Arsenal vs Villa, Sunday @ 4.30pm (🤞for a 'good ebening'): Page 26 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Arsenal vs Villa, Sunday @ 4.30pm (🤞for a 'good ebening')

Claudius

Coombs A productive player scores goals from low xG opportunities, or they make a high xG opportunity for themselves every few games (and score it). It transforms the statistical analysis across the whole team when this happens - all of a sudden Odegaard is an assist machine and we're praising the team's creativity.

I think you get more value from the latter. A better player finds himself in more / better goal scoring opportunities more often, usually through better movement or by just beating players. The stats fit what your eyes see.

Coombs

Claudius you need both. Elliot on AV had a nice phrase: "speculative chances well-taken".

Rice wallops them into the stands and we just shrug and say it isn't a high xG opportunity. Unacceptable. Should be on target, should threaten, and ultimately should score. That's what it takes.

Claudius

Coombs yeah. Where those are also helpful is tactically in moving defenses around. If all you’re doing is waiting for a perfect shot then a) you have too few shots, but b) you become easy to defend as players don’t need to come out of position to block your speculative shots

Burnwinter

Coombs Rice is a bit like Xhaka, Partey or Parlour in that regard. He lines them up quite often, no doubt according to instruction, but you get the sense he's not fully serious about keeping them down and on target.

Burnwinter

Coombs I'm getting tired of the idea that forwards need to be served to be productive when, in truth, they need to be productive to be served.

Martinelli is more suited to transitional football and Saka to creating and scoring in the area. This season we've been relentless in retaining and winning possession in the final third, so the tactical outlook is against Martinelli to some extent—compared to last season. But Martinelli still gives us a speculative threat that affects other sides' patterns due to his pace and finishing ability on the break.

There is a best solution though, which is for Martinelli to improve his close control, decision-making and execution when he's one-on-one or two-on-one in tight spaces. Not an easy ask.

All that said, he's never going to be an easy player to upgrade on for many reasons. If you could do it for under £80m you'd be doing well.

Coombs

Burnwinter Xhaka was/is a legit threat from range. Parlour made a few count as well. I was really only using Rice as a flippant example, though.

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