Arsenal - Aston Villa, Today, In about 3 and a half hours.

RocktheCasbah · 20 Jan

Qwiss Artetas done a good job the last 2 seasons but people want to see him learn from his mistakes and improve to a point where we actually win trophies. I don't understand why that's so shocking.

I'm not shocked people want Arteta to learn from mistakes and want Arsenal to win trophies. It's been 21 years since we won the Premier League and I am as desperate for us to win it as anyone else, but I can also recognise when things aren't going our way. And we've had about 5 months of it.

Thinking about all this last night, and the fact me and my uncle haven't talked Arsenal since the Bournemouth game, I realised that having grown up watching Arsenal with 2 incredibly negative men, my natural tendency now is to try and be positive about things (watching football with James for nearly 20 years has also helped give me a different, less emotional perspective) and whilst you guys are having nervous breakdowns about our failure to win the league, I'm looking at us and thinking, "wow, all these problems we've had this season and we're still second, we must be really good!"

Qwiss · 20 Jan

RocktheCasbah "all these problems" are normal and mostly excuse making. Like I said where were all these problems against United? Our problems against Villa were of our own making. What terrible injustice was there against Newcastle?

Some decisions go your way, some go against you. We've had a decent few weeks of big ref decisions and yet we've slipped back in the league again and effectively gone out of 2 cups.

RocktheCasbah · 20 Jan

Qwiss Okay, so I'm making excuses. So what?

I'd rather be where I am than using up mental energy, stressing about things which are completely beyond my control.

I never said anything about "terrible injustices", but I am glad you mentioned Newcastle, because when I said "things aren't going our way", that's like a classic example. Martinelli is played through, one on one, it's a nice bit of football to get him in. He smashes the post and the ball flies away. Five minutes later, Newcastle get a bit of a lucky break and the ball lands at Isak's feet. He also hits the woodwork, but the ball bounces down and in.

Two moments in a match that could have gone either way, we didn't get the rub either time. That's football, that's life. As dispirited as I felt walking away from the Emirates that night, I still recognise that we could easily have won that game and Newcastle wouldn't have had any complaints.

So what's the point in being angry about it?

I don't think it's normal to have had at least one (and most of the time, 2/3) of Saka, Odegaard and Ben White unavailable basically since the start of the season. It certainly hasn't been our normal anyway.

Qwiss · 20 Jan

RocktheCasbah I'd rather be where I am than using up mental energy, stressing about things which are completely beyond my control.

Well you are stressing about our reactions so its all even in the grand scheme of things.

RocktheCasbah · 20 Jan

Qwiss I'm absolutely not stressing mate, you're entitled to your opinion and obviously I'm aware it's one shared by more than few people. I think it's possible to acknowledge that there is at least a grain of truth in that opinion, but also say that with a slightly better rub of the green we would be a lot closer to Liverpool than we currently are.

QuincyAbeyie · 20 Jan

RocktheCasbah I think it goes both ways. Maybe you don't see enough comments saying that part of why we're so far behind Liverpool are due to injuries, but you probably didn't see many comments last season saying that part of why we ended up so far ahead of Liverpool were due to their injuries either.

RocktheCasbah · 20 Jan

QuincyAbeyie Yeah, that's fair. Not going to argue it.

Qwiss · 20 Jan

RocktheCasbah I'm absolutely not stressing mate

Neither are the rest of us, we are just having a chat.

I just don't buy the rub of the green stuff. You make your own luck. Yeah we've had bad ref decisions against us but like I say the last couple of weeks we've had some favourable ones too. We beat Spurs with that corner, we got an unfair penalty against United, etc

Gurgen · 20 Jan

Actually research proves you don't make your own luck. You can be extremely lucky over the course of an entire season (e.g. Leicester title winning season) or extremely unlucky (e.g. Arsenal in the same season).

Sicario2 - Tier 1 · 20 Jan

Gurgen
How were we unlucky in 2016? We didn’t have a world class striker and that cost us. Had we signed one in Jan 2016 we would have won the title. That not bad luck, that’s incompetence. Sound familiar?

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert · 20 Jan

Sicario2 - Tier 1 our striker went 17 games in a row without scoring that season. Sickening.

Qwiss · 20 Jan

Sicario2 - Tier 1 Had we signed one in Jan 2016 we would have won the title.

Sounds to me like you make your own luck. Also sounds to me like any "research" proving otherwise is pseudoscientific horseshit.

Mirth · 20 Jan

Think 07/08 we were unlucky (we could have done more but we also had some big headwinds) but other than that it’s been on us as much as it’s been on referees and injuries

Gurgen · 22 Jan

Sicario2 - Tier 1 the stats show that if that season is played 100 times, we win it about 98 times. Stats also show that people rarely outperform their xG over a longer period. Great strikers make the difference by getting into more goalscoring positions and not necessarily by putting away more chances. But I guess that’s all “pseudoscientific horseshit”. Why base your opinions on evidence when you can just go Derp!

QuincyAbeyie · 22 Jan

Gurgen Great strikers make the difference by getting into more goalscoring positions and not necessarily by putting away more chances.

But there are definitely players who are better at hitting the ball than others.

Gurgen · 22 Jan

QuincyAbeyie Sure but statistically that does not seem to make a huge difference. It's counter-intuitive but apparently true.

Luck plays a huge role in football. There are so many variables from injuries to refs to everything else. If you want a sport where luck plays absolutely no role and every result (bar cheating) is fair, try chess. People who say you make your own luck in football just want to feel better and not face the reality of many things being beyond our control. If only we had done X, we would have gotten Y result. It doesn't work that way. It's like my mom saying that if only Armenians had done X and Y, we would be a big powerful nation now and have no problems. But there is a whole world around us.

awooga83 · 22 Jan

QuincyAbeyie and getting into position is one thing but consistently striking a ball well and being able to hit the target also regularly must have an impact and that's where you have better players or strikers. I don't think it matters that much if you get into the right areas but can't execute reliably so those individual qualities have to contribute.

Claudius · 22 Jan

Gurgen has it spot on. The differential on striking the ball isn’t what differentiates good strikers. It’s
a) getting into good positions to take shots. Watch Isak for example in our game, and see how he moves into open spaces where he will get an open shot, and
b) just taking lots of shots. This is is true for every big goal scorer. Shot volume drives goals.

Qwiss · 22 Jan

Claudius yep. Haalands beeing outscoring his xG for a few years but this season he's falling behind it. Yet he still has 17 league goals because he still does the same things. The variance on the xG isn't that big.

Most of our forwards are under their xG but only slightly, less than 1 goal (Martinelli is above his but again not by much). The reality is we don't take enough shots. I think that should be obvious when you watch Jesus and Havertz especially. They are not in the box enough and often hesitant in good positions. Same goes for the likes of Ode, Martinelli, etc Trossard even seems to have developed the same problem this season.