ESR: Page 33 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

ESR

JazzG

Qwiss No we shouldn't but DarrenArsenal1 clearly does have some links within the club so him saying that is a bit different from a random Twitter post.

DiabyKungFu

Burnwinter I just see very little mystery here.

I agree. He was on the bench last season and since then Vieira, Nelson and Trossard have all overtaken him in the pecking order with rumors that we’re interested in acquiring two midfielders (presumably one defensive and one attacking) and another winger in the summer. It seems that contemplating the very obvious conclusion is distressful to people (probably because they think that what is very obviously the club’s take is wrong on the merits), but the situation is really not ambiguous in any way. The only real genuine question is whether the club pulls another Maitland-Niles this summer or if they have actually learned their lesson.

DiabyKungFu

Basically, there’s a difference between objectively inferring what the club thinks and projecting what you would want the club to be thinking.

Burnwinter

DiabyKungFu Basically, there’s a difference between objectively inferring what the club thinks

I don't think that's what you're doing, but I definitely agree your interpretation of events is a possibility.

When we got busted out of the Europa a lot of players' chance at getting minutes dried up. Not just Smith Rowe, also Nelson and Vieira. I wouldn't really expect any of the three to get an hour in the next six matches—perhaps Nelson, but only if we're playing horribly. We have few fixtures and they're all too important.

This means all this chat about their pecking order is barely salient. The one instance where Vieira was ever gonna start was a disaster so we won't see that again, it'll be Xhaka at the Etihad unless hell freezes over.

The only real question about Smith Rowe is one for the summer: is he seen as viable backup in the first half of next season? I think he won't be on the sheet. If not, he'll probably go on loan. The one thing I'd hate to see would be a Wilshere type situation, that sucks for both Emile and Arsenal.

DiabyKungFu

Burnwinter When we got busted out of the Europa a lot of players' chance at getting minutes dried up.

Yes, but the big thing to consider here is that Vieira and Nelson got minutes ahead of him in the Europa League too. If Smith-Rowe got Europa League minutes and then started playing less then you could definitely make a plausible case that he's a victim of circumstance. That's not really what has happened though. Nelson and Vieira have been consistently ahead of him in the pecking order in almost every situation.

Burnwinter

DiabyKungFu Yes, but the big thing to consider here is that Vieira and Nelson got minutes ahead of him in the Europa League too

That's not a big thing to consider at all. £40m Vieira's been so trash I'd question whether he stays ahead if he was before, because he's been so shit. People say "the talent is evident" but far as I can recall he's played about ten nice passes, scored one memorable goal and gotten blown around like a dandelion seed apart from that.

When a wisp like Vieira gets his big chance, three points essential, against the worst side in the league, and fucks it so badly he gets dragged off the pitch within an hour … if he doesn't have an epic glow-up this summer and come back hulked up ready for cold nights in Stoke and twitching with aggression and confidence like he's just smoked a bag of crystal off a bar of weaponised plutonium, I'd put a bullet in him to encourage the others. Arsenal shouldn't have to endure another 55 minutes of Vieira operating at Friday's level ever.

As for Nelson, if he's our leading backup for Martinelli—and he seems to be—then that's for a position where Vieira and Smith Rowe aren't even in the reckoning and shouldn't be.

If Smith Rowe's got an Arsenal future it's as versatile backup but that'll be at eight, maybe false nine, ten if we change things up. Yeah we might exploit him kinda as we currently do Trossard, but always relatively further from the byline and the goal because that's his game.

Anyway, I'm with you on some of the pessimism, just not with the claims we're dowsing for objective truths. The only things I'm confident of here are that it doesn't matter till summer, Smith Rowe's not going to be sold, Arteta doesn't hate him, and the final outcome's not certain.

DiabyKungFu

Burnwinter

To my point, the first two paragraphs there are just your own personal opinion. For what it's worth, I personally don't agree at all that the Southampton game makes it clearly self-evident that Vieira is totally non-viable. What I saw was that Vieira was having a pretty bad game. Then he got substituted. Then we didn't appreciably improve in any way whatsoever at all. The moment when we appreciably improved is when Nketiah came on and we went two up top. If Trossard came in and we were much better then that would be pretty bad for Vieira but that isn't what happened at all. By far the biggest takeaways from the game for me was that the goalkeeper passed the ball directly to the opposing striker and our center forward completely disappeared from the game for the first 80 minutes. Anything to do with Vieira is at best a very distant third.

Also, I find it funny that "This guy who had his big breakout (half) season playing exclusively on the left wing is obviously not a left winger. Everyone knows this!" is apparently a talking point. For what it's worth, I have the totally opposite interpretation. I don't think Smith-Rowe is a midfielder at all so all the Vieira stuff is neither here nor there. The fact that we bought another left winger and Nelson leaped over him on top of that seems really interesting. Not totally sure what to make of that on the merits. No idea where you get the confidence that we could not possibly sell a guy who doesn't play at all during a season where we've been amazing. It is demonstrably not the case that we clearly miss him.

Burnwinter

DiabyKungFu

I'll walk you through it.

The intent of this comment (quoted below, that you also quoted above) is to point out Arteta and Edu's former optionality about Saliba's future at Arsenal. The effort that was made to sign versatile Ben White forms part of the evidence.

Burnwinter Arteta and Edu didn't spent up to sign Ben White, who without any coincidence has the qualities to start for Arsenal at both centre half and right back, because they held the view Saliba wasn't going to make it at Arsenal.

Why point this out about Saliba's case? To convey by example Arsenal will still be open about Smith Rowe's future. Due to a combination of factors including his recent surgery, interrupted season, and great talent, anything else would amount to gratuitous bad management.

Burnwinter The only things I'm confident of here are that it doesn't matter till summer, Smith Rowe's not going to be sold, Arteta doesn't hate him, and the final outcome's not certain.

You "objectively inferred" Smith Rowe will be discarded one way or another, and claimed the only question's whether Arsenal does a Maitland-Niles and messes up getting value from a transfer. But you're wrong.

DiabyKungFu The general takeaway here is that my scorching hot take (in football and in life in general) is that things are usually exactly as they appear to be.

Sounds good till you open a book, I guess. The wide-ranging relations of phenomena to noumena have been a crucial theme of ontological enquiry for centuries.

But if we do pick up Occam's Razor, restrict ourselves to the empirical and leave aside pipe-puffing about "objective inference", I say it's easy to spot Smith Rowe's Arsenal future remains undecided.

Burnwinter

Superb post. To my eye every sentence in it is factually incorrect, or states an opinion I don't share, or is not salient, or supports the very point you seem to believe you're contending with, or is of no interest whatsoever, or concerns a question we might as well just wait to be decided in my favour shortly.

I'll apologise for the paragraph above in a hat-eating way if I'm wrong. 🎩

But given how utterly absurd it all seems today, no need to respond in detail.

DiabyKungFu

Burnwinter To my eye every sentence in it is factually incorrect, or states an opinion I don't share, or is not salient, or supports the very point you seem to believe you're contending with, or is of no interest whatsoever, or concerns a question we might as well just wait to be decided in my favour shortly.

Well yes. One of us is saying "This player who basically never plays in any context ever is not held in high regard relative to the players who actually play" and the other is saying "This player who basically never plays in any context ever is clearly held in high regard relative to the players who actually play. You would have to be a fool to think otherwise." It was self-evident from the jump that there's some fundamental disconnect here. For what it's worth, I'll say this: I think it's totally possible for Smith-Rowe to play himself into the rotation by the end of the season. Leapfrogging over either Vieira or Nelson is hardly some impossible task. If that happens then he could definitely stick around. This was basically my same view on the Saliba situation. The reason Saliba didn't play was because Arteta didn't think he was very good but things were pretty likely to work out because believing Saliba isn't very good is so stupid of an opinion that it almost certainly isn't going to be viable to hold it long-term. I think the bullish case for Smith-Rowe looks the same. I think it's fairly reasonable. Unless I'm wrong, that doesn't seem to be the case that is being advanced here. The case that is being advanced here doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.

Burnwinter

FEBravo DiabyKantFu got you there Burns

This is for you too motherfucker 😄

Burnwinter Superb post. To my eye every sentence in it is factually incorrect, or states an opinion I don't share, or is not salient, or supports the very point you seem to believe you're contending with, or is of no interest whatsoever, or concerns a question we might as well just wait to be decided in my favour shortly.

Burnwinter

All good, hedge away mate … the only real point of threads like this is to put forward our differing interpretations and then say "I told you so" in the proper order later. As we've established there's a lot we disagree on in this area. That's cool. I don't mind being wrong from time to time, not that I will be in this or any future case.

The reason Saliba didn't play was because Arteta didn't think he was very good

Arteta and Edu didn't spent up to sign Ben White, who without any coincidence has the qualities to start for Arsenal at both centre half and right back, because they held the view Saliba wasn't going to make it at Arsenal.

The only thing left there is whether Saliba actually signs up now. That still gives me hives and if the league win slips away, I'll be more troubled by it.

DiabyKungFu

Burnwinter Arteta and Edu didn't spent up to sign Ben White, who without any coincidence has the qualities to start for Arsenal at both centre half and right back, because they held the view Saliba wasn't going to make it at Arsenal.

Honestly not trying to be snarky but your apparent "The reason we signed Ben White for £50m and gave him William Saliba's shirt number is because we rated William Saliba so highly" take does genuinely put your apparent "The reason we're playing Vieira and Nelson over Smith-Rowe is because we rate Smith-Rowe so highly" take into appropriate context.

Burnwinter

DiabyKungFu Honestly not trying to be snarky but your apparent "The reason we signed Ben White for £50m and gave him William Saliba's shirt number is because we rated William Saliba so highly"

I didn't say Arteta and Edu held the view Saliba would certainly start for Arsenal. I said they didn't hold the view he certainly wouldn't. Your gloss from one to the other does, however, put your entire suite of notions about the management of Arsenal's squad into a helpful perspective. Honestly I'm not trying to be snarky—I think we'd both agree I'm succeeding—but it may be helpful for you to research the concept of "optionality" next time you take a holiday from being wrong.

DiabyKungFu

Burnwinter I said they didn't hold the view he certainly wouldn't.

Well yes, obviously. They loaned him instead of selling him. You're responding to something I did not say or believe.

The general takeaway here is that my scorching hot take (in football and in life in general) is that things are usually exactly as they appear to be. Sometimes they're not, but it's a pretty powerful and difficult to beat heuristic in general.

DiabyKungFu

Burnwinter The wide-ranging relations of phenomena to noumena have been a crucial theme of ontological enquiry for centuries.

Burnwinter

DiabyKungFu

"Things are usually exactly as they appear to be"

Stick to the speed limit, boy racer …

FEBravo

Burnwinter DiabyKantFu got you there Burns

Coombs

FEBravo he's still looking for the aloe.

Coombs

🤣 epic conversation

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