What and when should Arteta have done something differently?: Page 3 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

What and when should Arteta have done something differently?

banduan

Always a danger with results-bias with these. Not too man made a huge fuss over Leo being dropped when we won the first match on Jesus' return. Not even after the Pool game.

Clrnc

banduan Of course the result and performance is the main consideration from a review right? If we won all 3 games Jesus would be the right decision who would be saying Leo shouldn't be dropped?!

banduan

Clrnc Of course the result and performance is the main consideration from a review right? If we won all 3 games Jesus would be the right decision who would be saying Leo shouldn't be dropped?!

but it may make you draw misleading conclusions. We could've won all 3 matches but Jesus may have been the wrong choice still, or vice versa we could've played Leo instead yet still failed to win.

Burnwinter

Qwiss I'm not so sure. We bought some players and slashed the wage bill. Let's see if he's willing to actually push us on properly.

Yeah it hinges on whether their thinking is a return to the Champions League, keep it secure, trophies if they happen, or if they really want to win it. We'll get a sense of the answer in summer at least: up until now it's been hard to tell.

Felt like they were still more than willing to push the boat out in winter though.

goon

I think it was right to start Jesus but wrong not to bring Trossard into the line-up too, post West Ham. Should have played as an 8 against Southampton but I wouldn't have even opposed playing over Saka or Martinelli. But having both in the team would in improved our ball retention and personality in attack.

banduan

goon Should have played as an 8 against Southampton

have to agree with this, known quantity vs the still unproven Viera.

Kel Varnsen

I think our positional play is excellent, but I would like to see Arteta mix it up with a little bit more improvisation and relationism as some call it. Concepts and names are often pretentious, but the ideas behind are sometimes interesting. I'd like to see Arteta introduce a bit more chaos into our game. It'll make us a bit more unpredictable when we struggle to break through.

Clrnc

Kel Varnsen Coincidentally I was watching Sevilla vs Juventus and thinking the same.

We are probably over structured in our play making us sometimes very predictable. Sometimes it doesnt hurt to invite some chaos, put some difficult balls into box and get sustained pressure forcing corners after corners.

I think off the top of my head we did it against Bournemouth. Can't remember many other matches

flobaba

Kel Varnsen heh I've been preaching this all season without the fancy terminology. Control ball at the end of the day can become predictable and easy to defend against especially if you're missing a bit of extra quality to win critical one v ones and are unable to realize consistent overloads to free up players. Maybe it evolves a bit next season, we shall see.

Sicario2 - Tier 1

Arteta should also stop being an odd job/weirdo with certain ‘off the pitch’ stuff he uses as ‘motivation’ such as this new dog we have (are we a nursery or football club?), playing Anfield music in training, taking a giant clock into the away ground of the opposition and various other weird things he’s introduced.

The great manages don’t do this shit. Just be normal please.

JazzG

Got us from 5th place to 2nd, let him do all the wacky shit he wants as far as I'm concerned.

Sicario2 - Tier 1

JazzG

I fear this is his ceiling. I hope I’m wrong. We could be like Spurs under Poch.

Will make a final assessment on 1/9 after knowing our in’s and out’s. I think in order for him to improve we may need a perfect transfer window though.

RocktheCasbah

Sicario2 - Tier 1 let's be fair here. We all know the last six weeks have been rubbish, but we were possibly a William Saliba injury from winning the league title. And even if we hadn't quite seen it through, I would wager that our end of the season wouldn't have looked quite as bad as it does now. Arteta has improved our league position each of the last two seasons, it's going to be difficult for him to do that next year, but there is a huge quality gap to close with City's squad and team and I believe Arteta understands what needs to be done to close it.

We should also remember, much as we have fumbled the ball 5 yards out, we had not built a squad to challenge for the league title this season and were actually ahead of schedule.

JazzG

Sicario2 - Tier 1 Last summer they thought getting us into the Top 4 would be him overachieving, the fact we have competing despite our squad limitations is a miracle in itself. Now we need to take the next step up and I believe he is the right man for it.

The man has turned the club around, some might want to set firm deadlines but he has taken this club from being an absolute joke a few years back with a bloated squad and wage bill through the roof into a much leaner outfit that has pushed one of the greatest sides this league has seen for 90% of the season. The next step is to push them all the way, now we are in the CL attracting players will be easier and the extra money will make it easier to finance.

Sicario2 - Tier 1

RocktheCasbah

You don’t dictate when you are ready or not. Sometimes you may never be ready.

Sometimes you get opportunities.

Did we or Artera do enough with this opportunity?

Did we make the most of the Jan window? Should we bit the bullet and gone all out for Caicedo? Was the extra £10m worth bottling the title?

Saliba injury? Fair. But did we not have a £20m defender waiting in the wing that we signed in Jan that could have deputised for Holding.

Why did Jorginho not get more playing time, why haven’t we used ESR enough?

Yes we may not be ready this season but it’s wasn’t impossible to win the league under Artera and the main reason we didn’t win it in that position was because of him esp after being 8 points clear in April.

Will we ever find ourselves in this position again under Arteta? I don’t see it. This season was the moment.

Qwiss

RocktheCasbah were actually ahead of schedule

Its been 3 and a half seasons. I'm not going to lose the plot about missing out on the title but I don't get this "ahead of schedule" stuff, when Arteta signed on if you were told his 5th season would be the first back in the CL would you have said "oh yeah that sounds about right, maybe even ahead of schedule".

RocktheCasbah

Sicario2 - Tier 1 okay, well if you've got it all figured out, let's not worry about discussing it then. 👍

Kel Varnsen

flobaba

Not just one on one situations or crosses into the box. It's also about compressing the pitch and overloading areas. Get a bunch of players in a small area of the pitch. Move the ball quickly and create chaos. If we lose the ball, win it back immediately and take advantage of the unbalanced defensive structure.

Tam

Kel Varnsen Individually Martinelli brings a fair bit of chaos in his general play. Saka is undoubtedly the superior player, but Martinelli's head down and charge style excites in a way Saka struggles to do.

As a wider team, in Odegaard we've absolutely got someone who can ringmaster that approach but I don't think there's enough around him on his wavelength to move things that quickly. I think we've seen it a bit with Trossard and him linking up later in games we're chasing a result, but generally it's not something we tend to do. I think Saka and Martinelli's instincts to take the ball in and see what they can do doesn't really offer us that option and you can see they don't really think about the step or two ahead that Odegaard is constantly scanning for. The pretty rigid positioning of the wide players also doesn't help much. Dead ball situations aside, you don't really see people straying from their areas and it would be interesting to see players drift a bit and unsettle defenders.

I know it's all by design, but it's easily read and plays into the hands of well-set defences. If you're not crossing to a tall striker when you're dominating possession in the final third, there's little value in your best technical players spending a majority of time between the 18 yard and touchlines. Trust in the fullbacks to provide width and give the central backs and midfielders a headache.

Perhaps a more technical player replacing Xhaka will naturally improve this all a bit and help drag Martinelli or Saka into that style.

Doc

Tam

A more smarter attacking replacement for Xhaka will be massive. Him and Odegaards positions of occupying the half spaces are arguably the most crucial positions in our attack.

Agree with you comments on Odegaard... Funnily enough, I thought last season he was forming a really good understanding with ESR, seemed to know where eachother would be on the pitch.. ESR is a really smart pass and move player, question is if he can develop the rest of game to catch up with the other youngsters.

Clrnc

Tam Great Post. Spot on especially about Saka. Which is why I can't really say he's the best winger in the world like others yet

RocktheCasbah

Qwiss But it's not just about being back in the Champions League, is it? If we'd limped in there with 72 points or whatever, we'd all be a bit "Hmmmm" about it. But we didn't do that, instead we looked for half the season like the best team in the country - I wrote an article for Daily Cannon saying that CL football was done and dusted in November (which is insane, really) and I was right. We were so far ahead of everyone else that we've been crap for six weeks and are still clear in second.

That's the sort of growth I'm looking at, and how it can be sustained. It might be difficult to remember now, but that half a season was so exciting, i've seen so many comments on here about it being an outlier. The challenge is to ensure that it becomes the norm.

Maybe it's my fault for not quoting Sicario exactly, but I was specifically responding to his fear that Arteta has hit his ceiling. I just don't understand how you can look at a 40 year manager in his first professional job and not allow for the fact that he will learn and he will grow and, more than likely, improve. As will this team.

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