Squad management: Page 13 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Squad management

QuincyAbeyie

Xhaka is better than Willock and Elneny so don’t agree that we should phase him out. Even if we're going to sell him he should still play until that hapøens as long as he's the better option.

Claudius

Xhaka is better than Elneny. Agreed.

But I do not necessarily believe you need to play all your best players at once. I want a line-up that brings out our best attributes. Partey is our best midfielder. He is able to receive the ball from defense and both drive and pass through the lines. By having Elneny next to him, he will have a foil who allows him to do this. When he was played next to Xhaka on Sunday, Xhaka took up the ballplaying responsibility and together with Ceballos on either side of Partey drove the U-shaped offense that we played.

Elneny has in 2 recent games made penetrative runs towards the box that led directly to goals. He has good strength and recovery pace. As has Partey. So I think this can give us a good balance in the centre and allow us to mobilise through the centre more often.

What I want as much as possible is for the ball to get quickly to Aubameyang, Pepe, Saka and Willian. and if they lose it, we should have aggressive ball winners who can recover it and give it back to them again.

QuincyAbeyie

While I don't think it needs to be done, Partey would be an incredibly dumb signing if we're trying to upgrade our midfield and getting the best out of him requires us to bench our two best midfielders other than him.

goon

Our style of play that resulted in Partey being starved of the ball had nothing to do with personnel and more to do with instructions. Xhaka and Ceballos were asked to stay wide and the play went through them for a reason. Putting Elneny there instead of Xhaka or Dani wouldn't have made any difference. We actively avoid the middle like it's one of those radiation hotspots from Fallout.

Claudius

Yes, Goon, we do. Now if you are to build up through the middle, you do need some changes. You need to be able to move the ball vertically quickly. And if you lose it in the middle, you should be able to recover. So you need men in there who can get the ball back as well. This is why I think Partey / Elneny / Willian might be a safer start for driving centrally. Xhaka will kill playing down the middle

Right now we are doing a very regimented work it through the sides. Advance the wingback and have the central midfielder fall into his hole as a link/cover. It’s predictable and limiting. If we vary the attack a bit and have a few more moves where we hit the full back from the centre circle or later, it leaves the defense guessing a bit more about where the danger will come from.

Claudius

Listening to the Tuesday Club over lunch. Alan says to Wenger that Vieira to Bergkamp was the most common pass in the 1997 to 1998 season. Did Wenger plan that? Wenger responds: “Football is less robotic than that. A team goes naturally through its strong points... it’s the timing of being available that counts.” He said first time Pires practiced with Bergkamp, after ten minutes they played like they’d known each other a lifetime in 4 team 5 aside game. “The good players find each other”.

This is a bit what is happening with us with our left bias. Those are the players connecting. We need to create more opportunities for players to find each other. We are creating dead zones all over the field with Aubameyang out left, Xhaka in the middle, Lacazette at the 10 etc.

speedy

Claudius wrote:
Listening to the Tuesday Club over lunch. Alan says to Wenger that Vieira to Bergkamp was the most common pass in the 1997 to 1998 season. Did Wenger plan that? Wenger responds: “Football is less robotic than that. A team goes naturally through its strong points... it’s the timing of being available that counts.” He said first time Pires practiced with Bergkamp, after ten minutes they played like they’d known each other a lifetime in 4 team 5 aside game. “The good players find each other”.

This is a bit what is happening with us with our left bias. Those are the players connecting. We need to create more opportunities for players to find each other. We are creating dead zones all over the field with Aubameyang out left, Xhaka in the middle, Lacazette at the 10 etc.

Exactly we've seen ozil and sanchez endlessly slice teams apart with play then as soon as the average players get involved the play breaks down. We ended up with a squat that was lacking technically, physically and in football intelligence. With players who don't want to be here. And deserved our spot in the table.

When you watch a team train passing drills the better few players in thd team usually make the rest look abysmal.

Temo

Saka, Martinelli, Partey, Tierney, Ceballos (when he's in the mood) and Auba (as a finisher) are all at that level.

The problem isn't a lack of quality, its expecting the Lacazettes and Pepes of the squad to have any.

jones

I like Tierney but you really think he has more technical ability than Pepe?

Claudius

Pépé has mad skills but is prone to turning the ball over. He's a football equivalent of someone like Steve Francis - that Rocket from back in the day.

Mirth

Indeed, being able to control the ball consistently shows higher technical ability to me.

goon

Claudius wrote:
Yes, Goon, we do. Now if you are to build up through the middle, you do need some changes. You need to be able to move the ball vertically quickly. And if you lose it in the middle, you should be able to recover. So you need men in there who can get the ball back as well. This is why I think Partey / Elneny / Willian might be a safer start for driving centrally. Xhaka will kill playing down the middle

Right now we are doing a very regimented work it through the sides. Advance the wingback and have the central midfielder fall into his hole as a link/cover. It’s predictable and limiting. If we vary the attack a bit and have a few more moves where we hit the full back from the centre circle or later, it leaves the defense guessing a bit more about where the danger will come from.

Personally think there is a better solution in which Granit can also partake.

We basically played against Leicester like this:

Luiz ------ Gabriel

Ceballos ---------- Partey ---------- Xhaka

All part of Arteta's attack with 5 defend with 5 approach. In the past however he's also inverted, so if we were to do that again, we could play this:

Luiz -------- Xhaka -------- Gabriel

Ceballos ----------- Partey

Then we'd be able to play with the middle while still covering the fullbacks while arguably playing all three CMs in their best positions.

Claudius

Good thoughts. What are your 5s? Are your fullbacks in your defensive 5s or offensive 5s?
Cos I think part of what is killing us is we were pushing our fullbacks all the way forward and making them part of the 'offensive 5' on Sunday, while the midfield as a group never crossed the line. So what we were doing was we had to feed the frontline by first feeding the fullbacks vertically or via the sweeping diagonal balls from the centre backs. It was very predictable and inefficient.

The first time we spoke about 5-5, Michael Cox did a good breakdown of it on The Athletic. We had a 235 / 325 where the front 5 were attackers. That made us very dangerous. Now we get forward, it's slowed down and if we have a front 5 it's 2 wingbacks and 3 forwards.

goon

Yeah, they spoke about that on Arsecast. We had Saka playing at left back and Ozil at 10 so our attacking 5 was actually full of forwards rather than wingbacks. If you want to make it a bit more dynamic, you could drop Xhaka for Tierney in a back 3 and Saka at LWB/LCM and then play:

Luiz - Gabriel

Bellerin - Partey - Ceballos

Pepe - Auba - Nelson - Saka - Tierny

That being said, Liverpool do pretty much the same thing. Their attacking 5 consists of two full backs, Mane, Salah and Firminho. Their centre mids are still involved in the buildup and can link with the attack, but they don't do much of the creating itself. Look at their big chances created last season:

TTA - 18
Roberton - 14
Salah - 13
Firmino - 10
Mane - 10

Folks complain that we're 'reliant' on the wings but it's just an easy way to create chances. My main issue with the wide centre mids that we played against Leicester isn't that they didn't get involved in the attacking 3rd, it's that they didn't get involved in the buildup at all. As you say, their role was very predictable and limited and made them very easy to stop. We had to rely on Luiz.

Temo

jones wrote:
I like Tierney but you really think he has more technical ability than Pepe?

Would think so. Especially for what's required of their positions.

speedy

Temo wrote:
Saka, Martinelli, Partey, Tierney, Ceballos (when he's in the mood) and Auba (as a finisher) are all at that level.

The problem isn't a lack of quality, its expecting the Lacazettes and Pepes of the squad to have any.

Footballing intelegence wise none of them are even almost at that level.

Temo

But Sanchez comfortably was?

Coombs

goon wrote:
Folks complain that we're 'reliant' on the wings but it's just an easy way to create chances. My main issue with the wide centre mids that we played against Leicester isn't that they didn't get involved in the attacking 3rd, it's that they didn't get involved in the buildup at all. As you say, their role was very predictable and limited and made them very easy to stop. We had to rely on Luiz.

I agree, but when you have a guy like Luiz why not use him to do exactly what he did? Tactically, it was working. We were unable to adapt when he went off, and I think that had a lot to do with trying to win this game in the first half, because we knew we didn't have a strong second half in us. It was really bad timing.

I think Arteta should've make Xhaka come inside to get on the ball in the same positions Luiz was. Makes more sense than keep Partey in the center. Basically, they needed to get narrow once Luiz went off. Instead, we basically held to the plan and our press was less and less effective. Leicester started to push us back, and we lost the game from there.

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

But where should Partey have been?

Claudius

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert wrote:
But where should Partey have been?

Getting the ball in the middle and driving / distributing it forward. Xhaka needs to be Robin to Partey's Batman if he's on the field

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