"The journey continues" - Mikel signs extension until 2025: Page 63 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

"The journey continues" - Mikel signs extension until 2025

lorddulaarsenal

It’s just a matter of time - Arteta is still a colt

lorddulaarsenal

Panda

I noticed how hard Saliba, Gabriel and White were all running to try and get back for the 5v1 🥹 they were all sprinting at full pelt. Thank god they didn't score that.

Qwiss

Panda it was a let off but TBH we deserved that because the way they ended up with 3 on 1 was pure fluke.

Claudius

Worth saying that our football has evolved. We probably played a more aesthetically pleasing football last year. It was expansive, with Partey directing play, moving the ball from defense, and sending line breaking passes upfield. We attacked with speed and were able to find space more easily. I think a lot of our fans miss that.

But I prefer what we have replaced it with. What we do now is emphasise possession, territory, stability. First of all, we limit attacks on ourselves. We recover the ball quickly, and we keep the ball high. We’ve won the possession battle in all but 4 games and territory battle in all but 1 game. And that’s really driven by replacing Partey/ Xhaka in midfield with Rice/Havertz. They give us more running power, press better and have higher recoveries. We are now far and away the best defensive team in England, which also bodes well for Champs League knockout.

The next evolution now is creating higher attacking throughput. We need to work on connectivity and movement when we have the ball. We’ve had flashes, eg Brighton and PSV. But Villa, Newcastle and Pool were not good enough

Qwiss

Its funny how we are seen as defensively solid but not exciting going forward and Liverpool seen as almost the opposite. In terms of goals for they've one more than us and for goals against we're the exact same.

QuincyAbeyie

Qwiss defensively it's probably because having a good GK who can bail out the defenders (like them) isn't usually seen as being good defensively in the same way as stopping teams from creating chances (like us).

Attack-wise, not sure what people are saying. Liverpool are more chaotic than us, but bar Salah I don't think any of their attackers have been particularly impressing.

Claudius

Qwiss hey. The underlying data shows us to have by far the best defense in terms of the quality of chances we are conceding. We have typically the 3rd to 6th best offense depending on how you adjust for schedule strength - ie, we look better if we adjust for schedule - in terms of quality of chances we are creating.

This team does make me feel much more relaxed than last season’s

Qwiss

Can't say I felt relaxed at all yesterday 😆

I don't really feel relaxed whether we are more controlly or more gung ho. With the gung you can get a few goal lead which calms you, with the controlball you tend to have smaller leads but less attacks against us so fewer freak out moments. Just depends on the game which one is more stressful. Against Liverpool, City, Spurs, etc I'm going to be stressed no matter what.

Clrnc

Qwiss Can't say I felt relaxed at all yesterday 😆

Not sure how anyone watching that 2nd half can 😂

Claudius

Clrnc oh one can be nervous in moments. But generally watching this team, I am a lot calmer. I rarely feel like we need to go 2 goals up, which I always felt last season given how open we were at the back. Our defense is so secure now. I mean, take yesterday - both Liverpool and Salah had one of their worst games statistically all season. That’s our defense and retention.

goon

Claudius

Good sign for the CL that we kept the two best attacking sides in the league relatively quiet.

Sicario2 - Tier 1

goon

Yep, we got a better chance of winning the CL than league imo.

Claudius

goon yup. We can go away to any ground in Europe and deal with the pressure now. Come home with a 0-0 or 1-1.

mdgoonah41

as i noted in the match day thread, if the club backs him with 7 more signings for at least £500m, he should have a squad capable of challenging for the title

hes designed the most overly complicated, diabolical set of tactics ive ever seen. so much fluff, so little substance

JazzG

mdgoonah41 as i noted in the match day thread, if the club backs him with 7 more signings for at least £500m, he should have a squad capable of challenging for the title

hes designed the most overly complicated, diabolical set of tactics ive ever seen. so much fluff, so little substance

Unless I'm reading the table wrong we are a few points off top place at the half way point of the season.

Coombs

As usual, lose and it's the tactics. There are much more important aspects of coaching.

jones

Coombs he's put together a good set of players but almost everyone is playing within themselves. What is it if you don't think it's instruction?

Clrnc

Big Willie

jones he's put together a good set of players but almost everyone is playing within themselves. What is it if you don't think it's instruction?

Dunno, but Coombs was one of those with me saying our football style and set up leaves a lot to be desired and that even when we were winning games we needed to fix the way we set up our attack.

Who knows though, maybe we differed in thinking that it was our players rather than the actual set up itself that made us more stagnant in our buildup.

Coombs

jones I guess I just have a specific idea of tactics that isn't so all-encompassing. Instruction, motivation, morale, fatigue, form, partnership, delegation, preparation...Arteta seems to think they weren't doing what he wanted, so it's more than just tactical instruction causing the issue.

jones

Big Willie what did you think then?

I think the squad is largely well put together but on its own not enough to mask the inadequacies in our tactical setup. Like Rice is not nearly as well suited to play Parteys role but with different instructions we could still play a more attacking brand than we're seeing, as it is it seems clear to me we can't pull off our game without Partey playing out of his skin constantly beating 2-3 players during transition

Coombs

Big Willie nope, I agree. I just don't think it's why we lost against Fulham. We were set up to win comfortably, but didn't have the drive or intensity to do so. Saka and Martinelli's performances weren't down to tactics, of that I'm quite sure.

goon

Sounds like Arteta agrees with you: “We didn’t have enough ball speed, enough movement, enough threat“

awooga83

goon I think the thing I would say for that is we've had that problem pretty much most games we have been playing. Our build up is always slow, about pushing it to the wing then onto the centre then the wings. It's hard to say that's not by design and how Arteta has been getting us to play and it's not just a one game thing either. So if anyone tries to say it's only in this match that we had these problems I don't think that's accurate.

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