One thing that clearly isn’t working - and I’m not sure why Arteta persists with it - is our constant focus on wing play. we don’t have any tall players that can head or attack the ball. Yet we build nothing through the middle at all. I don’t understand these tactics.
All our players look ****e, he's just unfortunate he's new. If Ceballos signed for the first time this year we'd say he's ****e. Same for Tierney. Players' ability is not the issue.
If we constantly just lug balls aimlessly into the box... ...can we refer to it as hoof ball? I mean is it really different?
So Kane backs in to Gabriel and fouls him but nothing given - dark arts again or just blatantly fouling and getting away as he is England captain oh and we are proper ****
****s sake. Frustrating thing about that game was that we didn't actually play badly. We made a couple of individual errors that cost us the goals. But going forward we just lacked any bite.
i thought about this (playing well), but is it true? we had 1 shot on target. Did we really produce that much? What is the bar now for playing well? Better than wolves at home? Better than villa at home? We had like 70% possession but did absolutely nothing with it. The blind crossing artetaball is certainly not producing anything. edit: apparently we had 2 shots on target.
I don't blame Arteta completely for this situation He has a number of experienced players who are not performing. Who would have expected Aubameyang to be utter s--t this season, he is a long way from being our best player now and needs to be dropped. It's as though he has nothing to play for now he's signed his new contract and unless he improves it looks like another Ozil situation. I know Rapid Vienna were not difficult opponents the other night but at least we had ELEVEN guys on the pitch who were giving it their all.
We had tons of the ball because that's how Spurs set up. Give us the ball, watch us do next to nothing with it, counter, score. It's like watching the Wenger team of five years ago, but like a ****ter version of them which is saying something. Wenger didn't deserve to stay and I'm losing interest in Arteta now too. I don't get what the plan is anymore.
I could see Allegri being another Emery. Doesn’t speak English, no experience in England etc. It does seem strange that no one has grabbed him now in 2 years. he was my initial pick to succeed Wenger though.
The language worries me too. Him, Nagelsmann, Nuno, Rodgers or Poch I feel are the only five vaguely realistic around who might make us vaguely better.
If our form keeps continuing how it is... Arteta will be possibly the most spectacular failure of a gamble in football. it literally looks like our board were about to dedicate the next few seasons to him and his ‘process’. How embarrassing if he doesn’t even manage to get one year. Not to mention he even got a promotion in the summer from first team coach to manager.
One thing I believe (and if it’s actually true it’s pretty damning): the players don’t believe in Artetas tactics. They don’t believe in the final outcome. They are more so just blindly following instructions (pass to the wing, cross the ball in). Usually with an experienced manager you can psychologically point to a track record and say “oh he’s got the pedigree to justify these tactics” but with Arteta, this is his first managerial job, so I believe the players don’t really buy into his system / tactics.