Well, we are into another international break and I have lost count of it now. As a neutral, I find it frustrating but I do understand that some of us loves to see our country play. And to go into a 2 weeks break after sharing points with Chelsea and ranking 4th on the table isn’t a good sight for us. Chelsea under Maresca has improved but not enough to beat us at home. In fact, we should have taken all 3 points and it feels like a loss.
We have had a fit playing XI. Odegaard was back into the team, we had our usual back 4 and a front 3 of Saka, Havertz and Martinelli. Chelsea dominated us for the first 25 min where David Raya had to make a brilliant save for a long distance shot from Cole Palmer. In 24th minutes, Gusto wasn’t able to put the ball in the nets from a close range header which should he should have been. Neto’s cross was brilliant, Ben White wasn’t bold him to move closer to him and in a way let him make space for himself to put a cross. We finally managed to put some pressure when a poor pass from a Chelsea defender was blocked by Saka and Odegaard took the ball, passed it back to Saka who then took a shot which was blocked. Martinelli got the ball from that block but wasn’t able to get pass Sanchez. In fact, it wasn’t the very best of his attempt, was on a perfect height for the GK and he didn’t have to move to his left or right. Not good enough.
Havertz scored within some min but it was offside. In the second half, Martinelli finally scored from a similar angle to the one he missed earlier. Much much better and we only had to get through 30 odd minutes to win. Even though Odegaard gets the assist, it was Thomas Partey’s brilliance. Timber tried a long range shot in 65th minute which was a bit wide. Why was he trying to shoot when both Havertz and Saka were in good places to receive the ball – I don’t know. Neto levelled the score for Chelsea and we couldn’t have done anything about it. It was a great goal, similar to what we have seen from Odegaard in the past. Nothing exciting in those minutes.
Right, that was the Chelsea game.
This draw came on the back of a 1-0 loss against Inter Milan in Champions League, a 1-0 loss against Newcastle, a 2-2 draw at home to Liverpool and a 2-0 loss to Bournemouth at home when Saliba picked a red card. These results are not enough to panic (just yet), but there has been some lacking in consistency and poor managerial decisions that could have made it better for us.
Lets talk about the players first. We had some injuries, Odegaard’s absence affected the game, Martinelli is on a poor form (still one of my favorites in the team), Trossard/Saliba had a brain fart which costed us the Liverpool game, Declan Rice had one earlier against Brighton (1-1, 2 points dropped), Trossard against Man City (2-2, against 2 points dropped). I have been vocal about the refereeing decisions going against us, but we are talking about the players who are probably in 1% of football players around the world, and they couldn’t concentrate enough to not get a silly red card for kicking the ball away? Ok, refs are not blowing whistle for other teams, but you can’t kick the ball away it’s in the rulebook.
Martinelli and Trossard are out of form. Both of them shouldn’t be on the pitch at the same time. Merino gets tired after 60 minutes, Ben White wasn’t brave enough to stop Neto for that cross and there has been other incidents. Only Saka and Partey are putting up the fights so far. The less we talk about Havertz, the better. Talking about ‘this might be the year we win’ doesn’t get you trophy. You need to put your mind and body on the line without thinking about what happens tomorrow. If you are in red and white, and has a cannon on the chest, you need to show that you earned it – every goddamn minute.
Now, lets talk about the manager. I am okay with Mikel’s infatuations towards defenders as long as we don’t neglect other areas of the pitch. But we have done exactly that. Going for two competitions at once with only 1 attacking midfielder will cost you. Odegaard is brilliant when fit, but we didn’t have a back up. Ok, we had, but we sold one of those to Fulham and loaned another one (Vieira) without bringing any like-for-like player.
This was highlighted before the season started and some of the news outlets confirmed that the club and the manager sees Nwaneri as a back up and they are not actively looking for a replacement. Guess what, Nwaneri is playing Carabao cup games and Mikel feels putting 3 DMs (Rice, Partey, Merino) in the midfield is better than giving him a chance in PL / CL. First, you didn’t have a competition / rotation to Odegaard. Second, let go off 2 players which were closest to play in that position. Third, you are hesitant in trying a 17-year old that might do the job.
And if I remember correctly, we paid 65 million for Kai Havertz because he was a versatile player who can play in the midfield and as a CF. We didn’t see him the midfield and he isn’t really doing much up top. We needed a proper CF, not another Gabriel Jesus.
Careful what you wish for. We were asking Wenger to stop neglecting defence and he would still go with 7 attacking players. The football was great but we would often lose. Now, we have a manager who can hold off City to a 2-2 at their home with 10 players and loves hoarding defenders. The football has gotten boring and we don’t get to see any of the Sanchez/ Wilshere like goals. Martinelli fits in that profile, but he hugs the sideline like his life depends on it.
We needed a blend, we got the opposite of what we had. City’s loss to Bournemouth is keeping us in the fight, Liverpool is leading but they will have bad days and I still feel it will come down to Arsenal v City at the end. We are still in the Champions League, not doing great but not as bad as some other teams.
Lets hope Mikel learns, unlike Wenger. I would love to hear your say in the comments.
Cheers.
Tony
Very happy birthday my man! I hope you have a brilliant day.🎂🍾
I’m also pleased to hear about your US plans. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble avoiding the multitude of loons running the country these days. It struck me a few days ago that if I was still living there, it might be time to keep an Uzi under my bed and hang out at some suitably progressive rifle ranges (if such things exist).
I’d also take a look at New Mexico too, especially the towns to the north of Albuquerque with the Adobe architecture. Some of them seemed really calm places, miles away from the seamier side of certain cities.
I’d prescribe a few herbs and some Steely Dan. Have a good one mate.
Oh, and maybe a few choice episodes of Breaking Bad, especially the ones where Walter and Jesse are out cooking in the desert.🌵🔥🌵
Tony – The sad part of MA’s legacy is the non integration of Arsenal Academy players beyond just a token appearance and training sessions. We are being told by blogs that training sessions are much more competitive than actual matches ! and some like ESR doesn’t like it and hence are being chucked out. The other sad part is that Per doesnt seem to have any influence on how this should be done. MA is left to ride roughshod over our academy which in the long run is going to be detrimental to our club. We cannot cannot sustain spending and honoring PSR unless we integrate our academy players regularly. There will come a time when PL should insist on academy flavor in playing 11 at some point in every PL game. You have to admire a club like Brighton who continually seems to produce, integrate and improve their academy stock within the first team.
The other blind spot of MA is manifested in the continued regression of Martinelli. He started as a brilliant shot taker and finishing capabilities and now has ended up running into blind alleys and passing it back to the left back. Wonder will MA ever deploy him as a striker to see what can happen if he unleashes Martinelli just for a game. I firmly believe that MA with his regimented build up and passing between wingers and midfielders has killed all ingenuity of players in the opposition’s third. There is not a single mazy run from deep (saw one of timber last week), dribbling near the final third or just quick release of a winger/striker beyond oppositions defense. Its the same boring backwards and sidewards passing with a final punt to the box with the hope that someone can get their head to the cross.
Arsenal’s DNA of exciting football is fast being eroded into a regimented, constipated and turgid fare which i find it difficult to watch. In my 25 + yrs of watching Arsenal, never have i felt like this and nowadays i hardly get excited to watch our beloved club.
TRVL
so true and won’t change until MA has left the building.
KP
Thanks for the good wishes, I looked at NM, but my theory is the south is more volatile that the mid states and northern ones and I’d like to have 4 seasons again. Hot, hotter and honest has lost its charm somewhat.
I agree the desert adobe houses in Nevada and Arizona, too have a calming value to them. NV is the good for taxes because it’s a gambling state. Residing in north Nevada with Vegas as an entertainment place to venture into would be cool especially for music.
We’ll see in the coming weeks as things unfold here.
Enjoy your Wales football, I assume you have driving duties for the game?
Going to watch Napoleon the new movie today…
Killroy
Thanks for the quotes it does give hope for the future, especially if Josh is reading them.
Madhu
Great post that tells it like it is. In a word our football is: Stale.
When the game’s counters are getting quicker, ours are slower if Zinchenko, Merino and Rice are acting as 3+ touch creators. Backwards, sidewards and then forward to Saka, rarely Marts.
Madhu
I agree with Tony. Your take on tactics is very knowledgeable. Although I played a fair bit into my 30s, my footballing brain is strictly attuned to the emotional side only.
Tony it’s the Welsh Cup on Saturday and County are away in nearby Ammanford (about 50 miles away). In English league terms, it’s a bit like Arsenal (County) being drawn away to play, say, Watford. It should be a win but it’ll be a physical game.
No minibus mayhem for me. One of the twins is taking her test tomorrow so if she passes (and I reckon she will) I’ll be getting driven in the Ford Fiesta! Keep your fingers crossed.
Tony—sorry, I got so wound up responding to your earlier thread that I somehow forgot to wish you a Happy Birthday before signing off for the evening…I hope you had an incredibly day bud…Cheers
Happy Birthday Tony. Hope you having a good day.
Madhu—if you look closely at MA’s tactical “adjustments” each year you will notice one very alarming trend, they tend to focus primarily around one of his half measure or ill-suited pet projects, typically to the detriment of the whole…now if we had brought in someone like Haaland adapting our tactics would have made perfect sense, but to do so for an inverted Zinchenko or a non-Striker like Havertz or to help facilitate Rice’s unrealistic final third dreams makes no sense whatsoever…each time he’s chosen one of the aforementioned short-sighted and nonsensical paths a better player(s) has suffered as a result, which seems to suggest that MA lacks the ability to devise a comprehensive plan that properly incorporates our best and brightest…so I’m not surprised that a totally isolated Marts has seemingly regressed, or that Saka continually sees double-teams or that Ethan has barely seen the pitch or even that we didn’t buy a Striker in the summer, as these are simply the logical outcomes of having given the keys to someone who was totally ill-prepared for such a nuanced task…effectively he’s been winging it all along and if it weren’t for the unprecendented spending and the fact that he inherited a treasure trove of young talent this would have been considered common knowledge amongst a much larger segment of the fanbase…have a good one
Killroy
Great to see that out in the media.
The media are sheep and will follow the common line about a player or manager regardless of the facts. Once one starts criticising it’ll snowball.
Maybe too soon for the best Arsenal Christmas present I could ask for but I’ll take a late delivery come the summer.
TRVL
You also need to factor in Arteta’s crazy good luck to see Chelsea, ManU, the Spud’s and Liverpool all have seasons where they’ve not been anywhere near where you’d expect them to.
Its one thing to have a team have an off season or two but the last few seasons have seen several teams all over the place.
Marc—good point…I’ve spent a considerable amount of time harping on how MA has wasted what could have been our window, so I should have added that to my above list of concerns…from an organizational standpoint, I think those in positions of power shit the bed by allowing the one person with the most to learn, Arteta, in charge of recruitment following our first notable cock-up, when we failed to get 4th 3 years back…what we needed at that time was to hire on someone with a proven track record to oversee operations so that we weren’t at the mercy of his oft-times hairbrained transfer whims…so far MA has only added two world-class players, Ode and Rice, the latter for seemingly the wrong reasons, in half a decade, yet based on what we’ve spent our lineup should be littered with them…someone with a comprehensive understanding of what’s required to reach that next rung would have never wasted so much time and money on luxury buys and ill-suited replacements before properly addressing our most pressing needs…they likewise would have taken a much more macro level approach by looking around the footballing landscape so as to better understand when it was time to push all our chips in…with MA in charge we’re nibbling around the edges, which rarely lands you in the catbird seat
TRVL
No arguments what adds fuel to the fire is when you look at how other clubs operate – Klopp was a far more experienced and established manager than Arteta but Liverpool’s transfer strategy meant he only had an input not final say. He didn’t want Salah he was overruled and the rest is history.
TVRL- MA either built his reputation around the tales that as junior.mgr at City improved Sterling etc. Everyone forgot that he had a Pep to guide him and Arsenal hired him based on those tales. They got Edu who was another novice to buy players for him. Unfortunately at the football level there was nobody with exp to do check and balance. That resulted in few crazy buys and the Saliba fiasco. We were lucky that Saliba didn’t leave the season he came back from French league. When Jesus was bought a lot of fans were skeptical because of his goal scoring record which now have proven the case. There have been umpteen cases like that. Viera is a weird one as well.
Added to that he has a strange habit of freezing players for no reason. Look at Zinny and Kiwior this season. Last season begining he benched Gaby for the first few games. It’s strange that he being an ex player doesn’t understand that professional players need to keep playing to improve? You can’t freeze them out on whims. He just cannot rotate and make use of the whole squad and keeping everyone fresh. He will run Saka to ground and that’s why no half decent right winger will join Arsenal as he knows that he will never get to play.
I always think would Arteta the manager every played Arteta the player?
TVRL- MA either built his reputation around the tales that as junior.mgr at City improved Sterling etc. Everyone forgot that he had a Pep to guide him and Arsenal hired him based on those tales. They got Edu who was another novice to buy players for him. Unfortunately at the football level there was nobody with exp to do check and balance. That resulted in few crazy buys and the Saliba fiasco. We were lucky that Saliba didn’t leave the season he came back from French league. When Jesus was bought a lot of fans were skeptical because of his goal scoring record which now have proven the case. There have been umpteen cases like that. Viera is a weird one as well.
Added to that he has a strange habit of freezing players for no reason. Look at Zinny and Kiwior this season. Last season begining he benched Gaby for the first few games. It’s strange that he being an ex player doesn’t understand that professional players need to keep playing to improve? You can’t freeze them out on whims. He just cannot rotate and make use of the whole squad and keeping everyone fresh. He will run Saka to ground and that’s why no half decent right winger will join Arsenal as he knows that he will never get to play.
I always think would Arteta the manager ever played Arteta the player?
“I always think would Arteta the manager ever played Arteta the player?”
Madhu
The answer is no. He was a bang average payer who took a pay cut to come to us. Now he’s a bang average winless manager but thinks he’s the smartest manager in the game.
There be MA’s problem he believes his own BS. When things go pear shaped in a game, he has no answer; only disbelief his tactical masterplan once again didn’t work being a variation of the same plays.
Thanks for the good wishes yesterday.
TRVL & Marc
Good points I’m hoping Edu jumping ship so early in the season is the start of the MA rot setting in. I’m wondering when the players will down tools on MA. Same they did to Ten Hag and Chavs did to some managers.
The news I found interesting this morning is that, MD, Richard Garlick, flew over to meet Josh and Stan to discuss new signings where the word is no new big signings in the JW and there were discussions on the summer window and Edu’s replacement.
The words use were that MA has to be reactive and not proactive in the transfer market. I take that to mean use what you asked for and have got. Of course, that could be all smoke and mirrors while we snag Isak or a quality 8, but I don’t see it and I’m wondering if the Edu fall out has made Josh and daddy to finally wake up and smell the MA coffee to see what we all see here.
I felt this song will be MA’s swangsong….. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQzdAsjWGPg
KP
Enjoy the Wales footy and hope the twin passes her test to allow you freedom of the hip flask…… a ditty for you…..
There was KP with with his hip flask
Where if you wanted a sip you only had to ask
When running low on said liquor
It left them to bicker
With KP thinking fcuk I should have brought the cask
Have a good one my friend…….
TRVL
Thanks for the well wishes yesterday. We all get so invested in our posts that sanity tends to take time to recover….
Tony—very rarely does the number 69 not get my full attention…I felt like shit once I realized the error of my ways especially knowing that my bday wishes were going to arrive a day late due to the 12 hour time difference
Madhu—in a way we kind of know the answer to your question, in that just like his shoehorning overlord, latter days Wenger, had deployed him as a DM, even though he hadn’t played in such a deep-lying role since his post-Barca academy days at PSG, manager Mikel would have likewise found a way to put his discount-taking ring kissing player self into his starting lineup, regardless if it made sense or not…remember MA, like Arsene, hasn’t always subscribe to a meritocracy-based model, even though both would vehemently claim otherwise…oftentimes they would opt for a serviceable soldier over the most talented option, as they both care(d) far more about creating an environment where they went unchallenged than doing whatever’s necessary, especially if that meant dealing with some type A/divaesque superstars…this certainly wasn’t always the case for Wenger, but once Dein left the room it became an all-too-common occurence, which is exactly how MA landed at our doorstep in the first place
subscribed
Dear gooners, so what is the stand of this group of bloggers on the so called Referee bias against Arsenal. My perspective is that Arsenal Football club if it believes that there is an inherent bias then they should take some kind of action in PL owners forum. If not then we should stop talking about it. The recent issue of a referee talking trash of Klopp has punctured the Arsenal bias narrative. The incompetence of referees are not new but to attribute it to bias against teams is a bit a red herring. Some blogs like Untold have been writing about this for a long long time. Le Grove has started to use this as a shield for Arteta’s incompetence.
Madhu
Switching to the system employed in Rugby would be a major step forward. It is open and honest – perhaps that is the problem with the current heads of PGMOL. Some managers do wind up 4th officials by constantly stepping out of their pitch side area – some more so than others. How often does El B abuse the ruling – perhaps that is the reason Refs seem to pick on us – is it a Tit for Tat exercise???
We will never know unless a ref spills the beans. Moving to the Rugby system would benefit all parties.
NORG – Agree with you completely on that. The same system works perfectly in Cricket as well. Every decision is transparent with proper logic behind each. Not sure why there so much secrecy in decision making. Why are not the Clubs demanding for more transparency. Its not just PL, its even UEFA and FIFA as the system of referee decision transparency is next to nothing.
Along with that i believe that the way cricket gives the responsibility for teams to challenge the decision 3 times in an inning is the way forward in football as well. May be allow two referee challenge in each half. I strongly believe that players/managers know which decision is dodgy and will only appeal those. Now the scenario is that everything is checked which is making the game stop start. Give the captain/manager the option to challenge (2 per half with challenge retained if review turns in your favour). So an offside goal if not called by referee (cause its too close/missed by linesman) then captain can challenge in consultation with his defense. The defense will know 100% if its offside or not. Similarly then can challenge any cards as well. This would put the onus on the side and then see the difference. I believe that the players behavior will change significantly as there are enough evidences in Cricket.
In cricket the batsman seldom stays on when they nick a ball because they know they know that they cannot waste a review. In Today’s cricket around the world there is hardly any controversy regarding umpiring decisions.