• The Arsenal

  • ⚽ Oxford vs Arsenal | FA Cup 3rd round | Mon 9th | 8pm

RocktheCasbah I'm sure it didn't escape anyone's notice that our goals arrived within minutes of Xhaka replacing Sambi in addition to Zinchenko replacing Tierney

Right, but they played no real part in the goals. Felt a bit like a desperate Oxford, who had been instructed to be frantically tight with their defensive marking, took a psychological blow from watching the cavalry run out to me.

RocktheCasbah I think Eddie presents both an argument that players need time and that you have to be ready to go when called upon.

One of the things happening with this landmark season for our club is a levelling up of "Arsenal standard", like it or not if we're league challengers we can't have scrubs. Once future Arsenal captain Tierney feels almost obsolete.

Thing is though, a manager won't take most of the blame when a player doesn't perform—"sink or swim", as you say—but top, top managers improve on these football aspects that aren't their sole responsibility.

I don't see it as Arteta's job to elevate Lokonga to the new "Arsenal standard", but it'll be much better for us if Arteta can find ways to encourage rather than exclude the majority of our up and comers.

        Burnwinter some of those are not so urgent imo even if I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiments. I do think we need a centre back though because we lose too much with Holding in there. I don't really want to be moving our best right back into the middle too much.

        As for the domestic cups, by having a group of 16-18 strong players you'll still be able to rest an entire XI and still have around half a dozen good players in there to support the more fringe elements of the squad.

          Burnwinter

          No, that's true, they didn't, but within minutes, seconds even, of his arrival Xhaka was ferociously fighting for the ball by Oxford's corner flag. I think he either won a corner or a throw, it doesn't really matter. But in that one piece of play, he showed more than Sambi had all evening. And for me, it represented an aggressive action, the like of which you need to bring to games and we had failed to do this all game. We turned up the gas, basically.

          Essentially I agree with what you're saying in respects of the "up and comers", but I think it's a lot easier said than done. History tells you that. I remember me and Sabret00the (remember him?) being massively frustrated that Jermaine Pennant wasn't given more of a chance during the Invincibles season. Were we right to be? We thought we were at the time, history suggests otherwise. Conversely, Gael Clichy took his chance to shine and acquitted himself incredibly well for a 17 year old kid, but he only got that chance because of what went down at Old Trafford.

          What seems to be true of Arteta, a bit like Arsene, is that once you've lost his trust, it is incredibly difficult - perhaps impossible - to get it back. That seems a bit hardline to me, but again - it's elite sport, once lost, it should be difficult to win a manager's trust back. Particularly at a club like Arsenal. I guess it depends whether Arteta sees his fringe players as up and comers, or as with the Conservative, dead weight.

          Conscious that I've started to waffle now, so I'll leave it there. 🙂

            I don't disagree with you, though I do disapprove slightly of Arteta publicly disparaging Lokonga as he did, that's a kind of spectacle Wenger avoided—effectively «il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un Amiral pour encourager les autres» …

            Aside from Voltaire, I think the reason this turns into waffle is where we were: it's a grey area who takes charge of a young player's motivation. Any manager will play an unclear and contingent role. It's like when we were arguing over how much Arteta might have alienated Saliba.

            As I said, we may need to focus more on native aggression in our recruiting if we want guys in their early 20s to get stuck in as Xhaka does. Martinelli has it, Saka to a lesser extent, Gabriel evidently … and Mudryk looks like he could be a zealot we can use.

              Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert Seen Patino played at #6 this week and did great. He should come back this summer and take Sambis place. I had hopes for Lokonga but he doesn't look like he's improving for whatever reason, lack of football can't be helping but he isn't going to change that here. Time to move on. We'd have been a lot better off if we'd just kept Willock.

                goon Its funny you mentioned Tierney and Holding as Tomiyasu was the one sticking out like a sore thumb last night. Guy looks way off the pace since his return. We need him to get back up to speed before the Europa league returns.

                    Qwiss I'm not so concerned by form. Hopefully Tomi will get back to his best, but we all know what he's capable of. With Holding and Tierney it's different, it's not their lack of form that concerns, it's the limitations to their game relative to what we're trying to do, particularly when it comes to progressing the ball.

                    I saw this earlier and it doesn't look good for Tierney, or maybe it just looks very good for Zinchenko?

                      One thing those stats show is there's no way we could play the way we do without proper footballers right across the back five. The days of specialist centre halves who can't pass and move are over.

                      • goon replied to this.

                        Those stats don't look great for Tierney but I'd wonder how much of an impact playing a lot of his football in our backup team has.

                        It'll definitely have an impact but in Tierney's case we've seen him enough with the first team to know it's something he struggles with a little in general.

                        Burnwinter I remember a few debates on here about the emphasis on defenders and keepers who can pass out the back and what takes priority. Since then it's definitely swung closer to being of equal importance and maybe even in favour of distribution. We've got someone like Ramsdale who's value as someone keeping the ball out of the net has been questionable this season, but has been so good on the ball that no one ever thinks to raise it as an issue.

                          Put simply, the players topping our "passes per 90" are all defenders except for Partey. And everyone forward of Partey is accountable for generating and finishing chances, not recycling the ball. And of course White and Zinchenko also participate heavily in our build-up.

                          I bet we see very different numbers if we go back prior to the squad overturn of the summer before last.

                            Burnwinter central defenders of almost every team top their pass %, DMs too but its just the way that stat goes. Its just easier to pass the ball in your own half. Our central defender do it well compared to other defences though. I think they move it much more quickly than they used to and make less major errors on the ball compared to Luiz, Mustafi, etc

                                Never watched that film so no clue who Spiers is, actually thought he said Spurs 🤣

                                But yeah the Xhaka was hilarious. Where is the Xhaka yellow card when you need him.

                                Edit: Lakonga and Airpods looooooool.

                                  Big Willie But yeah the Xhaka was hilarious. Where is the Xhaka yellow card when you need him.

                                  I love that Xhaka's name is the only one in yellow.

                                      Pepe LeFrits exactly. I was looking for the name with the yellow card image but didn't realise how to do it.

                                        goon
                                        😆 Brilliant!

                                        Big Willie It's an HBO mini-series(10 episodes, about hour each) called Band of Brothers. It's absolutely brilliant! Definitely recommend if you haven't seen it yet. For me, it's certainly among the best TV series ever made.

                                            Lakonga and Holding 🤣🤣

                                            Lol. Yep Band of Brothers is wonderful. Thoroughly recommend.