"The journey continues" - Mikel signs extension until 2025: Page 64 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

"The journey continues" - Mikel signs extension until 2025

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.

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.

Rohit

Disappointed with him. It was too his credit that we played some great football last season. It is also on him that we look out of ideas this time around. He needs to get the team/ individual players to lift the handbrake.

Coombs

awooga83 that's very true, but I don't think we were doing anything but shitting the bed. Arteta seems to have tried to "take the handbrake off", but it hasn't worked. ControlBall is not really what I'm seeing anymore, either against West Ham or Fulham.

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.

GooneriC

We may be a few points off , but we shouldn't be happy with the way the team is playing , or that we dropped points to Fulham twice , West Ham and Villa . Also we were desperately lucky to win at Luton , and put in a really bad performance against Newcastle . We look toothless in attack and always seem to be one or two mistakes away from conceding .

JazzG

GooneriC Don't think anyone is happy but we need to be careful and not get too carried away with our recent bad form. Despite how bad we've supposedly been we are still within a few points off top place but clearly going through a real tough and bad period.

We've had a major change in midfield this season, Partey was a first choice midfielder and has hardly played and Xhaka left. One thing we've left ourselves short on imo is a No.8, we need someone really high quality who controls games in that position. Like how Gundogan did for City in the past. Havertz has done ok but he's not that player and that is something we need to sort. I think once Partey is back our flow and pace of our game will pick up again.

Gazza M Some of those passes are just down to low confidence but the guy who has made that video has put some very ambitious pass options there! I wouldn't even call myself an expert but some of those options are just pure fantasy. But generally yes we aren't as aggressive in our passing this season, I kind of get that because last season some of it came to bite us on the arse but clearly we are playing far too reserved at the moment.

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.

mdgoonah41

Coombs is it possible that what hes asking them to do is unnecessarily complex and they cant execute it?

kiwor was inverting into the midfield yesterday. i mean, what more needs to be said at this point?

Claudius

mdgoonah41 that was idiotic.

Coombs

mdgoonah41 is it possible that what hes asking them to do is unnecessarily complex and they cant execute it?

I don't really buy this line of thinking, honestly. I'm not seeing much complexity in Saka failing to track back, missing 4 yard passes, and getting knocked over at the slightest touch. I don't think Kiwior did much wrong, and Tomiyasu improved us not even one bit.

We only think it's complicated because we're used to overlapping fullbacks for 25 years. It isn't. You could argue it's less effective, but not really any more complicated. In fact, it decreases running distances and should theoretically make things easier by covering more space more efficiently.

Claudius

Coombs while in general I agree with what you’ve written, you can see that it was idiotic for Arteta to ask Kiwior to play the traditional underlapping fullback style. The other players kept bypassing him on offense, and the opponent kept attacking the gap he left.

To Arteta’s credit, he corrected his error very early with the halftime sub.

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

I'm really bored of the inverted full back era to be honest. We at least need an "overlapper" or to two give us options.

flobaba

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert it doesn't matter what we do if we are doing it after the defense is set. The full back doesn't necessarily have to overlap. He can make the run on the inside of the space is there. We make those runs just for "show" now.
Ordinarily we try to exploit space, and try to exploit mistakes / early turnovers that lead to attacking transition states in the opponents final third . These days we are barely stretching opponents. One v one we don't win our duels, and we don't move the ball forward quickly enough from midfield to pull defenses out of shape, so transition attack happens less and less frequently. Control ball relies on chaos factor working in our favor. We are not able to generate enough chaos to sustain the sort of xG we would need to win a game comfortably. And we are not clinical/ruthless enough to take the very few chances we do create.

SimplyThePest

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert Agree with this. Effective use of width is a fundamental principle of good attacking football. It has to come from somewhere with the most common ways being through wingers or fullbacks. A feature of all the great teams.

Our ‘wingers’ and ‘fullbacks’ all look to come inside. Our ‘centre forward’ looks to drop off. We have nobody looking to go past anyone, to stretch the opponent and pitch.

For me, if Martinelli and Saka are to be cutting in, Arteta needs to drop the inverted fullback stuff and instruct the fullbacks to overlap. If they are to be the wingers, they ought to swap sides and focus on getting to the byline. The goals will need to come from the two 8s and 9.

Meatwad

Claudius
and how was tomi the correction? we weren't any better. fixes should solve a problem.

Claudius

Meatwad well, Tomi was one of a few things going wrong on the day. This was actually our first all out bad performance this season.

Gazza M

this is sad. we don't progress the ball unless it's 100% safe to do so. it's like the mourinho philosophy, prioritising - above all else - not getting countered by keeping the passing unadventurous while maintaining shape. noone has the werewithal or cojones to play a brave pass or receive a ball under a bit of pressure

Don Pacifico

Gazza M it looks like a collective confidence thing. Because coupled with this conservative play, we seem to have been more prone to making sloppy passes in all areas of the pitch but particularly the final third.

I remember having this problem at various points during the latter year Wenger era (the ever quotable 'handbrake on' period); lots of possession but little incision. Think it ultimately proved fatal for Arsene as we always fell apart under even the slightest bit of pressure in the league and it's difficult to see what the next move is for Arteta.

flobaba

Gazza M this has been a glaring problem since the season started. It was one of the things a sane Zinchenko/ Xhaka axis, and a fit and firing Partey/Odegaard/Saka axis from last season helped avoid. Xhaka is a bit safe in his passing, but he would go for the forward pass more often than not if it was available.

Havertz in the Xhaka role is super safe. Insane Zinchenko forces it. Rice plays it forward at a decent clip, but either too early or too late.

I feel Partey needs to come back quickly and find his groove in the side again. If we think Partey is not the answer, then Arteta needs to make the tactical adjustment, which he hasn't done so far.

« Previous Page Next Page »