Actually watching sky post match made a great point. Since Dec Villa dropped 10 points in matches they completely dominated and also had a handy lead (twice against United, one against Sheffield and the Brentford game). They are a very good team that people underestimated. Unai bottled those easy matches, otherwise they could still be in the title race.
The drop of this season for the forwards involved in the goals last year is certainly an issue. One of the questions is maybe Martinelli or Ode over achieved last season and that's not going to be their regular output. It's why we do really need to add a goal scoring forward who we can count in to get us 20 goals in addition to what we've had.
Jesus was never someone you could count in for goals it's what he's always been so we have to know that by now. It's why he wasn't played up front for city. A rotational winger is his utility to the team.
Ode is on track to score around 9 or 10, that's not a huge drop off and about what I expected.
Martinelli is the big problem, we needed him to at least match what he did last year but he's fallen off a cliff in terms of end product. Jesus was unreliable but he's also been a big disappointment, in terms if fitness if nothing else.
Trossard has been a good addition though.
Martinelli obviously needs to do better but it was always unrealistic to expect him, Odegaard and Saka to keep carrying the teams goal scoring responsibility. We can't keep going without a top striker. Even with Havertz up top we look much better and he's far from a top striker. If we had a serious CF at the club it'd solve a lot of issues. Martinelli is facing the same sort of double up now that Saka does. How is it that teams can double up on us on both wings but we aren't destroying them through the middle?
Barring 3-4 weeks in Nov-dec, martinelli hasn't really missed too many chances.
Jesus continues to do so.
You get a top striker and the team selects itself.
Also, yesterday I think on arteta given the havertz-mid, jesus-fw move
Gunner89 Barring 3-4 weeks in Nov-dec, martinelli hasn't really missed too many chances.
That's actually one of my disappointments with him, is that he hasn't figured out how to get more chances, or we've not figured out how to get him more chances. He's a great finisher but his xG per 90 is nearly half that of virtually every other front line player.
We have 75 league goals versus city’s 76. We are on a marginally higher clip than last season. Goalscoring is fine overall. Because we have brought in scoring from other forwards and set pieces.
Claudius
Disagree. When push comes to shove and in critical moments you need a world class number 9. This is where we fucked up.
Claudius feb-march was crazy for our goal difference and imo blew it out a bit disproportionately. it's those crunch time moments when the system falters and legs get heavy, your last line of defense is individual get-out-of-jail quality, and we lack it. we have collectivism down pat, but even the invincibles needed Thierry Henry to save them against Liverpool when everything came crashing down in 1 week. we're on the precipice of another week like that, but who can save us when the time comes?
Our set piece form has also dried up. we're not getting those goals from set pieces which did mask a little bit our difficulty in scoring from open play I find.
FEBravo … and then we went on a crazy run where we were scoring about 1.5xG, largely driven by goals in the run of play.
Sicario2 - Tier 1 world class number nine’s don’t grow on trees especially now in a post Rangnick and Cruyff world, we’ve moved to ever fewer number 9s. I struggle to criticise the club for not getting one when I see the number 9s that our biggest rivals have. Would be good to get Isak if Newcastle need to sell though.
goon was about to say that. He has not been able to get into positions to be an effective threat.
Claudius well the top 5 have Haaland, Nunez, Son and Watkins. Hard to argue they aren't all better than Jesus. Although Nunez seems pretty frustrating.
https://theathletic.com/5416087/2024/04/15/arteta-arsenal-tactics-villa-zinchenko-jesus/
Shorter Michael Cox: our tactics made good sense but Havertz and Jesus can't score.
Clrnc Havertz and Trossard both get a lot of through ball opportunities courtesy of Odegaard, Jorginho and Zinchenko but they don’t have that Isak speed to just separate from the defender and slot it home.
Qwiss
Helps to have a 30-40 goal winger in liverpool's case
A top striker and the team selects itself
I don't understand why he changed what's working so well for us and reverted Havertz back to a deeper position just to accommodate Jesus. Should have just left things as they were and start Martinelli and use Trossard and Jesus from the bench. He's also gone and killed Kiwiors momentum by selecting Zinchenko who has been underwhelming defensively and putting unnecessary pressure on our CBs
GooneriC He's also gone and killed Kiwiors momentum
Kiwior remains our 4th choice LB. He is never going to be first choice. Both City and Bayern demonstrated his deficiencies in that position.
There was nothing much to 'kill'.
GooneriC think he was resting Jorginho. He’s played half as many minutes as our centre backs. Question is why aren’t Partey and ESR better options at this stage? Personally I prefer Havertz. But yeah.
Claudius ESR has had one chance recently and got MOTM. He should have started the Villa game. IMO he's a better fit for that role than Havertz. Even when he came on he was very involved compared to the German. Get Havertz up top and use our other midfield options for left 8 if we are resting Jorginho.
Also think Partey should have played more. He's been rusty but theres only one way to get rid of that rust and without Jorginho he's the obvious choice. Has a mistake in him at the moment but still has a killer ball too. A little bit of a lack of risk in leaving him out I think.
Qwiss I just think it's interesting that ESR has had 3 starts, they are infrequent, and all 3 have been against the worst teams in the league. And in those games, he's looked tired early on. The last bit could just be an outcome of under-use, but I think Arteta is using him and a few of the other guys very sparingly. ESR's quality was apparent in his last start, so you'd like to think that he features across Wolves, Chelsea, Spurs.
Qwiss frustrating that he didn't start, for sure
Claudius almost the entire team looks tired after the first half of games. Not sure how the likes of ESR are supposed to build match fitness if they don't play matches. I think Arteta is way too reluctant to use his squad, people claim the quality isn't there but its all Arteta guys now. He has set the quality. Look at Vieira, I'm not a huge fan of his but we signed him and haven't given him much of a chance in the years he's been here. He should have made a bigger contribution over recent years but he's not had a chance. We as fans aren't even sure what his level really is. This is poor squad management.
