Declan "Deccers" Rice: Page 42 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Declan "Deccers" Rice

Claudius

QuincyAbeyie yes it’s ESR’s man of the match performance. I thought he was outstanding. Showed great movement. He made good defensive interventions, which isn’t typically in his wheelhouse, and was active in both goals.

That said, Luton are a bad team that had an injury crisis. And he was clearly flagging around 55 minutes. There’s nothing inconsistent with recognising that this is skilled player who put in a good performance but that he’s also not physically at the same level as our other players.

QuincyAbeyie

I don't think we often find ourselves in a situation where we've used 5 subs and want do make more but can't due to having reached the limit, so I don't really think him needing to be subbed out is a reason not to play him.

Clrnc

And ESR hardly completed much match practice or full matches for about 2 years now? It's completely natural if he's tired after 60 or 70 minutes.

His stamina is never the issue when he plays a run of games. I don't think one should use that singular match to form any conclusion.

Qwiss

Clrnc seems to be a weird thing on here now where its justification to never give players game time because they aren't match fit. But they can't get match fit without game time. A few weeks ago people were lauding how brilliantly Arteta had managed the work load but now they're making excuses. Can't have it both ways.

FWIW I think too much is made of our current fatigue. If the team selection vs Villa had been right I don't think it'd get nearly as much traction. Thats where the real issue lay IMO.

RocktheCasbah

Qwiss FWIW I think too much is made of our current fatigue. If the team selection vs Villa had been right I don't think it'd get nearly as much traction. Thats where the real issue lay IMO.

To be fair, I didn't love the team selection on Sunday but that isn't why we didn't win the game. We didn't win because Havertz didn't score from two 1 on 1s, Saka hit the post having taken a bad touch when put in on goal by Ode and, most importantly, Trossard managed to hit Martinez when it should have been a thousand times easier to just put the ball in the net. Any of those chances being dealt with properly and the team selection barely merits discussion imo.

MistaT

Qwiss — have to agree about us over emphasizing fatigue. Plenty of Villa players have more minutes played than Arsenal counterparts, and they had played an Europa game on Thursday.

Tam

Clrnc Sharpness is being first into a tackle, or coming out of a duel with the ball.

Partey is playing like he's just had a curry and hasn't run in weeks.

QuincyAbeyie

@Claudius That sounds very much like there should never be a discussion about lineups or subs because whoever play will be the right ones because Arteta chose them and if they were wrong choices he wouldn't have made them.

Edit: did you delete a post about Arteta and how there would be disharmony if his choices were wrong? Can't find it anymore.

Claudius

QuincyAbeyie I did probably while you responded 🙂

Claudius

MistaT we should’ve killed that game first half. It’s just like the first round Villa game.
We dominated the first half. The second half was dull but nothing happened until around the 80th minute when we had some errors. Odegaard went off. And then we had lapses and they scored two goals. Credit to them for concentrating, keeping shape, and exploiting the spaces we had. But on the balance of possession, field tilt, shots etc, we should’ve finished this

goon

Fatigue was an issue in the second half but only because we couldn't keep the ball.

awooga83

I think the fatigue comes from running Rice and Odegaard into the ground. They both okay particular intense roles covering a lot of ground and we've relied on them to do that for the majority of the season and it looks it's been taking a bit of a toll. Especially Odegaard he has such an overt energy to press but from the city game onwards he's looked a bit out of juice or at least for the levels we have seen him put in.

Gazza M

awooga83 odegaard has been excellent since the city game. he was unplayable in the first half against villa. it did look like he run out of steam in the second half, or tweaked something

Coombs

People love talking about rotation. It's probably because of video games.

flobaba

And tetris

QuincyAbeyie

Gazza M

Speaking to BBC right after the match, the Spaniard explained his decision to change Odegaard as he said: "He had a leg issue, that's why [he was taken off]."

Mirth

Gazza M my new half baked theory is that we might be wasting Odegaard's ability by over indexing on his work rate and pressing. His performance against Villa in the first half is the best 45 mins I've seen from one of our players this season but either through injury or heavy legs, he faded in the second half.

Traditionally your best attacking player should be saving their energy to capitalise on 'moments' but I don't think Odegaard does enough of that. Obviously I don't want Odegaard to jog around like Ozil did but equally him triggering every press seems too far the other way.

Claudius

Coombs I’ve never actually done sports betting. I recently did research for a fintech serving lower income communities and I was taken aback at the size of sports betting. It’s almost bigger than just about every other electronic service. People be betting. I finally understood why most teams have a betting partner.

Daz

Claudius
More like a betting parasite

daredevil

Claudius

Bet tonight for the first time in 17 years. Have to say that emotional hedging actually works.

Claudius

Daz like I said, I was taken aback

goon

Mirth

He's so good at it though, and it's such a key part of how we play. That right side press is so effective in winning the ball back quickly. Part of the reason why we dropped in the second half was because he was unable to do it, though it sounds like it may have been in injury issue rather than fatigue.

If you go back and watch City and Liverpool when they were grinding out 100 points seasons, the work rate was phenomenal. It was crazy how hard they used to work when they used to lose the ball.

I think we protect someone like Ode by keeping the ball for longer periods and score more goals. Unlike City we're not at a stage yet where we can go 2-0 up and then relax after 50 mins.

Tam

Mirth Following from this, and without having look at stats/numbers, my feeling is Odegaard has been more of a creative force this season and hasn't hit the individual threat levels he was at last season. It may be that last season was just an outlier, but am I wrong in that view? Is it somewhat linked to his heavy defensive workrate/workload?

Don Pacifico

Mirth funnily enough, I've been thinking that of late. Feels most noticeable in matches where we've struggled to create chances and then you realize Odegaard was bailing the rest of the midfield out (felt like this was primarily when Havertz was playing left 8 at the start of the season).

Am inclined to agree that overburdening Ode with defensive responsibilities does feel like a waste of his most unique talents.

« Previous Page Next Page »