Arteta is safety first kind of coach and to win the big ones you will need some element of unpredictability which we rarely used not like we don't have
Eze if allow to play his gamecan do that same with Sàka but we are a set piece FC for a reason
Re Gyokeres: He didn't sort his feet out despite scoring at Inter ,he tends to use brute force ,no finesse or good control in his play and I have seen enough of him to tell me he isn't going to be a top player in the PL.Stop all this bollocks that no one wants to pass to him .He comes over as a very nice guy but there was far too much publicity about him when we bought him.
Madueke with more Pl experience also continues to disappoint
.
Eze I am sure will improve given game time
.
Odegaard is now a big conundrum not sure how he benefits the team.
All the problems are in attack not being direct enough,always looking for the perfect goal.
At least another 20+ games this season and the pressure is on though many won't accept that .
Hard to disagree with everything you wrote, spot on.
Gyokeres' strengths are running into channels and finishing. In Premier League he is not given enough spaces to run into and enough time to pull off the shot. In Europe he's more successful because he's getting more of both.
That's why also Martinelli and Jesus look better in Europe - they all get more freedom than in rough & tumble of Premier League
Great write up as usual. I think Saliba played a great role in that goal. He dithered a lot with the ball a lot in that match. After passing that ball he should have run backwards to cover. That is what "safety first" tactics of Arteta requires especially from a central defender.
I agree that Arsenal is a nightmare opponent to play against, when it comes to finding openings. I agree that Arsenal are one of the best teams when it comes to playing without the ball. That what the post covers in detail.
At the same time, to win the big tournament, to be the BEST team, it's not enough to only be the nightmare opponent, the team needs to consistently score goals. Our top PL scorer is at 5 goals, our dynamics in PL is 2 goalless draws and a home loss, since NLD, we've been mostly winning by one goal, relying on set pieces and own goals. This is not sustainable, and I can't believe you think it is. We are not goood in attacking transition - one of the components Balague brought up. In Europe, by the way, that Balague talks about - we are much more successful in chance creation, because there is more space and more time.
However, there's a simple data point to check - against City or Liverpool this season, we were almost toothless in attack. We know how to deny opponent oxygen and the best of them know how to deny us. And when such tight game is played, it comes to individuals deciding games, and we don't have a good record of that. Because when our players are faced with a structure, they are lost and they resort to set pieces.
No I didn’t say that I think we are doing enough offensively. If I did I certainly wouldn’t continue to read your substack lol. I just think it gives some context. And we are still top. Let’s talk again end of season and we can say then whether Arteta’s probability set up has been effective
Arteta has not what it takes to win big things. If he's good at attack tactics he'd have been less scared of forwards losing the ball but he's ignorant of attacking.
We had the 22/23 seasons and second half of 23/24 after massive shake up for personnel, where attacking patterns started to click.
But Arteta is not great at breaking those patterns, setting up attack for specific opponent and reacting on opponent adjustment. Now we are in the process where most of the league knows how to stop us and we need to come up with new ways to attack.
But at the same time Arteta is grounding Eze and sending Ethan on loan.
I probably agree with every sentence and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to point the finger at Arteta .
Arteta is safety first kind of coach and to win the big ones you will need some element of unpredictability which we rarely used not like we don't have
Eze if allow to play his gamecan do that same with Sàka but we are a set piece FC for a reason
Re Gyokeres: He didn't sort his feet out despite scoring at Inter ,he tends to use brute force ,no finesse or good control in his play and I have seen enough of him to tell me he isn't going to be a top player in the PL.Stop all this bollocks that no one wants to pass to him .He comes over as a very nice guy but there was far too much publicity about him when we bought him.
Madueke with more Pl experience also continues to disappoint
.
Eze I am sure will improve given game time
.
Odegaard is now a big conundrum not sure how he benefits the team.
All the problems are in attack not being direct enough,always looking for the perfect goal.
At least another 20+ games this season and the pressure is on though many won't accept that .
Hard to disagree with everything you wrote, spot on.
Gyokeres' strengths are running into channels and finishing. In Premier League he is not given enough spaces to run into and enough time to pull off the shot. In Europe he's more successful because he's getting more of both.
That's why also Martinelli and Jesus look better in Europe - they all get more freedom than in rough & tumble of Premier League
Great write up as usual. I think Saliba played a great role in that goal. He dithered a lot with the ball a lot in that match. After passing that ball he should have run backwards to cover. That is what "safety first" tactics of Arteta requires especially from a central defender.
And yet...we are still top of everything. Suggest you read Guillem Balague's post on X for a counter narrative (particularly in Europe)
Read it - if that was the one you meant.
I agree that Arsenal is a nightmare opponent to play against, when it comes to finding openings. I agree that Arsenal are one of the best teams when it comes to playing without the ball. That what the post covers in detail.
At the same time, to win the big tournament, to be the BEST team, it's not enough to only be the nightmare opponent, the team needs to consistently score goals. Our top PL scorer is at 5 goals, our dynamics in PL is 2 goalless draws and a home loss, since NLD, we've been mostly winning by one goal, relying on set pieces and own goals. This is not sustainable, and I can't believe you think it is. We are not goood in attacking transition - one of the components Balague brought up. In Europe, by the way, that Balague talks about - we are much more successful in chance creation, because there is more space and more time.
However, there's a simple data point to check - against City or Liverpool this season, we were almost toothless in attack. We know how to deny opponent oxygen and the best of them know how to deny us. And when such tight game is played, it comes to individuals deciding games, and we don't have a good record of that. Because when our players are faced with a structure, they are lost and they resort to set pieces.
No I didn’t say that I think we are doing enough offensively. If I did I certainly wouldn’t continue to read your substack lol. I just think it gives some context. And we are still top. Let’s talk again end of season and we can say then whether Arteta’s probability set up has been effective
Arteta has not what it takes to win big things. If he's good at attack tactics he'd have been less scared of forwards losing the ball but he's ignorant of attacking.
We had the 22/23 seasons and second half of 23/24 after massive shake up for personnel, where attacking patterns started to click.
But Arteta is not great at breaking those patterns, setting up attack for specific opponent and reacting on opponent adjustment. Now we are in the process where most of the league knows how to stop us and we need to come up with new ways to attack.
But at the same time Arteta is grounding Eze and sending Ethan on loan.