Arsenal v Crystal Palace Sunday 26th October 2 PM: Page 19 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Arsenal v Crystal Palace Sunday 26th October 2 PM

lorddulaarsenal

Our football will be a lot more expansive when Madueke returns.

It’s so hard to beat players one on one in this league

Sicario2

Mirth they already played a qualifier at home. Anyway, they know they will get out of the group stages and they are probably favourites to win it. How they played today showed me this was their game of the week.

Asterix

I didn't watch this so can't comment on whether we played beautiful flowing football or not. But I'll take the 3 points gladly and won't care one jot about style if we keep winning.

QuincyAbeyie

Asterix But I'll take the 3 points gladly and won't care one jot about style if we keep winning.

I mean, those worried about our inability to score from open play do so exactly because they're afraid it will prevent us from keep winning.

Asterix

QuincyAbeyie yeah I know, that's fair. It really helps not having to suffer through games - easy for me to say.

RocktheCasbah

QuincyAbeyie I get the worry, but it isn't like we're not creating chances in open play - I know there weren't a lot yesterday, but we could really have had 3 or 4 goals at Fulham and Newcastle. These are not easy places to go, especially when teams are setting up to be so hard to break down.

flobaba

Sicario2 1-nil to the Arsenal

Meatwad

“I think the mindset has been exceptional. The level of aggression that we're playing with, how we insist and how we keep going and going and going, we are ruthless at that. In the end, we're going to get rewarded; we have so much quality. We rely on our habits and when those are really, really high, it makes things very difficult for the opponent.”
[...]
“When you look at the results, the type of games, the way goals have been scored, how difficult it is to break opponents down and to kill every source that they have to generate chances against you, it makes me really proud,” he smiled.

https://www.arsenal.com/news/arteta-biggest-victory-weve-had-season

QuincyAbeyie

RocktheCasbah you're correct that we're creating chances from open play as well, just fewer than many other teams in the league. I don't see why that should be the case.

JazzG

Our open play needs to improve but we also need to acknowledge our status is the league. PL teams are firstly more tactically astute compared to teams of the past and we are the team that gets the ultimate respect in that the vast majority of teams simply set up to stop us playing. Palace showed yesterday even when they were 1-0 down they were still quite happy to play with a low block and try to find a chance on the counter.

Qwiss

JazzG Palace are one of the best attacking teams in the league. Understat has them with the highest xG of the whole league. That they gave up on that and tried to play for a draw against us shows just how much fear we strike into teams these days. I've no problem with a one nil against them. When they played Liverpool they both had high xG and Liverpool lost 2-1. That's exciting to watch but its not how I want us to play. We've just come off a 4-0 against Atleti, Liverpool and City both lost this week against similar opposition, I don't really find much to be upset about here.

Rohit

I don't think we are the only team that gets this respect. Teams aren't any more open against City or Liverpool. City play a lot like us and take a few more risks. Liverpool try and get the ball faster forward before teams organize. We look in great shape at the moment, can hurt teams in many ways but we don't face low blocks because teams hurry men back faster against us or throw less bodies forward than they would against other top teams. We face low blocks because we are very patient in how we build up. We would rather retain possession than play a low percentage pass early.

awooga83

Rohit agree and teams probably feel a bit more comfortable in that organised structure because of how methodical and similar our build up is it tends to be possible to play that way against us and remain in the game because we aren't want a teams away with our attacking open play approach. I think the lack of open play threat will effect us if we don't get it better but it'll be a question does it cost us enough games to detrimentally effect the title race or in a champions League when it gets serious does it mean we don't have enough to progress ala PSG.

Gurgen

The first half was particularly bad, just 40 minutes of passing in our own half. I don't get why we need to play like cowards against Palace at home. People may good money to watch this crap.

Bernard Woolley

Gurgen This is what I thought as well. I also think Eze in MF is a misfit - he feels more a forward than a midfielder so makes us worse in some ways.

Tam

Qwiss I'm not overly concerned about this one game, in fact I'm not concerned about this game at all, but it is part of a wider issue that may become more important as time goes on.

Much of the concern about open play creativity is being laid at the foot of new signings yet to properly bed in and/or disruption through injury, with Odegaard being the key creative aspect of that (acknowledging last season's form).

But we're as reliant on Gabriel making the set pieces work as we are on Odegaard making the team tick. We can do it without him, but it's a lot less likely and pleasing on the eye. If Gabriel goes down injured, or we lost Rice or Saka's delivery, the set piece goals could dry up and where does that leave us?

There's got to be a middle-ground between what we're seeing and end-to-end basketball style matches (which nobody is calling for). Do we really think teams are paying us more respect than the City and Liverpool teams who were blowing the league away in the last few seasons? Those sides just had a bit more adventure and desire to put teams to the sword than we seem too. We've got an exceptional, generational defence that should allow us to cut loose a bit at times. Maybe that'll come this season. I hope so. I'd love to win the league with Saka being the star and taking the plaudits having had a Ballon D'Or worthy season but we're closer to it being George Graham and boring Arsenal. I'd take either, but I know what's better for my soul.

JazzG

Qwiss People aren't giving Palace the respect they deserve imo. They have just come off a very long unbeaten run and that wasn't by fluke, in that unbeaten run they played some pretty decent teams as well. If they keep their players fit they'll be pushing for European places this season. They'll continue to take points off top sides this season as well and so was important we got the job done.

I get the criticism of not fluent football but I do believe that will come. Also I'm so desperate we win a major trophy I honestly don't give a shit if we win all our games 1-0 and all our goals come from corners or freekicks. It was a constant criticism under Wenger that we had no plan b and when teams sat back we struggled to break them down, well these set pieces take away their low block advantage and they have to deal with Rice/Gabriel!

Qwiss

Tam were we too conservative yesterday? I don't think so. I just think we were a little off. Apart from City and Liverpool I don't think we've been conservative generally either. Yesterday we attacked plenty it just didn't really come together. Eze's passing in particular was way off in the first half after he found himself in some good attack positions and Gyokeres was frustrating. Those aren't issues of intent though, they are individual problems and from players who've been overplayed lately with their alternates out injured so its understandable. Again this is a team that took Atleti apart just a few days ago.

Tam

Burnwinter

Tam I'm not overly concerned about this one game, in fact I'm not concerned about this game at all, but it is part of a wider issue that may become more important as time goes on.

yuppa

Qwiss agreed. uncharacteristic mistakes stopped us getting going yesterday, more than our tactical conservatism. if we can get a full squad at any time this season, i’ll make my judgments then. as it is, if it’s our consistency rather than expressiveness that gets us over the line this year, it’ll be hugs all round.

Tam

I don't disagree with you.

My point was broader, not specifically about yesterday.

Conservative? Not completely sure, but I agree with you we're probably not generally conservative. We're certainly not as ambitious as I'd like us to be in a creative/attacking sense, and that isn't a desire for gung-ho Ange-ball like some characterise these comments to be.

Tam

JazzG People aren't giving Palace the respect they deserve imo.

By the same token, we're league leaders and they're squarely mid-table. We just put four past Atletico whilst they lost to a team of islanders. We're not playing Mourinho's Chelsea here. Glasner has forged a good team and coped admirably well with losing some key players (and unexpectedly keeping one) but there's more to this Arsenal team than beating a mid-table Crystal Palace 1-0.

Like you I'll take it in the hope our play improves, and the midweek result has quite a bearing on that, but I think it's a risk to think this form and level is sustainable for a team that want to be Champions in 29 games time.

Burnwinter

Saka was evidently sick, Ødegaard remains injured. And it would be bloody handy to be able to send out Havertz, Madueke or both.

As for the rest.

Eze had a bad day at the office. You can attribute some of that to emotion and to the opposition knowing how to read his intentions far too well. He saw a couple of only marginally underhit passes intercepted with ease.

That said, what a strike. I can imagine a hell of a lot of forwards fluffing that.

Trossard was Trossard, I'm definitely not going to complain, he's a man of strengths and weaknesses.

Nwaneri is a bit short on minutes and influence this season. To be fair Arteta had no burning incentive to bring him on, but it seems he's organically lost a bit of trust and importance as the squad has expanded. I'd like us to make him a protagonist against Brighton midweek, but I wonder if it'll be caution again?

For me, Gyökeres is looming as the outstanding problem among our forwards. He's blunt and he's underperforming. He seems too often beaten for pace by Premier League defenders, and will need craft to find the runs that give him a greater advantage.

awooga83

Burnwinter this looks clear to me having not watched him a lot in Portugal but I thought one of his advantages was pace but he looks like he's pretty average not able to get away which is maybe just another element of the premier League standard is just higher. But if he can't get away from defenders he doesn't seem that great at out muscling them either to get moments. He works hard but you can see he's a limited player and I'm not sure it's going to radically change.

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