Claudius
I’m struggling to see what difference this makes to be honest. I’m going to recap below because I don’t think your reasoning follows through.
Claudius we dropped in the league, and I think the biggest issue here is literally fitness and player availability. Unless there is a long delay re-integrating Gabriel, I think those issues should be solved next yearAlso we have the whole summer to rest and plan transfers. We can get a nice early start to conditioning and integrating players - unlike Chelsea and City who have to spend 2-3 weeks mid-summer in the US playing a meaningless but lucrative competition.
The whole regression narrative without due attribution to player availability/fitness is misleading. The lesson for Kroenke is that variance is a thing, and you don't want to leave yourself vulnerable to it.
Reason I stress this so much is if you pick the wrong problem, you will make the wrong decision. E.g., sell our players or sack the manager. When actually the real issue is you need to augment the team to protect yourself against all scenarios.
So we dropped in the league and according to you “the biggest issue is literally fitness and player availability.”
Belief in regression without acknowledging fitness/availability is misleading, and Kroenke needs to be aware of leaving himself vulnerable to variance.
You then stress the importance of identifying the correct problem, as failing to do so leads to incorrect decision making, then state the real issue is needing to augment the team.
This is where you’re posts are unclear. You start by saying the biggest issue is fitness/availability, affirm that with the statement on claims of regression being misleading, then finish by saying the biggest issue is in augmenting the squad.
We needed to augment the team last summer. The reason fitness and availability was a problem is because we weren’t set up to cope with injury. Fitness/availability is the symptom, not the cause.
In the forward positions we got rid of Nketiah, Nelson, Vieira and Smith Rowe, and replaced them with a geriatric Sterling and a novice 17-year-old. Nwaneri was used because, and mainly when, he was needed. We’ve since seen how little Arteta has used him when he’s been an option and not a necessity. So either one of two things has happened with him – he was never intended to get significant minutes, which is even more of an indictment of going into the season with him as a potential squad player; or he was intended to be involved more but something about him hasn’t ticked Arteta’s boxes either in training or games. I wouldn’t be overly concerned about that as he’s still developing, but again points to the folly of reliance on a developing 17 year old.
We didn’t have the numbers at the outset, then to compound the problem when the injuries kicked in, we looked deficient creatively, and at times tactically too. Horseshoe of death, lack of directness, over reliance on set pieces. I’m not touching on aspects such as pressing or intensity as they’re far more easily linked to availability and fitness, but those aspects listed are certainly areas we’ve dropped off on from last season.
I’ve acknowledged already the impact of injury/suspension, but take that away and the regression was already there to see going into the season and as the injury and availability issues developed.
It looks like we’re somewhat in agreement that the way to resolve it is in building out the squad. I think we need a bit more in addition to just a couple of new faces. We need to see some more variation from the coaching team. Some development within the squad. Some new ideas and freshness to reinvigorate the team after two near misses and a drop off.
