Coombs One thing to see Arteta as Arsenal's avatar of some joyless and mechanistic trajectory of football, led by and adapting to other didactic football technocrats before him, stamping out creativity and verve, ending the era of fat bastard sui generis geniuses who'd hit a Le Tissier level dead ball to win the local derby before shagging their brother's wives and heading to the pub, this ending provoking a melancholy chorus of old man fan elegies ...
... but I still want to see us win stuff and it's folly to expect we're going to do it without multi-stage pressing, ball-playing defenders, elaborate set pieces, a playbook for beating the press, inverting fullbacks and wingers, and all the modern devices Arteta has made Arsenal's practice ...
... and most of these tactics are no more than good football in the late style and should be appreciated as such if there's a commitment to enjoy the sport in today's format at all.
