Kel Varnsen the problem is his squad building more than anything. Odegaard, Saka, Kai, and Martinelli all should have scored, but we aren't allowed to expect them to execute anything but a tap in. Give Salah the ball in the positions they took up in that first half, guarantee the outcome is different.
Open play chances
We aren't going to improve our chance creation if we don't have a centre forward in centre forward positions. Neither Havertz nor Jesus are real strikers. They don't want to be in the box, they don't get in front of their man on crosses, they just don't have the instincts. They also don't create for themselves or others. Right now centre forward is by far the biggest and most glaring hole in the squad. We all hoped Havertz would push on from last season but what we've seen is a return to his regular game. He's be a fine second choice striker but he shouldn't be the automatic starter that he is. And of course the only reason he is that start is because he has possibly the worse CF in the whole league as his competition.
Jesus is dead wood. If he's not sold in January or if he gets any minutes after the January window, I'll hop on the 'Arteta out' bandwagon. Anyone's better than this dud.
They might be VV
Even if he's not sold, Jesus getting any minutes at all after January should be a sackable offence.
We should just go full Özil on Jesus and buy up his contract. Eat the loss and move on. He'll do more damage taking up a squad place and getting on the pitch.
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When two of the front three are shit (Martinelli and Havertz), you're going to struggle from open play. Zero guile.
You have to add Rice, Merino and (current) Odegaard to that as well.
Five midfield and forward players started today who offer no goal threat and don't assist either. We're entirely reliant on Saka and set pieces. It's a sorry state because glimpses of this were evident last season.
Odegaard's form is obviously a slump but even at his best he lacks composure in front of goal and fluffs a lot of chances. I wonder if it could be traced back to his horror miss at Villa Park two seasons ago? He used to have a good shot on him.
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Really don't like seeing Merino and Rice on the pitch at the same time.. they are to similar and level of quality on the ball in the centre becomes average, makes this too slow and predictable... Martenilli has stalled big time, was hoping it was a phase that he could push through and find his place but his general play has been ineffective, especially that he hasn't developed his dribbling so has been found out a bit, doesn't help that the left 8 is always a 'functional' player.. Would like to see what Nwaneri could do out there, has that unpredictability and don't see Arteta starting him and Martin together anytime soon.
it's my my concern with Arteta and the squad building process also, too much power and dominance and not enough focus of players with quality on the ball
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Dom odes finishing was sound last season. this reputation he's suddenly developed as an inefficient wastrel is misguided imo. he's going through a goalscoring slump, which is permissible in his position. it's only attracting the spotlight because we have such limited goal threat elsewhere.
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We have zero presence up front because we play without a centre forward. Has Havertz been on the pitch the last 2 league games? Apparently he started them according to the lineups.
Can't remember him playing CF. I do remember his pitiful run down the right
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invisibleman18 we are in the middle of December, he has yet to score away from home in the PL
Biggest mistake since Arteta took over has been buying Havertz, without any doubt. He is not good enough as a CM, nor as a striker, he is either the highest earner or the second highest in the squad, good luck moving him on. He blocked us from buying big and improving 2 main areas. Now it looks like we do not have the money to do it, and seeing as Arteta loves him, probably don't even want to...it's bad
HomeSteak Tbh in terms of strikers in the league, I would take Haaland, Jackson and Isak over Havertz. For some, arguably Cunha and Watkins are better strikers too. So he's probably around the 6th best option around.
Even people like Wissa, Duran and Delap has a better scoring ratio than him ffs. I think in an ideal world Havertz will be a very good rotational striker, but not when you have fucking Jesus to rotate with.
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Clrnc ok, rotation...but, we are going to sell our 50 mil striker Jesus(more like give away for free, he is on huge wages as well and finished with football), so we can go and get a 70 - 100 mil new striker(standard price for a decent striker) that will bench our 65 mil striker, on huge wages. Then fix the rest of the squad while not breaking FFP rules? No way, it's fucked bad.
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I thought the value proposition behind having a team of volume giants was so that we'd have a ridiculously high aggressive press that would generate chances for us. that's what worked so well last season. i remember even swamping and swarming liverpool at anfield for a whole half of football, and my pool supporting mate texting me about how spooked he was.
right now, I can't tell if some of our boys have physically dropped which is hurting this part of our game, or if teams have sussed it and are taking less chances to try building from the back against us. based on my cursory eye test, we're catching teams out with our press way less than last season, which is leaving us with the tessellating horseshoe as the only source of chance creation
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I think the press is fine for the most part. But the speed of attacks when we win it back is off. Feels like centre backs have 5-10 mins to take a breather between each attack while we pass it around, it needs to feel relentless.
With the amount of ball and territory domination we had we should have had 20-30 shots on goal, not 13.
