Pre-season: Page 23 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Pre-season

Doc

2.5*

Ricky1985

Quincy Abeyie wrote:
Wasn't it you who didn't think managers mattered much? At least before the age of Arteta.

You've misunderstood me if you think that's what I believe.

The manager is absolutely everything when it comes to building a team - he has to know what he wants to do tactically, the roles that exist in the team and exactly which players he needs throughout it, and then he has to motivate them and coach them to execute his ideas.

But, the quality of the player is the be all and end all and no manager anywhere, however good he may be, will succeed without quality players. The quality of player is ultimately by far the most important factor in the success of any team. It cannot be overcome. Guardiola and Klopp, the two greatest coaches of their generation would do precisely fuck all with Mustafi, Kolasinac et al. Of course, they're genius team builders so the players would only keep them down for so long because they'd have a new XI in their image as soon as it was physically possible to make it happen.

I think Arteta has shown in his 2.5 years (that one's for you AA!) that he is a superstar team builder too, but that's still an open question as of right now.

Ricky1985

Clrnc wrote:
Gabriel was wishlisted by plenty here. Same for Odegaard, wishlisted for years and years. Both are excellent signings, can't argue with their quality or price. Perfect.

I was probably the only one who knew Tomiyasu here, but same thing great signing great value.

White is expensive and way over price (6th most expensive CB of all time) but who cares? Good signing too. I think quite a few including me and Klaus said White is England's best defender etc before the Euros. Nobody wishlisted him though because nobody thought we needed another CB.

Ramsdale signing proved many wrong here including myself. Great signing.

I think I am way past the fact that we buy high and sell low. I used to dislike that fact because I felt our resources were finite and could cost us in the near future but it has not been proven the case. We have pretty much as much cash as our manager wants every window so I don't give a dim now at the net spent anymore.

You're a football wizard though, Clarence, and watch more football than Sven Mislintat!

I'm speaking generally - and our dealings last summer were laughed at. Ramsdale was a clown, Tomiyasu unknown but a CB being shunted to RB so must be another dumb move by dumb Arsenal, no one cared about Ødegaard after his loan here, most fans and pundits thought Maddison was the one to get, White was the only one most accepted was a potentially good signing and we were laughed at for paying so much for him.

All four are fantastic young players, all bring specific qualities that Arteta wants and needs in his team, he knew exactly what he was doing in signing them. Add to that Gabriel from the summer before and that's half a team of players bought for good fees, before they blow up and half of Europe wants them. That's the name of the game, and exactly what Liverpool have done to transform themselves into a monster of a football team.

It's a very different story to the nonsense argument that AA is putting forward where the club have simply got the chequebook out and signed umpteen world class players that any fool could cobble together and make a top team out of.

Put simply, the argument runs to "even if Arsenal do well this season I was still right about Arteta because we have such a good team now that even fat Sam would smash it."

As if Arteta didn't build the damn team! 😆

It's so obviously nonsensical that I can't believe it's an argument that's even being made.

QuincyAbeyie

It's as nonsensical as saying "we've improved" as an argument for him doing a good job, as if improving after spending this kind of money isn't the absolute minimum you'd expect. It's not the players he's signing that's the problem (except for the fact that he hates midfielders), it's the job he's doing with them on the field every week.

Doc

Most teams around us have spent similar money in the last 3 years, including Villa.. main issue is the players we have sold have been garbage which is also an indication of how poor our team has been and that we are pretty bad at selling.

Burnwinter

There is an identified project here terms of our football, and there are currently signs of further improvement. We've looked well organised and coherent tactically in preseason, and the ways in which we've looked good line up with what Arteta was trying to instil in the team last season.

We pressed Sevilla off the park last weekend and we were up 4-0 in twenty minutes. How often have we moved ahead that fast against any opposition at any time in the last decade? Jesus has many of the right attributes to reverse the big deficiency at centre forward last season. Yes, it's only preseason and it was a makeshift defence, but it's still Sevilla.

There's evidence now that Arteta's refined that plan A to the point it'll be very competitive across the league. I don't doubt Arteta's ability to coach his preferred football. If there's an area I have major doubts, it's probably his capacity to react, whether tactically, or in terms of rotating the squad and responding to injuries and absences. But I'm pretty optimistic we can grind a few points in the Premier League with this approach.

goon

Ricky is spot on and I've been saying the same thing for a while. A massive part of the coaches job is to build a functional team that works. Every single one of the best coaches you can name demand signings and money to be spent - not because they have no faith in their ability to coach players, but because they know exactly what they need to get their vision working. We've spent £300m implementing our own and have built a squad with enormous potential and value. It's not an easy job, it's certainly not a given and the position it puts us in to move on up is invaluable.

If you told me 2.5 years ago this is the position we'd find ourselves in I'd have been disappointed by the results on the pitch, but I'd have bitten your hands off to be in this position with this squad. Progress isn't necessarily linier and logic dictates that if the age of your squad drops drastically then you can expect it to be slower. But you can also expect it to accelerate at some point and I, like many others, are quite hopeful we'll see some real progress this year - hence why games like Fulham are being sold out in 10 mins.

Burnwinter

Side point but it's pretty intriguing, and a testament to the squad, that we've just got this Fabio Vieira chap on the shelf and despite his quality no one's too concerned if he can't start the season. That sort of thing is a sign of strength.

Ricky1985

AAStyle- wrote:
Regarding the signings, I agree that they have been good signings. I just don't think that there is really a merit in spending 50M in White. The market valued him, and even you recognize that we paid a "premium" for him. Ramsdale and Gabriel follow the same pattern, and this is not hindsight bias, market was well aware of their value before we signed them.

The cases of Zinchenko and GJesus are even clearer. I'm not saying that they are bad signings, I'm saying that those are the kind of players that any Pep wannabe would buy for his Football Manager team. That's not necessarily bad, both a Top tier manager and a guy like me would want to buy a player like Lewandwoski; my point is that there is no reason to praise that kind of signings. Cool, that's it.

What is your point here? We paid a transfer fee for Ramsdale and Gabriel therefore they don't count as smart signings? What about Ødegaard? He doesn't count as a smart signing either, that fits exactly the role we wanted him to play in the team and quickly proved to be one of the best players in his position in the League? Just like the rest of them.

And Gabriel Jesus and Zinchenko aren't good signings because they came from City...? Riiight. They're great signings because they're perfect fits for the roles they're being signed for. Just like Ramsdale, White, Gabriel, Tomiyasu, Partey and Ødegaard were and are.

AAStyle- wrote:
Or you consider that finishing 8th, 8th and 5th is 'progress'?

Do I consider going from 8th to 5th progress? Is this an actual question?

In 2.5 years we have cleansed the squad of 25 rubbish or players or players that were ill-suited to the system the manager wanted to build, and rebuilt with 15 players that are damn good and perfectly suited to the system the manager wanted to build. What actually matters is that we seem very well placed to make further progress this season, as you yourself have admitted to believing is the case.

AAStyle- wrote:
Arteta should have been sacked long ago, and I assure you that no team in the EPL would hire him, well maybe as assistant or ipad holder, but not as coach.

You can assure me all you want but it doesn't make it any more than just one uninformed opinion. I could just as easily say Arteta should be given a lifetime contract, and I assure you were he to become available every top club in the world would be after him.

AAStyle- wrote:
Chamakh started 18 out of 38 EPL matches in 2010/2011, shall I also look and see in how many was he involved as sub?

Regarding Squilacci, you conveniently omit that 22 out of those 23 appearances were in one season. I believe that that is something that you would call disingenuous statement. Am I wrong?

This is tedious. Chamakh played for a few of months at the beginning of the season whilst van Persie was injured, and then van Persie returned to fitness and came straight back into the team. Wenger didn't make do with Chamakh as his main ST, he played him for a bit and then had one of the PL's best ever strikers for the rest of the season. And aside from that fact, Chamakh was no fool for a time either. His performance was sadly linked to his hair I think.

Squillaci was a French international and quite a good one at that for a time, he played for a bit until we realised Koscielny was levels above. Who cares?

This all occurred at a time when the PL was very different so it makes it all the more pointless to discuss.

Burnwinter

Remains to be seen how Jesus goes in competitive matches for us, but he could prove to be an inspired bargain compared to the £80m we were looking at for Vlahovic. People are rationally keen to bracket it as a "City-lite" signing, but it's looking like a nice bit of lateral thinking when you think about, say, United and Chelsea's moves on strikers in recent seasons.

QuincyAbeyie

goon wrote:
If you told me 2.5 years ago this is the position we'd find ourselves in I'd have been disappointed by the results on the pitch, but I'd have bitten your hands off to be in this position with this squad.

But that is also because 2.5 years ago you wouldn't have thought we could spend this kind of money, so naturally you'd have bitten their hands off since the squad you'd seen in your head was a much cheaper one.

Comparing Arteta's results to results with a much cheaper squad doesn't make sense to me, which is why people are asking why it's considered progress. Surely any opinion on his squad building should be based on whether he has spent the 300m or whatever well, not on whether the team is better after spending 300m on it than before.

For what it's worth I don't think he's spent it that badly, the main thing I'd change is that I find it outrageous that a proper CM still hasn't been bought.

His tactics and ability to change a game on the other are both pretty terrible.

Ricky1985

Quincy Abeyie wrote:
goon wrote:
If you told me 2.5 years ago this is the position we'd find ourselves in I'd have been disappointed by the results on the pitch, but I'd have bitten your hands off to be in this position with this squad.

But that is also because 2.5 years ago you wouldn't have thought we could spend this kind of money, so naturally you'd have bitten their hands off since the squad you'd seen in your head was a much cheaper one.

Why would you think that?

We spent very similar amounts on new players in Emery's two summer windows with us and Wenger's last two. We've also drastically reduced the wage bill in that time.

Burnwinter

That a squad is improved by heavy spending is an expectation but not at all a given. At Arsenal the common sense of our spending on transfers and wages has ticked up hugely since Sanllehi exited and "the project" came on the horizon with Edu.

People will always say £300m for the shock value or whatever but that outlay is now mundane for the upper reaches of the Premier League where a champion club will now have a £1bn squad. At the time of Wenger's departure we were far behind our rivals and we did poor business subsequently. We're doing much better now on incomings.

Our ability to sell players is still fucked, but improving that can only come with success on the pitch—that's what creates the perception a club's second stringers and fading stars have durable value.

A club that's both languishing in its performance and benching misfit players like Pépé is never going to recoup good prices for them.

Qwiss

Burnwinter wrote:
Side point but it's pretty intriguing, and a testament to the squad, that we've just got this Fabio Vieira chap on the shelf and despite his quality no one's too concerned if he can't start the season. That sort of thing is a sign of strength.

We don't really know his quality. I'm hopeful but he's a massive question mark. He was only starting to get regular football in a much weaker league. No one was expecting him to be a starter here this year so I don't think us not being worried about his absence says much about our strength. Almost everyone wants another mid ahead of him anyway.

QuincyAbeyie

Burnwinter wrote:
That a squad is improved by heavy spending is an expectation but not at all a given. At Arsenal the common sense of our spending on transfers and wages has ticked up hugely since Sanllehi exited and "the project" came on the horizon with Edu.

People will always say £300m for the shock value or whatever but that outlay is now mundane for the upper reaches of the Premier League where a champion club will now have a £1bn squad. At the time of Wenger's departure we were far behind our rivals and we did poor business subsequently. We're doing much better now on incomings.

Nothing's a given, but the correlation between money and position in the league hierarchy is obviously huge. I'm just saying that whatever improvement we've had needs to be judged in relation to spending, not without it. We've spent enough for me to say that simply having improved at all from before spending that money and from the 8th place he got us doesn't necessarily mean we've done a good job. We've done the discussion a million times about whether we want the squad we have now or the same squad minus White and plus a 50m midfielder, no point in doing that again and that's mine and many others' preference after having spent this amount of money.

As I've said, my main issue is with Arteta on the sideline, not Arteta in his office.

Burnwinter

It's not a complex argument. Some absolute figure (eg £300m) will be mentioned as shocking, but it's a normal amount of spending for our objectives and league. It is also normal that a team trying to improve its position has to spend more.

"The correlation between money and position in the league hierarchy is obviously huge" does little more than say this massive spending is required to get results. Demonstrating there's a problem relies on concrete and detailed reasoning. The players we're bringing in are not failing or causing problems at the scale of, say, Ronaldo or Lukaku.

We have White as one solid example where people claim, not without all reason, that we overpaid for the player—but it was a matter of margins and opportunity costs, not a total disaster. Good centre halves are pricy this window, so even if White wasn't the right choice last summer, I think we're all glad we've got the solid options we have now.

So "we've spent £300m and we're not top four" doesn't hit the spot. It sounds like a lot of money but it's not. The deficiencies last season that led us to miss out were complex, but what ends up ringing true, for me, is that a series of decisions by the technical leadership, including setting fire to Aubameyang's contract, persisting with Lacazette for so long, and not strengthening centre midfield last summer (whether or not due to other signings) cost us that spot.

Mind you, I went into last season thinking we were set for about the result we got. What I see is that we've improved substantially from two years ago in terms of the breadth and consistency of our squad, and the quality of our football. I think it'll be very challenging to get back into the top four nevertheless. It's a tough league.

Burnwinter

Agree with you though, Arteta's big weaknesses and the issues that might trip us up this season are more or less how he deals with things not being perfect, whether he's learnt to do that, learnt to rotate, learnt to compensate for key injuries, learnt to react tactically when things are against us.

A very notable thing last season was we struggled so badly to come from behind. Jesus and Nketiah will improve us a lot on that front, and having an actual threat up front will help us defensively too.

Ricky1985

Quincy Abeyie wrote:
Nothing's a given, but the correlation between money and position in the league hierarchy is obviously huge. I'm just saying that whatever improvement we've had needs to be judged in relation to spending, not without it. We've spent enough for me to say that simply having improved at all from before spending that money and from the 8th place he got us doesn't necessarily mean we've done a good job.

The rate of spending has been quite consistent for 7 summer windows now. We recouped more money in sales in some of those windows, but we still spent a similar amount on buying new players (2 for Wenger, 2 for Emery, 2 and counting for Arteta) - so I don't see what facts your argument is based on?

There's a direct correlation between wages and league positon, but much less so when it comes to transfer spend. And by many accounts, the club have halved their wage bill in the past 12-months, without question it has been significantly lowered - it's actually now lower than in Wenger's time here.
[Twitter]

So, again, I don't see how your argument holds water?

JazzG

Yeah I'm not so sure I believe those numbers....

Burnwinter

Must surely be calculated right after all the departures and prior to the latest signings, at a minimum. However, we definitely have trimmed the squad and jettisoned several high earners.

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