Martin Zubimendi: Page 17 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Martin Zubimendi

Qwiss

Zubi is well able to play as a lone 6. He's not the reason we are conservative or why Rice is too deep.

Coombs

daredevil His second post was better.

But it wasn't right about anything.

banduan

Am kinda tired of the results bias bs but whatever, I guess we'll always have it.

Claudius

banduan what does this mean?

Burnwinter

Guessing he means the pattern of questioning whether a player as good as Zubi needs to be "upgraded" after every dodgy result

Qwiss

Burnwinter its especially silly after this game. He was pretty much fine. No major errors, did his job. Didn't have a brilliant match but apart from the CBs no one did and many were a lot worse. He created the chance for Havertz too. Its annoying and blatantly obvious who gets scapegoated in midfield and who doesn't.

awooga83

Qwiss it's much more holistic around fallings. The team have games like Sunday where we created one chance really and Arteta talks about that like we should score it rather then the fact our team needs to create 4/5 of those moments in a game to give us the best chance to be successful. Leverkusen away was very similar, the question is more edgy it's the whole team unable to generate enough of those chances consistently.

Qwiss

awooga83 that's fine but Zubimendi is the one who did manage to create a chance. I'd be looking at those who don't create chances first. Considering he's the deepest of the midfielders theres at least 4/5 ahead of him in each game we should be looking at first. In this game Havertz was a non-entity for instance and Rice has become extremely conservative in open play, really only creating things from corners.

awooga83

Qwiss yeah I wasn't digging out him,over the season this has been a consistent theme we don't create enough chances.

RocktheCasbah

My biggest criticism of Dec would be that for someone so easily able to drive through the middle of the pitch box to box, he gets to the opposition end and almost always defers wide. That's why his goal against Leverkusen was so pleasing, he saw the shot was on and took it. Much, much more of that required, because he is totally capable.

awooga83

RocktheCasbah agree and the had the same thought on the Leverkusen goal. I'm fact I recall he had a similar opportunity in the first half it opened up but we went wide like you mentioned. I don't know whether it's instruction or failing to take responsibility but given what he showed he could do he should attack those spaces more.

lorddulaarsenal

I’d like to see Rice get on the end of one of his corners

Claudius

awooga83 the league is harder.
We are the 2nd best chance creation team in the league. And have the best distance by some distance. Who are we being compared to exactly?

https://bsky.app/profile/scott.cannonstats.com/post/3mhrvlyrekv25

awooga83

Claudius well I mentioned Leverkusen away where we also struggled and I don't think you can say they are a quality side. If the league is hard does that mean there is no way to create single or low single figure chances there is nothing that can be done? Arsenal also haven't just struggled those season for the majority of Arteta's time we've had this issue so I don't attribute it just to this season.

Claudius

awooga83 I hear what you’re saying. It doesn’t look pretty. I’m just struggling to reconcile with well we’ve performed relative to other teams in both England and Europe.

There are things I would like, like a more integrative striker than Gyok, and a more creative left wing. But I’m not sure either will make us score tons more. We can improve on the margins

Tam

Claudius I hear what you’re saying. It doesn’t look pretty. I’m just struggling to reconcile with well we’ve performed relative to other teams in both England and Europe.

I look at this team, I look at the players we have, I look at that skillsets those players have, and I look at the investment in the team over the last few years. Forget about what others are doing and tell me what you see in front of you is getting everything we can out of everything we have. We’re doing well relative to others, but compared to our own form and level of a couple of seasons ago we’re worse. That’s not all on the league suddenly getting harder overnight. If we’re were at the same level overall as we were in 23/24 this league would be a whole lot easier for us. The defence is far stronger but as a team we haven’t developed the potential we showed.

banduan

Tam how can you tell it's not just the league being stronger? All strength is relative, yes it can be relative to us 2 seasons ago but it's also to the rest of the league. And watching teams transition from Championship to the PL can easily show how much a big difference raising the floor does to competition. Teams that look to have ultrafluid passing suddenly can't pass to save their lives.

Claudius

Tam . We’re doing well relative to others, but compared to our own form and level of a couple of seasons ago we’re worse.

There’s a couple of things I can point to here. First, the league is just tougher to score in. Scoring is down, and set piece scoring is significantly up this season, 33% of total versus 29% just a year ago. Corners (18%) are at an all time high. This tells you that across the league, teams are struggling to break down defenses. So they’re relying on corners, free kicks, thrown ins, to get the ball into the six yard box. It’s also an opportunity for coaches to create set plays like NBA/NFL, with a lot more control on outcomes than your team trying to pass around in a horseshoe of death against a well-organised defense. Remember, defense is typically much easier to coach than offense. Coaches have figured out how to do a low block to neutralise forwards.

The other thing worth nothing especially this season is just how beaten up the team has been. They discussed this on AV podcast tonight. That our AMs and strikers have each typically been available for 50-70% of all games. This means you’re constantly chopping and changing on offense, which we know needs stability for partnerships / automatisms to develop. I want to see Havertz, Saka, Odegaard. Eze together. How many games have all 4 been available together for? Contrast with the best team we’ve seen in recent years - Liverpool 2020 - where basically Klopp picked the same lineup every league game. Relationships matter

Burnwinter

Tam We’re doing well relative to others, but compared to our own form and level of a couple of seasons ago we’re worse.

Everyone is worse because defending is better. So for instance we're the league's top scorers and have the best goal difference. That's despite having Gyökeres instead of Haaland up top.

And it's also true we're currently at a better advantage in the league than we've been at during the back half of the previous three seasons. You can say it's because "City dropped off" but as we just saw they're still very strong.

"Relative" is not just relative to specific clubs but to the whole of the conditions of football, which include the greater average standards of organised defending and set pieces every English club is up against, a change in which we've been the trendsetters and innovators.

For now I don't worry about our average performance much at all ... what we do there has set the tone for the league. What I'm worried about is the last mile of our ability to respond to different and tougher conditions when that's necessary to win.

Burnwinter

Claudius Just realised I've pretty much said the exact thing you said, but hey.

Qwiss

Burnwinter exactly. Scoring is down for the whole league. Its not just us and City. The league has overall stylistic changes and right now we are in one of low blocks and low risk.

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