goon wrote:
@[deleted] - I think the hope is we get the sort of football we saw in that stretch from Chelsea to the end of Feb becomes closer to the norm. Not exactly prime Wengerball, but some decent football, better chance creation and more goals.
We'll play good football if we have good players.
I'm not worried in the slightest about Arteta as a coach in that regard. We've had plenty of games, and even stretches here and there, as you say, where we've played well, and I would argue in those periods we've played some good front-foot, high-pressing, quick combination football. The introduction of Smith Rowe alone, alongside Saka and Partey, was enough to produce some good stuff.
I don't agree with the way in which some of you talk about what actually happens on the pitch. The players make the decisions, take the touches, and make the passes. A coach can organise them to try and execute certain tactical moves and to organise them when they're without the ball, but the players have to execute. Maybe they can be safety first as a result of a coach's instruction or not make certain runs, not press aggressively enough, look to play it short etc., but they still go out and do what they do. That's why a coach has to get his specific type of players into the team.
I'm confident Arteta knows a good player when he sees one - and a bad one, for that matter - and therefore knows how to put together a good team.
If we have a team that doesn't have Leno stinking it up on the ball, Bellerin passing backwards, David Luiz taking an eternity to pass the ball, Xhaka being Xhaka, Elneny's headless chicken act, Ceballos and his ridiculous antics, Willian and Lacazette unable to run - and instead athletic, technical and smart players in their place, of course the football produced will be very different. I don't see how that's a controversial statement?
As I hoped with Arteta, he is learning from his mistakes, where he signed the wrong players or gave too many chances to others - even some of that might have been Edu and Joorabchian forcing players on him (Luiz, Willian) and a general lack of options (Xhaka, Lacazette) - but the players that have been moved on, or are being linked with moves away, players Arteta clearly doesn't want or rate, are all the players I want gone and most would agree are not good enough - barring, maybe, Saliba.
On top of that, the players we've signed and are being linked to are all very different in profile to the shitsters we're trying to get rid of - fast, athletic, technical. I like their profiles, even if I don't know a tremendous amount about the individual players.
