To be fair - we are having the same Injury Issues as last Season as well. There's No way Liverpool win the league with Ekitike, Szobozlai, Van Dijk and Gakpo all out for three months. Im not making excuses here - I just genuinely think Arteta has been massively unlucky.
It is, but it's frustrating that he's going to be out for a sizeable chunk of time. I know we have other issues, but it is annoying seeing how many injuries we've had in the opening 6 games.
Saka is almost back now and we have Nwaneri who can play there too. Dowman as well if really short. Not the end of the world. In the ranking of attackers to want to be without the least, this is how I'd rank them: Saka Eze Odegaard Martinelli (purely for the subbing on of pace in the last half hour) Madueke Nwaneri Dowman Trossard
Open play xG we are 12th in the league so there is a problem. We want to be strong at both open play and set pieces chance creation - BUT part of that is we have played some really tough games compared to most in the league. That said, it is pretty obvious that we are faffing around in midfield too much and the team selection is not helping. Rice, Merino and Zubimendi are never going to be the kind of players that open up defences. We also need better movement up front - too static right now.
You never know, but I think we'll need some luck to win the league... like other teams having some injuries and our injuries clearing up quickly.
This is the dumbest argument ever. He was on the pitch or in the squad therefore = fully fit. That's not how things work in the real world.
That was the LOWEST possession number for Man City for ANY Premierleague game under Guardiola. But ARSENAL should be criticised for being Negative.
To be fair Bear, I think there is a slight difference - and I'm not talking about the game on Sunday specifically, but more broadly. This is the first time Pep has ever done that, it's not his MO normally. And in fairness, it is admirable that he isn't so stubborn philosophically that he was willing to actually deploy defensive tactics. With us, it happens a lot more and, whilst I think at times we have been vilified too much for it in the media, I do also think that we have the quality and structure to not have to set ourselves up to be 'controlling' the game so much/worry about conceding chances. You need to take risks in football. It does feel like Arteta will habitually go for the safety/security first in a number of games. Like I said, we are ranked in the bottom half of the table for xG from open play. It's overkill. As an example, the only two teams to have not scored against Liverpool this season are us and Burnley. It's frustrating seeing other teams play Liverpool (even at Anfield) and give it more of a go (with relative success by breaching their defence) than we did.
Guardiola on his tactics... “When we defend deeper it is because the other [team] are better or we are ****,” Guardiola said. “Maybe the players in the future can talk about how much I’ve changed this season. You can ask them – I think it’s completely the same.” He continued in the same vein with dismissive rhetorical questions. “For example, we changed the way we played against Napoli? Three days later we changed our way of playing? I changed absolutely everything in three days. I must be a really, really good manager. Pep doesn't seem to agree that he setup to defend. Regardless it's impressive we had almost 70% possession against City. All the negativity around this game is ridiculous.
Slightly negative ?! Dude, if you don't start the game with a recognised creative midfielder and you concede and lose the game like we did against Liverpool its 100% failure because your plan was to not lose the game and you lost. The Martinelli equaliser against Man City spared his blushes because he setup to not lose the game AGAIN and was headed for another loss. They are not slightly negative tactics, they are immensely negative.
You should care where the xG comes from, are you honestly saying you are ok with us struggling to create chances in open play and having our greatest threat from set pieces ? When did becoming Stoke FC become acceptable ?!
To be fair, Guardiola earned the right to do that, thats the first time I have ever seen him park the bus.
As we - Arsenal have proved time and time again, possession means nothing if you don't create chances or score goals. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that having the most possession means you dominated the game or were the better team. Fergie used to let us dominate possession and hit us on the break and beat us regularly. for all of our possession we managed the same number of shots on target as Man City - 3, our keeper made the same number of saves as their keeper - 2. So what we can say is, while we dominated possession we did **** all with it, so whats the point ?!
If we win the league and/or CL playing like Stoke, fine by me. That's what I mean by I don't care. If, however, we don't win either of them, then my second-favourite option is to watch better football.
