Squad management: Page 3 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Squad management

Claudius

Guys, our defense is soooooo bad that some coaching will get us halfway to the promised land. There is only so much you can do about Luiz never tackling and Mustafi just throwing himself to the ground at the halfway line but refusing to do the same near the penalty box. But we can work on spacing, communicating on who picks up which men, having the guys spending less time with their backs to attackers, etc.

There is also the issue of defending from the top. We lose the ball easily because of our bad spacing and movement on offence. And then we throw these uncoordinated presses at the opposition leaving us wide open. These are all quick wins.

goon

The Luiz buy was just an extra body in there, nothing more nothing less.

goon

Claudius wrote:
Guys, our defense is soooooo bad that some coaching will get us halfway to the promised land. There is only so much you can do about Luiz never tackling and Mustafi just throwing himself to the ground at the halfway line but refusing to do the same near the penalty box. But we can work on spacing, communicating on who picks up which men, having the guys spending less time with their backs to attackers, etc.

There is also the issue of defending from the top. We lose the ball easily because of our bad spacing and movement on offence. And then we throw these uncoordinated presses at the opposition leaving us wide open. These are all quick wins.

Totally.

I think there's some really easy fixes. The mistake I think both Wenger and Emery made is thinking that the 'fix' is getting more bodies back there.

jones

Ricky1985 wrote:
I think Sokratis was very decent by and large last season until our collapse toward the end. This season he has been terrible in near enough every game. I also think he's lost half a yard of pace and he seems slower on the turn.

I was not a fan of his rash tackling, even at his best, but I really liked how dominant and aggressive he was when he was on it. He gave Kane a horrible 90 minutes in both our league games with them, for example. Dominated him on the ground as he was far, far quicker in a race and won everything in the air. He had some really good performances for us last season.

This is the correct take. Everyone else go home

Mustafi put in some performances that would make you numb last season, Sokratis was leagues better than him even if he wasn't flawless himself

Qwiss

Ricky1985 wrote:
I think Sokratis was very decent by and large last season until our collapse toward the end. This season he has been terrible in near enough every game. I also think he's lost half a yard of pace and he seems slower on the turn.

Nah last year he just stayed out of the action more. He'd step out and let Mustafi flail, now he's flailing while Luiz disappears. Everyone blames who evers closest to the ball.

deardevil

Exactly. I've never seen a defender hide on the pitch before, until I saw Sokratis. Sokratis is the CB equivalent of a GK who never comes off his line. You can't disregard our collapse like it was some anomaly. It was a crucial part of our season and Sokratis was right in the middle of it it, as a non-existent entity.

What's hilarious is exactly what you said that Luiz is now doing the same thing to him. People are easily focused by defenders who make errors and overlook those that don't. Sokratis is making errors through action, whilst Luiz is avoiding errors by avoiding action. The latter is just as great a crime.

flobaba

There is just a huge lack of leadership and responsibility across the entire back line. And of course, ability.

goon

There's too much focus on individuals anyway. They might be what's stopping us form being title challengers but they're not what's causing us to have one of the most open defences in the league.

mdgoonah41

chambers has to get a look at CB. sokratis and luiz are fucking terrible. id be tempted to even try chambers and mustafi, if holding cant get fit.

ozil doesnt belong in the team.

pepe and martinelli should be flanking auba, and lacazette should be sitting on the bench

Anzac

Essentially it looks like Freddie is giving most everyone a chance to show if they are up to the task of not.
We were saying it was a Frankenstein squad when Emery took over, and in many ways it still is.
At the very least we still lack a spine to the team that is actually fit for purpose, and likewise no area of the team (Defence, Midfield, Attack) is actually fit for purpose.

IMO we need to tear it all down and build from scratch so as to have genuine balance and functionality.

Klaus

Anzac wrote:
We were saying it was a Frankenstein squad when Emery took over, and in many ways it still is.

It wasn't this bad though. He came in and gutted every single strong point we had.

Mirth

We're on our worst run of form since the 1970s, blaming it on the squad that Emery inherited is beyond flawed. This is like Moyes blaming United for giving him a title winning squad - it's not perfect but it should still be achieving a lot more than it currently is.

Rohit

We finished 2 points off 3rd last season and reached the Europa League final comfortably where we were well beaten. A few important players left, yes, but this is surely not our level.

We have a few individuals who are in terrible form and the team is incredibly short on confidence. Mourinho, who is a defensive minded manager has taken over Tottenham and yet his team has conceded 8 goals in 4 games.

I can't see how we will stop leaking goals but may be we can start scoring a few. We have't scored many from open play.

Clrnc

This is not our level, but honestly last year our winning run papered over a lot of cracks. All the stats suggested we were lucky and wouldn't hang on if we keep playing Emeryball and it has proved.

The squad is easily good enough to get to top 4 with a proper manager, especially when you consider Chelsea's squad and their managerial experience. They hardly had any time to adapt to Lampard if you are the kind who said to give Emery 2 years to adapt.

Anzac

Klaus wrote:
Anzac wrote:
We were saying it was a Frankenstein squad when Emery took over, and in many ways it still is.

It wasn't this bad though. He came in and gutted every single strong point we had.

Don't think it was Emery who gutted the squad as opposed to the new regime.
The squad it's self is still lacking balance in any area of the pitch, and our best remaining assets require us to compromise in order to be able to utilise them on the pitch at the same time.
Emery's failure was he wasn't able to provide any core fundamentals on or off the pitch for both the players & supporters to fill the void post AW.

Gazza M

Klaus wrote:
Anzac wrote:
We were saying it was a Frankenstein squad when Emery took over, and in many ways it still is.

It wasn't this bad though. He came in and gutted every single strong point we had.

It wasn't good either though, and whoever came in had to make changes one way or another. Unfortunately the guy that came in fell into a chameleon rabbit hole and the changes that were made didn't result in the clear vision the team was crying out for

Claudius

If I was running the club now, seeing
1) we aren’t going to win soon and aren’t getting _£50m from Champs League our rivals are
2) we have a lot of value in older players ..
.. I would start selling the older players. And replace with quality younger to mid-career players. So guys like Aubameyang, Ozil, Sokratis, Lacazette and Xhaka would go. And I would bring in guys like: Upamecano, Sangaré, Aouar, Fernandes, Ziyech, etc.

Basically, we have asset value that will evaporate into thin air before we can launch a title run. We need to get ahead of the problem now. Define our style of play, and go after players will hold and grow squad value better. If we re-sign and keep those older players or let them run their contracts out, it will be malpractice.

mdgoonah41

those players you want to bring in are all in demand. and right now arsenal is a shambles. going to take some incredible PR to convince them to come to a mid table side in england instead of waiting for the likes of madrid, barcelona, bayern and PSG...

Claudius

Chelsea, United, Liverpool and City all signed big players when they were all in similar or worse positions than this. Acting small will get you nowhere. You have to have a clear vision, communicate it to agents and execute decisively.

HomeSteak

Ornstein: Emery wanted to sign Harry Maguire, Thomas Partey, and Wilfried Zaha over the summer. Partey was 'desperate to join' but the club wanted to focus on signing a winger. Pepe was preferred 'predominantly because of his younger age.'

Partey was desperate to join and we didn't go for him. What the hell.

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