Port Vale - on the bus. Did Arteta reflect on last season?
A modest victory in the first Carabao Cup with full guns on.
Squad for Port Vale
In these types of games against a League 1 opposition normally the following groups of players are expected to participate:
First team players who didn’t have enough gaming time in Premier League
Youngsters who would benefit from playing against any senior opposition
First team players returning from injury for gaining match fitness.
The starting line-up mostly fitted this description.
Kepa, White, Saliba, Mosquera, Lewis-Skelly, Norgaard, Merino, Nwaneri, Saka, Martinelli, Eze
Except one name - Eze. Why would one start their best fit number 10 against Port Vale? One reason is that Arteta has no plans starting him against Newcastle (yeeeey, we are still there). The second reason Arteta alluded to in his press-conference: “none of you know the load that he can do”. So Eze is not fully fit according to Arteta. How could the player who went through the whole preseason with Crystal Palace and played Community Shield against Liverpool be not fit? The only explanation is that he’s not fit “by Arsenal standards”. The demands in this club for a fitness readiness are much higher than in the other Premier League clubs.
It poses an interesting question. If we look at all the arrivals we had this summer:
Gyokeres - built like a bull
Eze - not fully fit according to Arteta
Madueke - injured his knee
Mosquera - fit, quite physically imposing, but not the bull yet :)
Norgaard - was injured already
Hincapie - currently injured
Zubimendi - joined early, fit.
In addition to Saka, who was most probably brought in too quickly in April and his current injuries are now the price for that decision, half of the new signings already have injuries or fitness problems.
This isn’t a coincidence; it’s a clear pattern. The pattern is that Arteta’s training load breaks the bodies of players who aren’t adjusted to it. If we know that new players would need to adjust to training demands, why are they not given a personal plan to reach the Arsenal level of fitness?
Let me tell you – the injured players actually have personal plans because everyone knows they aren’t at the same level of fitness. So why aren’t the new joiners receiving the same adaptation?
It’s all down to Arteta’s ‘macho attitude’ – no one should have exceptions, everyone must adhere to the ‘fogging standards’. This machismo culture brought us to where we are, but now we need to understand the consequences of it. All the sacrifices you make with your body, every time you push it to the limit, don’t come for free. You take credit from your body that must be repaid later on. If you don’t sleep for three nights, then in a couple of days you’ll simply collapse, because the body will reclaim the credit that it’s previously given. The same goes for the players we already have; we’re already paying the price.
Ben White, after all his sacrifices, is probably never going to be the player he was before the surgery. Bukayo Saka is miles behind the level he was in December before his injury. I understand the idea behind it, but we’re not at the stage where we need to push everyone to their absolute limit. The players are an important resource for the club, a crucial resource. You can easily see the contrast in the legwork Salah does for Liverpool; Slot recognises him as an aging player who can contribute a lot to the attack, so he imposes different standards on him vs the rest of the team because of the benefits it brings. I think Arsenal are in a position where we need to do the same.
The bench, however, was quite alarming:
Raya, Gabriel, Timber, Gyokeres, Trossard, Zubimendi, Calafiori, Rice, Dowman
Why on earth do we need to field players like Calafiori, Gabriel, Timber, Rice, and Zubimendi in this fixture? They’ve featured in every Premier League game so far this season. Why subject them to a trip to Port Vale? Do we not possess a single young player capable of benefiting from match practice, or have we completely given up on the academy? Last year, we saw the likes of Maldini Kacurri, and a few others – why are they not deemed good enough to play this year?
It speaks volumes about a manager’s confidence in his squad when he feels compelled to bring out the entire first team to face Port Vale, a bottom table League One side. How little trust does he have in the players who started yesterday? Frankly, it doesn’t sound healthy to me. I contrast this with Liverpool, who played a Premier League side at home, and Salah, Gakpo, Wirtz, and Van Dijk were nowhere to be seen in the squad. Rodri, Gvardiol, Haaland and Doku stayed in their comfortable beds instead of traveling to Huddersfield. That, my friends, is the right way to approach it.
What benefit could possibly be gained from playing Rice, Gabriel, or Calafiori in this game? It can only lead to the downside of an injury. It doesn’t appear that Arteta has reflected on last season’s player management, which was certainly not optimal. It doesn’t look like he for a moment considered his approach to be a major factor. It seems he’s simply acquired a larger squad and intends to use it in the same manner as before.
We’re currently in a period of two games per week: the League Cup, Champions League, and international duty. The Port Vale match was the prime opportunity to “release the handbrake”—a phrase Arteta was so unhappy to hear in the press conference. Well, he certainly didn’t do it yesterday, and it looks like he won’t be doing it this weekend either.
The game itself
Right then, let’s talk about the match. Honestly, there isn’t much to dissect about the game itself. We were up against a lower league side who, as expected, parked the bus deep in their own box, relying on a few cheeky counters. While I can’t quite analyse it as a regular fixture, there were a few intriguing patterns worth noting.
First off, Eze and Nwaneri in midfield – that certainly sounds and looks exciting, but for now, I don’t see it being deployed anytime soon in a genuinely competitive game. However, I did rather fancy the zones Eze occupied. He finally looked like the attacking midfielder drifting in the central areas, getting quite close to the opposition’s defensive line. We’ve often had a gaping void in that area, but if Eze can consistently fill those gaps, we should only benefit from it. Hopefully, this is something we’ll actually see in Premier League matches.
The rest of the game, apart from some Dowman skills, felt quite uninspiring. Now, that rather modest 2-0 scoreline, with the second goal coming so late on. It’s a decent result if you’re fielding a mix of first-teamers and academy prospects. But when your starting XI is what most Premier League teams could only dream of, I’d expect the boys to have well and truly sewn things up by the 60-minute mark. Why on earth did Saka stay on for 60 minutes? Surely 45 was more than enough for his match fitness. And Eze for 80 minutes? Was Arteta so worried about not winning a Carabao Cup game? Telling that he’s not fit to start against City, but then leaving him on the pitch for 80 minutes, certainly doesn’t sound logical.
Next stop Newcastle
Our next stop is St. James’ Park, where we’ve failed to win – or even score – in our last two seasons, with an aggregate score of 0-4. In the Premier League, we haven’t really had many chances. The cup match was different, but by then Newcastle were already a few goals up, so they didn’t need to be as cohesive as they were in League games.
Now, the question is: what kind of lineup will Arteta roll out? He was clearly hurt by the feedback from the Manchester City game. The following comment:
we play with a player on the right-hand side, an attacking midfielder [Merino] who played as a nine last year, so how attacking that is?
didn’t make a single bit of sense.
This actually suggests he wasn’t confident in his approach. If you had your reasons and you know them, why then wouldn’t you calmly explain the sound logic behind it? Perhaps Arteta knows he was overly cautious, and since he doesn’t like to be criticised, he comes up with these nonsensical responses. He said he only receives a summary of the game review, but according to his reaction, he’s pretty much aware of it and he’s not liking what he hears; it truly hurts him.
On the one hand, this is good because it means the pressure from fans and pundits (who will inevitably serve whatever fans want to hear) will push him, and it might make him change. On the other hand, is it good when your manager cannot articulate reasons for his choices, or clearly state that he made a mistake?
There are probably two scenarios Arteta can go with against Newcastle after the criticism he’s received. First scenario: he doubles down on his decision and rolls out the same lineup, just with Saka instead of Madueke. I lean towards it, because there’s no way you play Eze for 80 minutes if you plan to start him against Newcastle. Nwaneri also won’t be trusted; I’m sure of that. This means the same stodgy midfield and same stodgy football, and I can guarantee you, we will not be ahead in the Newcastle game with this lineup. At best, we can hold them to a boring draw.
The second option is that he compensates a bit for his “handbrake” approach and sets up a slightly more balanced team. Zubimendi and Rice in midfield, and a creative player ahead of them, but who would that be? I’m sure Arteta would rather push Odegaard out of the recovery room directly onto the pitch than start Eze or Nwaneri. He’s fixated on the defensive work of a creative player, so that he doesn’t even seriously consider all the benefits of a magician in that role.
I personally would approach Newcastle with the following logic. We will never be able to compete with them physically; we will never be able to push them around. Bruno, Tonali and Joelington (who’s currently injured), Schär, Botman and Burn – those players are in the business of physical contact, and they know what they’re doing. All our duel winners will not be able to show signs of duel-winning dominance over Newcastle. So we need to approach it from another angle: we need to have as many technicians on the pitch as possible who will simply keep the ball at their feet, move it around fast and let Newcastle only take it back with a foul.
I would set up Rice at number 6 because, honestly, Zubimendi will not be so useful against physical Newcastle with his profile. Above Rice, I would set up four technical players: Trossard, Eze, Ethan, and Saka.
These four are quite good with the ball, and I’m pretty sure they can keep Newcastle out of possession for a long time. As for a striker, Gyokeres won’t get a sniff against Newcastle; he’d be pushed around as he was against Liverpool or City. So again, we need someone who possesses qualities that might be uncomfortable to the opponent. I would start Martinelli because he can make rapid runs behind the defence, and he might even win a penalty with his quick feet. He would definitely offer something different from what they usually face in their centre-back area.
And I’m pretty sure that the defence of Saliba, Gabriel, and Timber, with Rice shielding them, can sniff out all of Newcastle’s attacking attempts. Luckily, they don’t have Isak who has a habit of hurting us. They only have Gordon, who is able to convert a rare chance, but someone needs to deliver it to Gordon. If we intercept those passes, we should be good to go. But this is just my idea.
Arteta would probably have his own idea, and I bet on him doubling down on the stodgy ZRM midfield. My prediction would be 0-0 or 1-1, just because Newcastle are not as powerful on the counters. And then Liverpool might be already seven points ahead by Sunday evening. But they are always lucky, aren’t they?
I will be out from Saturday for a week with very limited Internet, so there won’t be new posts. I will try to share a short one after Newcastle, but otherwise I welcome you all here after my break