Fucking we fucking play tonight. 8pm.: Page 14 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Fucking we fucking play tonight. 8pm.

Big Willie

awooga83 yeah, at least from my view inside the stadium as I haven't seen highlights of the game. First half was really a good opportunity to put in a few goals. Our attack was creating many dangerous situations and Partey was running the show. Jesus had the beating of their left back quite often but, especially with Jesus, he beats his man then cuts back then either loses the ball or misplaces the pass. The space was there throughout the first half.

Second half however, with Partey at RB and the Merino/Rice pivot, we lacked the ability to play out and control the game and ended up ceding a lot of possession and territory.

Claudius

Big Willie hi Willie. Like this summary. That first 30 minutes was the issue. It’s a recurring theme we’ve had where we dominate territory but don’t capitalise

MistaT

Big Willie -- Jesus had the beating of his man, but did almost nothing with his delivery after. Which makes sense as he's not a winger and I wish he would have kept dribbling forward when in the box instead of spamming in crosses that weren't on.

Claudius

MistaT you start somewhere. We’ve often seen Martinelli perform similarly before he started getting into the box more and creating more threat. A lot of these players need to get into playing shape. Same way we played Martinelli and Partey back into shape. Think back to the commentary regarding Partey end of last season. Now he’s one of our best players.

lorddulaarsenal

MistaT he needs to be on the left not right if playing wide.

Claudius

Second half yesterday, we played with none of the 3 guys who’ve been instrumental in making our right flank so dominant.

This Saka break is the first time in 3 years we’ve played without both him and Odegaard.

awooga83

Claudius we should still have enough in our team to beat teams like Shakhtar. That's what we should have been doing building the squad over the past 3 seasons.

Qwiss

MistaT MLS, we've seen what happens when Zinny faces Salah.

Burnwinter

awooga83 Yeah but … we did beat Shakhtar? Even if it wasn't convincing.

It's not that we don't have a depth issue on the right when Saka and Øde are both injured, but on the other hand, if we hadn't farmed out Vieira, I know I would've moaned about it all season. This way at least we didn't "kill" Nwaneri.

These are the first matches we've had both these two stars injured in years. It's bad luck, but planning extensively for this contingency isn't a great use of resources. Saka still might get passed fit for Liverpool apparently.

awooga83

Burnwinter sorry I meant beat them without it being a struggle. Fair enough if your playing top sides losing Saka is going to be noticeable but against this level we should be able to be much better. I also don't think we miss Ode as much as Saka, he's our elite player pretty much contributes in nearly every game he's involved in whereas Ode does have some off days. I think just losing Saka massively hurts our attack act it's why I think we need to improve that element.

flobaba

awooga83 the team relies heavily on Saka. It's a domino effect. He is unguardable one on one. So teams drop back and double up on him (and he still manages to be impactful more often than not), creating space in the midfield for others to exploit, and when you have Odegaard in there too, you have a master at using or exploiting space and creating good quality chances. That's how our attack works- it is designed to revolve around those two individuals, and corner kicks. And both are also two of our best set piece delivery experts.

Odegaard alone is a massive blow. Both Odegaard and Saka for an extended period of time means our title challenge this season is effectively over before it began.

Burnwinter

Yep I get it, but like I said further up thread, I do think we could possibly chill out a bit.

Firstly we've pretty much dropped points during this stretch when we've been proactively screwed by the refs, otherwise we've been maximising fairly well.

Secondly we've only dropped one more point than City despite that—who've also looked ropy as fuck in a couple of their other fixtures where they've been lucky to get the points.

I would like us to record a few more dominant and straightforward wins at some stage, but I am still pretty sanguine about recent performances given the conditions. I just want our first choice players back from injury in good health and without rushing or recurrences.

lorddulaarsenal

Against Liverpool I’d go

———————Raya
White—Kiwior——Gabriel—-MLS
——————Partey
———-Merino——-Rice
Saka———-Havertz——-Martinelli

daredevil

lorddulaarsenal

That defence gives me nightmares

----------------Raya
White--- -Rice----Gabriel---Kiwior
Saka-----Partey---Merino--Martinelli
---------Trossard--Havertz

Claudius

flobaba don't know about over... but this is a big test for the manager and the remaining players.. especially if Trossard keeps trying to create red card scenarios.

awooga83

flobaba I don't dispute we miss Ode but Saka is another level. The ball almost always heads to him he'll usually have a number of players marking him and a team trying to swarm him and he can still deliver tangible contributions to our attacking output despite being asked to track as well. I think Ode we can just about manage because Saka is elite but I don't think we function as an attacking team when we lose Saka even if Ode was in. The whole attack relies on Saka and when he's out it breaks the whole system not just a dip the system doesn't really function.We need to raise the level of the other forwards we have to help with the squad resilience in that area for me.

Claudius

daredevil I’d rather keep midfield the same and force the team to keep the ball high

Don Pacifico

Claudius I dunno, Kiwior at RCB isn't a great look. Hoping we magically get another defender back so we don't have to think about either contingency.

QuincyAbeyie

Even Zinchenko's biggest fans want to keep him away from the team now.

Clrnc

lorddulaarsenal They are 4th in Ukrainian league currently, not on course to qualify for Europe entirely next year. Not even conference league.

Look at their story. It's really quite insane for people to say we have a lot injuries so we can't perform well against a war torn team

USArsenal

I think we can do without Saka for a short period, provided Ode is playing. We can push Jesus out wide or something. The problem comes when both Saka AND Ode are out. We looked like a team bereft of ideas without both of them. But even with that said, we still won the game and should have won by more (and would have is Tross didnt miss that horrible pen). With Martinelli's return to some form, it does take some of the pressure off, and is a welcome sight.

Claudius

USArsenal and this is completely normal. Just think about the impact VVD’s injury had on Liverpool. And then they started having other small injuries around that big injury and finally finished 17 points behind City. We just have to hope we can keep bobbing along while everyone gets healthy and then put together a run from December.

awooga83

USArsenal I think the quality is different Jesus cannot do anything like Saka. You could even see on Tuesday we weren't hitting the out ball to the right like we would for Saka because I just don't think there is the same confidence in someone like Jesus.

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