Expectations for the upcoming season.: Page 7 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Expectations for the upcoming season.

Burnwinter

Disagree thoroughly, I would point out though that the fact your last paragraph more or less paraphrases my own words suggests it's a matter of perspective.

The high press, the way we play out, the midfield pivot, Xhaka playing further forwards, the roles of Martinelli, Saka and Ødegaard—there hasn't been any major revolution from the way we finished last season in any of these areas. The tactical changes are incremental, it's just the signings we've made are having a big impact.

Doc

It absolutely has. This has been evolution that has been happening for the last 2 year's but the fundamentals and principles have stayed the same. Possessional play, exploiting space, good pressing, aggressive, more direct and good organization... Has worked to different degrees over time but consistently improving.. Having better quality players on the ball has obviously made us a better attacking team and Arteta is smart enough to tweak stuff based on the players we have.

He has tried similar things in the past.. Laca for example came in and played the link player to varying degrees of success before we bought Jesus.. would have been no point playing Auba like that.. the fullback/wingback being tucked inside as an extra midfield has been tried in his first season (I think) with AMN. These things ARE NOT the system/overall strategy, it's just tweaks made to get the best out of the players on the pitch

deardevil

The execution of the tactics and instructions have improved because we have better players carrying them out. On the surface it may seem like we're playing different, but in fact we're just better at what we've been attempting for the last couple years.

KingslandBarge

Interesting to hear and agree. Personally I'm a bit closer to BW's perspective, and generally feel a little vindicated for my estimation and predictions for the team last season. I think like you Clrnce, I felt the true value of the team has been top 4 for a while and by that account Arteta failed to realise it, say 2+ times? Last season I felt it was higher (hence musings of '4th or higher'). Like Doc, think there's a gradual evolution* in process thats 'tipping' performance and points further towards true potential. We had 8-game, 5-game, 4-game win streaks last season that were drawing us further to expectation. Talent aside, a physically able #9 also seems pretty transformational on the face of things.

*Maybe unlike BW, at the moment, I put this down to player development and collective chemistry, more than systems and tactics. Maybe playing out the back and first phase systematic build up was transformational but I think the team embedded that early on, 5 or so months into Ramsdale joining. The other tactical adjustments mentioned are worth highlighting, but to me, are not necessarily tipping points.

goon

It's a bit from column a and a lot from column Burns.

I think people always underestimate the effect of having quality players or even players with specific attributes on tactics. Tierney is a good player but there is simply no way you can have him executing the role Zinchenko is. The impact of Jesus in how dynamic our attack is and the multiplier effect on the likes of Martinelli couldn't have been replicated by Laca, even poorly.

However that also means that tactics will have evolved too, I don't think we ever would have asked Tierney to do what Zinchenko did. The knock on effect of that is that while Xhaka had some freedom last season, Zincenko is allowing Xhaka to take it even further now.

Clrnc

goon wrote:
However that also means that tactics will have evolved too, I don't think we ever would have asked Tierney to do what Zinchenko did. The knock on effect of that is that while Xhaka had some freedom last season, Zincenko is allowing Xhaka to take it even further now.

Yup. There are also plenty of matches last season where we hardly press and wasn't offensive at all. It's very different from now, but of course we now have the best pressing forward in the world.

Rohit

Yeah, the way I see it is we are making more vertical runs than we did last season, more 3rd man runs from midfield and just have more men in the box than we did earlier. A lot of it is personnel and some is more confidence. As a consequence, I think in transition we are now more open than w were earlier too. I don't mind it.

banduan

banduan wrote:
We need to be better at everything. More points, better GD, more consistent play.

Frankly, we should be challenging for the title with the outlay we've had, but the squad is still missing that X factor, the superstars.

We should be challenging top 4 right down to the wire as before, that is the absolute bare minimum. I would've said top 4 is the bare minimum but you can't ignore what the other challengers in the big 6 are doing in the transfer market, Spuds in particular.

looks like I should be revising this as both Jesus and Saliba appear to be superstars.

jones

Clrnc wrote:
goon wrote:
However that also means that tactics will have evolved too, I don't think we ever would have asked Tierney to do what Zinchenko did. The knock on effect of that is that while Xhaka had some freedom last season, Zincenko is allowing Xhaka to take it even further now.

Yup. There are also plenty of matches last season where we hardly press and wasn't offensive at all.

Definitely this, it's been just three games into the season and we're currently riding a massive high. Don't think we looked this good last season but in our good run towards Christmas last season we weren't far off at least results wise. Need to keep doing this for longer to understand whether it's a change in tactics or just better players/players in better form, and definitely need to see how the team reacts to adversity to see if something really changed.

Kel Varnsen

Unbelievable start. The results are great, but more importantly we have looked completely dominant so far - even against a dangerous counter attack team like Palace.

The way we switch between defending in a more traditional 4-3-3/4-5-1 and attack in a 2-3-5/3-2-5 has been brilliant so far. Zinchenko and Saliba have really been the key factors. Saliba providing that defensive coverage that allows us to play with just 2 or 3 players in the back line, and Zinchenko who is a superb deep-lying playmaker. We are able to keep possesion even under pressure, and we look very prepared for quick counter attacks through the middle channels.

USArsenal

Kel Varnsen wrote:
Unbelievable start. The results are great, but more importantly we have looked completely dominant so far - even against a dangerous counter attack team like Palace.

The way we switch between defending in a more traditional 4-3-3/4-5-1 and attack in a 2-3-5/3-2-5 has been brilliant so far. Zinchenko and Saliba have really been the key factors. Saliba providing that defensive coverage that allows us to play with just 2 or 3 players in the back line, and Zinchenko who is a superb deep-lying playmaker. We are able to keep possesion even under pressure, and we look very prepared for quick counter attacks through the middle channels.

Wow. We must really be looking pretty good right now for Kel to post this. Hahaha.

For real though, it will be interesting to see how this all plays out after a few more games. There will be times that players like Saliba or Zin or Jesus will be quiet or even poor. I only hope in those cases, other players like Sake or Gabi or Tierney can step up and make the difference.

QuincyAbeyie

I certainly don't think we were "completely dominant" against Palace. Then again, simply winning there is good enough for me. Not an easy place to go to.

banduan

We were at least completely dominant until Palace sussed us out a bit.

That's one of three things I wanna see us do under Arteta do this season that we do well before:

Get more points from losing positions - especially if the other team scores first.
Change tack in better ways when the opponent has us figured out on the day.
Rotate better throughout the season

There's a fourth which is to make subs earlier to influence games but I've kinda given up on that and I know he'd at least sub players out who've lost their heads (Nuno).

banduan

banduan That's one of three things I wanna see us do under Arteta do this season that we do well before:
Get more points from losing positions - especially if the other team scores first.
Change tack in better ways when the opponent has us figured out on the day.
Rotate better throughout the season

There's a fourth which is to make subs earlier to influence games but I've kinda given up on that and I know he'd at least sub players out who've lost their heads (Nuno).

holy crap we did barely any of the above. Maybe #1 - getting more points from losing positions but we barely get into that position and still tend to lose when we do.

Burnwinter

Good to see from Kel!

At the moment we're playing a powerful brand of football. Our tactics are evident, somewhat independent of our opposition and hard to beat, that's real strength.

Be interesting to see how teams adapt to it. Will it be possible to target Zinchenko for example, given what he's doing?

Gazza M

our best periods are predicated on monopoly of the football, and high pressing (aka city-lite). the vulnerabilities of peps teams has always been if teams can put pressure on the back four with quick direct football, so I'd expect that where our vulnerabilities lie as well. palace and Leicester showed that you can definitely still get at us and we can wobble. we'll see if our brand of football can continue to be honed, and how it stands up in tough away games in particular

JazzG

Arteta has won over Kel, only jones now left to win over. I feel his resistance is weakening, the process to convert him over is well under way!

Burnwinter

Agree completely with that, we look like we might get stripped naked on the counter by a team set up the right way (and struggled with it against Leicester in particular), that's what I meant about Zinchenko.

Our game's gonna look different on any occasion we don't score in the first half hour.

flobaba

JazzG wrote:
Arteta has won over Kel, only jones now left to win over. I feel his resistance is weakening, the process to convert him over is well under way!

AAStyle may have stared too long into the abyss…

flobaba

Burnwinter wrote:
Agree completely with that, we look like we might get stripped naked on the counter by a team set up the right way (and struggled with it against Leicester in particular), that's what I meant about Zinchenko.

Our game's gonna look different on any occasion we don't score in the first half hour.

Think that’s where our recent set piece improvement will come in handy. It’s been a pleasant surprise how many goals we get from free kick and corner situations, and how good we have been at defending them since last season. I haven’t looked it up but I would be willing to bet we are right up there with the very top teams in this aspect of the game. On days we aren’t able to get early goals through open play, that remains a pretty potent weapon in our arsenal into the latter stages of the game, especially if we are able to consistently remain on the attack, forcing these scenarios.

Burnwinter

We are topping stats both defensively and offensively from set pieces, yeah. That's due to both the detail of the specialist coaching from Nicolas Jover, and our defensive quality. Jover seems to have had a massive impact since he came in though.

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