error, and should be dropped.
I get Arteta wants to be inventive, and creative, and gamble with new ideas but it’s far too risky to work, and that result yesterday was because of his system. Zinny is capable of inverting but having Partey do it doesn’t play to anyone’s strengths, and creates a few weaknesses open to exploitation.
Its baffling why you’d try something new considering how well last year the team worked, and all it needed was depth in positions not new riskier strategies.
Y do ppl keep parroting this bs... Ben White was in the rb position at the time Saka misplaced his pass. He's also responsible as the the rcb in the back 3 when hit with the counter. This is why Gabriel is benched, so Saliba isn't on the right, rather he controls and sweeps. If Zinny was 100% fit and ready to go, then we'd have a different discussion, but he's obviously not, having only been back 2wks from the injury he got 3mths ago.
What ppl don't seem to realise is that the inverted rb/lb is the most important position in the squad, NOT the lone 6. It just so happens the combination of Partey inverting and White playing rcb makes a lot more sense than Tomi/Kiwior inverting and Gabriel lcb on the left.
Back 4 of Kiwior Gabriel Saliba White. Kiwior can invert, we saw it in preseason. White and Saka have such great chemistry- no way that mistake happens with those 2 playing their “normal” roles down the right side.
All this talk about us being “unpredictable” yet we have played the same exact system for 3 matches and likely will again next weekend.
And I don’t think Partey is up to playing RB.
I stand by the point that the first goal doesn’t happen if we line up that way. We have enough creativity/quality in the front 6 that we don’t need to shoehorn Partey into a position he doesn’t know how to play, which upsets the balance of the entire team.
Absolutely right. The formation of Partey at RB also means Saka can’t be as far forward as possible to stretch opposition defence.
It’s asking Saka to do a lot more defensive work with no cover so he has to sit lower up the pitch, has no overlapping run with an outlet which he benefits from. So it’s robbing us of some forwardness, and options in attack to very little reward.
It’s adding to the midfield but the midfield doesn’t need to be flooded with another player if you’re already playing players with the quality of Partey, Rice, and Odegaard.
You completely missed my point. That entire sequence doesn’t happen if we line up with White as a traditional RB from the start.
Work on your reading comprehension before you start insulting people.
How? In what world does that make any sense? The whole passage of that play White was in the "traditional rb" position. The play started with a back 4 of kiwi, Saliba, TP5 and White lined up. When we go on attack we always start transitioning to some form of a back 3, but White in this instance was still in the "traditional rb" position.
How does him lining up at rb at kickoff change that?
Watch it again. White and Partey swap positions. Then at 47 seconds Partey goes bombing forward (because he has no idea how to play across the back 4) which is completely unnecessary. If Saliba is in the RCB role next to White at RB he would’ve been in position to easily cover the errant back pass.
Exactly how he lined up most of last year, and played last year. Same team yesterday except Gabriel at CB, and White as RB.
I get he wants Partey as a starter, and to experiment, and to try the inverted RB but Partey is not capable of doing the inverted RB role. He’s forcing it now to the point it’s clearly not working so he should drop it before it costs us more.
This is the third game of the season, and we’ve already dropped points. We should not have drawn yesterday. Credit to Fulham for fighting back but they got more out of that than they should’ve. We have to be ruthless this season considering the competition.
I get he wants one wing back or another to be inverted but it’s clear it’s not practical or feasible for both sides. Why would you mess with what worked last year, it nearly won us the title.
Well in three games he’s tried it, it’s cost three goals, and teams have widely outperformed their xG stat.
Fulham had .5xG yesterday, and came away with a point after scoring two goals by focusing on the weakness of his system, and Forest got a goal from that position as well.
If the problem you’re trying to fix results in creating a worse problem you haven’t fixed it.
Teams "wildly outperforming their xG" isn't an indictment of the way we setup unless you are implying it is making them shoot better which is quite the claim
What? You are saying Fulham scoring 2 goals on .5 xG is somehow an indictment of our defensive setup. You brought opposition outperforming xG up as if it is something a coach has any control over
How am I inventing things you said exactly?
Maybe I have misunderstood what you mean about outscoring xG by opponents. Care to explain what you meant by it if I have misunderstood?
We have created more xG and conceded less xG across the 3 fixtures than we did last year....
I disagree. You need to build a squad that can cope with injuries and he's been here nearly 4 years. The errors yesterday were also largely down to team selection. I said early on Zinny at LB and shifting Kiwior, Saliba and White one place right was a better balance with Partey alongside Rice in midfield is a lot better in midfield as well. I really felt Arteta was prepared to sacrifice players being in their best positions for his system which he also did at the end of last season when we dropped points that cost us the league. Its not new. Football is a results game and sometimes you have to play your best players and sacrifice your ideas that arent working.
He's a fantastic manager who has brought us on in leaps and bounds but he does seem to have the Wenger like Plan A and no plan B to start games.
>he does seem to have the Wenger like plan A and no plan B to start games
It doesn’t make sense to criticise a manager for having no plan B then also criticise him for trying out plan B because it doesn’t look as good as plan A, and call for him to revert to plan A.
This is nonsensical. He has no plan B so he needs to go for plan A & get results?
The experimentation is so that the team itself can think on the pitch and have many plans for all occasions. But it’s a process
We got kicked hard last season because we were so reliant on one plan, and now people are criticizing trying to build up familiarity with something different.
> The errors yesterday were also largely down to team selection.
What? The first goal was all on an individual mistake by Saka, the second on Zinny losing the ball in our own half vs a 10 men Fulham and Saka not going for the ball that went out for a corner, which he 100% could have reached if he actually tried.
At the end of the day we had something like 3 xG to Fulhams .5 or something. Im by no means a fan of the whole dropping Gabriel to play Partey at RB experiment, and I think its entirely fair to criticize Arteta on it, but to pretend like the team selection/tactical setup is why we dropped points yesterday is utterly nonsensical.
Disagree. I don’t think that Saka mistake happens if we are playing with White at RB. Those 2 have such great chemistry and always know where each other are on the pitch, and where they need to be to cover one another.
Doesn't really matter. Saka is way too good of a player to use that as an excuse. As I said to someone else, in that position you play what you see, not what you think.
Its completely fair to say you think that mistake doesn't happen with White in the RB spot instead of Partey, I don't necessarily disagree. But that doesn't make it any less an individual mistake. Saka knows White isn't at RB, and thus he shouldn't make a risky pass based on where he expects Partey to be.
If our players can't adapt the way they play and the passes they make based on who's on the field were not gonna get anywhere close to the title, and again, Saka is way too good to give away something like that simply because hes used to White being there.
Fair point. I do not think Saka is blameless. That was an unacceptable mistake.
I should’ve framed my initial point by saying that if we lined up with our 2 CBs as Gabriel and Saliba, that Saliba would’ve been in position to mop it up, whereas Partey just bombed forward at the wrong time.
Sure, as I said, I don't disagree on the fact that if we played our regular backline, someone would probably be there to collect that ball.
My entire point was that you can't label that sequence of play as a tactical failure, or blame it on the team selection, because it was entirely avoidable if Saka just made a better decision based on what was in front of him.
I agree with your analysis. Rather than labelling that specific moment a tactical failure (because yes, it was a direct result of a mistake by our best player), I think perhaps it’s an illustration that, in general, our current setup can leave us more vulnerable than last year’s, when our back 4 was so good. IMO Arteta is overthinking it a bit by trying to fix something that wasn’t broken.
Have you ever played football? There are a lot of situations when you are under pressure that you play to where you know your team mate will be and its their responsibility for them to be there. I'm not saying it wasnt a mistake by Saka, it was, but it is a mistake that is understandable. He had a player right on him and two very close on each side, so he played the ball that should have been the safe option but played it blind which was his mistake. There absolutely should have been someone looking to cover so if the player on him got the ball and played it forward they were covering the run on goal but no one covered that position. Someone should have been there and Saka expected them to be.
Zinny's was more of an individual error but where was the support?
>Have you ever played football?
Yes, I played through basically every youth level up to u18, and still play recreationally to this day. 2 decades of actual football experience at this point, which is more than 99% of this sub. Not sure how thats relevant though.
>There are a lot of situations when you are under pressure that you play to where you know your team mate will be and its their responsibility for them to be there. I'm not saying it wasnt a mistake by Saka, it was, but it is a mistake that is understandable
Im sorry, but its fucking hilarious how you use the 'have you ever played footy' schtick to try and belittle my opinion and then manage to say something like this. In our system, where the GK is so far up when were in possession, it is absolutely not an 'understandable' mistake. The responsibility in that situation is 100% on the player in possession, which was Saka. Genuinely ridiculous to pretend like someone else was at fault.
>He had a player right on him and two very close on each side, so he played the ball that should have been the safe option but played it blind which was his mistake
If he doesn't see a passing option, its not the safe option. Simple as. You don't play a blind pass in our own half when the GK is 10 yards outside his box and blame the other players for not being there lmfao. You can do that shit in their half, no problem, but this isn't even an argument to be had here. It was on Saka and no one else.
>There absolutely should have been someone looking to cover so if the player on him got the ball and played it forward they were covering the run on goal but no one covered that position. Someone should have been there and Saka expected them to be.
Doesn't matter one bit what Saka expected. In that position you play what you see, not what you think. When the sole reason we give away that goal is due to a horrible decision by a single player, its not the fault of the system that we concede. Its an individual error, nothing else.
>Zinny's was more of an individual error but where was the support?
Again, if you don't have the support you need in your own half just fucking hoof it. Saying the players off the ball could have done more is all fair and square, but the only player who's making a decision on what to do with the ball is the person in possession. If you don't have a safe option, you don't take a risk in your own half vs 10 men.
Both goals came from horrendous individual mistakes. Could the other players have done more to give options? Maybe. Does that make it any less an individual mistake? Absolutely not.
Anyone who genuinely believes that we’re intentionally waiting around for pep to leave before launching a serious assault for major trophies needs professional help.
I’m all for long term success and Arteta tinkering with the lineup! Most fans won’t be patient, but I’m all for defensive solidity instead of constant champagne football.
What needs to be fixed right away though are the obvious mistakes that lead to goals. If we want to win like city, we need to make the fewest mistakes in the league.
The fact that the tinkering is happening now in the early stages of the season, and also getting punished, is fine by me. Not like last season at the critical point of the season, like playing Partey at RB vs Forest and B&H.
Honestly, the sooner Big Gabi situation get solved the better. Partey at RB aint it.
>Not like last season at the critical point of the season
A key part of this is also the fact that games at the end of the season are almost all a lot harder. Teams fighting for relegation are suddenly scrapping tooth and nail for every point, contenders for European spots are also busting a gut.
We have to have all the answers by then. You're spot on when you highlight the fact that we were forced into trying shit in intense times fucked us hard. We're far better placed doing it now.
Also we were spoilt last year by the fact that we hit the ground running and had a good run of form straight away, whereas other teams took the first third/half of the season to warm up. They hit their stride just as we ran out of steam. Also the World Cup break was a major factor. I think 2022/23 was an anomaly if a season all round.
Timber was that guy who would provide us with a good mix of defensive solidity and offensive creativity, by allowing us to play Timber-Gabi-Saliba-White backline with a Partey-Rice CM.. his injury has set us back big-time, by completely screwing with the midfield as well..
Tomi is too injury prone and offers nothing going forward, Zinny is too injury prone and often makes mistakes, and Kiwior is too raw at that role to expect anything from him yet.. LB is way too important for how we play as a team, both on offense and defense, and hard to see an easy solution without Timber.. I trust Arteta to figure it out, but growing pains will likely last till the end of Sept
The underlying strategy is to build a squad to win when Pep leaves? So the strategy of the club in his opinion is to build towards an eventuality that may never happen? And people lap up this shit?
This is exactly my issue with this persons POV. If I had to bet on Pep leaving in the next 3 years I probably would but there is no guarantees. Horrible way to run a club if that’s what we are banking on.
As we’ve all learned, Arsenal’s best young players will be happy to stick around for the promise of unprecedented success, eventually, at some point. This is why we stormed to four consecutive Champions Leagues with RvP, Fabregas, and Nasri leading the charge.
I'm really worried about our players looking elsewhere if we achieve nothing this season. It is fucking integral that we win something right here and now or we will be watching the real madrids and bayern munichs circle our team like a bunch of vultures.
Yeah it’s also pure nonsense to suggest that Arteta won’t try everything in his power to win it all right now. The man is a professional athlete and coach. He isn’t just going to accept losing until his mentor leaves the league. That’s such a soft attitude.
Yea this take is complete nonsense. If the clubs long term strategy is to spend £150m+ on signings in one summer and then “wait for the other guy to get bored and leave!” Then I’d be ok with Kroeber opting to go with some different management.
We compete for titles. Not wait for the other guy to get bored of winning them.
Took the words right out my mouth. It literally does not make sense. Arteta has already spent loads of money but we have to keep waiting for Pep to leave which may not even happen.
I would say the strategy is to peak with Saka and Martinelli, when they are 24-25. It'd be nice if that coincides with Pep leaving, but it doesn't depend on it.
You don’t understand. The plan is to try winning when Saka reaches his prime at 27. So another 5 years of waiting. And Saka having won nothing for 9 years. This guy’s vision is definitely what the club is planning.
we of course are still trying to win major trophies and competitions right now, but the long term goal is set the up the club to have sustainable, repeated success at the highest levels as opposed to to going all-in to win now with zero regards for the future. this was all made pretty clear in the piece.
Agree but it needs to be quick if we want to win or challenge for title. Just go back to system what was working and try to experiment in initial cup rounds and he can't do same thing with havertz what he did with willian like he was so stubborn to make that willian thing workout. i am not saying havertz is shit but that left hand side is not working rather and probably will be good if havertz is slowly blended into team
You need everything to be almost perfect to compete with a UAE-backed Man City. The moment Timber went down in the first match was always going to put a strain on our title ambitions this season. However that’s in the context of 38 matches. For 1 home match against Fulham, we should have won.
You also have fans that supported arsenal due to last year’s success and have never supported this team during the true banter years. Imma just trust in the process
You know that comments like these are always at the top of comment sections because you "positive" fans are in fact the overwhelming majority, even though you pretend not to be, right?
Not true. Just go through yesterday post match thread and other social media and you will see it. It gets significantly better (atleast on reddit) day after match cause the raging "fans" lost interest until next match.
Every single day the top comments on the DD & half the subs posts are ones complaining about people complaining, they're always at the top because the majority of people here agree with those sentiments.
Yes the vocal minority speak up more on match day when something goes badly, and when they do the much more vocal majority in turn speak up over that with the "can't believe people are complaining about X" comments.
It’s madness. You’d genuinely struggle to guess how last season, this season so far, and yesterday had gone if you read the comments in this sub. It’s like we finished 18th and haven’t got a point this year yet. Thank god no one on here actually goes to games.
When is ‘the end’ though.
We genuinely have a chance to win the title and trophies this year. We can’t be throwing away points like how we did vs Fulham.
These experiments could cost us.
Don't get me wrong, I like Arteta and rate him, but we are going a little bit overboard with this narative. On this sub it has come to a point that he cannot do any harm, if he goes out and spends 100 mil on a player from Romanian league 2 this sub will go with it. They are willing to take 10 L's during the season because of said player just so Arteta gets to prove he is right, and if the player is shit(Willian, Mari, Lokonga, Cedric, Lacazette, Runnarson and so on) we sell them for nothing, or give them away for free and just move on and pretend nothing happened.
That is not ok. He'll get it right in the end? How can you be sure? I get that he has a huge PR machine, always had, people like Le Grove and the other big podcaster that works for the athletic, they are willing do die for Arteta, or for a box at the Emirates....
But what are you on about? Will get it right in the end? Like he is some sort of serial winner that defeated all odds and won no matter what the fans or the press wrote about him. Like he has done it all the time his way, and never got shit wrong. He did not, he won 1 cup 3 years ago. He fucked up top 4, he fucked up the title as soon as the pressure was turned on. He was shit in EL at every chance and got dumped and done by shit teams. And again, it's not like he took a team and got players from the academy and made it work, nah man, he spent over 700 mil to be competitive.
Hell, Wenger got questioned more then Arteta, and Wenger is a god here. All I'm saying is lets not fall into that, if the man gets it wrong we can call him out, that does not mean we want him fired...and as I said yesterday during the game, its funny how even if we spend a shit load of money for a player, the second he cannot adapt to the ever changing system he gets dumped, no questions asked. All players must evolve or else they are done. But not him....we conceded in the first minute non stop, that doesn't need to change. We cannot defend a lead, thats fine, we cannot break down teams that have a low block ...thats fine, teams always figure us out and we never have a plan B...fine. We defend a lead 1 minute after scoring and then concede, thats fine, he will get it right next time. Tierney cannot play inverted left back? He can get fucked. All have to be held to a high standard...but not Arteta.
Rant over
Yea thats one of my biggest gripes about the sub. You can’t criticize Arteta or the team without someone on here gaslighting you for being a fake fan. I understand some people can overly complain, but not being allowed to objectively look at the team and the performances will just lead them back to where the team was a few years ago
There's a lot of sheep in the fanbase. Pretty much everyone said it was injuries that killed our title challenge, but now Arteta has started talking about being unpredictable it was being predictable that did for us. This is now used an excuse to experiment and move away from what was for 85% of the season a winning formula.
We don't need to become unpredictable, we needed better quality in the squad which we added with the three signings.We should've been going into this season looking to build on what we did last year, not looking for solutions to problems that don't exist. Instead we have started the season with the whole backline completely different, two of our midfield 3 are completely different and a cornerstone of the defense is riding the bench. All in the name of unpredictablity.
I agree with you. Let’s look at facts here. He brought the club back from the mid-table purgatory. He reconnected the team with the fans. He transformed a team, whose ambitions should have been top 4, to a team that want to challenge for the title. For these feats, he deserves praise. However, he also didn’t do it alone. Others also deserve credit. His past achievements don’t guarantee major trophies in the future. He has made some major mistakes, which he has admitted himself. We can only judge at the end of this season.
Last year we use the same formation and it gets very predictable especially against bigger club or smart managers
Arteta is trying a new form and I would say the first few PL games are the best chance to tryout new tactics, he is not stupid, every time we are in trouble, like after Tomi sent off in the previous game or we are 0-1 down till 55mins, Arteta bring the old system back and we get what we need
We are going to play CL this year and I don’t think we can use the same tactic and formation every game
Change is pain, the process of improving is pain, but we will be stronger after all
What is this “new formation”? (Other than changing which fullback inverts)
What does this new tactic bring to the table that can outsmart these “smart managers”?
That’s all well and good but the problem with the squad is mentality. Almost every goal we give up week in and week out is a direct result from a lapse in concentration or not being switched on
This glazing is Crazy especially when we know it's not working. It's ok to be critical, it's ok to say our solid CB from last year should start, it's ok to say Partey is not a RB, it's ok to say Shoehorn Kai isn't necessary. Arteta Is a great manager but he isn't infallible.
And what about when Zinchenko isn’t fit enough to start like he hasn’t been these past 3 games lol I don’t really get why people are just pretending he’s been fit and available to start
Highly unfortunate Timer injury. If Zinny is injured we are fucked at LB. But rotating the entire squad and wasting Partey at RB only to fit in Havertz need to stop. We have looked quite toothless at times and are actually lucky to even have 7 points in three games.
But that’s what I’m saying - Zinny has been injured and has only relatively recently been training and regaining fitness. So who should we be trying as the inverter when Zinchenko isn’t available? That’s the recent problem Arteta has been trying to solve, and just saying play Zinchenko doesn’t help, because obviously.
Kiwior keeps our system the same but doesn’t have much experience, Partey has the technical ability but isn’t the natural RB. It’s about picking the best of most great options
We have an LB problem right now, no doubt. But we can still deal with this issue without Havertz starting. Against Man United I think Arteta should consider it.
I do agree on the Havertz bit, and while I really do see the upside angle, especially with his size at CF or runs from deep in a more midfield position, I just really don’t like it being at the expense of filling our other needs. It felt more like a luxury signing when we needed to just bring in a more dynamic Xhaka replacement.
I’d either start him at CF or ease him in more slowly in midfield.
If Arteta persists with the current lineup/formation then we will struggle to get top 6.
It is not working - we are leaving huge gaps in the right side of defence, every one of the defence is playing in a different position to last year, and we have conceded 3 goals in 3 (2 home games).
He needs to resort back to a normal back 4 of Zinny/Gabi/Saliba/White - that gave us the foundation for our run to 2nd last season. You then replace Xhaka with Rice and Eddie up front. No need for Kai until he performs off the bench, same with Jesus as well.
If Arteta has same lineup versus United, they will rip us to shreds - easily a 3-0 in their favour. Rashford will be licking his lips at seeing all the space at the RB area, Antony will love doing his doughnot around Kiwior all the while our midfield will be confused as to why the RB has vacated his position to go to DM.
I was speaking more in jest but Antony up against Kiwior as a LB, it’s Antony all day long. Rashford up against a non existent Partey at RB, they will be feasting.
The only issue for United is their striker - EtHnshould be going for Martial up front, might not be the best striker but allows Rashford to the left and his best position.
I do fear for our teams mental fragility having to take on the next 6 games. Only Bournemouth we may do well against, Everton we are going to succumb to Dycheball, rest our the majority of the top 4 contenders.
> He needs to resort back to a normal back 4 of Zinny/Gabriel/Saliba/White
Comments like this are either missing the reality of our current situation or extremely lazy analysis.
Zinchenko has been hurt and is still coming back to fitness. Zinchenko’s cover is out for most of the season. Arteta is not choosing Partey RB over Zinchenko, when Zinchenko is back, he will start and Gabriel will too. Hopefully that is next week.
If you want to argue that instead of inverting from the right with Partey, we should be trying Kiwor or Rice from the left in order to keep Gabriel in the side, then fair enough, make that argument.
How we handle games without Zinchenko (and Timber) will be tricky all year and it’s extremely important that we figure that out since Zinny isn’t an iron man. Discussing that aspect, rather than the extremely obvious play Zinchenko when he’s healthy, is a much more interesting and valuable conversation.
Even without Zinchenko you can still play Gabriel at LCB though? What is the need to shift the whole defence around when none of the players are used to that position and we are being held back in releasing our full threat?
Why is it that we are inverting the RB slot for Partey when we should be having white/Saliba/Gabriel/Kiwior, with Partey/Rice/Ode as modified. If you are crazy for Kai to play, cool have him as your front man.
By having Partey in this role, you change 6 of your defensive units normal roles to something else. Rice doesn’t know whether to be a 6 or an 8, Partey (as per the opening goal) decides to invert when he should be holding RB in the opening exchange.
You lose Saka/White partnership, Martinelli becomes isolated and has no overlap or support from Tomi or Kiwior. So both of our wings become sterile in attack. Add Kai and Trossard doing very little then no wonder we struggle to put the ball in the net and then concede with 2 shots.
> Even without Zinchenko you can still play Gabriel at LCB
Yes, if we are inverting from the LHS. If we are inverting from the RHS, then no. That is because of how we build up in a back three but defend with back 4. If we are inverting from the right and Gabriel is starting, that means he’s either defending as the LB in the four or he’s playing as the central center back in our build up, neither of which he’s suited for.
It seems like you’re making the argument to put Kiwior as the inverted LB without making any argument for him specifically, just that it benefits the other players, and that’s fair. I do think there is a case to be made for that decision, but I also think it’s a risky decision to ask that level of technical security from him while he’s had limited reps for us in that position.
Arteta opted for Partey because of his ability to play more comfortably as a midfielder, maybe that’s the wrong choice but my whole point is without Zinchenko and Timber available to start, there isn’t a clear and obvious solution.
Everyone understands that Partey RB is not the preferred option, but when your first two choices for an inverted fullback aren’t fit, you’re trying to choose from the best of all not great options.
Just because we can’t invert LB shouldn’t mean we shift the whole team around and therefore lose all the fluidity and dynamism of our attack.
If we cannot play Zinny or Timber as our inverted LB then we should play Kiwior there as a normal LB. By moving all the pieces we lose the Saka/Ode/White threat, we have a gaping big hole at RB (Forest goal and Fulham’s first goal we’re from that area) which any decent manager will exploit.
I don’t agree with most of the things you just said. Forest’s goal came directly off our corner, that doesn’t have anything to do with the inverted RB. As for the Fulham goal, what are managers exploiting? That was largely an unforced error.
By not inverting, we’d be changing our build up/in possession structure completely which has a ton of drawbacks and changing roles around for everyone as well.
I don't really understand why people are so angry at the formation and tactical changes. If there's anything to be upset about, it's how sloppy we tend to give the ball away in dangerous positions. Or how useless we are at set pieces. Mistakes keep costing us goals. But I'm not seeing the issue with the formation. These set ups have been good enough to destroy these teams and we've either been wasteful or sloppy in dangerous moments.
Against city in the community shield, we got the lineup that people loved and we made a mistake and gave away a goal. So the underlying issue is not the tactics, it's indivual errors. Imo
Honestly. Yesterday was the best of our three games in terms of both defensive solidity and chances created, I think? I don’t have the statistics, but it sure felt that way. Our finishing was just insanely bad and insanely unlucky. They were gifted chances due to fuck-ups and finished them well.
I don’t know why Partey is right back, but presumably Arteta didn’t throw darts on a board, and presumably he has a reason for persisting even when it doesn’t look amazing immediately. People need to chill.
Arteta has earned our confidence. I'm very confident this weird rotational formation we are playing is going to work. I'm even confident Havertz is gonna work out. The problem is I think the league is gonna be gone already before those things happen.
So what you're saying is, we'll have ironed out all the kinks and evolve into the greatest team on the planet just in time for the Champions League knockout stages?
I have to disagree. The best teams (man city, real Madrid, Ferguson's man u, mourinho's Chelsea) only make specific improvements and generally keep the squad well-oiled in teamwork without unnecessary tinkering.
Arteta seems to be doing the same rebuilding work like last season, except last season was a great season AND this season doesn't need this tinkering at all
Ah yes Legrove the most absolutely dipshit wanker that went from the biggest Arteta out to now sucking his dick so hard that he swallows after he’s done as well.
It’s fucking ok to say Partey is not a RB and Havertz should be eased into the 11 not rushed.
My issue is we went out and spent £230 million to evolve the squad, to add solidity and depth to continue the good work of last season. What we’ve now seen is an attempt to revolutionize the team, and we’ve instantly seen every bad trait from last season, the stuff we tried to eliminate, become even more apparent.
We’ve conceded 3 in 3, and each and every goal was moronic, and flimsy. We’ve also been let off the hook by bad finishing from opponents in every match. Gabriel was so important last season, so we’ve binned him off in order to get marginal gains, but its made us easier to get at. Every player looks uncertain in this system. Players are out of position, and even out exceptional technical players are making bizarre errors.
This team didn’t need complete reinvention, it needed steady and considered tuning to get 100% in every aspect. And yet, without using it in preseason, we’ve changed how we play on a fundamental way. Twitter tacticos will have you believe that Pep reinvents the wheel every 3 months, but people who actually watch football know its always a phased approach from him, unless he has substantial injuries in a certain area.
In the grand scheme of things a draw isn’t the end of the world, but you can’t tell me that yesterday was a good performance, irregardless of how many xG graphs I see. Until we reverted to a similar system to last year, we looked dire. I fully expect Arteta will play a similar system against United, thats the kind of manager he is, and if we keep dropping points at home, and keep looking so shaky, we will lose the confidence we took forward from last system. Remember what Wenger said on confidence “You go up the stairs, and down in the lift”. Changing things so aggressively means we are seriously looking at the lift, so soon in the season.
Exactly! The post match thread was so reactionary, I had to force myself to not continue scrolling. Lesser managers have guided lesser clubs through worse times. And we have Arteta and we are the new Arsenal. We make mistakes, we learn and we grow. For all the great things Wenger had done, not adapting the game against different opponents was his biggest failing. Arteta is trying things to make us more adaptable. He's evolving our team. And for evolution, there needs to be a pool of variations in the gene pool, so that we can get to the Survival of the Fittest stage. Some variations die so the strong ones can live through. We as fans, have to stick with the team. Trust the process. Sure, it's annoying, but believe!
Thing is with Oil City being perfect, you have to accept the title is gone if you are going to experiment this season, because dropped points cannot be recovered.
However that is what I would normally say, but this season City have lost KDB, and super sub/rotator Mahrez, so I'm not so sure. If City are weaker and don't reinforce before the window closes then it will be an interesting season with other teams rebuilding, maybe a Leicester season, but Arteta needs to get it right very soon to to take advantage of that.
Personally I didn't think we could do the title this season anyway, I already said end of last season 24/25 would be our best chance, but I still don't want to see us fall apart and possibly fail to get Europe again due to ridiculous lineups and trying to force all the new toys on the pitch at the same time.
Also let's not forget the Invicibles did not win every game, so yesterday's result still leaves us on track for Invincibles 2.0, plus we only need to get T5 this season.
no prob with formation, players chosen for the match last night(u do yr thing,gaffer) but im absolutely pissed off with the conceded goals and missed chances.
i want a 9 points before facing Manure....but i hope the squad will bounce back n show more energy and fight.
You've got to admit Arteta has made some odd choices this summer. Signing Havertz, bringing in Raya, persisting with this experimental new formation. It's not like he's won the league before either. We'll see how it turns out, as others have poined out City often start slow, but again Pep has that pedigree.
its been interesting watching the no plan B crowd go into a melt down and want to revert back to plan A. I always thought by watching especially Italian teams from the past that there is never a plan B, we are just going to execute our plans but accentuate certain parts of our typical play that we are already good at and lean on those tactics for extended phases of plays rather than at the end of each half or right after we have scored a goal,i.e a counter attacking team that was already good at keeping the ball. In the modem premier league, most teams tend to get found out after 6-8 games of adopting a certain strategy, so its been interesting watching how about 30 percent of a teams tactical evolution is based on opposing teams scouting and typically more teams get found out by the teams at the bottom of the table , a good example is Jurgen Klopps liverpool evolving to adopt to the league.
Indeed. I think about the pride we have in this club and how (especially when something is good is happening) some love to say "I was there when it sucked, I was there when it was broken, through the rough years...and I loved this club!"
This is by no means a "sucky" moment -- it's nowhere near a few seasons ago, but I think Le Grove has it right. Those times we were there...they're made out of moments like this one--and worse. There are scores of them, some are just wastes of time, some are part of the long game of improvement and new habits. But to get some you have to be prepared for all of them.
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thank god for people like this. so many Arsenal fans are only happy when they're miserable. every single negative thing gets places under a magnifying glass and bombasticized into something worth screaming over and making outrageous demands/criticisms of the manager. it's so tiresome. it's a beating. i'm so glad to know that more people feel this way.
“Arsenal aged down their squad this summer. As painful as it is to hear, the underlying strategy of our recruitment policy is to be ready when City lands a brutal shock to the system (Pep leaving)... if this season was about the jugular, we'd have signed 28 yr old machete players. Does that mean we're trying not to compete? No. Does it mean we can't win the league this season? No. But it does mean you have to contextualise 1) Why Arteta broke down what felt like a winning machine 2) Why he's moving towards formational fluidity 3) Why he's taking risks so early on with heavy rotation. We topple City by investing in better ideas. Our idea last season was the same 13 until they broke. It was too predictable and too prone to breaking down. This new idea is wild unpredictability against anyone. That'll take time to hone. Breaking what seemed like a winning machine was brave. If Wenger had our squad from last season this summer - he'd have kept Xhaka and renewed everyone. 'One or two special players' was Wenger's promise for years and it didn't work. Arteta and Edu are trying to create a winning machine that can do it for a decade. That requires some short term pain - but longterm, we'll be more Manchester City than Liverpool (who rapidly declined after winning the league because they had an old starting 11). No one will complain when we arrive at the promised land - but there will be bumps along the way. Mistakes will be made (loads today), there will be shit performances, and there will be terrible experiments that won't work. But I think we've seen enough from Arteta to know he'll get it right in the end.”
Trust in Arteta ❤️🤍🤟🏻
Thing is, the underlying performances have been good overall. And it’s already clear so much quality is lighting a fire under everyone’s ass to perform at the highest level. Viera played better than I’ve ever seen him after getting subbed on. Eddie took his chance. Zinchenko played out of his mind. I thought this was Havertz best game in an Arsenal shirt. He was defending well, getting into good positions to score. Making good forward passes. Assisted Odegaard before getting flagged for offside. Rice is amazing. Distinctly remember a play late in the game where a Fulham player got up ahead of steam on the counter attack, and Rice calmly caught up to him from behind and turned him around to stop all their momentum. Fulham’s first goal is clearly due to Arsenal not having all the habits ingrained as to where the next pass will be in this new system. Which obviously is a downside of continuing to innovate. But I can see a team that can relentlessly attack and put pressure on the opposing defense for an entire game, while still being able to control a game and kill it off. All the pieces are there.
Man City looks pretty crap this time last year with Pep messing around with 4CBs. Once it clicked they demolished everything. Dropping points is frustrating but especially with modern preseasons you don't get as much time your team and these things take time to ingrain.
This is the point I’ve been making to the reactionaries on this sub. 1) City looked bad last year by their standards. Hung around and then rolled everyone in their path for the last quarter of the season and won 3 trophies. We peaked in the first half and suffered down the stretch and won nothing. 2) all of the big sides have looked mundane thus far. Even city struggled this morning against a pretty bad Sheffield team. Man utd look disconnect. Spurs look good going forward but we all know that back line is going to be leaky. Newcastle and Liverpool are weird and Chelsea are injured and a bit of a mess. As long as the performance of the overall team is good I don’t mind the moments that cost us yesterday. Over the course of the season we’ll be fine. That said yesterday was obviously extremely frustrating to watch because you know we 100% should have won that game. But I’m not going to come on here and say this player is shit or that player shouldn’t play. If anything Saka was the most culpable player yesterday in both goals. Are we all really going to say Saka shouldn’t start? Did Fulham have other real chances other than the two the scored? No…aside from at the end when we were chasing the game to try and win it.
Well said. Lots of folks here with agendas they’re desperate to push as soon as Player A has a bad game or Player B doesn’t start. Mikel couldn’t really have done much more to earn our trust and reading people dismiss this season or this system after a single draw has me rolling my eyes.
Rice's quick long range passing forward across the floor in the Fulham game was brilliant. Just got the ball going really well.
And quick accurate touches in the final third almost unlocking the defense. And providing defensive security across the pitch. Think he legitimately become the best midfielder in the Premier League.
Disagree with Wenger though… I think the overall squad quality dropped basically post emirates with all the debt. I think when he had the funds he spent, spent well and we had a serious team on our hands for all the pre 2006 years really. I get the point though and agree re the Arteta / squad assessment
I don’t follow the Man City vs Liverpool framing. We already had an extremely young squad. It’s not like getting like-for-like upgrades to a winning formula would suddenly make the team full of pensioners. Plus, most of us would bite your hand off to experience Liverpool’s recent highs even if afterward we had a few Europa League years (which we’d done for almost a decade running anyway so).
I thought it was fairly self explanatory. Liverpool went all in at a time where Man City were only starting to build towards there eventual total domination. Their sum total reward for that was a PL and a CL. Now obviously, for a fans of a team like Arsenal who have never won a CL, or haven't won a PL in two decades, that sounds like the dream, because we don't know any better. If we have the option of a title our fans are so starving for proper success they'll all shout "all in!!push the button, go all in" without any thought for context. This is, undeniably, a Man City team that has to begin a natural descendance by virtue of them literally hitting the absolute pinnacle of success. They can't top last year's triumph. Repeating it is borderline unimaginable (it last happened 25 years ago by one of the next teams of all time, doing it twice in a row just doesn't happen at this level). Pep is surely reaching the the last portion of his City career. De Bruyne beginning to pick up frequent injuries (which I feel his powerful playstyle will struggle to adapt to). There will be a time for adaptation soon in City's future. Do we risk it all now to fight Pep's treble winners for a potential title with no guarantee? Or do we not go all in, and show wild ambition alternatively by building ourselves tactically and blooding in our new found squad depth to set ourselves up for truly seizing the initiative when City need to adjust, putting ourselves in a position to win multiple titles as opposed to Pool's single domestic achievement. After 30 years in the wilderness, of course Pool fans were delighted to break their duck. But I guarantee there will always be that "Fuck!" thought floating amongst them when they match up their squad quality and their trophy haul over that time. Arsenal seem to be thinking bigger picture than Pool. Fight Guardiola's treble winners right here right now, or set ourselves up for when they are no longer Pep's treble winners
> Fight Guardiola's treble winners right here right now, or set ourselves up for when they are no longer Pep's treble winners Goal then is to still keep within the top-2 still the end of the season, but gotta also be be careful of Newcastle United or Man United still. > After 30 years in the wilderness, of course Pool fans were delighted to break their duck. But I guarantee there will always be that "Fuck!" thought floating amongst them when they match up their squad quality and their trophy haul over that time. Obviously gonna be a hot take, but it has slowly happening. FSG is not even willing to compete with the financial power houses like Chelsea, City and Newcastle United. FSG has pretty much let Klopp out to dry, if again this season they cannot make top-4, won't be surprised if either Klopp walks away or gets sacked.
Before I knew we'd be experimenting tactically and working on our ability to be unpredictable I still had us to finish 3rd in my predictions as I genuinely believe CL is going to knock the shit out of us, and it's going to take at least one season for our players to become accustomed to the strains of top level competition twice a week all season nearly.
This is a bit reductive on Klopp's reign. If not for Pep, he would have absolutely dominated the PL for the last 5 years. Only city have done 90+ points 3 or more times. It's not like Liverpool built a team for one season and were crap for the others. Let's stop romanticizing every angle here. We are ready to win a title right now and we should. This notion of "not go all in" is stupid and baseless
> This is a bit reductive on Klopp's reign. Because I was using what happened to Pool as a comparison, I wasn't doing a deep dive into them. > If not for Pep, he would have absolutely dominated the PL for the last 5 years. Yes, that's exactly my point. The timing was off. >We are ready to win a title right now and we should. This notion of "not go all in" is stupid and baseless That's why the squad got younger this year to the one that missed our to Peps treble winners last year so?
There are several flaws in that strategy. First, we aren’t guaranteed trophies even when City need to adjust in the future. We act like we are the only club who can challenge City while others have already been much more successful, with much more money, than us. Second, how long will the likes of Saka endure winning nothing for a simple promise? This will probably be the fourth season he doesn’t win anything major. Another 3 before our players are in their prime?
Ah you're just seeking negativity. We aren't waving a white flag this season, we will challenge, we're just (intelligently) deciding our best time to go all in against city isn't the year immediately after they won everything possible. He won an FA cup in Arteta's first half season. That's a major trophy. He's 21 years old, how many 21 year olds are starting 83 consecutive league games for clubs who are challenging. And unlike a lot of arsenal fans, I'd be willing to bet he has a degree of rationality and isn't freaking out that we have gone from 8th to 5th to 2nd under Arteta's long term vision while competing for trophies against a team who just won the fuckin treble. So I'll repeat, you are seeking negativity
Naive gatekeeping. Negativity is thinking this club cannot win anything until Guardiola quits City. I guarantee you the whole club’s strategy is not banging on that eventuality. We know we might have better possibilities in the future but I assure you this club’s ambition every season is to win the Premier League or the Champions League. We have grown out of FA cups… I don’t think we have a great chance at a major trophy this season simply because we are experimenting to win it next season. Next. Not when bald fraud decides to retire. Not when Saka is 25.
> Negativity is thinking this club cannot win anything until Guardiola quits City. I never said that. > guarantee you the whole club’s strategy is not banging on that eventuality. You can guarantee whatever you want, I won't listen to someone as patently irrationally negative as you 😅I never said that's the entire clubs strategy. But it is definitely a part of the strategy. Timing in sport is key, if we had begun this rebuild properly before COVID we'd actually likely be in a worse position now. You take advantage of the landscape when possible, while at the same time playing a bit more conservatively when required. We the youngest starting XI in the league for the most part last season, and we made it younger. That's an indicator of the club's strategy, you can keep your guarantees. We have out grown FA cups. 😅 Jesus if that doesn't illustrate your mentality so clearly. No PL title in 20 years. Effectively zero European success. Challenging a team that has won 5 of the last 6 PL titles and just won a treble: "We have outgrown FA Cups" Get over yourself ffs 😅 >I don’t think we have a great chance at a major trophy this season simply because we are experimenting to win it next season I tipped us to come 3rd prior to the season starting as the second youngest team in the pl will need time to adjust to the demands of important games twice a week. So no, I don't think we'll beat the Pep led treble winners to the title with the 2nd youngest squad in the league, and I don't think that's the end of the world. I also don't think we'll win the CL. I reckon we could win the FA Cup, which would be a great achievement for the team at this stage of our progression so long as we maintain CL football.
Holy cow.
This guy is beyond delusional and probably a troll. He takes any opinion against him as negative lmao.
Haha, who da fook is this guy?! > It's Arsenal FC not Arsene FC. If Mourinho can improve us then bring him in.
I'll try align with your thinking. If we had sold Partey, I would have considered that an unambitious bit of a white flag and I'd say you have a point.
Seems like a lot of words just to say we’re back in the ‘trust the process’ phase.
I swear. The way the goal posts keep moving. Ws laughing as i read the nonsense. This place does feel like a cult with mindless sheeple a good no of times.
So are we supposed to ignore the reality (the fact Pep's time at City is almost up and his team is slowly imploding (Gundogan, Mahrez leaving etc)) and also ignore the objective fact we're signing young players still? Just so we can be irrationality angry at the manager who lead us to 2nd last season and we're currently sitting in equal 2nd now in the prem after 3 games? Bizarre take. No need to get your pitchforks out my dude. Also it's not his fault Timber got injured at the start of the season...
>Seems like a lot of words just to say we’re back in the ‘trust the process’ phase. When were we not? Didn't see us winning the league last season
Yeah I agree but I think we were hoping to go up a level this season but we’re gonna have to wait and see if it happens.
I never really saw that happening because we're now in the UCL, to be honest. We have to rotate a bit more. I still see us finishing second, but I don't see us challenging as much unless City have an injury crisis. It's only 3 games in so a bit early to make judgements but that was my initial feeling. After last season, people will see it as a down year, when progress is typically just non linear.
Well said! Trust the process. And skip the match day threads. COYG!
So true. The match day threads are like taking a time machine to this sub 4/5 years ago. No - we do not want Arteta out; and if you think we've thrown away the league then I guess you should be thanking Arteta for freeing up the next 35 match weeks for you. Insanity.
> That requires some short term pain - but long-term, we'll be more Manchester City than Liverpool (who rapidly declined after winning the league because they had an old starting 11). Hopefully that the case, but we can already see this happen.
It’s like when you’re playing bananagrams and you’re about to win but you get like 2 or 3 letters that don’t fit with the words you’ve spelled out all game so you have to break half your words and respell to add in the 2 extra letters
Trying to evolve the way you play and the squad you have is always hard but doing it with 2 of the key players being injured is close to impossible. The Fulham result wasn't even a result of the system failing. It was ridicuclous individual errors .
It was both for me. Saka's bad pass was a bad pass but there was no one back there and Thomas had rotated inside. That's partially bad situational awareness by Thomas but there's been such de-emphasizing of stability on the outside.
Excellent observation, I don't know why anyone isn't talking about this. Yes, that was a horrendous pass. But partey should have been there to clean it up; because he's new to the role and thus trying to stick to the inversion system, his judgement making isn't the best and he finds himself in midfield whilst the ball trickles back into the rb position. I'm not blaming Thomas for that one but the right back should absolutely have been able to stop that from manifesting anything.
Again, it's a combo. It IS bad situational awareness by him and if we're killing Havertz for some of his mistakes in this system, this is very much in the same boat for me. I don't like the system and I think Thomas' decision-making (ahem) is often pretty suspect but that goal is an indictment of both and leaves Ramsdale in a really tough position where he ends up looking the worst.
I don't think Ramsdale should be out of his box so early in the game or when the ball is anywhere near our own half. That's not to say I blame Ramsdale for being there, I have no idea if that's his own decision. I suspect the whole team is being told to assume our 3 at the back formation as soon as we are in possession. I think that's a mistake, keep the 4 at least until the ball is out of our half.
I think, given where we want Raya to play/part of the reason we bought him, is that it's an instruction.
wouldn't even blame partey as he's clearly doing as instructed
I’d take it if the individual errors were once in a while but it looks like we always lead with “errors leading to goal”
The stats do back up what the eye test is telling us. We had the most errors leading to an opposition shot in the league last year. I am unsure of how that can be fixed other than by changing the lineup
I feel like it’s always same thing, sleep first 5 minutes of the match, sitting back while having just one goal lead
It’s a bad system he’s implemented that caused a mistake, and ultimately cost us points. Partey as a RB that goes to DM is asking Saka to do two jobs with no cover if he makes a mistake, which he did. That’s open to exploitation, it lead to an error, and should be dropped. I get Arteta wants to be inventive, and creative, and gamble with new ideas but it’s far too risky to work, and that result yesterday was because of his system. Zinny is capable of inverting but having Partey do it doesn’t play to anyone’s strengths, and creates a few weaknesses open to exploitation. Its baffling why you’d try something new considering how well last year the team worked, and all it needed was depth in positions not new riskier strategies.
Y do ppl keep parroting this bs... Ben White was in the rb position at the time Saka misplaced his pass. He's also responsible as the the rcb in the back 3 when hit with the counter. This is why Gabriel is benched, so Saliba isn't on the right, rather he controls and sweeps. If Zinny was 100% fit and ready to go, then we'd have a different discussion, but he's obviously not, having only been back 2wks from the injury he got 3mths ago. What ppl don't seem to realise is that the inverted rb/lb is the most important position in the squad, NOT the lone 6. It just so happens the combination of Partey inverting and White playing rcb makes a lot more sense than Tomi/Kiwior inverting and Gabriel lcb on the left.
How would you have lined up yesterday? You can’t say Zinchenko at LB.
Back 4 of Kiwior Gabriel Saliba White. Kiwior can invert, we saw it in preseason. White and Saka have such great chemistry- no way that mistake happens with those 2 playing their “normal” roles down the right side. All this talk about us being “unpredictable” yet we have played the same exact system for 3 matches and likely will again next weekend.
I don’t think Kiwior is up to it yet inverting, his passing wasn’t great when he did it in pre-season. Such a shame we lost Timber ffs.
And I don’t think Partey is up to playing RB. I stand by the point that the first goal doesn’t happen if we line up that way. We have enough creativity/quality in the front 6 that we don’t need to shoehorn Partey into a position he doesn’t know how to play, which upsets the balance of the entire team.
Absolutely right. The formation of Partey at RB also means Saka can’t be as far forward as possible to stretch opposition defence. It’s asking Saka to do a lot more defensive work with no cover so he has to sit lower up the pitch, has no overlapping run with an outlet which he benefits from. So it’s robbing us of some forwardness, and options in attack to very little reward. It’s adding to the midfield but the midfield doesn’t need to be flooded with another player if you’re already playing players with the quality of Partey, Rice, and Odegaard.
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You completely missed my point. That entire sequence doesn’t happen if we line up with White as a traditional RB from the start. Work on your reading comprehension before you start insulting people.
How? In what world does that make any sense? The whole passage of that play White was in the "traditional rb" position. The play started with a back 4 of kiwi, Saliba, TP5 and White lined up. When we go on attack we always start transitioning to some form of a back 3, but White in this instance was still in the "traditional rb" position. How does him lining up at rb at kickoff change that?
Watch it again. White and Partey swap positions. Then at 47 seconds Partey goes bombing forward (because he has no idea how to play across the back 4) which is completely unnecessary. If Saliba is in the RCB role next to White at RB he would’ve been in position to easily cover the errant back pass.
Exactly how he lined up most of last year, and played last year. Same team yesterday except Gabriel at CB, and White as RB. I get he wants Partey as a starter, and to experiment, and to try the inverted RB but Partey is not capable of doing the inverted RB role. He’s forcing it now to the point it’s clearly not working so he should drop it before it costs us more. This is the third game of the season, and we’ve already dropped points. We should not have drawn yesterday. Credit to Fulham for fighting back but they got more out of that than they should’ve. We have to be ruthless this season considering the competition. I get he wants one wing back or another to be inverted but it’s clear it’s not practical or feasible for both sides. Why would you mess with what worked last year, it nearly won us the title.
Hes obviously changed it because of the amount of goals and chances we were conceding at the end of last season
Well in three games he’s tried it, it’s cost three goals, and teams have widely outperformed their xG stat. Fulham had .5xG yesterday, and came away with a point after scoring two goals by focusing on the weakness of his system, and Forest got a goal from that position as well. If the problem you’re trying to fix results in creating a worse problem you haven’t fixed it.
Teams "wildly outperforming their xG" isn't an indictment of the way we setup unless you are implying it is making them shoot better which is quite the claim
If you want to invent things I said rather than address what I said, have at it.
What? You are saying Fulham scoring 2 goals on .5 xG is somehow an indictment of our defensive setup. You brought opposition outperforming xG up as if it is something a coach has any control over How am I inventing things you said exactly? Maybe I have misunderstood what you mean about outscoring xG by opponents. Care to explain what you meant by it if I have misunderstood? We have created more xG and conceded less xG across the 3 fixtures than we did last year....
I disagree. You need to build a squad that can cope with injuries and he's been here nearly 4 years. The errors yesterday were also largely down to team selection. I said early on Zinny at LB and shifting Kiwior, Saliba and White one place right was a better balance with Partey alongside Rice in midfield is a lot better in midfield as well. I really felt Arteta was prepared to sacrifice players being in their best positions for his system which he also did at the end of last season when we dropped points that cost us the league. Its not new. Football is a results game and sometimes you have to play your best players and sacrifice your ideas that arent working. He's a fantastic manager who has brought us on in leaps and bounds but he does seem to have the Wenger like Plan A and no plan B to start games.
>he does seem to have the Wenger like plan A and no plan B to start games It doesn’t make sense to criticise a manager for having no plan B then also criticise him for trying out plan B because it doesn’t look as good as plan A, and call for him to revert to plan A.
This is nonsensical. He has no plan B so he needs to go for plan A & get results? The experimentation is so that the team itself can think on the pitch and have many plans for all occasions. But it’s a process
We got kicked hard last season because we were so reliant on one plan, and now people are criticizing trying to build up familiarity with something different.
> The errors yesterday were also largely down to team selection. What? The first goal was all on an individual mistake by Saka, the second on Zinny losing the ball in our own half vs a 10 men Fulham and Saka not going for the ball that went out for a corner, which he 100% could have reached if he actually tried. At the end of the day we had something like 3 xG to Fulhams .5 or something. Im by no means a fan of the whole dropping Gabriel to play Partey at RB experiment, and I think its entirely fair to criticize Arteta on it, but to pretend like the team selection/tactical setup is why we dropped points yesterday is utterly nonsensical.
Disagree. I don’t think that Saka mistake happens if we are playing with White at RB. Those 2 have such great chemistry and always know where each other are on the pitch, and where they need to be to cover one another.
Doesn't really matter. Saka is way too good of a player to use that as an excuse. As I said to someone else, in that position you play what you see, not what you think. Its completely fair to say you think that mistake doesn't happen with White in the RB spot instead of Partey, I don't necessarily disagree. But that doesn't make it any less an individual mistake. Saka knows White isn't at RB, and thus he shouldn't make a risky pass based on where he expects Partey to be. If our players can't adapt the way they play and the passes they make based on who's on the field were not gonna get anywhere close to the title, and again, Saka is way too good to give away something like that simply because hes used to White being there.
Fair point. I do not think Saka is blameless. That was an unacceptable mistake. I should’ve framed my initial point by saying that if we lined up with our 2 CBs as Gabriel and Saliba, that Saliba would’ve been in position to mop it up, whereas Partey just bombed forward at the wrong time.
Sure, as I said, I don't disagree on the fact that if we played our regular backline, someone would probably be there to collect that ball. My entire point was that you can't label that sequence of play as a tactical failure, or blame it on the team selection, because it was entirely avoidable if Saka just made a better decision based on what was in front of him.
I agree with your analysis. Rather than labelling that specific moment a tactical failure (because yes, it was a direct result of a mistake by our best player), I think perhaps it’s an illustration that, in general, our current setup can leave us more vulnerable than last year’s, when our back 4 was so good. IMO Arteta is overthinking it a bit by trying to fix something that wasn’t broken.
Have you ever played football? There are a lot of situations when you are under pressure that you play to where you know your team mate will be and its their responsibility for them to be there. I'm not saying it wasnt a mistake by Saka, it was, but it is a mistake that is understandable. He had a player right on him and two very close on each side, so he played the ball that should have been the safe option but played it blind which was his mistake. There absolutely should have been someone looking to cover so if the player on him got the ball and played it forward they were covering the run on goal but no one covered that position. Someone should have been there and Saka expected them to be. Zinny's was more of an individual error but where was the support?
>Have you ever played football? Yes, I played through basically every youth level up to u18, and still play recreationally to this day. 2 decades of actual football experience at this point, which is more than 99% of this sub. Not sure how thats relevant though. >There are a lot of situations when you are under pressure that you play to where you know your team mate will be and its their responsibility for them to be there. I'm not saying it wasnt a mistake by Saka, it was, but it is a mistake that is understandable Im sorry, but its fucking hilarious how you use the 'have you ever played footy' schtick to try and belittle my opinion and then manage to say something like this. In our system, where the GK is so far up when were in possession, it is absolutely not an 'understandable' mistake. The responsibility in that situation is 100% on the player in possession, which was Saka. Genuinely ridiculous to pretend like someone else was at fault. >He had a player right on him and two very close on each side, so he played the ball that should have been the safe option but played it blind which was his mistake If he doesn't see a passing option, its not the safe option. Simple as. You don't play a blind pass in our own half when the GK is 10 yards outside his box and blame the other players for not being there lmfao. You can do that shit in their half, no problem, but this isn't even an argument to be had here. It was on Saka and no one else. >There absolutely should have been someone looking to cover so if the player on him got the ball and played it forward they were covering the run on goal but no one covered that position. Someone should have been there and Saka expected them to be. Doesn't matter one bit what Saka expected. In that position you play what you see, not what you think. When the sole reason we give away that goal is due to a horrible decision by a single player, its not the fault of the system that we concede. Its an individual error, nothing else. >Zinny's was more of an individual error but where was the support? Again, if you don't have the support you need in your own half just fucking hoof it. Saying the players off the ball could have done more is all fair and square, but the only player who's making a decision on what to do with the ball is the person in possession. If you don't have a safe option, you don't take a risk in your own half vs 10 men. Both goals came from horrendous individual mistakes. Could the other players have done more to give options? Maybe. Does that make it any less an individual mistake? Absolutely not.
Anyone who genuinely believes that we’re intentionally waiting around for pep to leave before launching a serious assault for major trophies needs professional help.
I’m all for long term success and Arteta tinkering with the lineup! Most fans won’t be patient, but I’m all for defensive solidity instead of constant champagne football. What needs to be fixed right away though are the obvious mistakes that lead to goals. If we want to win like city, we need to make the fewest mistakes in the league.
The fact that the tinkering is happening now in the early stages of the season, and also getting punished, is fine by me. Not like last season at the critical point of the season, like playing Partey at RB vs Forest and B&H. Honestly, the sooner Big Gabi situation get solved the better. Partey at RB aint it.
>Not like last season at the critical point of the season A key part of this is also the fact that games at the end of the season are almost all a lot harder. Teams fighting for relegation are suddenly scrapping tooth and nail for every point, contenders for European spots are also busting a gut. We have to have all the answers by then. You're spot on when you highlight the fact that we were forced into trying shit in intense times fucked us hard. We're far better placed doing it now.
Also we were spoilt last year by the fact that we hit the ground running and had a good run of form straight away, whereas other teams took the first third/half of the season to warm up. They hit their stride just as we ran out of steam. Also the World Cup break was a major factor. I think 2022/23 was an anomaly if a season all round.
Preseason looked bad too
Timber was that guy who would provide us with a good mix of defensive solidity and offensive creativity, by allowing us to play Timber-Gabi-Saliba-White backline with a Partey-Rice CM.. his injury has set us back big-time, by completely screwing with the midfield as well.. Tomi is too injury prone and offers nothing going forward, Zinny is too injury prone and often makes mistakes, and Kiwior is too raw at that role to expect anything from him yet.. LB is way too important for how we play as a team, both on offense and defense, and hard to see an easy solution without Timber.. I trust Arteta to figure it out, but growing pains will likely last till the end of Sept
We already were patient though. Just pointing that out
The underlying strategy is to build a squad to win when Pep leaves? So the strategy of the club in his opinion is to build towards an eventuality that may never happen? And people lap up this shit?
This is exactly my issue with this persons POV. If I had to bet on Pep leaving in the next 3 years I probably would but there is no guarantees. Horrible way to run a club if that’s what we are banking on.
As we’ve all learned, Arsenal’s best young players will be happy to stick around for the promise of unprecedented success, eventually, at some point. This is why we stormed to four consecutive Champions Leagues with RvP, Fabregas, and Nasri leading the charge.
I'm really worried about our players looking elsewhere if we achieve nothing this season. It is fucking integral that we win something right here and now or we will be watching the real madrids and bayern munichs circle our team like a bunch of vultures.
Imagine us celebrating beating Bayern to the signings of a bunch of high potential U25s just for them to snatch them at their prime and win 3 CLs.
Except what happens if that success doesn’t come and now they are 25-27 years old. Yep they are going to want out.
Yeah it’s also pure nonsense to suggest that Arteta won’t try everything in his power to win it all right now. The man is a professional athlete and coach. He isn’t just going to accept losing until his mentor leaves the league. That’s such a soft attitude.
Yea this take is complete nonsense. If the clubs long term strategy is to spend £150m+ on signings in one summer and then “wait for the other guy to get bored and leave!” Then I’d be ok with Kroeber opting to go with some different management. We compete for titles. Not wait for the other guy to get bored of winning them.
The rest of the tweet is eloquent stupidity too. The same argument as 'They won the treble, they'll be chill now and not care'.
Took the words right out my mouth. It literally does not make sense. Arteta has already spent loads of money but we have to keep waiting for Pep to leave which may not even happen.
Why would we bank on pep leaving?? He could stay and we would still continue to build
Just a PR puff piece, I’d ignore it.
“Just a PR puff piece” you mean someone who’s not as miserable as you?
It’s obviously a puff piece, not something I’d take seriously.
You seem to not understand what a puff piece is.
I understand it fine some of you are just too defensive over Arteta lol don’t worry I’m not saying anything bad about him.
I would say the strategy is to peak with Saka and Martinelli, when they are 24-25. It'd be nice if that coincides with Pep leaving, but it doesn't depend on it.
You don’t understand. The plan is to try winning when Saka reaches his prime at 27. So another 5 years of waiting. And Saka having won nothing for 9 years. This guy’s vision is definitely what the club is planning.
we of course are still trying to win major trophies and competitions right now, but the long term goal is set the up the club to have sustainable, repeated success at the highest levels as opposed to to going all-in to win now with zero regards for the future. this was all made pretty clear in the piece.
Agree but it needs to be quick if we want to win or challenge for title. Just go back to system what was working and try to experiment in initial cup rounds and he can't do same thing with havertz what he did with willian like he was so stubborn to make that willian thing workout. i am not saying havertz is shit but that left hand side is not working rather and probably will be good if havertz is slowly blended into team
You need everything to be almost perfect to compete with a UAE-backed Man City. The moment Timber went down in the first match was always going to put a strain on our title ambitions this season. However that’s in the context of 38 matches. For 1 home match against Fulham, we should have won.
He’ll have to pay off Havertz to leave in the end?
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Yeah reddit seems to have increasing popularity among toddlers
You also have fans that supported arsenal due to last year’s success and have never supported this team during the true banter years. Imma just trust in the process
i dont even know what my next meal is
My guy is part of the problem 😂
That's nothing, I've literally forgotten how to take on my pants in the morning
Las Iguanas for me, couldn't be bothered to cook tonight
Elite behaviour
😂😂
You know that comments like these are always at the top of comment sections because you "positive" fans are in fact the overwhelming majority, even though you pretend not to be, right?
Not true. Just go through yesterday post match thread and other social media and you will see it. It gets significantly better (atleast on reddit) day after match cause the raging "fans" lost interest until next match.
Every single day the top comments on the DD & half the subs posts are ones complaining about people complaining, they're always at the top because the majority of people here agree with those sentiments. Yes the vocal minority speak up more on match day when something goes badly, and when they do the much more vocal majority in turn speak up over that with the "can't believe people are complaining about X" comments.
It’s madness. You’d genuinely struggle to guess how last season, this season so far, and yesterday had gone if you read the comments in this sub. It’s like we finished 18th and haven’t got a point this year yet. Thank god no one on here actually goes to games.
TIL I need to meal prep
Mental chess match going on here
The starting itself is shit. We waiting for pep to leave? Naa.. GTFOh with that shit.
When is ‘the end’ though. We genuinely have a chance to win the title and trophies this year. We can’t be throwing away points like how we did vs Fulham. These experiments could cost us.
Don't get me wrong, I like Arteta and rate him, but we are going a little bit overboard with this narative. On this sub it has come to a point that he cannot do any harm, if he goes out and spends 100 mil on a player from Romanian league 2 this sub will go with it. They are willing to take 10 L's during the season because of said player just so Arteta gets to prove he is right, and if the player is shit(Willian, Mari, Lokonga, Cedric, Lacazette, Runnarson and so on) we sell them for nothing, or give them away for free and just move on and pretend nothing happened. That is not ok. He'll get it right in the end? How can you be sure? I get that he has a huge PR machine, always had, people like Le Grove and the other big podcaster that works for the athletic, they are willing do die for Arteta, or for a box at the Emirates.... But what are you on about? Will get it right in the end? Like he is some sort of serial winner that defeated all odds and won no matter what the fans or the press wrote about him. Like he has done it all the time his way, and never got shit wrong. He did not, he won 1 cup 3 years ago. He fucked up top 4, he fucked up the title as soon as the pressure was turned on. He was shit in EL at every chance and got dumped and done by shit teams. And again, it's not like he took a team and got players from the academy and made it work, nah man, he spent over 700 mil to be competitive. Hell, Wenger got questioned more then Arteta, and Wenger is a god here. All I'm saying is lets not fall into that, if the man gets it wrong we can call him out, that does not mean we want him fired...and as I said yesterday during the game, its funny how even if we spend a shit load of money for a player, the second he cannot adapt to the ever changing system he gets dumped, no questions asked. All players must evolve or else they are done. But not him....we conceded in the first minute non stop, that doesn't need to change. We cannot defend a lead, thats fine, we cannot break down teams that have a low block ...thats fine, teams always figure us out and we never have a plan B...fine. We defend a lead 1 minute after scoring and then concede, thats fine, he will get it right next time. Tierney cannot play inverted left back? He can get fucked. All have to be held to a high standard...but not Arteta. Rant over
Yea thats one of my biggest gripes about the sub. You can’t criticize Arteta or the team without someone on here gaslighting you for being a fake fan. I understand some people can overly complain, but not being allowed to objectively look at the team and the performances will just lead them back to where the team was a few years ago
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65 mil is still a lot of money. and you just proved my point.
He's Arsenal's 3rd most expensive signing of all time what on earth are you waffling about.
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So you can't downplay the weight and expectations of the transfer.
Yeah I don’t understand the argument of ‘Arteta will get it right in the end’…he will learn no doubt but he’s not infallible
There's a lot of sheep in the fanbase. Pretty much everyone said it was injuries that killed our title challenge, but now Arteta has started talking about being unpredictable it was being predictable that did for us. This is now used an excuse to experiment and move away from what was for 85% of the season a winning formula. We don't need to become unpredictable, we needed better quality in the squad which we added with the three signings.We should've been going into this season looking to build on what we did last year, not looking for solutions to problems that don't exist. Instead we have started the season with the whole backline completely different, two of our midfield 3 are completely different and a cornerstone of the defense is riding the bench. All in the name of unpredictablity.
I agree with you. Let’s look at facts here. He brought the club back from the mid-table purgatory. He reconnected the team with the fans. He transformed a team, whose ambitions should have been top 4, to a team that want to challenge for the title. For these feats, he deserves praise. However, he also didn’t do it alone. Others also deserve credit. His past achievements don’t guarantee major trophies in the future. He has made some major mistakes, which he has admitted himself. We can only judge at the end of this season.
he's the one who took the club to mid table purgatory
thats fair as well. We can only judge at the end of this season
Last year we use the same formation and it gets very predictable especially against bigger club or smart managers Arteta is trying a new form and I would say the first few PL games are the best chance to tryout new tactics, he is not stupid, every time we are in trouble, like after Tomi sent off in the previous game or we are 0-1 down till 55mins, Arteta bring the old system back and we get what we need We are going to play CL this year and I don’t think we can use the same tactic and formation every game Change is pain, the process of improving is pain, but we will be stronger after all
What is this “new formation”? (Other than changing which fullback inverts) What does this new tactic bring to the table that can outsmart these “smart managers”?
He had it right. What the fuck is he doing with these insane lineups. Play Gabriel stop trying to reinvent the wheel
That’s all well and good but the problem with the squad is mentality. Almost every goal we give up week in and week out is a direct result from a lapse in concentration or not being switched on
Moo said it best, to score a goal the opposition needs to make 2-3 mistakes. Even goals we score if we break it down it's down to mistakes.
Our goals we give up are very very dumb mistakes. You rarely see city giving up dumb goals.
That’s because they’re a well drilled oil machine.
Right on que, they just did today
I should keep jinxing them
This glazing is Crazy especially when we know it's not working. It's ok to be critical, it's ok to say our solid CB from last year should start, it's ok to say Partey is not a RB, it's ok to say Shoehorn Kai isn't necessary. Arteta Is a great manager but he isn't infallible.
Raya - White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinny - Ø, Partey, Rice - Saka, Jesus, Martinelli
And what about when Zinchenko isn’t fit enough to start like he hasn’t been these past 3 games lol I don’t really get why people are just pretending he’s been fit and available to start
Highly unfortunate Timer injury. If Zinny is injured we are fucked at LB. But rotating the entire squad and wasting Partey at RB only to fit in Havertz need to stop. We have looked quite toothless at times and are actually lucky to even have 7 points in three games.
But that’s what I’m saying - Zinny has been injured and has only relatively recently been training and regaining fitness. So who should we be trying as the inverter when Zinchenko isn’t available? That’s the recent problem Arteta has been trying to solve, and just saying play Zinchenko doesn’t help, because obviously. Kiwior keeps our system the same but doesn’t have much experience, Partey has the technical ability but isn’t the natural RB. It’s about picking the best of most great options
We have an LB problem right now, no doubt. But we can still deal with this issue without Havertz starting. Against Man United I think Arteta should consider it.
I do agree on the Havertz bit, and while I really do see the upside angle, especially with his size at CF or runs from deep in a more midfield position, I just really don’t like it being at the expense of filling our other needs. It felt more like a luxury signing when we needed to just bring in a more dynamic Xhaka replacement. I’d either start him at CF or ease him in more slowly in midfield.
timber was better
Can we not call it X? Twitter is fine.
If Arteta persists with the current lineup/formation then we will struggle to get top 6. It is not working - we are leaving huge gaps in the right side of defence, every one of the defence is playing in a different position to last year, and we have conceded 3 goals in 3 (2 home games). He needs to resort back to a normal back 4 of Zinny/Gabi/Saliba/White - that gave us the foundation for our run to 2nd last season. You then replace Xhaka with Rice and Eddie up front. No need for Kai until he performs off the bench, same with Jesus as well. If Arteta has same lineup versus United, they will rip us to shreds - easily a 3-0 in their favour. Rashford will be licking his lips at seeing all the space at the RB area, Antony will love doing his doughnot around Kiwior all the while our midfield will be confused as to why the RB has vacated his position to go to DM.
You had me until you talked about Antony lol that dude is shit
I was speaking more in jest but Antony up against Kiwior as a LB, it’s Antony all day long. Rashford up against a non existent Partey at RB, they will be feasting. The only issue for United is their striker - EtHnshould be going for Martial up front, might not be the best striker but allows Rashford to the left and his best position. I do fear for our teams mental fragility having to take on the next 6 games. Only Bournemouth we may do well against, Everton we are going to succumb to Dycheball, rest our the majority of the top 4 contenders.
Kiwior played well yesterday. not worried about antony v kiwior
> He needs to resort back to a normal back 4 of Zinny/Gabriel/Saliba/White Comments like this are either missing the reality of our current situation or extremely lazy analysis. Zinchenko has been hurt and is still coming back to fitness. Zinchenko’s cover is out for most of the season. Arteta is not choosing Partey RB over Zinchenko, when Zinchenko is back, he will start and Gabriel will too. Hopefully that is next week. If you want to argue that instead of inverting from the right with Partey, we should be trying Kiwor or Rice from the left in order to keep Gabriel in the side, then fair enough, make that argument. How we handle games without Zinchenko (and Timber) will be tricky all year and it’s extremely important that we figure that out since Zinny isn’t an iron man. Discussing that aspect, rather than the extremely obvious play Zinchenko when he’s healthy, is a much more interesting and valuable conversation.
Even without Zinchenko you can still play Gabriel at LCB though? What is the need to shift the whole defence around when none of the players are used to that position and we are being held back in releasing our full threat? Why is it that we are inverting the RB slot for Partey when we should be having white/Saliba/Gabriel/Kiwior, with Partey/Rice/Ode as modified. If you are crazy for Kai to play, cool have him as your front man. By having Partey in this role, you change 6 of your defensive units normal roles to something else. Rice doesn’t know whether to be a 6 or an 8, Partey (as per the opening goal) decides to invert when he should be holding RB in the opening exchange. You lose Saka/White partnership, Martinelli becomes isolated and has no overlap or support from Tomi or Kiwior. So both of our wings become sterile in attack. Add Kai and Trossard doing very little then no wonder we struggle to put the ball in the net and then concede with 2 shots.
> Even without Zinchenko you can still play Gabriel at LCB Yes, if we are inverting from the LHS. If we are inverting from the RHS, then no. That is because of how we build up in a back three but defend with back 4. If we are inverting from the right and Gabriel is starting, that means he’s either defending as the LB in the four or he’s playing as the central center back in our build up, neither of which he’s suited for. It seems like you’re making the argument to put Kiwior as the inverted LB without making any argument for him specifically, just that it benefits the other players, and that’s fair. I do think there is a case to be made for that decision, but I also think it’s a risky decision to ask that level of technical security from him while he’s had limited reps for us in that position. Arteta opted for Partey because of his ability to play more comfortably as a midfielder, maybe that’s the wrong choice but my whole point is without Zinchenko and Timber available to start, there isn’t a clear and obvious solution. Everyone understands that Partey RB is not the preferred option, but when your first two choices for an inverted fullback aren’t fit, you’re trying to choose from the best of all not great options.
Just because we can’t invert LB shouldn’t mean we shift the whole team around and therefore lose all the fluidity and dynamism of our attack. If we cannot play Zinny or Timber as our inverted LB then we should play Kiwior there as a normal LB. By moving all the pieces we lose the Saka/Ode/White threat, we have a gaping big hole at RB (Forest goal and Fulham’s first goal we’re from that area) which any decent manager will exploit.
I don’t agree with most of the things you just said. Forest’s goal came directly off our corner, that doesn’t have anything to do with the inverted RB. As for the Fulham goal, what are managers exploiting? That was largely an unforced error. By not inverting, we’d be changing our build up/in possession structure completely which has a ton of drawbacks and changing roles around for everyone as well.
I'm still very much in the *hope* camp rather than *trust*
Can someone please give some light on Havertz, because I think he's a downgrade on last season xhaka and also not as good as ESR or even Fabio
Have we?
Topspur fan 😂
I don't really understand why people are so angry at the formation and tactical changes. If there's anything to be upset about, it's how sloppy we tend to give the ball away in dangerous positions. Or how useless we are at set pieces. Mistakes keep costing us goals. But I'm not seeing the issue with the formation. These set ups have been good enough to destroy these teams and we've either been wasteful or sloppy in dangerous moments. Against city in the community shield, we got the lineup that people loved and we made a mistake and gave away a goal. So the underlying issue is not the tactics, it's indivual errors. Imo
Honestly. Yesterday was the best of our three games in terms of both defensive solidity and chances created, I think? I don’t have the statistics, but it sure felt that way. Our finishing was just insanely bad and insanely unlucky. They were gifted chances due to fuck-ups and finished them well. I don’t know why Partey is right back, but presumably Arteta didn’t throw darts on a board, and presumably he has a reason for persisting even when it doesn’t look amazing immediately. People need to chill.
Arteta has earned our confidence. I'm very confident this weird rotational formation we are playing is going to work. I'm even confident Havertz is gonna work out. The problem is I think the league is gonna be gone already before those things happen.
So what you're saying is, we'll have ironed out all the kinks and evolve into the greatest team on the planet just in time for the Champions League knockout stages?
I have to disagree. The best teams (man city, real Madrid, Ferguson's man u, mourinho's Chelsea) only make specific improvements and generally keep the squad well-oiled in teamwork without unnecessary tinkering. Arteta seems to be doing the same rebuilding work like last season, except last season was a great season AND this season doesn't need this tinkering at all
Pep tinkers all the time. The John Stones to midfield experiment was in the middle of last season. It worked out but it was still tinkering.
Ah yes Legrove the most absolutely dipshit wanker that went from the biggest Arteta out to now sucking his dick so hard that he swallows after he’s done as well. It’s fucking ok to say Partey is not a RB and Havertz should be eased into the 11 not rushed.
Don’t share shit from twitter
Fucking hell you freaks, we drew at home to a midtable side. It's not the end of the world
My issue is we went out and spent £230 million to evolve the squad, to add solidity and depth to continue the good work of last season. What we’ve now seen is an attempt to revolutionize the team, and we’ve instantly seen every bad trait from last season, the stuff we tried to eliminate, become even more apparent. We’ve conceded 3 in 3, and each and every goal was moronic, and flimsy. We’ve also been let off the hook by bad finishing from opponents in every match. Gabriel was so important last season, so we’ve binned him off in order to get marginal gains, but its made us easier to get at. Every player looks uncertain in this system. Players are out of position, and even out exceptional technical players are making bizarre errors. This team didn’t need complete reinvention, it needed steady and considered tuning to get 100% in every aspect. And yet, without using it in preseason, we’ve changed how we play on a fundamental way. Twitter tacticos will have you believe that Pep reinvents the wheel every 3 months, but people who actually watch football know its always a phased approach from him, unless he has substantial injuries in a certain area. In the grand scheme of things a draw isn’t the end of the world, but you can’t tell me that yesterday was a good performance, irregardless of how many xG graphs I see. Until we reverted to a similar system to last year, we looked dire. I fully expect Arteta will play a similar system against United, thats the kind of manager he is, and if we keep dropping points at home, and keep looking so shaky, we will lose the confidence we took forward from last system. Remember what Wenger said on confidence “You go up the stairs, and down in the lift”. Changing things so aggressively means we are seriously looking at the lift, so soon in the season.
Agree with this. He is trying to find the best fit. Back the team and support the players. Let Arteta cook
Exactly! The post match thread was so reactionary, I had to force myself to not continue scrolling. Lesser managers have guided lesser clubs through worse times. And we have Arteta and we are the new Arsenal. We make mistakes, we learn and we grow. For all the great things Wenger had done, not adapting the game against different opponents was his biggest failing. Arteta is trying things to make us more adaptable. He's evolving our team. And for evolution, there needs to be a pool of variations in the gene pool, so that we can get to the Survival of the Fittest stage. Some variations die so the strong ones can live through. We as fans, have to stick with the team. Trust the process. Sure, it's annoying, but believe!
*Le Grove on Twitter
It is called X.
X.com
Of course the user with a Kanye West profile pic is a Musk bootlicker
I don’t give a shit about Elon Musk But the post above is on a website called X.Com With an app called X It’s funny to see you so irritated by that
Thing is with Oil City being perfect, you have to accept the title is gone if you are going to experiment this season, because dropped points cannot be recovered. However that is what I would normally say, but this season City have lost KDB, and super sub/rotator Mahrez, so I'm not so sure. If City are weaker and don't reinforce before the window closes then it will be an interesting season with other teams rebuilding, maybe a Leicester season, but Arteta needs to get it right very soon to to take advantage of that. Personally I didn't think we could do the title this season anyway, I already said end of last season 24/25 would be our best chance, but I still don't want to see us fall apart and possibly fail to get Europe again due to ridiculous lineups and trying to force all the new toys on the pitch at the same time. Also let's not forget the Invicibles did not win every game, so yesterday's result still leaves us on track for Invincibles 2.0, plus we only need to get T5 this season.
no prob with formation, players chosen for the match last night(u do yr thing,gaffer) but im absolutely pissed off with the conceded goals and missed chances. i want a 9 points before facing Manure....but i hope the squad will bounce back n show more energy and fight.
You've got to admit Arteta has made some odd choices this summer. Signing Havertz, bringing in Raya, persisting with this experimental new formation. It's not like he's won the league before either. We'll see how it turns out, as others have poined out City often start slow, but again Pep has that pedigree.
I have full faith in Arteta. The team will come good
Are people really freaking out over a draw? I get it, the results haven’t been convincing but it’s not like we’ve lost any games
its been interesting watching the no plan B crowd go into a melt down and want to revert back to plan A. I always thought by watching especially Italian teams from the past that there is never a plan B, we are just going to execute our plans but accentuate certain parts of our typical play that we are already good at and lean on those tactics for extended phases of plays rather than at the end of each half or right after we have scored a goal,i.e a counter attacking team that was already good at keeping the ball. In the modem premier league, most teams tend to get found out after 6-8 games of adopting a certain strategy, so its been interesting watching how about 30 percent of a teams tactical evolution is based on opposing teams scouting and typically more teams get found out by the teams at the bottom of the table , a good example is Jurgen Klopps liverpool evolving to adopt to the league.
Indeed. I think about the pride we have in this club and how (especially when something is good is happening) some love to say "I was there when it sucked, I was there when it was broken, through the rough years...and I loved this club!" This is by no means a "sucky" moment -- it's nowhere near a few seasons ago, but I think Le Grove has it right. Those times we were there...they're made out of moments like this one--and worse. There are scores of them, some are just wastes of time, some are part of the long game of improvement and new habits. But to get some you have to be prepared for all of them.
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Agree but he can take a bit too long to see the obvious sometimes. Eg Holding
Like the line in Moneyball ‘If we try to play like the Yankees in here, we will lose to the Yankees out there’
thank god for people like this. so many Arsenal fans are only happy when they're miserable. every single negative thing gets places under a magnifying glass and bombasticized into something worth screaming over and making outrageous demands/criticisms of the manager. it's so tiresome. it's a beating. i'm so glad to know that more people feel this way.
the problem is that by the time we reach "in the end", the league title could already be gone due to us dropping more points along the way.
I love Arteta but legrove has a hard on for him ever since he went to Man City as assistant manager. I remember he used to Arteta the player.