Eddie the cat: Page 28 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Eddie the cat

Clrnc

Claudius I thought the opposite. I wanted him to make more runs past their defence which in fairness he did quite abit. We had alot of bodies behind the ball don't need him to drop back at all. We needed more people in the box to provide chaos and options

Claudius

Clrnc

There was no path to the box. Watch the game again and see the number of times Xhaka, Partey, Zinchenko, Gabriel have the ball and they’re looking up for Martinelli or Nketiah and they just can’t get a pass through. This kept happening over and over and over. There was no space on the ground, and no clear lobs.

KingslandBarge

Thinking back to Martinelli's finish on New Years Eve, Saka's at the world cup vs Nketiah's far post strike last night, it recently seems like the '5-hole' shot (sorry Tam) holds a higher success rate than I would have initially thought.

Clrnc

Claudius Tbf they did get the ball to Nketiah a lot of times and he tried to turn, albeit successfully only twice and getting his shot away. Most of the time his touch was not good enough and lost the ball in congested area.

What's the point of making him drop into midfield and have zero bodies in the box? Play tiki taka? We had enough people passing around since Newcastle just parked the bus. What we should have done is add even more bodies into the box so we can cause confusion and keep playing balls in, be it crosses or through the middle. We didn't do that enough.

est

Clrnc I was thinking that we could have done with a big target man type up front and getting the fullbacks to overlap hard.

I guess Arteta was more afraid of being hit on the counter, so he never really pushed our fullbacks that high and kept them tucked into the midfield.

I guess it's a debate about risk-reward. I think maybe overall, given our league standing and injury situation etc. it was better not to risk losing the game and derailing our positive momentum vs. going all out for it and trying to win at any cost.

Let's see whether he gets these types of decisions right as things change towards the end of the season.

Claudius

We weren’t going to get that many bodies in though. The game was played in a very narrow area about 10 meters either side of the halfway line. We would push them back twenty meters. They’d crowd us out and push us back to the centre.

Claudius

Watch this video for how Firmino tried to negotiate Atletico Madrid. And even then Liverpool really struggled. It was a very similar set up. Two banks do four that were hard to penetrate. Partey was there for Madrid. Firmino dropped back to pick up the ball. This is exactly what Jesus would’ve done if he was playing yesterday. It would’ve helped create more movement and more objects for Newcastle to manage. They were comfortably monitoring men in front of them

Coombs

Claudius They were comfortably monitoring men in front of them

I agree with a lot that you said, but not this. Newcastle were dogshit. They were crumbling and resorted to cheap fouls and diving to bail them out. We were all over them and could've scored multiple times on another day where luck goes against them (or for us), not to mention they got away with murder on multiple fouls in the box.

They had a losing strategy in every way, and it was down mostly to cheating that they got away with it. They were never comfortable, not for a second.

Claudius

Coombs
We barely had the ball against Brighton and had an xG of 3,5. We had the ball here and had an xG of 1,0 they kept us at bay. The fouling and shit housery was unseemly, but the defending was good. 9 hours.

Big Willie

Claudius 9 hours what Claude? Don't tell me that's how long they haven't conceded for.

Claudius

Big Willie

Arsenal, Leeds, Leicester, Bournemouth, Chelsea, Palace (Cup). 6 games without conceding. These guys are a seriously strong defensive unit that deserves more respect

Coombs

Claudius that deserves more respect

Could not disagree more. It's cowards' football.

goon

Coombs in fairness they don’t usually play like they did against us and part of the reason why they did was due to how we played. Otherwise they play the highest defensive line bar us and City.

Claudius

goon

The biggest change here has been revamping our back four and goalie. Remember when we weren’t scoring two years ago and I said the issue isn’t the forwards, it’s the mediocre defenders we had who didn’t have the right combination of speed, passing, dribbling to be able to advance the ball and allow us to keep a compressed shape.

It’s only with these new defenders that we are able to shorten passing distances, allowing us to move the ball faster; and also allowing our forwards to press more. All these things are enabled by improved attack-first defenders. Zinchenko, for example, is as much a playmaker as Partey. White is so multifaceted and both the CBs are great as playmakers.

Clrnc

goon Pretty cool graph. Thanks for that.

Yeah Newcastle is normally on the front foot. The fact they played so defensively against us and resorted to shithousery to get a point shows how much respect we get now. Reminiscent of the early Wenger Emirates days

Qwiss

I don't think the biggest difference is the back 4. They've helped but the biggest difference is Partey IMO and its pretty clear when you look at us with or without him. Drop Rob Holding in for one of the centre halfs or Tierney for Zinchenko and things don't change nearly as much as putting anyone else in for Partey.

Claudius

Holding is a disaster in this system. He can’t play it all.

Qwiss

Claudius Not true at all.

Burnwinter

There's more than one thing under discussion here, it's a bit confusing.

When we line up at the moment, we have excellent passing ability throughout the back five. That makes us press resistant. We've paid up for that, that's most of the reason we're £25m down on swapping Leno for Ramsdale.

We've also paid up for versatility and cover, signing White, Tomiyasu and Zinchenko as starters who also back up other positions at a higher standard than our previous second stringers, and enable tactical variations.

And we've settled on a quality central defensive pair with strength, poise and recovery speed, with Partey, and Zinchenko tucking in. That's what enables the high press and the counter-press. Partey plays a massive role there.

This was one of the better articles on The Athletic lately …

https://archive.md/su38n

goon

Yeah, it's no one thing that results in being able to play like this. All aspects of the side need to be on point. Liverpool are an extreme example of how things can start to fall apart when 1 or 2 aspects are off.

Claudius

All the pieces fit together obviously. You need a talented front 4. You need Partey’s incredible distribution etc.

But if you took those front 6 players and tried to pair them with Bellerin, Holding, Mustafi and Kolasinac/even Tierney, this team would not be in first place and probably be struggling with United/Spurs for place. These new defenders brings tons of value to the offense that the old ones just could not.
1) they can all pass and carry, and are multi-footed. This enables faster ball movement and better retention
2) the fullbacks are able to come up and pack the midfield, again creating more triangles. Look at the beautiful Eddie Nketiah goal. That’s a Ben White triangle, for example. They do this all day. Zinchenko was our leading distributor vs Newcastle. Even Tierney can’t do this. He’s incredibly athletic and great at stretching play, but doesn’t have playmaking muscle like Zin and White.
3) the centrebacks are incredibly athletic but also super confident on the ball (especially Saliba). This allows them to push extremely high. This pushes the whole team up, and also compresses passes distances. Just watch when Holding plays. He falls back and stretches the team’s distances without fail.

« Previous Page Next Page »