Indeed it is. I seriously worry we may drop out of the top four. That’d be catastrophic.

Anyways, as much as I love Arteta, if in doesn’t invest sensibly and appropriately in the attack this summer and we have another season like last season and what this one is shaping up to be I’ll be questioning if he’s the man for the job for the first time since he took over.

lorddulaarsenal

Arteta is 100% clear that he needs more strikers every window. It's someone else's job to sign them and someone else's role to provide the funds. The balls not being dropped in artetas court.

I don’t think he’s detached from it like that. He certainly should have overseen more attacking incomings since taking the coach/manager role

Yep. Unfair to place this on Arteta. He is on record severally expressing his desire to bring in striking options. And balances that with giving full support to the pretenders to the position in Havertz, Jesus and Trossard.

My grouse is still our style. And it's because of days like these. We can be extraordinarily sterile and devoid of threat. Too many games we don't create or threaten enough, in my opinion due to the inherently conservative nature of our passing /attack. We are too scripted. It's effective when we have our best players in good form, but I do not truly enjoy it.

flobaba Yep. Unfair to place this on Arteta.

flobaba My grouse is still our style.

So, in your opinion, who's responsible for our style?

Separate issues no?

QuincyAbeyie you like to throw around bizarre strawman arguments. And it’s incredibly annoying. Like seriously. Different parts of xG measure a specific part of your ability to put a ball in the net, but there’s a lot more that’s important to scoring than just looking at xG under/performance. Our issues under Arteta have never been about shooting ability.

Claudius Our issues under Arteta have never been about shooting ability.

How do you figure? I'd say that's basically the only real problem in this squad. 73 touches in the box with no goals ring any bells?

Coombs correct. That’s about keeping the ball in advanced areas, and creating the space for a shot. The shooting itself isn’t the issue.
What good is a dead-eye assassin if he never draws his pistol, let alone locates his targets?

lorddulaarsenal you’ve framed it nicely. A lot of what you are saying isn’t an xG performance issue. A really good example is Mbappe, a player you know I love to bits. Watch his four goals versus Emirates Marketing Project

• the first leg goal: great timing of the run to escape into space for the lob from Ceballos. Needs to avoid being offside and to make contact
• the first one from second leg: he times run perfectly, stays onside, but then reads a ball coming over his shoulder to get a lobbed shot off. This is black belt stuff
• the second one: Makes space to left of Rodrygo, and then instead of just shooting wildly, drags the ball back in, sending Guardiol off to the bodega, before switching feet and slotting it in in a crowd
• the third one: bursts past his player and makes space foe the shot. Ethan/ Saka can do this last shot. Nobody else really.

We do not have a single player who could’ve put himself in all 4 of these positions. Henry and van Persie would’ve scored these goals. And that’s the point. That it’s not the finishing that’s the problem. It’s the creative ability particularly on a 1-on-1 basis that’s the issue. That’s why we lean on Saka so much. Because he can beat his man and destabilize defenses

Rohit

I actually think it is more of a fundamental overhaul of his tactical set up. If it were the case of a few tweaks, we would have seen evidence of this evolution already with our existing players, but if anything it has got worse. I also envisage the squad taking a long while to gel into something cohesive as there is a significant overhaul taking place (Jorginho, Zinchenko and maybe Jesus and Partey leaving, Odegaard and Martinelli off form and Havertz not truly settling in midfield despite his relative successes upfront).

I would like a couple of dynamic, athletic (and fast) and somewhat unpredictable, attackers brought into the squad, alongside an attacking RB. I feel so much of our consistency fell off when Ben White got injured and our threat down our RHS evaporated. Timber has not been a good replacement in that sense for me despite his technical ability.

DKGooner all good points. I suspect the biggest unlock is a L8 with skill on the ball. Because so much of our attack goes through Ode/Saka. What this causes when you look at opposition heat maps is clustering of defenders around these guys, making us easy to hold at bay. Ramsey or Cazorla at L8 would make a big difference. Maybe Vieira was supposed to help with this but he’s failed

Claudius

Not sure it will be one player in that L8 position to revitalise Arteta's attacking systems. It will help, but I think the obsession with inverted fullbacks has to change and a fear in losing the ball by playing quickly needs to be addressed. I wonder how much mental/physical fatigue these players are carrying over a very few hard seasons that they will be up for another tactical overhaul.

We also have to be forward looking at how our competitors tactics/personnel, both domestically and in Europe, will develop over the next 2-3 seasons. We have seen how Guardiola's City have reached that inflection point where tweaks to their old style are not as effective any more at the highest level.

I also wonder whether

While we have been very lucky to get two unreal talents break through from our academy into the first team squad this year, we look to be pretty sparse on talent between 18-21 in most positions. I think our transfer budget this summer has to be spent on bringing in prospective talent (like but not to same extent as Chelsea) knowing that hit rate will be patchy. Costs for this will be cheap either, but feel it is something we can't neglect.

I fear next season will be as difficult, if not more so, than this season. Dare I say it, it might be easier to part ways with Arteta in the summer as that might be the best (easier and cheaper) way to reinvigorate the existing squad than relying on several key new signings alongside current players regaining form under same manager.

Nico Williams just scored this. This is what I want. A second protagonist in attack to balance Saka

HomeSteak
1) his production isn’t great this season. Good time to buy. The player is ridiculously talented
2) Martinelli gets unfair grief.

Claudius 1. His production isn't great. Period. In the league he scores 3 goals per season on average, a goal every 11 games. He is talented, but forget about it. The money they want for him is insane, the money he wants is beyond stupid. But I agree he is talented.

2. Yes.