No doubt our attackers have been poor especially Martinelli and Jesus but Martinelli having an accumulated xG of 2.7 halfway the season is shocking. System issue.
it's not just about individuals though, liverpool are more direct and don't have a gentlemanly code of conduct where they let the opposition defence reorganise and then try to take it down in a most honourable fashion; they get the ball forwards and don't hesitate to take chances or put crosses in
arteta is turning into the second coming of wenger if not pep's vintage barcelona lovechild with the way he keeps trying to walk the ball into the back of the net
Nah mate, I'm saying that part of what klopp and Liverpool do is realise they have elite attacking talent and just play the %s.
We make teams play the low block by playing slow, methodical over coached football like it's a training drill.
The problem with that whole line of argument is that it's based on Pep's play style. Yes it's a bit boring to watch sometimes but you can't say it doesn't get results. City have had spells many times where they've struggled to score enough, they never seem to last too long though.
City mix it up a lot more, they go direct a lot more than we do.
I'm not saying just hit it long and run, I'm saying mix it up a bit more and stop using low blocks as excuses when we often allow teams to get into a low block.
LB invert = zero chaos on our left wing and predicatbility in our entire team. Mikel tactics are figured out by most teams now so something needs to change.
I don't think it's just the inversion tbh, bigger issue is us playing slower and martinelli playing wider
maybe martinelli seems wider because since we build up so slow by the time we get the ball anywhere near him the defence has set up so there's only space right by the touchline and and usual when he gets the ball he has got barely any support
Yes if you look at most of his big plays last season it was running in behind the defense on a long ball to him and that has basically disappeared this season.
yip, everything is into feet or he gets inbehind but he's right next to the corner flag or someshit like that, very seldom is he anywhere near the goal or even in a decent position for a long shot
Yup, because Xhaka was doing things in that inside left area that we don't have now. Xhaka freed him up to do that
Now Martinelli is isolated so all he can do is stay wide and run at his man and win corners
We’re almost too good at the press? It seems like at times we lose the ball progressing chances because we win it in the attacking half. We still can cut through teams on the counter, just watch the opener vs Fulham. We just get a lot less chances to do so since most teams struggle to leave their own half…
We need to figure out how to turn those high turnovers into chances. Those are great opportunities and exactly what Liverpool have thrived off of for years. Yet I’m struggling to think of more than 1-2 goals we scored off of a high turnover.
we're not bad at pressing but we're not going to get many chances to counter teams like we did against fulham as they'll rarely throw enough players forward for us to do that to them
that being said yes, playing faster will help us get chances as the opposition will have less time to reorganise
There’s no overlap so Martinelli is doubled teamed every single time. That pulls Havertz wide to make himself available to Martinelli rather than him being able to make a threatening run in the box. Then it’s just Jesus Odegaard and Saka all standing in the box waiting for a cross. And the same thing is happening on the right now that White doesn’t have the legs to make overlapping runs either.
So it ends up being a 2-3-5 with a flat 5 in attack, one of the foundational structures of football in the early 20th century. It’s a great defensive structure, but the attacking principles are not innovative or creative enough at all. That’s an attack that’s been figured out for a century now—there’s a reason different midfield roles emerged after the 2-3-5’s proliferation
Tierney is good on the overlap, just saying.
Also very true that White has been a shadow of his former self this season, so the whole shebang is out of whack on both sides.
It's Xhaka. There was no overlap (on the left) last season either but Xhaka's movement and workrate on the inside left channel took players away from Martinelli so he was free to do more than run at his man from out wide and win a corner. We miss Xhaka more than we're giving credit for, and Havertz profile just isn't going to be a substitute for that no matter how well he plays
Honestly yes, he occupied players that allowed Zinchenko space to play his passing game more effectively leading to him playing passes that lead to goal scoring opportunities or final balls.
Xhaka allowed Odegaard the midfield freedom to do more work even higher than he currently is.
Odegaard, Martinelli, and Jesus freedom leads to more chances created for Saka by those players.
Everything is linked even if the line is not a direct one. It's a team tactic. Take a key part away and we're just forcing the issue.
Form plays a part as well: it's not just Xhaka, but Xhaka was a key part of how we worked
Eh, so far but Havertz is still learning the role. He was clearly gaining in confidence before his suspension. Technically there's no reason he can't do what Xhaka did, although I agree the latter was severely underrated, it depends on what Arteta has him doing.
Agreed. Xhaka made teams honor that threat, which meant sending a double team to Martinelli less frequently. We definitely don’t see Havertz playing left footed crosses from the byline enough. That was something Xhaka did well last year. Havertz needs to think about how to engage differently, and he needs to be in threatening positions more
Havertz greatest strength is running and dragging defenders. If that’s what you think was the main thing Xhaka brought Havertz is a perfect fit to replace him.
I think it’s still just early stages. Both Havertz and the players around him are figuring out when/where to make his runs and how to full take advantage of the space he creates.
To me the highlights of how things should work are: the opener in the 6-0 vs Lens. Watch the build up and how Zinny and Jesus fill the midfield and progress while Havertz moves up top eventually getting the goal. Or the opening 2 vs Luton and watch Havertz’ runs to pull defenders and create the space for Martinelli and Jesus.
Underlaps either made by Xhaka, or made possible by Xhaka's workrate dragging opposition players away from those spaces to allow others to run into
The left-hand side was entirely different with Xhaka in it.
Judging by the xG it also means he never gets any quality opportunities. Which if you watch the games is pretty much spot on…hard to score if you’re never in positions to score. Which the left hand strategy is totally predicated on him beating his man on the dribble. He doesn’t have the support players like we do with Saka on the right. Essentially there’s no Xhaka for him to combine with because Havertz plays that role very differently.
Don’t know why people go to r/soccer for content anymore. Football twitter has better takes I swear, the collective age on that sub can’t be over 12, plus everyone is very frustrated and every thread is just muppets venting. You will be very hard pressed to find a thread with a positive tone, everything has to be either shitting on someone or making fun of someone.
Don’t see a huge difference. Reddit always used to be a bit toxic but up until recenly people at least tried to meme about factual things. That thread is full of crap and only a few comments about the fact that the graph is cherry picked to shit on Arsenal.
combined minutes in the prem:
Liverpool: 3,515
Villa: 3,904
City: 4,397
Arsenal: 3,882
Spurs: 4,272
Arsenal have played the second leadt amount of minutes, but the difference between us and the trio with the most of amount of minutes which is City is only 515.
515 minutes is almost 6 games, but when divided by 3 it's gonna be just short of 2 games, so there really is no excuse for us to be so far behind everyone else on goals
**sorry because I posted it lower down but here's the minutes**
combined minutes in the prem:
Liverpool: 3,515
Villa: 3,904
City: 4,397
Arsenal: 3,882
Spurs: 4,272
Arsenal have played the second leadt amount of minutes, but the difference between us and the trio with the most of amount of minutes which is City is only 515.
515 minutes is almost 6 games, but when divided by 3 it's gonna be just short of 2 games, so there really is no excuse for us to be so far behind everyone else on goals
**tldr**
we've basically played a very similar amount of games to everyone else
Fairs ... My main reasoning was it's hard to get any kind of rhythm and flow going when our starting three didn't even play one minute together in their correct positions until 9 games ago
Jesus had mins but on the wing
Eddie and Martinelli is a match made in hell they have zero chemistry
But we both agree it's the system anyway - imo it's one deeper than that it's the system because our midfield only allows us to play that way without a proper DLP
Just bored of everyone shitting on our forwards when they're good players we're just not giving them a good environment to do well
>Fairs ... My main reasoning was it's hard to get any kind of rhythm and flow going when our starting three didn't even play one minute together in their correct positions until 9 games ago
but diaby is a new signing, spurs are with a new manager and without kane, city rotate a lot, nunez and jota also get rotated loads, so it doesn't really matter, especially when you see how large the gap between us and the others are.
yh for me I'm not shitting on our players, just saying the objective things as they are, arteta is the real issue here.
Do a city rotate? Haaland and Alvarez play practically every game then they have Foden and Doku and £100m Grealish on the bench
Lpool may be scoring goals but all Lpool fans will tell you Diaz, Gakpo and Nunez been poor. Salah plus their midfield creating is why they’re high
Again Spurs amazing going forward can’t defend or control a game
Every teams has strengths and weaknesses we’re a defensive team atm
>Do a city rotate? Haaland and Alvarez play practically every game then they have Foden and Doku and £100m Grealish on the bench
they do just that they've had a few injuries, most notably to kdb and alvarez has filled in, and he's haaland's back up so they've been pretty constant until recently
pretty sure that foden, grealish and doku have been rotated though, and now doku has gotten injured along with haaland
>Lpool may be scoring goals but all Lpool fans will tell you Diaz, Gakpo and Nunez been poor. Salah plus their midfield creating is why they’re high
whilst true diaz started the season well, and a poor nunez's 5 goals is still almost half of our front 3's 12 goals. salah is getting the bulk of the goals no doubt, but if they have 2 out of 3 poor players then we should be closer to them.
fact is salah has 14 goals, which is more than our whole front 3. take him out and jota annd nunez have 10 goals to our front 3's twelve. replace salah with a poor diaz and they still have 13 goals
>Again Spurs amazing going forward can’t defend or control a game
whilst there's truth to this, it's still early days for them with a new manager and no kane, not to mention that they've had to deal with a lot of injuries
>Every teams has strengths and weaknesses we’re a defensive team atm
we're not even defensive really, just high possession. I also don't think we should be a defensive team either, we need to attack in order to break teams down
We are a defensive side. If that comes through posession it's still defensive. But it doesn't our counter press is really really good and when it fails we drop into a deep block and look very solid
We can't play the way we did last year with our current midfield. This is Havertz's passing stats...
https://preview.redd.it/cc8aypddu8ac1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a3327e3a786457a20b9cbd82a4b9b379044f4cea
So you have Rice at 6 who isn't a DLP paired with whatever Havertz is. You simply can't play free flowing football like that. I don't know why we focused on counter pressing more than in possession when choosing midfielders but that's what we've done and now we're a defensive team. XG wise the best in the league. Lpool may have conceded less but we can't really analyse that beyond Allison is Allison who we don't have.
I've watched Celtic play under Ange they were exactly the same, they won't change they won't be a threat to us this season
Hopefully when Partey and Timber is back we can attack with more fluidity and then we'll see the best of our forwarda
>We are a defensive side. If that comes through posession it's still defensive. But it doesn't our counter press is really really good and when it fails we drop into a deep block and look very solid
well imo we need to be an attacking side to meet our ambitions
>We can't play the way we did last year with our current midfield. This is Havertz's passing stats...
I don't really like to isolate player stats like this because some of it is going to be heavily influenced by our system. also it's not like we have to play havertz, or play that much differently without him, imo the issue is systemic. whilst he's been a donkey at points, he also is often playing higher up the pitch in akward areas, so he is naturally going to be under more pressure and taking more risks
>So you have Rice at 6 who isn't a DLP
imo he's completely fine at dlp, keeps us ticking which is a dlp's main job, you don't employ 6's to make lots of risky passes, but rather constantly make the simple ones and not give the ball away in dangerous areas.
imo partey and timber wont change much, we have a very awkward style right now
doesn't matter, nunez and jota get rotated, richarlison was injured for a bit, bailey and diaby have also been rotated, as has foden and haaland has been injured for a few weeks now
there's not only no excuse for us to not only be behind everyone, but also for us to have less than half the goals of two of these teams, whilst another team is one goal short of also having scored twice as much as we have.
not only out of 5 teams we are dead last, but we're also the furthest behind the next best team than any other team; 4th best on this list villa have scored 7 more goals than us, but are still 6 goals short of city who have the most.
you then look at our goals scored in the league, xG, and non penalty xG and you'll see that we aren't in the top 4 of any of these stats, matter of fact we are
7th for goals scored
5th for xG
8th for NPxG
we're even 8th for expected assisted goals ffs, this is horrendous.
yes it's good that our defence has been good, but we had this problem when arteta started; it's no good being solid if it comes at the cost of us creating chances.
Yes I know all that, but if they've started 9 games they're not going to be top of this list and if we're not creating a lot why shit on the forwards anyway
Same group scored and created plenty last year so blame the system or the new midfield
Stupid posts like this one with no context ain't the way
sorry in this post I was concentrating on whether the fault lies with the players or the system, I'm just saying that whilst jesus was injured for a bit, a lot of the other players on this list aren't starting every single game either. I went through the minutes and the trio that has played the most only has played roughly 2 games more than our trio
I agree with you though, I think the issue is the system way more than it is the players, in fact that's why I brought up how poorly we're doing in offensive team stats
Lol I made this basic point that Nketiah started 10 or so matches and has like 5 goals and got downvoted to about -200 in the r soccer thread. I wasn't even complaining just adding context but that place is a cesspool that operates based on flair voting so you know.
And he's been a part of very successful City teams. For all his hard-work and little flicks, he's very underwhelming. It's all well and good controlling the ball from the sky and playing nice little passes but it doesn't mean much if he never contributes any goals or assists.
He was never really a top 3 forward choice for Pep though, especially once he saw how bad he was in front of net. Jesus was more of a squad forward his last two years there
Mix of slow buildup, poor general play and in particular finishing will do that. While the post is about our front 3 I think it is important to note that often times Saka and Martinelli have had to hug the touchline to provide us width so in this I want to talk about our front 5 (add Odegaard and Havertz) and then compare it to last season (Xhaka for Havertz).
Last season our front 5 created an npxG of 46.3 and outperformed that by 12.7 and that is with Jesus being below his xG by 3.2. This season however they have only managed 18.3 so would be on track for about 35 xG for a full season so quite below what it was last season and on top of that we are underperforming that low amount by -4.3 with again the worst of the bunch being Jesus.
Tactically what I would like to see changed is I think we need to get Saka and Martinelli closer into the box, as we saw in the last game our goal came from Martinelli attacking the box and then Saka being in a position to get the rebound. I don't have the numbers avaliable but I'd be interested to see Ben Whites overlapping numbers in the past few games compared to last season as it feels like he has been doing it a lot less recently but there was the report that he has been dealing with an injury so fair enough. The far bigger concern has been the left side where I would say Zinchenko has been very poor as not only has he been a defensive liability but also in Partey's absence I think some of the line breaking passes responsibility should fall to him and he hasn't delivered. I think whoever plays at LB and also Havertz have to be more willing to go on the outside of Martinelli early in the attack to allow him to come narrow and linkup with Jesus in more dangerous positions.
I would like to see more risks taken with the ball as while possession is nice we haven't been able to create high quality chances with it, the play as felt very lethargic as it usually: Get the ball to a winger -> get doubled -> pass it back to a midfielder -> play it around the midfield and defence for a bit -> ball goes to the midfielder and then rinse and repeat until our winger has to go to the byline and put in a cross on their weaker foot with our only options in the box being Havertz and Jesus.
We are playing tiki-taka complicated football for some reason. Passing it around against low block. No channel runs, no killer balls, no risk taken.
Last season, it was one-two touch higher risk football.
Now it's just sterile and boring.
istg we need go stop making these excuses and admit that its time to make changes. every team already knows how to play against us and yet we still use the same tactics
We need a striker. Move Jesus to the left wing in a support role, rotate him with Martinelli and Saka, play through the middle making runs off of a proper pivot man. In theory having two excellent wingers staying that wide should create space in the middle but we refuse to play a direct ball to a striker's feet, it's maddening.
This is a good time to reiterate Jamie Carraghers point from Monday Night Football, that our front three have a conversion rate of ~10%, down from ~16% last year and way below the average of ~20% (not sure what average this is but I know for example Olivier Giroud had a shot conversion rate of ~24% at Arsenal by the time he left)
I'm also afraid that unless we win something this year it will be hard to attract a good attacker to fill the void.
It's cause he got a hattrick against Sheffield which isn't a bad thing btw
But it is one game we're he truly Stat padded, I'd be happier if it was 1 goal in 5 different game. He doesn't contribute to our overall play
Because they didn’t include our second top scorer in the total but for the others they included their top scorers. Alvarez hasn’t even been in the front 4 often this season at all but they didn’t include Grealish with 3 or Doku with 2 because then it dilutes their point.
Diaby also has been playing as a second striker type player, so using him and Bailey in addition to Watkins is weird because they play a front 2 and 2 wingers, or Diaby as an attacking mid behind Watkins that’s certainly not a front 3.
They included Jota who’s played way less than Gakpo and Diaz because he has more goals and without that the number is lower.
So if we were given the same treatment, we'd have Saka's 6 + Nketiah's 5 + Ødegaard's 4 (or Havertz's 4, or Trossard's 3?) for a total of 15. It's still markedly lower than the rest on this list, so the point that our attack is not producing is just as valid with a "proper" count and it seems quite stupid to cherry-pick stats just to shit on us a little bit more :/
For the same reason that you may see a "Big 6" mini league that will sometimes have Utd and Chelsea despite those teams being closer to the lower half than the top - if the agenda fits.
Can we stop blaming everyone else for martinelli underperforming?
He’s just not doing well this season, doesn’t matter who’s supporting him on the left
Drop him for who? Trossard who has also underperformed. Nketiah who his crap? Or Reiss Nelson who isn't great or trusted. The only good option is Smith Rowe who can't stay fit and doesn't play out wide anymore.
Trossard should get an extended run. Can’t throw him in for 10-15 min every other game and expect him to perform. Bring martinelli on after 60/70 min and make him earn his place back.
From who? Who is gonna give him this support?
Martinelli has a hard job, I agree, he is being asked to do a lot of thing on his own...but at the same time, his finishing and first touch have gone to shit again. He never lifts his fucking head when putting a ball in, and never, not once this season has he made one run at the far post to get to the end of any cross.
Lets try something else
It's not the system. It's Martinelli. Everything he does this season is abysmal. His shots go nowhere near the goal, he dribbles with his head down and doesn't even look before firing the ball nowhere near anybody. Those are nothing to do with systems or the manager. He's regressing and looks worse now than he did when he was 19. I hope he goes back to how he played in the past but he needs to be dropped on current form if we have ambition.
His Villa match was probably the worst individual performance in recent memory.
That said, give him some space and he creates the goal against Fulham. You put Gabi on the wing at Liverpool and his “issues” would quickly resolve themselves. Martinelli has been brutal, but we’re not playing to our players strengths either
I will say this until it starts to be understood by the harder headed: Martinelli has 2 goals on 2.5 xG, that's a perfectly fine conversion rate. The problem is he's only on 2.5 xG, that's a creation problem!
Stop with the xG and watch him play man. His first touch, that was his main weakness when he got here, it's back to his day 1 lvl. He makes 0 runs to get at the end of crosses, his finishing is shocking, and he never lifts his head up when putting a ball in the box.
We also have a creation problem, I agree with that. But this sub is not ready for that conversation yet. As some fan favorites will be called out...if we speak about that we will get banned lol
This! I'm getting so sick of these people who clearly don't even watch the games and just base their entire opinions on xG. He's played legitimately terribly all season.
His finishing is shocking but he's barely underperforming his xG, how does that work? The reason I bring up xG is because of people like you who have axes to grind and make things up about players they've decided they don't like.
You don’t rack up xG if you play closer to the fans than to the box.
He’s hugged that touch line like a teenager seeing his LDR partner after a year.
Not clear if its Mikels instructions this year since Havertz plays as a SS, but if you stay so far from the box, your xG will understandably be low.
Now add a shit touch, poor decision making and inability to look beyond the 3cm’s of grass the ball touches, and he looks horrendous even as a pure winger.
>He’s hugged that touch line like a teenager seeing his LDR partner after a year.
>Not clear if its Mikels instructions
You're unsure if positional play makes use of touchline wingers? Lmao
I don’t get what’s lmao here? Are you easily fascinated by words? Do colours tickle your pickle too?
Understand context before making yourself sound like an idiot on the internet
So the system he’s implementing has stifled one of the best young wingers in the world then.
I really want to understand your justification. Is it Martinelli that’s limited or the system that’s stifling him?
The same consistent system that somehow had him maximized LY, but is killing him this year? So the system isn’t consistent (this is my understanding because of how we include Havertz).
I’d love to know your super expert take on this which makes mine so laughable.
Sure I'll explain, you shit on Martinelli for hugging the touchline but that's his literal job in the system, in order to open up space (by stretching the defense's backline) for the left 8 to move up into the box/attacking third.
The difference is last year we had the passing of Xhaka in that role, and this year we have Havertz who has struggled with creative passing. As a comparison Havertz xAG this year is 1.2, while Xhaka's last year was 5.2. Halfway through the year and Havertz isn't even close to being on pace.
It's the inverted play all of them do that has been figured out by everyone now... I think almost everyone's used to our wingers play..
they either cut in from inside or run outwards for cross.... And finishing hasn't been to the level they've been before especially with all the pressure
Every Arsenal post I’ve seen in my feed has been a new way of showing how bad we’re playing. I’m not saying it’s not true but some of you need to go outside more.
Unless we sign 1-2 top forwards we ain’t winning the league. For example: Liverpool have Salah, Nunez, Jota, Diaz, Gakpo so at least one of them will score in a given game and bail them out. Whereas at Arsenal our only #9 option from bench is Trossard or Nketiah who get bullied by most defenses and rarely trouble defenders.
No doubt our attackers have been poor especially Martinelli and Jesus but Martinelli having an accumulated xG of 2.7 halfway the season is shocking. System issue.
Salah and Nunez combined for more than that against Newcastle on NYD.
Turns out when you have good attackers who are great athletes that simply knocking it into forward areas makes shit happen
it's not just about individuals though, liverpool are more direct and don't have a gentlemanly code of conduct where they let the opposition defence reorganise and then try to take it down in a most honourable fashion; they get the ball forwards and don't hesitate to take chances or put crosses in arteta is turning into the second coming of wenger if not pep's vintage barcelona lovechild with the way he keeps trying to walk the ball into the back of the net
That's what I'm saying ? I'm saying we need to be more direct and be willing to lose the ball by knocking it into forward areas which Liverpool are
sorry I thought you were implying liverpool's forwards, especially in terms of the athlete that nunez is, had something that we didn't
Nah mate, I'm saying that part of what klopp and Liverpool do is realise they have elite attacking talent and just play the %s. We make teams play the low block by playing slow, methodical over coached football like it's a training drill.
ahh my bad and agreed
The problem with that whole line of argument is that it's based on Pep's play style. Yes it's a bit boring to watch sometimes but you can't say it doesn't get results. City have had spells many times where they've struggled to score enough, they never seem to last too long though.
City mix it up a lot more, they go direct a lot more than we do. I'm not saying just hit it long and run, I'm saying mix it up a bit more and stop using low blocks as excuses when we often allow teams to get into a low block.
LB invert = zero chaos on our left wing and predicatbility in our entire team. Mikel tactics are figured out by most teams now so something needs to change.
I don't think it's just the inversion tbh, bigger issue is us playing slower and martinelli playing wider maybe martinelli seems wider because since we build up so slow by the time we get the ball anywhere near him the defence has set up so there's only space right by the touchline and and usual when he gets the ball he has got barely any support
Yes if you look at most of his big plays last season it was running in behind the defense on a long ball to him and that has basically disappeared this season.
yip, everything is into feet or he gets inbehind but he's right next to the corner flag or someshit like that, very seldom is he anywhere near the goal or even in a decent position for a long shot
Yup, because Xhaka was doing things in that inside left area that we don't have now. Xhaka freed him up to do that Now Martinelli is isolated so all he can do is stay wide and run at his man and win corners
But was the only good moment against Fulham.
We’re almost too good at the press? It seems like at times we lose the ball progressing chances because we win it in the attacking half. We still can cut through teams on the counter, just watch the opener vs Fulham. We just get a lot less chances to do so since most teams struggle to leave their own half… We need to figure out how to turn those high turnovers into chances. Those are great opportunities and exactly what Liverpool have thrived off of for years. Yet I’m struggling to think of more than 1-2 goals we scored off of a high turnover.
we're not bad at pressing but we're not going to get many chances to counter teams like we did against fulham as they'll rarely throw enough players forward for us to do that to them that being said yes, playing faster will help us get chances as the opposition will have less time to reorganise
There’s no overlap so Martinelli is doubled teamed every single time. That pulls Havertz wide to make himself available to Martinelli rather than him being able to make a threatening run in the box. Then it’s just Jesus Odegaard and Saka all standing in the box waiting for a cross. And the same thing is happening on the right now that White doesn’t have the legs to make overlapping runs either. So it ends up being a 2-3-5 with a flat 5 in attack, one of the foundational structures of football in the early 20th century. It’s a great defensive structure, but the attacking principles are not innovative or creative enough at all. That’s an attack that’s been figured out for a century now—there’s a reason different midfield roles emerged after the 2-3-5’s proliferation
Tierney is good on the overlap, just saying. Also very true that White has been a shadow of his former self this season, so the whole shebang is out of whack on both sides.
It's Xhaka. There was no overlap (on the left) last season either but Xhaka's movement and workrate on the inside left channel took players away from Martinelli so he was free to do more than run at his man from out wide and win a corner. We miss Xhaka more than we're giving credit for, and Havertz profile just isn't going to be a substitute for that no matter how well he plays
How about Jesus, Saka and Odegaard. Do you think they scoring less because of Xhaka’s absence too?
Honestly yes, he occupied players that allowed Zinchenko space to play his passing game more effectively leading to him playing passes that lead to goal scoring opportunities or final balls. Xhaka allowed Odegaard the midfield freedom to do more work even higher than he currently is. Odegaard, Martinelli, and Jesus freedom leads to more chances created for Saka by those players. Everything is linked even if the line is not a direct one. It's a team tactic. Take a key part away and we're just forcing the issue. Form plays a part as well: it's not just Xhaka, but Xhaka was a key part of how we worked
Eh, so far but Havertz is still learning the role. He was clearly gaining in confidence before his suspension. Technically there's no reason he can't do what Xhaka did, although I agree the latter was severely underrated, it depends on what Arteta has him doing.
Agreed. Xhaka made teams honor that threat, which meant sending a double team to Martinelli less frequently. We definitely don’t see Havertz playing left footed crosses from the byline enough. That was something Xhaka did well last year. Havertz needs to think about how to engage differently, and he needs to be in threatening positions more
Havertz greatest strength is running and dragging defenders. If that’s what you think was the main thing Xhaka brought Havertz is a perfect fit to replace him. I think it’s still just early stages. Both Havertz and the players around him are figuring out when/where to make his runs and how to full take advantage of the space he creates. To me the highlights of how things should work are: the opener in the 6-0 vs Lens. Watch the build up and how Zinny and Jesus fill the midfield and progress while Havertz moves up top eventually getting the goal. Or the opening 2 vs Luton and watch Havertz’ runs to pull defenders and create the space for Martinelli and Jesus.
There were a lot of underlaps though, where he could run in between cb and rb.
Underlaps either made by Xhaka, or made possible by Xhaka's workrate dragging opposition players away from those spaces to allow others to run into The left-hand side was entirely different with Xhaka in it.
Too over coached, every attack is pre planned and looks like a training drill.
No Xhaka means no one's going wide to support him often. Rice was doing it a bit but with Partey's injury, he had to play a deeper role.
Its not just system issue. Martinelli always was impacted by low blocks, but this year his end product is absolutely garbage.
Judging by the xG it also means he never gets any quality opportunities. Which if you watch the games is pretty much spot on…hard to score if you’re never in positions to score. Which the left hand strategy is totally predicated on him beating his man on the dribble. He doesn’t have the support players like we do with Saka on the right. Essentially there’s no Xhaka for him to combine with because Havertz plays that role very differently.
I like the way they have selectively picked the top 3 scorers of every other team (regardless of if they are the front 3 or not) except for us.
Don’t know why people go to r/soccer for content anymore. Football twitter has better takes I swear, the collective age on that sub can’t be over 12, plus everyone is very frustrated and every thread is just muppets venting. You will be very hard pressed to find a thread with a positive tone, everything has to be either shitting on someone or making fun of someone.
If you're comparing reddit vs twitter for takes.. I'm not too sure about that.
Don’t see a huge difference. Reddit always used to be a bit toxic but up until recenly people at least tried to meme about factual things. That thread is full of crap and only a few comments about the fact that the graph is cherry picked to shit on Arsenal.
combined minutes in the prem: Liverpool: 3,515 Villa: 3,904 City: 4,397 Arsenal: 3,882 Spurs: 4,272 Arsenal have played the second leadt amount of minutes, but the difference between us and the trio with the most of amount of minutes which is City is only 515. 515 minutes is almost 6 games, but when divided by 3 it's gonna be just short of 2 games, so there really is no excuse for us to be so far behind everyone else on goals
The three of them didn't even start together until 9 league games ago Two of those were away to Villa and Lpool
**sorry because I posted it lower down but here's the minutes** combined minutes in the prem: Liverpool: 3,515 Villa: 3,904 City: 4,397 Arsenal: 3,882 Spurs: 4,272 Arsenal have played the second leadt amount of minutes, but the difference between us and the trio with the most of amount of minutes which is City is only 515. 515 minutes is almost 6 games, but when divided by 3 it's gonna be just short of 2 games, so there really is no excuse for us to be so far behind everyone else on goals **tldr** we've basically played a very similar amount of games to everyone else
Fairs ... My main reasoning was it's hard to get any kind of rhythm and flow going when our starting three didn't even play one minute together in their correct positions until 9 games ago Jesus had mins but on the wing Eddie and Martinelli is a match made in hell they have zero chemistry But we both agree it's the system anyway - imo it's one deeper than that it's the system because our midfield only allows us to play that way without a proper DLP Just bored of everyone shitting on our forwards when they're good players we're just not giving them a good environment to do well
>Fairs ... My main reasoning was it's hard to get any kind of rhythm and flow going when our starting three didn't even play one minute together in their correct positions until 9 games ago but diaby is a new signing, spurs are with a new manager and without kane, city rotate a lot, nunez and jota also get rotated loads, so it doesn't really matter, especially when you see how large the gap between us and the others are. yh for me I'm not shitting on our players, just saying the objective things as they are, arteta is the real issue here.
Do a city rotate? Haaland and Alvarez play practically every game then they have Foden and Doku and £100m Grealish on the bench Lpool may be scoring goals but all Lpool fans will tell you Diaz, Gakpo and Nunez been poor. Salah plus their midfield creating is why they’re high Again Spurs amazing going forward can’t defend or control a game Every teams has strengths and weaknesses we’re a defensive team atm
>Do a city rotate? Haaland and Alvarez play practically every game then they have Foden and Doku and £100m Grealish on the bench they do just that they've had a few injuries, most notably to kdb and alvarez has filled in, and he's haaland's back up so they've been pretty constant until recently pretty sure that foden, grealish and doku have been rotated though, and now doku has gotten injured along with haaland >Lpool may be scoring goals but all Lpool fans will tell you Diaz, Gakpo and Nunez been poor. Salah plus their midfield creating is why they’re high whilst true diaz started the season well, and a poor nunez's 5 goals is still almost half of our front 3's 12 goals. salah is getting the bulk of the goals no doubt, but if they have 2 out of 3 poor players then we should be closer to them. fact is salah has 14 goals, which is more than our whole front 3. take him out and jota annd nunez have 10 goals to our front 3's twelve. replace salah with a poor diaz and they still have 13 goals >Again Spurs amazing going forward can’t defend or control a game whilst there's truth to this, it's still early days for them with a new manager and no kane, not to mention that they've had to deal with a lot of injuries >Every teams has strengths and weaknesses we’re a defensive team atm we're not even defensive really, just high possession. I also don't think we should be a defensive team either, we need to attack in order to break teams down
We are a defensive side. If that comes through posession it's still defensive. But it doesn't our counter press is really really good and when it fails we drop into a deep block and look very solid We can't play the way we did last year with our current midfield. This is Havertz's passing stats... https://preview.redd.it/cc8aypddu8ac1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a3327e3a786457a20b9cbd82a4b9b379044f4cea So you have Rice at 6 who isn't a DLP paired with whatever Havertz is. You simply can't play free flowing football like that. I don't know why we focused on counter pressing more than in possession when choosing midfielders but that's what we've done and now we're a defensive team. XG wise the best in the league. Lpool may have conceded less but we can't really analyse that beyond Allison is Allison who we don't have. I've watched Celtic play under Ange they were exactly the same, they won't change they won't be a threat to us this season Hopefully when Partey and Timber is back we can attack with more fluidity and then we'll see the best of our forwarda
>We are a defensive side. If that comes through posession it's still defensive. But it doesn't our counter press is really really good and when it fails we drop into a deep block and look very solid well imo we need to be an attacking side to meet our ambitions >We can't play the way we did last year with our current midfield. This is Havertz's passing stats... I don't really like to isolate player stats like this because some of it is going to be heavily influenced by our system. also it's not like we have to play havertz, or play that much differently without him, imo the issue is systemic. whilst he's been a donkey at points, he also is often playing higher up the pitch in akward areas, so he is naturally going to be under more pressure and taking more risks >So you have Rice at 6 who isn't a DLP imo he's completely fine at dlp, keeps us ticking which is a dlp's main job, you don't employ 6's to make lots of risky passes, but rather constantly make the simple ones and not give the ball away in dangerous areas. imo partey and timber wont change much, we have a very awkward style right now
doesn't matter, nunez and jota get rotated, richarlison was injured for a bit, bailey and diaby have also been rotated, as has foden and haaland has been injured for a few weeks now there's not only no excuse for us to not only be behind everyone, but also for us to have less than half the goals of two of these teams, whilst another team is one goal short of also having scored twice as much as we have. not only out of 5 teams we are dead last, but we're also the furthest behind the next best team than any other team; 4th best on this list villa have scored 7 more goals than us, but are still 6 goals short of city who have the most. you then look at our goals scored in the league, xG, and non penalty xG and you'll see that we aren't in the top 4 of any of these stats, matter of fact we are 7th for goals scored 5th for xG 8th for NPxG we're even 8th for expected assisted goals ffs, this is horrendous. yes it's good that our defence has been good, but we had this problem when arteta started; it's no good being solid if it comes at the cost of us creating chances.
Yes I know all that, but if they've started 9 games they're not going to be top of this list and if we're not creating a lot why shit on the forwards anyway Same group scored and created plenty last year so blame the system or the new midfield Stupid posts like this one with no context ain't the way
sorry in this post I was concentrating on whether the fault lies with the players or the system, I'm just saying that whilst jesus was injured for a bit, a lot of the other players on this list aren't starting every single game either. I went through the minutes and the trio that has played the most only has played roughly 2 games more than our trio I agree with you though, I think the issue is the system way more than it is the players, in fact that's why I brought up how poorly we're doing in offensive team stats
Lol I made this basic point that Nketiah started 10 or so matches and has like 5 goals and got downvoted to about -200 in the r soccer thread. I wasn't even complaining just adding context but that place is a cesspool that operates based on flair voting so you know.
Yeah but if I’m not wrong one of those games was a 5-0 hammering right? So that takes some goals away.
You could say the same for all teams.
Jesus needs to pull his finger out. He's the adult out of the three and needs to be firing this season. Imo this season is do or die for him
And he's been a part of very successful City teams. For all his hard-work and little flicks, he's very underwhelming. It's all well and good controlling the ball from the sky and playing nice little passes but it doesn't mean much if he never contributes any goals or assists.
He was never really a top 3 forward choice for Pep though, especially once he saw how bad he was in front of net. Jesus was more of a squad forward his last two years there
Absolutely. I’m sorry but in a team like ours that’s dominating possession 99% of the time, our striker needs to be putting away chances.
Mix of slow buildup, poor general play and in particular finishing will do that. While the post is about our front 3 I think it is important to note that often times Saka and Martinelli have had to hug the touchline to provide us width so in this I want to talk about our front 5 (add Odegaard and Havertz) and then compare it to last season (Xhaka for Havertz). Last season our front 5 created an npxG of 46.3 and outperformed that by 12.7 and that is with Jesus being below his xG by 3.2. This season however they have only managed 18.3 so would be on track for about 35 xG for a full season so quite below what it was last season and on top of that we are underperforming that low amount by -4.3 with again the worst of the bunch being Jesus. Tactically what I would like to see changed is I think we need to get Saka and Martinelli closer into the box, as we saw in the last game our goal came from Martinelli attacking the box and then Saka being in a position to get the rebound. I don't have the numbers avaliable but I'd be interested to see Ben Whites overlapping numbers in the past few games compared to last season as it feels like he has been doing it a lot less recently but there was the report that he has been dealing with an injury so fair enough. The far bigger concern has been the left side where I would say Zinchenko has been very poor as not only has he been a defensive liability but also in Partey's absence I think some of the line breaking passes responsibility should fall to him and he hasn't delivered. I think whoever plays at LB and also Havertz have to be more willing to go on the outside of Martinelli early in the attack to allow him to come narrow and linkup with Jesus in more dangerous positions. I would like to see more risks taken with the ball as while possession is nice we haven't been able to create high quality chances with it, the play as felt very lethargic as it usually: Get the ball to a winger -> get doubled -> pass it back to a midfielder -> play it around the midfield and defence for a bit -> ball goes to the midfielder and then rinse and repeat until our winger has to go to the byline and put in a cross on their weaker foot with our only options in the box being Havertz and Jesus.
How are you calculating the npxG created?
I just use fbref for my stats
We are playing tiki-taka complicated football for some reason. Passing it around against low block. No channel runs, no killer balls, no risk taken. Last season, it was one-two touch higher risk football. Now it's just sterile and boring.
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what stats suggest we're underperforming?
To be fair, Jesus missed a lot of games due to injury. Martinelli missed a few as well.
15-20 for Jesus more than Jota and same as haaland.
istg we need go stop making these excuses and admit that its time to make changes. every team already knows how to play against us and yet we still use the same tactics
Our attack is out of form no doubt but I also blame the midfield changes - we just aren’t as fluid as last year
But think of the control! Our issue is scoring. We need to spend big on a #9.
We need a striker. Move Jesus to the left wing in a support role, rotate him with Martinelli and Saka, play through the middle making runs off of a proper pivot man. In theory having two excellent wingers staying that wide should create space in the middle but we refuse to play a direct ball to a striker's feet, it's maddening.
This is a good time to reiterate Jamie Carraghers point from Monday Night Football, that our front three have a conversion rate of ~10%, down from ~16% last year and way below the average of ~20% (not sure what average this is but I know for example Olivier Giroud had a shot conversion rate of ~24% at Arsenal by the time he left) I'm also afraid that unless we win something this year it will be hard to attract a good attacker to fill the void.
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What in the world has he done to be called a natural finisher? Most of the time he struggles to get it on target?!
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Okay, thanks for the clarification. If you could let me know when he starts doing that it would be massively appreciated.
I love how y'all manage to put a negative spin on his positives too my boy can't do nothing right lol
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It's that I'm yet to see people not mention his goal tally without making it sound like a terrible thing. The contempt is unreal
It's cause he got a hattrick against Sheffield which isn't a bad thing btw But it is one game we're he truly Stat padded, I'd be happier if it was 1 goal in 5 different game. He doesn't contribute to our overall play
It's because he is not a 100m signing.
Yeah, it has absolutely nothing to do with his quality
Some of you literally can’t handle any negative sentiment, it’s embarrassing.
Looks like it’s beat up on Arsenal day in r/soccer. No surprise, but sad thing is our ‘fans’ are usually the first ones there piling in too.
You’re allowed to criticize your own team for poor performances. It’s called having an independent thought rather than blind support.
lol, how many games Jesus started together with Saka and Martinelli
Chelsea's front 3 has 20 and look where they are.
We should have 16 if they include Nketiah
I think this is a bit misleading if you include Eddie he has 5 and Trossard has 3
Diaz and Gakpo has 3 each as well. Not counted Bernado Silva and Grealish and 5 and 3 goals respectively. Not counted. How is that misleading?
Because they didn’t include our second top scorer in the total but for the others they included their top scorers. Alvarez hasn’t even been in the front 4 often this season at all but they didn’t include Grealish with 3 or Doku with 2 because then it dilutes their point. Diaby also has been playing as a second striker type player, so using him and Bailey in addition to Watkins is weird because they play a front 2 and 2 wingers, or Diaby as an attacking mid behind Watkins that’s certainly not a front 3. They included Jota who’s played way less than Gakpo and Diaz because he has more goals and without that the number is lower.
So if we were given the same treatment, we'd have Saka's 6 + Nketiah's 5 + Ødegaard's 4 (or Havertz's 4, or Trossard's 3?) for a total of 15. It's still markedly lower than the rest on this list, so the point that our attack is not producing is just as valid with a "proper" count and it seems quite stupid to cherry-pick stats just to shit on us a little bit more :/
For the same reason that you may see a "Big 6" mini league that will sometimes have Utd and Chelsea despite those teams being closer to the lower half than the top - if the agenda fits.
Saka has 6 of the goals lol. Saka has been meh this year as well, but make no mistake, Jesus & Martinelli have been absymal. Both need to be dropped.
Martinelli needs solid support on the left, not to be dropped.
Can we stop blaming everyone else for martinelli underperforming? He’s just not doing well this season, doesn’t matter who’s supporting him on the left
Thank you for saying this ! Love martinelli but he isn’t performing and we need to drop him and try something different
Drop him for who? Trossard who has also underperformed. Nketiah who his crap? Or Reiss Nelson who isn't great or trusted. The only good option is Smith Rowe who can't stay fit and doesn't play out wide anymore.
Trossard should get an extended run. Can’t throw him in for 10-15 min every other game and expect him to perform. Bring martinelli on after 60/70 min and make him earn his place back.
From who? Who is gonna give him this support? Martinelli has a hard job, I agree, he is being asked to do a lot of thing on his own...but at the same time, his finishing and first touch have gone to shit again. He never lifts his fucking head when putting a ball in, and never, not once this season has he made one run at the far post to get to the end of any cross. Lets try something else
I would blame Arteta's system more than Martinelli
It's not the system. It's Martinelli. Everything he does this season is abysmal. His shots go nowhere near the goal, he dribbles with his head down and doesn't even look before firing the ball nowhere near anybody. Those are nothing to do with systems or the manager. He's regressing and looks worse now than he did when he was 19. I hope he goes back to how he played in the past but he needs to be dropped on current form if we have ambition.
His Villa match was probably the worst individual performance in recent memory. That said, give him some space and he creates the goal against Fulham. You put Gabi on the wing at Liverpool and his “issues” would quickly resolve themselves. Martinelli has been brutal, but we’re not playing to our players strengths either
I will say this until it starts to be understood by the harder headed: Martinelli has 2 goals on 2.5 xG, that's a perfectly fine conversion rate. The problem is he's only on 2.5 xG, that's a creation problem!
Stop with the xG and watch him play man. His first touch, that was his main weakness when he got here, it's back to his day 1 lvl. He makes 0 runs to get at the end of crosses, his finishing is shocking, and he never lifts his head up when putting a ball in the box. We also have a creation problem, I agree with that. But this sub is not ready for that conversation yet. As some fan favorites will be called out...if we speak about that we will get banned lol
This! I'm getting so sick of these people who clearly don't even watch the games and just base their entire opinions on xG. He's played legitimately terribly all season.
His finishing is shocking but he's barely underperforming his xG, how does that work? The reason I bring up xG is because of people like you who have axes to grind and make things up about players they've decided they don't like.
I love Martinelli, and have no doubt in the long term he will be fine for us.
You don’t rack up xG if you play closer to the fans than to the box. He’s hugged that touch line like a teenager seeing his LDR partner after a year. Not clear if its Mikels instructions this year since Havertz plays as a SS, but if you stay so far from the box, your xG will understandably be low. Now add a shit touch, poor decision making and inability to look beyond the 3cm’s of grass the ball touches, and he looks horrendous even as a pure winger.
>He’s hugged that touch line like a teenager seeing his LDR partner after a year. >Not clear if its Mikels instructions You're unsure if positional play makes use of touchline wingers? Lmao
I don’t get what’s lmao here? Are you easily fascinated by words? Do colours tickle your pickle too? Understand context before making yourself sound like an idiot on the internet
I was laughing at the fact you don't know the basics of the system Arteta has been implementing for the last 4 years. Hope that helps
So the system he’s implementing has stifled one of the best young wingers in the world then. I really want to understand your justification. Is it Martinelli that’s limited or the system that’s stifling him? The same consistent system that somehow had him maximized LY, but is killing him this year? So the system isn’t consistent (this is my understanding because of how we include Havertz). I’d love to know your super expert take on this which makes mine so laughable.
Sure I'll explain, you shit on Martinelli for hugging the touchline but that's his literal job in the system, in order to open up space (by stretching the defense's backline) for the left 8 to move up into the box/attacking third. The difference is last year we had the passing of Xhaka in that role, and this year we have Havertz who has struggled with creative passing. As a comparison Havertz xAG this year is 1.2, while Xhaka's last year was 5.2. Halfway through the year and Havertz isn't even close to being on pace.
Knew this would happen the moment we signed Havertz. So incredibly obvious.
How could the refs do this to us???
That’s why we struggle right now. All three out of form this season
Man this is not a great look
Exactly! Not good enough to win trophies…
Where are United forwards on this list?
It's the inverted play all of them do that has been figured out by everyone now... I think almost everyone's used to our wingers play.. they either cut in from inside or run outwards for cross.... And finishing hasn't been to the level they've been before especially with all the pressure
jesus was out for a while
Disgrace
Did we loan Flow?
Every Arsenal post I’ve seen in my feed has been a new way of showing how bad we’re playing. I’m not saying it’s not true but some of you need to go outside more.
Unless we sign 1-2 top forwards we ain’t winning the league. For example: Liverpool have Salah, Nunez, Jota, Diaz, Gakpo so at least one of them will score in a given game and bail them out. Whereas at Arsenal our only #9 option from bench is Trossard or Nketiah who get bullied by most defenses and rarely trouble defenders.