Smith-Rowe came on for about 15 minutes today and had more impact than Havertz did all game. He was actually driving at defenders, trying to break the lines and had a couple of shots on goal, one of which was a decent save by the goalkeeper. It's absolutely astounding we paid £65m for this German guy when there was no competition for him and no need to sign him. This signing alone is a borderline sackable offence. Last season, Arteta had finally found a good formula for us that meant we were winning games and playing with style. He's just ruined that all this season by shoehorning players into the team that don't deserve it, not using his subs bench proactively, not setting the team up to optimise our chances of winning and trialling 827337 different formations - which is inevitably causing a lack of coherence when we build-up in possession and unbalances the structure. On top of that, he's used Saka like a bar of soap, not giving him any opportunity to rest and now he's got a hamstring injury - which will likely rule him out for at least a few weeks. The thing that pisses me off about all of this is that it's entirely self-inflicted. It's not like his hand has been forced in most of these decisions, he's actively chosen them. And it's made us perform worse in the process. Why completely change something which wasn't broken?
Wouldn't say I'm quite at this point yet, but I am getting very frustrated with his decision-making. This is his 4th year at the club. And whilst this is his first ever managerial post, he should be experienced enough by now to not make the mistakes that he has been making. Our results have generally been good so far and we've deserved most of the wins we've had, but the points that we have dropped were because of his strange and illogical choices. Choices that were avoidable if he wasn't trying so hard to be an innovator. Sometimes simplicity is key. He badly misread the game tonight, too, and didn't make the necessary changes when we needed. He then made a flurry of changes as soon as we went 2-1 down. It just isn't good enough management at this level if you want to go far in the Champions League.
I think that the switch from Xhaka to a more attacking player is a bit odd and risky. Odour Guard is an attacking midfielder and playing another one puts too much on Rice. Playing Zinchenko and Tomiyasu or White feels like he's trying to compensate for it. I didn't watch the game, but I don't see how Vieira is a replacement for Saka. Surely that's why Nelson's in the squad? He came on later on the left, instead. Why? No idea why the likes of Soares and Elneny are still around, either. Might not be on him, though.
Impressive. Looks bereft of ideas there and it’s beginning to feel like he’s on borrowed time, unfortunately. Has the personality of a wet cardboard box as well. Very easy to now believe the rumours that we rejected him a few summers back as we weren’t blown away by his charisma.
He does seem to have inherent Pep's penchant for overthinking things. That held City back unnecessarily in the CL for years.
My mate had been posting for weeks on Twitter about how Arteta was running him into the ground and that he needed a break. Gonna enjoy seeing what he says when I next check the app.
Havertz was a very odd signing. Especially for that money. Arsenal are clearly a great team but I think there’s a lot of imbalance there. Xhaka had become a very important cog in the machine, you need an all rounder in that midfield, kind of like we use Sarr (and presumably Bentancur). I’m not sure what Havertz offers in that kind of role. I always feel like he wants to play off a striker. Rice could play as an 8 IMO but Partey hasn’t been fit much to anchor the midfield so Rice has had to do that. You might be able to carry Havertz, Odegaard, and one of Partey or Rice if you had Zinchenko and Timber to both help invert into the midfield but Zinchenko on his own doesn’t offer a lot of security out of possession so that’s probably been an issue too while Timber is injured. Outside that, I’ve never quite got the Viera hype that flows on twitter, ESR barely seems to be fit. There’s more imbalance in the team now it seems and that’s even more prevalent with a CL workload this season. Still a very good team who have too much quality, both individual and coached, for most opponents. But I think there’s more identifiable holes than last season.
One of those assists was just a routine defensive, clearing header, which bounced through to an unmarked Icardi behind the non-existent Utd defence. Ridiculous. Like an U-11s match.
Its funny because when I saw this originally I naturally thought he must have laid on both of your goals not 2 of his teams!
His cost is due to PL "silly money" inflation. Same as for Spurs with Richarlison. So you can only really chastise a club if someone obviously similar for far less cost was available.
I think the 19/20 window was a huge catalyst in clubs overpaying for mediocre talent. Utd and Arsenal grabbed the headlines with Maguire and Pepe, we closely followed with Ndombele and Lo Celso, and then from then on clubs were just going stupid in the transfer market by paying world class fees for average (at best) players. Utd have probably been the biggest overall culprits; Sancho, Antony, Bissaka, Onana and Mount all following in that Maguire mould, jury remains out on their CB hobbit and the Haaland wannabe too.
