⚽ Arsenal vs Wolves, Saturday, 3pm: Page 14 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

⚽ Arsenal vs Wolves, Saturday, 3pm

Burnwinter

Claudius You're big on xG, but xCash also has a strong correlation with future results.

Claudius

Burnwinter our revenue for 2024 will probably be up £100m or more on the previous year. Let’s see what Deloitte publishes. Our xCash is on the right path

Meatwad

Claudius
doing deals like that is why you're referring to that period as their peak. if they did better deals it would have been said that's why they're still great.

Burnwinter

I think everyone's of the view that the great majority of our signings and renewals have been commendable, but we're still a week out from the window closing and looking to sell to buy.

Both squad management and winning league titles are both finely tuned games of aggregate performance in this era. Average dealings (this is only one example) are fair game for criticism without all this "pipe down in the back, our strategy is watertight!" malarkey. To be fair though, we've all got our favourites ... I never got exercised about the £50m we paid for Ben White.

Burnwinter

Claudius The medium term prospect of absolute wealth has gotta be bright. We've been so poor on commercial revenue and the Champions League keeps getting richer. Even bloody Spurs have been outdoing us. But some of our rivals are going nuts on the cash front, United are building a 110,000 seater stadium, etc.

Currently looks like we need to be able to spend £100–150m nett every season, and do it shrewdly just to tread water in this league.

Coombs

Qwiss I just don't think I'll ever agree with this. He is just not very good playing this high up.

Burnwinter

Coombs You might start to agree when we actually try it ... if our best and fittest available mids are going to be Rice, Ødegaard and Merino, we might need to shift away from what we've been doing during defensive transitions and build-up.

Last season how average we were with Havertz in the midfield was also connected to Rice's struggle with the demands of our deeper role.

When we're camped in the opposition half it doesn't really matter so much for evident reasons.

Coombs

Burnwinter I thought he was very mediocre on Saturday, and that he struggled to make use of any of his strengths with his back to goal. He was so far ahead of the play it made him peripheral. If Vieira had put in that performance he'd be slated.

Partey was so bad, it was hard to understand why we were bothering.

goon

Burnwinter Last season how average we were with Havertz in the midfield was also connected to Rice's struggle with the demands of our deeper role.

Or maybe Rice's struggle with the deeper role were more to do with Kai's struggles in front of him. If you have a more ball dominant midfielder next to Rice, there's less emphasis on what he needs to do with the ball.

Rice started winning praise long before he was moved into the 8 position.

Burnwinter

goon No one's saying Rice is gonna "do badly" at 6—he's got many great qualities for the role. But if he were a natural fit for the way we've used the position, we wouldn't have ended up slotting Jorginho in there at all. I don't foresee the Rice—Merino—Ødegaard trio we seem to be planning* becoming the ideal fit. None of these guys is used best beating the press in the build-up.

* Well, we don't know what we've got planned if we sign Merino.

goon

Burnwinter

Who knows but I think it had as much to do with the lack of options at 8 than anything else. After the Kai experiment failed the options were Trossard and ESR.

I think the midfield will continue to be fluid, and Rice is capable in both positions. But I think he only has world class potential in one of those roles, and it's not as an 8.

Burnwinter

goon I don't think he's gonna be canonically "world class" in either role as he's an unorthodox type of player for those sorts of ratings. Everyone knows he's got exceptional traits.

However he's developed to become been highly effective at 8, he's a brilliant taker of corners now for example. See what happens but I reckon there will be a bedding down period if both he and Merino are first choice.

Burnwinter

Laughable gutlessness from Tierney. The VAR system is more about excuses than decisions.

Clrnc

Burnwinter Dale Johnson is the worst of the worst. Constantly being the ref mouthpiece and defending them with whatever excuses you can conjure

Asterix

The whole system is a bit of a joke. It was probably a yellow (maybe a dark yellow), just like Schar should have got a yellow and so should Brereton Diaz for ridiculous play acting. Everyone except PGMOL seems to know that.

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