tetball at its heart has always lacked a real attacking ethos. it can offset its worst instincts of inherent structural conservatism by having as much individual quality in attack as possible, but we've remained short on that required quality every season. it's always been the major red flag at the heart of this rebuild project since its inception. we regress to stale moyesian archetypes too often. I don't how much mindshare or urgency arteta puts into resolving this obvious flaw in this system. as others have pointed out, there has been some appetite to bolster our attack, but the greater appetite has always seemed been for collecting defenders or costly impulse buys like havertz. we rarely miss out on burning budget on targets that should be ancillary, but the obsession is now costing us a generational opportunity for silverware. a day late and a buck short was on wengers inscribed on epitath, and we're somehow repeating those mistakes but this time with a far larger budget

On one hand, I agree we're allocating resources in a way that reduces our chance to win at times.

On the other, I disagree our recruiting emphasis on centre halves and fullbacks proves we're not interested in offence.

We spend big on ball-playing defenders because they let us play a front 5 or 6 with security, leading to the hallmarks of our game model: aggressive pressing and territorial domination.

Spending big on defenders does mean we're not shelling out that cash on ball striking unicorn wingers and strikers. It doesn't mean we're not interested in offence. As the story goes, we're scoring more goals than ever before, yada yada.

The weakness in our game isn't that we struggle to mount attacks in open play. The weakness is that we struggle for the highest peak of unstoppability against defences comparable to our own for talent and organisation.

With our recruitment we've sacrificed that sharpest possible cutting edge and invested in domination and control everywhere on the pitch. We destroy on stats-nerd artefacts like "field tilt" or "final third touches" without always getting three points to match.

If just one of Martinelli, Jesus, Trossard and Havertz was in any sort of scoring form we might not even be noticing the goal problem. Just one of the four. Unfortunately those four names are now respectively a developmental crisis, parasite, passenger and enigma that regularly go onto the team sheet.

We need a "Rice" up front or on the left, preferably both. I would put any of these four on the market to get in these signings if we have to, but I'd probably flog Jesus, Martinelli, Trossard then Havertz for priority.

  • Daz replied to this.

    Burnwinter The weakness is that we struggle for the highest peak of unstoppability against defences comparable to our own for talent and organisation.

    I agree with much of your post, but not really this bit as our most recent EPL results show we are also struggling to score against teams with relatively poor defences. I don't think anyone could say that Everton or Fulham's defence are comparable to our own in terms of talent or organisation.

        Daz not really this bit as our most recent EPL results show we are also struggling to score against teams with relatively poor defences

        It's true, but thinking about the Project™ not just the past few weeks, the heated claims about our attack being neglected under Arteta don't stand up to the fact we've scored 88 and 91 goals in our past two seasons.

        We haven't neglected attack. We've given up beaucoup cash we might've used to recruit star forwards to push an offence based on ball-playing defenders and two ball-playing keepers—enjoying considerable success with that approach.

        You can't look at this squad and say we shouldn't have signed Timber, Rice, White, Kiwior, Calafiori, Raya, etc. Take most of these players out and we'd have suffered for months at some stage, they've all been successes.

        The forward signings meanwhile are suspect. Jesus is shit, Trossard is not a 90 minute athlete, Martinelli has lost his touch, and Havertz is stylistically frustrating and offering us patchy form.

        It's more the case that if we had one more can-opener level, Saka level forward who could come in from the left of our attack, that player would be a huge multiplier for both left and right. The challenge is not to add to our tally of big names who aren't delivering.

            Clrnc Simple football pass forward dribble forward overwhelm defences by relentlessly attacking. Nothing of these inverted fuckshit

            so we're back to pissing on inverted full backs again eh 😆

              Burnwinter the thing about the goals though are they aren't evenly distributed we've racked up some massive wins against really poor sides yet still failed to score in many games. I think we had ?5 last season and we are on 3 so far this season.

              Last season that number got picked up because the number of games we failed to score was very high and not normally what a title winning side do. It shows the be we don't have reliable distribution of goals.. When we are flowing and playing well at can dispatch teams but we had a number of games where we weren't quite on it and it's those games we couldn't affect. We have a real problem scoring or being an effective attacking side when things aren't perfect and this is something that's being recurring with Arteta.

              So I don't think the scoring most goals etc totally tells the story of what's going on or where we are at because inevitably you will have quite a few matches where your not functioning like you hope but if you blank in them that's enough to derail a title charge.

                  awooga83 Yeah but you're really just rehearsing the same points I've made but in a different tone of voice.

                  To be perfectly clear, it is preposterous and embarrassing when people suggest that a two point difference last season between a City team regarded as the best of this era and this Arsenal is a sign of us having a terrible squad that's terribly managed.

                  We're talking about missing one or two elite forwards and feeling the consequences. We're not discussing the abject failure of a years long project to reinvent the club, nor a criminal neglect of the need to win matches and score goals.

                  People should be proportionate because otherwise they sound hysterical.

                      Burnwinter for what it's worth, I think you can both be right here. I don't think either post negates the other.

                      Probably more precise articulations of it but in essence, my summation would be: "We are a good team (as primarily evidenced by the last two seasons) but there are also some gaps that need to be addressed to make us even better (as primarily evidenced by this season)."

                          Burnwinter I wasn't trying to suggest we haven't been a good team. But my thought is last season I think we were running hot pretty much at our peak and our average level might be a bit below that when, as more often happens, things don't quite go as we want. In which case even near our peak we aren't quite good enough to win the title. That also included a home defeat to villa where we failed to score and that trait of blanking when we aren't quite flowing is a big issue for this team. Last season it's impact is less visible because we for the most part maintained a very high level in the second half of the season with results. But if we don't have that it might be a bit more obvious.

                          Ultimately Arteta has pulled us back into that top 4 grouping and run us close. But the next step is to win the trophies and I think it's fair to question is he the manager that can take us on that next step. If it is to be him he needs to be willing to compromise some of his football style in my view and the question is can he do that, I'm not yet sure.

                              awooga83 I think it's fair to question is he the manager that can take us on that next step. If it is to be him he needs to be willing to compromise some of his football style in my view and the question is can he do that, I'm not yet sure.

                              Absolutely fair to question. But I think it’s important to zoom out a little when asking those questions.

                              We were having the same discussions last season and after Jan we had no problems scoring and it wasn’t because of set pieces. By May there were no questions.

                              The other side to recognise is that we are probably the most tactically astute and defensively tight team around. It’s not as glamorous as scoring and didn’t help us beat Everton, and it probably means we may need better quality forwards than another manager might, but either way I think it’s worth taking it all in and looking at our weaknesses and failures with some perspective.

                              From my point of view, a little tweak could make us the best team in Europe.

                                  Asterix Been a tiny bit hit and miss lately (I've come to expect brilliance) but that one was great.

                                    Don Pacifico I don't think either post negates the other.

                                    Yeah, I mean I think we all agree because the facts are relatively clear? We have clearly been doing very well in general, but we are clearly not in pole position to win the league this season, and we are clearly short of at least one elite forward.

                                    awooga83 But my thought is last season I think we were running hot pretty much at our peak and our average level might be a bit below that

                                    Contra that, the form we're in now is a carbon copy of the form we were in leading up to Christmas last season (remember the "finishing crisis"?). Our results are slightly worse, but we got lucky many times last season and that hasn't happened lately.

                                    If I had to make a wager I'd say a superb back half of 23–24 might have reduced the urgency around signing forwards last summer.

                                    goon We were having the same discussions last season and after Jan we had no problems scoring and it wasn’t because of set pieces. By May there were no questions.

                                    To be fair, I think there were quite a few people who really wanted us to sign a top forward over summer, which didn't happen. I was personally more keen on getting in a brilliant younger deep-lying playmaker or pivot, a Henry-esque left winger was my second preference.

                                    goon From my point of view, a little tweak could make us the best team in Europe.

                                    If we bring in a left winger even eight tenths as good as Saka it'll be game over for these motherfuckers. We talked about this a lot last summer but all of Saka, Øde and Havertz would have a field day with the extra 1–2 yards of space a true left-sided threat would produce for them.

                                              Burnwinter If I had to make a wager I'd say a superb back half of 23–24 might have reduced the urgency around signing forwards last summer.

                                              Fully agree with this, we had an exceptional back end to the season which is not normal and allowed us to fall into the trap of maybe we don't need to address the attacking side of our game as urgently because look at the goals we got.

                                                  awooga83 havertz and trossards form lulled us into a bit of complacency on that front. their form always felt like a honeypot that would cost us long term. along the same lines of coquelin-cazorla making wenger wait a few years longer than he should have to sign a midfielder.

                                                    Gazza M

                                                    Honestly the stats are sort of proving my point that his shooting has gotten less dependable since the start of last season:

                                                    You can make the point that he overperformed, goals-wise, in 22/23, but like Saka he should be improving in every area season after season.