Well, we all knew we weren’t a match to Man City with their 33-goal scorer Haaland and the best midfielder on the planet in Kevin De Bruyne. But no one expected that we won’t show up for a fight. In the title race when a win was a 6 pointer, we lost and we lost badly. A 4-1 score is as bad as it gets, but the way we played it could have been worse.
So, where did it go wrong? As a starter, Arteta failed to adjust to the Pep’s tactics. Their first goal was a result of the free space De Bruyne was enjoying between our midfield and defence. In the first 30min, it happened couple of times when the pair of Haaland and De Bruyne were left with our CBs. I don’t think anyone can beat Haaland for the pace, it was a fight to be lost. We should have adapted, we should have dropped down and closed the space . We could have switched back to back 3 and fight on counters.
Second, we stuck to the playing XI which didn’t work against Liverpool, West Ham, and Southampton. Yes, Xhaka was back in place of Vieira but it doesn’t make any difference. Both are poor! If you say what options we had, I would like to point out that it’s our own doing. We haven’t been polishing the bench. We gave Vieira couple of matches in spite of his poor performance in his first, but we didn’t try an ESR. We haven’t tried a Partey + Jorginho midfield pairing. Saka looked knackered but we didn’t see Nelson allowing him some rest. Kiwior was brought into the fold against Liverpool, in last 20 min; I’m sure it wasn’t the perfect time to begin your premier league career.
Arteta’s stubbornness to play his favourites and not adapting to what’s in front, has cost us games. If you expect a player to deliver in 60 games a year, and if he don’t, you switch things up. Jesus might be great in compact spaces and running into 3 opposition players, but where’s the end result? If your CF do not have a goal in him, bring on Eddie. Revert to Trossard at the front who looks more clinical.
I don’t know, there has been a lot of things which we can see is wrong, but our manager sticks to the same old – same style, same player, same tactics.
Here’s the bitter truth. We didn’t lose the title because of this City game. We lost it against Pool (going 2-0 up), West Ham (going 2-0 up again), and Southampton (going 2-0 down at home in first 15min). I understand we are a young team, but young guns can fire too. It don’t matter if it’s your captain, if he is not having a good day, bring on your other no. #10, who saved your career at some point and was considered the next DeBruyne.
I’m not sure how much Arteta will learn from this but I’m sure of this – he is going to spend another 200m to bring some more enforcements, but with this stubbornness and Champions League + Premier League next season, we will have the same conundrum. Unless he buys another playing XI, which is not likely.
Here’s another one – if you think it’s a progress to finish 2nd this season, remember that Arteta was appointed as the head coach of Arsenal on 20th Dec, 2019. It’s been 3.5 years, with half a billion spent on a completely new playing XI bar our academy products. This season has been anomaly, Liverpool is having a bad one, Chelsea are sh*t, Spurs are spursy, and United is going through a rebuild under Tan Hag. If you think allowing 3 years for a manager, only to see him finish second after having a 9 point lead at some point, is considered a progress, then you have very low expectation.
With money coming in for New Castle, Chelsea appointing Poch probably, united getting stronger, Pool back in their form, what happens next? It would be tougher than this season. There will be 2 games a week and more Saliba-esque injuries. Who will we blame? Fixtures? Injuries? Bad weather? Because that’s what we have been doing apparently from like last 10 years.
We need an upgrade. We need an upgrade on Xhaka, whose average performance looks like a world class by his standards. We need a midfield, because you buy all the 50m defenders as you want, but it’s not gonna work if you don’t have functioning midfield. We need a better goal scorer if you don’t have confidence in Eddie. And we need an upgrade on the manager. Learning on the job is not a bad thing, but the pace is too slow for a club as big and as ambitious as Arsenal.
We need courage. We don’t need a captain who goes missing in big games, we have had enough of Ozil for years. We need the winning mentality, not the one we saw against West Ham of dropping performance after going 2-0 up. We need players who make fun of the opposition, on the pitch; who can bully the opposition, who are not satisfied with 2-0 lead at Anfield and want more.
Frankly, it has been a depressing month. We have thrown away the title and there’s no one else to blame. It was ours to lose, and we lost it. I’m angry, I’m frustrated and I’m sure you are, too. I hope the players feel the same, and motivates themselves to make the best of rest of the season.
It’s over for me, but we fight again tomorrow.
Rice isn’t inspiring the Hammers to play well. Whereas Zaha is very lively back from injury. Eze, Olisse and Ayew all having good games for Palace. Good game with plenty of goals & more to come. Rice needs to get hold of the game by imposing himself more.
Brighton playing delightful football without their 3 best players being rested. 4:0 up against Wolves at home. 19 yo Julio César Enciso is ripping Wolves a new one in place of Mitoma. Tony Bloom really does have a magical algorithm.
just a few comments on this fine morning:
(1) if we sell Partey, pay through the nose for Rice and keep Xhaka, we will be a worse team than the day before these things happened…as the size of this investment will financially derail our ability to properly redress our real problems
(2) if we don’t win the title, which appears to be the case, things could get sticky regarding the re-upping of both Saka and Saliba, as they will have those with much more realisitc managerial plans trying to turn their respective heads
(3) I now realize why Vieira found it difficult to pursue a more balanced approach, as it appears as if Palace can’t do two things at once…either they’re an offensive force to be reckoned with and exposed at the back or they’re a rather uninspiring borefest with little to show for it, but decently stout at the back…unfortunately Vieira chose the latter, likely due to his naturally defence-first mindset…Roy has no magic formula, he simply rolled the “brakes off” dice and leaned into his best players
(4) De Zerbi is giving our little tactically-stunted manager a lesson on squad rotation, as they’re now cruising past Wolves with 6 already on the board and more likely to come…this is what happens when you have a plan and use the training grounds for it’s intended purposes…hopefully MA took a break from his mirror prep work and learned something from thissound thrashing, like encouraging our midfielders to make decisive passes ahead of our running players when countering, instead of destroying all momentum by passing to one’s back foot
(5) if we need to sell the likes of Balo, ESR and Tierney in order to offset our short-sighted transfer window decisions, it will be a travesty…mark my words, at some point these decisions, which haven’t done the trick, will come home to roost
Cheers
With Arteta we’re always a few players short, and will always be after TWs that will never quite fit our real needs as Arteta plays fantasy football using us.
Another interesting tactical football take with Pep & Haaland and why Arteta will never have Pep’s ability and just be the poor pretender that will probably take another season for Josh & daddy to realise.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-12029393/How-Striking-Viking-Erling-Haaland-rose-deep-complete-Guardiolas-plan-against-Arsenal.html
Rob Draper the journalist was originally with the long defunct Today UK daily. He’s always been a non agenda sports journalist and why I check the DM for his efforts.
Watching Brighton last night with their key players missing and knocking 6 past Wolves as if there had been no changes at all, junior and I revealed in the pure football of the game played by Brighton. All fitted in seamlessly as if some kind of production conveyor belt and playing like they’d played together for years.
Tony Bloom could well build Brighton into a southern Newcastle size wise. Brighton known as London by the sea could produce a team to challenge in the CL if the current trajectory of Tony’s recruitment algorithm keeps momentum or better gathers pace. This and each summer Mr. Bloom has the ability through an untapped well of South American rough diamonds that Edu could only dream of. Already, the big clubs are queueing up outside the Amex to buy Tony’s semi polished and PL ready gems.
Case in point, we’d like to take Caicedo, (upgrade on Rice) Mitoma & Mac Alister this summer. The Bin Dippers can smell the chum in the water and are circling ready to throw money at Brighton, and quite honestly who wouldn’t?
Names like: Estupinan, Gilmour, Gross (Bergkamp esque goal yesterday), Undav & Enciso could very easily fit into any PL side today. That’s eight players who will almost certainly depart the Amex in the next couple of years when their replacements have arrived and are fully conversant with De Zerbi’s footballing identity the players seemingly enjoy playing at one and two touch simplicity and excellent movement with or without the ball.
Do we have such an identity? Not even close.
De Zerbi teams move the ball quickly with precision where often hitting 40+ yard Beckham style diagonals for Enciso or Mitoma to be one on one with a completely screwed defender.
By the sound of it Roberto is loved by his players and equally by the club. I can’t see a manager of his obvious considerable talent wanting to leave when he has a consistency of talent constantly arriving to be moved into the De Zerbi school of football production line.
Last night Brighton schooled Wolves in a footballing lesson they won’t forget. They will be tough to beat at the Emirates and could be the one team that takes points off city at the Amex.
There’s a lot more to come from the seagulls.
Unlike us Brighton play with no fear and total confidence in their manager and his football.
I’m certainly not going to make a habit of paraphrasing Gary Nevile, as more often than not I find it quite difficult to take his troll-dependent form of punditry seriously, but when he ripped into the glaring lack of “leadership” during our recent slide, I couldn’t agree more…now he points the finger of blame directly at 4 players, Ode, Zinchenko, Xhaka and Partey, whereas I would say it’s a bit more nuanced than that, even though he’s not far off
Ode-he seems like a diligent and well-intentioned individual, but a leader of men he’s not…in fact for much of his early tenure he didn’t even address the troops before kick-off, as that was handled by our “real ” captain, Xhaka, whereas this year Zinchenko has assumed those duties on a fairly regular basis…he’s the kind of non-confrontational, lead by example captain that a more monopolistic manager would likely opt for, so to expect that he would have the wherewithal to rally the troops seems incredibly unrealistic…not to mention, he’s had his own difficulties when it comes to putting his stamp on games of great import, which certainly doesn’t help matters
Zinchenko-since his arrival in the summer he’s found it difficult at times to walk the fine line between being a positive emotional presence and a frazzled headless chicken, the latter of which was on display for all to see against City…no one can question his love of the game or his commitment to whatever badge is sewn on his chest, but sometimes his emotionality gets the best of him…now that wouldn’t be the end of the world if we had the kind of manager who could read the room and make the necessary adjustments/substitutions when it was clear that his manic behaviour was in full-blown destructive mode, but that rarely happens when it comes to MA’s “favourites”…he just might be a future armband candidate but not until he reigns in some of his frantic tendencies, as they’re rather counterintuitive, especially on a team with our particular age profile
Xhaka-regardless of the fact that he’s found a way to curtail his seemingly endless bouts of stupidity, they seem to rear their ugly heads whenever the stakes are raised…I would suggest that against the better clubs he finds it incredibly difficult to carve out a definitive role so he simply reverts back to his old ways, which is such a selfish way for a veteran to conduct himself…no wonder he got embroiled in a yellow card related betting controversy, as some of his actions are so asinine they could appear sketchy to the average observer, especially if they weren’t familiar with his frequent nonsensical antics…in my opinion, if he’s your leadership answer, your asking the wrong questions
Partey-I feel the most empathy for this individual, as he’s been hung out to dry on several occasions due to the tactical naivety of our manager…he’s certainly not the outspoken leader type, but as a veteran it’s not unreasonable for him to contribute in some leadership capacity from time to time, so I don’t take umbrage with Neville for including him in his critique…I just think that to expect Partey to lead by example in those matches where he’s been required to be the sole DM against teams who want to dominate the center of the park is asking way too much from him…so I would say that instead of pointing blame in Partey’s direction it would make far more sense to question the choices our manager has made when it comes to all things leadership related…this is most glaringly evident whenever Jorginho comes onto the pitch, as everyone seems to acquiesce to him, even though he’s only been here for a cup of coffee
Cheers
Ambarish
Handing NT his arse on a plate was eloquently put and worthy of our LIR leader. Nicely, done. 🙂
TRVL
Nicely put.
Arteta has to give his captain something to lead, though, something that has winning legs to the end of the season for a captain to rally his team to a trophy. I think Rice being Arteta’s top target will take the captaincy for next season.
We have tired legs from mentally weak frazzled players. Rice looked overplayed yesterday and far from his usual self as well.
The confidence has to come from Arteta playing his brand of football and adapting it to all we play against. Arteta has big flaws that the players register either consciously or sub consciously that is transmitted to their play or lack of it in city’s case and the 3 preceding games.
I don’t see Fulham upsetting City’s status quo winning status where they will take 3 points and add to their GD.
Manure v Villa and Pool v Spuds should prove entertaining.
Haha, I have not forgotten his words for LiR and the readers a month back. I know I will give up eventually because that’s not my thing but was worth it this time.
TRVL
I think any other manager in place of Arteta would have faced the same problem with Xhaka/Ode/Jorginho midfield. Supporters are angry because
1. He refused to fix it (Xhaka)
2. He fixed it badly (Jorginho)
3. He didn’t try the internal options (ESR for Ode, ESR for Xhaka).
Saliba became crucial now, who was not registered for half a season and then loaned out for the other half. If Mikel puts the blame on his injuries, he needs to justify about his mishandling. So does the Arteta fanboys.
Ambarish
Yep bang on.
Ambarish
With reference to “ best midfielder on the planet Kevin de Bruyne “. we have someone upcoming called Croydon de Bruyne who saved Arteta his job , 2 years back. Currently rusty with disuse and blunted by the Manager’s adverse reaction. Seen posters asking whom ESR has to kill to get a start , which tells a story.
Imagine Pep Original benching KdB for almost the whole season. If only….Arsenal would have won, which demonstrates the point trying to make.
Looking back at Saliba not signing and Saliba and agent going in a Googly trajectory, somehow feels Saliba is doing to MA what MA did to him for 3 years. Back problems are an enigma to orthopaedics too who have to go by what the patients tell so are a safe bet nah ?
What a way to end the weekend with Spurs being Spurs losing 3:0 in 15 minutes with more to come.
Happy days.
Liverpool are shit – they’re not even 5 nil up after 20 minutes.
Wankers.
I heard something by the commentators in the Fulham v. City fixture that would never have been uttered in our most recent guileless and gutless performance “that was harder than anticipated”
I’m assuming that NT refers to one of LG’s leading Arteta/Pedro Apologists, the grand fluffer himself, Nigel….if so, I would really like to hear what he had to say in regards to LiG…I spent considerable time, during my relatively brief tenure on LG, putting him firmly in his place…so much so that when he couldn’t take the heat anymore he ran to his blog daddy/alter ego, Pedro, who in turn conjured up a competely fake narrative so as to ouster my ass…classic twat disguised as an even bigger twat scenario
agree with your response to my earlier post Ambarish…the fact that MA’s had ample opportunities to properly redress these most obvious of concerns and yet he’s actually chosen to act in a completely contrarian fashion, speaks volumes about the abject fragility of his mental makeup…he likely feels that if he were to actually admit to any wrongdoings or miscalculations his whole managerial facade would crumble to pieces, which has led to a myraid of easily correctable self-inflicted wounds…just another reason why he reminds me of a poor man’s shadow puppet version of a latter days Wenger
Hoopah-how quickly some forget the gravity of the managerial situation when MA was “forced” to play ESR, who in turn provided some of the only positive second-half moments…considering MA’s MO when it comes to anyone who doesn’t kiss the ring, no questions asked, it makes me think that maybe ESR’s people did have a chat with the club over a potential move to Villa, as they knew full-well that MA didn’t really rate him…of course, this managerial dynamic has likely played a decisive role in regards to the whole Saliba re-up gig, Tierney’s head possibly being turned and why blue chip players with other options, whom we’ve targeted, don’t go all-in with their own clubs in order to get things over the line, which is why we ended up with a periphery and aging figure like Jorginho and the excommunicated Trossard
Cheers
maybe the Spurs players are railing against the club’s public pronouncment regarding the notion of them being required to reimburse the away fans in their previous blowout loss (lol)….that said, maybe MA should contemplate a similar notion in response to him being totally ill-prepared to face a manager whom he should know more than any other currently plying their trades in the PL
just as a follow-up to ny previous “mindset” concerns about our manager, it’s always seemed telling to me that as a player MA was known as a level-headed, mild mannered, never a hair out of place individual, yet as a manager only the latter refrain rings true…in most cases, what you’ve witnessed on the pitch tends to align with what’s on offer from the touchline, within reason of course, yet in this particular case the exact opposite applies…when these anomolies occur it tends to be due to one of two things, either it’s overcompensation on the part of someone who worries greatly about being exposed as a fraud or they’re simply attempting to mimic someone of whom they admire most, almost like some sort of karaoke wannabe star who never amount to anything as they’re too preoccupied with perfecting their imitative qualities…it’s likely why some of our former stalwarts, like Vieira and Henry, haven’t figured the sideline gig out quite yet, as they’re likely not comfortable enough in their chosen managerial skin, as it’s not a true reflection of their best selves
what a crazy and entertaining Pool/Spurs affair…so much for Richarlison’s supposed heroics…maybe the scoring isn’t done yet?!?
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