Claudius The concentration of Odegaard, Saka and White, and even Rice and Saliba at times, draws in so many opposition players at times and we're very slow to move away from it. The space is there across the other two thirds of the park but we move it with short passes to nearest man. Arteta will have his reasons for not switching it quicker but I get frustrated when I see the space and our indifference at trying to use it quickly.

Tam Was it White or who that said Arteta don't encourages diagonals and switching of play?

EDIT: Oh it was Rice.

Gazza M Yeah, casts the "Scholes pass" in a certain light

Diagonal passes that are floated across are of no use.

Cross field passes that are pinged across with pace like Alonso used to are incredible

Mirth Exactly that, and with Odegaard and Saka being left footed there's no reason we can't be switching more directly instead of the slow and laboured short passing route through the defence.

Ben White has issues dealing with tricky wingers 1v1, not the first time this has happened. Thought yesterday was one of his worst performances in recent months.

Mirth it also depends how you play. We have our full backs tucked, it means a switch of wings like that is less useful. If you play the "Scholes pass" and you have full backs and wingers who stay wide like Scholes had and you actually use a lot of wing play it makes sense.

Tam I do find it annoying at times that we have men in acres of space on the opposite side of the pitch and the ball will come from Saka back to midfield and instead of moving it and stretching the defence we more often than not just pass back into the congested area and ask Saka and Odegaard to find a way through.

Qwiss That's another thing Rice said Arteta likes... going back through the same side when defence starts to move towards the switch.