MATCH THREAD. Arsenal vs Manchester City.

Also was Xhaka injured today?

What I don't get about Emery is that he has games where the team and system look excellent and then he immediately changes things.

Against Chelsea for example we looked well organised and great going forward. We played a 4-3-1-2. The next game against United (which we lost) he plays a 4-2-3-1. In the following fixture against Cardiff he goes back to a 4-3-1-2 only to play a 4-4-2 against Man City

Why does he change the system EVERY ****ing game? Benitez used to do the same thing at Liverpool. You don't win the league like that - thats for sure.

 

The hope is he is working at a disadvantage as he has both Wenger's legacy and his own issues.

For me, I require a certain level of ball retention and creativity as a minimum, which is why I was OK with Wenger. He had a weakness in picking runners at full back, which I think is what killed him in the end, and Emery is still struggling with. Full backs need to be sound defensively and good at ball retention and creativity, and we don't have one that is good at that. Lichsteiner seems to be good at nothing! I just think he should have started with the biggest problem first.

When Pep went to Man City you saw how many full backs he went through trying to find decent ones, before he did much else. In order to play the press effectively he had to get rid of the then prevalent English running full-backs that can't pass. How much better on the ball were Walker and LaPorte, than Monreal and Lichsteiner? We hardly got the ball to Iwobi and Kolasinac.

 

Honest answer. I think there are very few players in the team he actually likes. I often told you that it was no use hoping for something that was totally out of character for Wenger. Wenger demanded that every player was creative and could retain the ball. Well, Emery demands every player bar the front two should defend. Iwobi was woeful on the ball today and was only marginally more effective defensively than Ozil would have been. Yet that very slight uptick in defense was worth leaving Ozil out. And we still let in 3 goals, and were lucky it wasn't more.

It is easier to find players who can defend well and find space/attack. Much harder to find players that can defend and are good with the ball. So following the path of least resistance we have ended up where we are. Hopefully we can transition through this and get creative/defensive players on the wing, and at full back, moving the creativity out wide, where Emery seems to like it, and where creative players are more affordable. in the meantime though we are in a bit of a bind against well-managed teams.

 

Emery hasn’t had financial backing yet, so I will wait to fully judge him until that time comes.

I see people talking about playing Ozil, Xhaka, Jenkinson, Ramsey whoever.

Let’s get it right, it doesn’t matter who we would have played today, we would have lost. We just don’t have proper players in key areas (mainly defense).

In an ideal world, lichsteiner, mustafi, kolasinac, Iwobi would not be playing for this side at all. Koscielny and Monreal are too old to even talk about. We have players that are not up to top 4 standards and it doesn’t matter which manager we have until we sign proper players.

 

We find ourselves in a position where we must spend £100m MINIMUM to replace our defense with a proper one.

I just don’t see us doing that, which is why I’m so frustrated.

 

The defense isn't the problem. No defense in the world can keep out a team with the kind of possession Man City enjoyed. They are bound to make a mistake eventually. They out shot us 19-4. They got 200 more touches on the ball than we did ~800-600. Time after time we turned the ball over in midfield.

Guendouzi and maybe Mustafi were the only players out there that seemed to be able to find an open man with a forward pass. Are you claiming that people were not open when everyone else had the ball? The problems today were Lichsteiner, Kolasinac, Iwobi, Lacazette and Aubamayang, none of them were able to retain possession, or create anything. Ramsey and Suarez were no better when they came on.

Monreal gets a pass because he at least was solid defensively, but Kolasinac, Iwobi and Lichsteiner were the worst. You can't play Aubamayang and Lacazette if you only have one other player on the pitch capable of finding them with a pass. And if Lacazette is going to play #10, he needs to be better.

Ozil was probably looking on and thanking his lucky stars he wasn't on the pitch. No one would ever have got the ball to him, and he would have ended up taking all the flak.

 

Skriniar
Koulibaly
Digne
Milinkovic-Savic
Bailey

Recall Nelson.

Problems solved.

Just need about £250-300m and £1m/wk in wages. Easy peasy.

 

Iwobi lost possession for the second goal and Lichtenstein for the first - the third was handball

mistakes happen but when the ref hands you a goal that ****s me off

 

Yes the defence IS the problem.

On a basic foundamental level: We are highly capable of scoring/creating chances against the top sides. Yet we are incapable of keeping clean sheets against these teams.

It's that simple.

Unai is not interested in ball rentention and thats fine. Many managers have been successful with a similar approach.

 

Agreed.

There were plenty of times in the Wenger years we had loads of possession and teams not only beat us, but kept clean sheets. Chelsea, United, etc.

It can be done you just need to have a good defense.

 

So you think a team with a great defense can give up 60% of possession, only create 4 chances and win those games a significant proportion of the time? You are completely insane.

It used to happen to us 3 times a season, and therefore we had best plan to win a title with those tactics?

 

Well I think the City game is different in that Pep is extremely good at implementing his posession based style.(the best in fact)

We had more than enough posession to beat United last weekend as we did against West Ham, Southampton etc.


Looking at yesterdays game - for the first half we looked good. Emery's style was working we were closing City down,we controlled the centre of the pitch. It was down the wings were we were undone. (Bellerin would have been a big bonus for this game) However you look at it - we were playing well but our inability to keep a clean sheet makes us soo vulnerable.

 

Look at it a different way. Possession changes between the two sides in a game exactly the same number of times for each. In the City game possession changed a lot, mainly because our midfield was good defensively. But that just meant that we had to defend a lot more attacks. Instead of defending 50 possessions (say) they had to defend 80, and from Man City's attack. If we can't hold onto the ball, winning the ball a lot actually means the defense has to do more work. Stoke City would maybe only have to defend 35 possessions (say) when they played us, because they dropped into a 4-4 and parked the bus. Most of the time they didn't even try and win possession.

Just like you say that the whole team has to help out the defense, I'm just saying that the whole team has to help out the offense. Yes you can keep improving the defense, but if you win the ball and just give it straight back, you aren't making your defense work less, you are making them work more, and you get the ridiculous situation where the better the team defend the worse you perform, because you are facing many more attempts to get past you.

It really isn't as simple as, if you improve the defense the less goals you let in, because defending in transition is the hardest thing, and winning the ball a lot creates a lot of dangerous transitions. Pressing is great because it creates dangerous transitions for you, but if you don't have a team that can exploit them, and you turn the ball over a lot, you are just creating more transitions for the other team as well.

 

Agree with this. In summary, attack as a team, defend as a team.

 

That's not really what Im saying.

Obvioulsy you defend as a team and attack as team.

I just believe that the player quality when it comes to our defenders is not what it it needs to be.

 

Leicester won the league doing it.

 

Leicester didn't press except high up the field, they dropped back into a 4-4, didn't give the ball away in transition much, and were excellent at exploiting the few possessions and turnovers in transition they won. I'm saying not only do we win a lot of transitions at the moment, we give them up a lot too. If you are not going to exploit turnovers well, by winning the ball and then losing it, you are just creating a better opportunity for the other team.

 

Yeah, I don't think that you could attempt it with your current squad, just that it is possible for teams to do it.

 

A few points I want to make.

1) No matter how we set up yesterday, the truth is a loss was always going to be on the cards. It was just a case of how many. I genuinely thought we were going to lose 4 or 5-0, so 3-1 is somewhat respectable. Not saying I am content with a loss, but you have to acknowledge and appreciate the side we were up against and the state our squad is in.

We are a team with defensive deficiencies, both in terms of personnel and quality, with no natural width and no creativity. We were the perfect opposition for City to face.

I wasn't happy with the line-up at all, but in the first half at least, we battled well and were in the game up until the 60th minute. Just a shame that Lichtsteiner seems to have forgotten the basics of defending and Iwobi decided to play like a scared little wuss. That being said, the performance was way better than any of the 3 thumpings we received at the hands of City last season.
We have 3 of our first choice back-line injured - 2 of whom have had season-ending injuries. And our back-up right-back was also injured, along with one of our first-choice midfielders. Was always going to be a long shot.

A lot of us expected 0 points from this game and we got 0 points.

2) People are entitled to have their reservations about Emery, but I can't believe how impatient some Arsenal fans are being (not necessarily on this forum, but on social media and even people I've spoken to).

He's been left with a depleted squad, mediocre players on lucrative contracts, and a set of defensive options that was clear from the off were not good enough. He's not even had a proper transfer window to bring his own players in (Summer was mostly Mislintat and Sanllehi who'd already agreed the targets before Emery came in).

Before the season started, I was not expecting us to compete for the top 4. But we are. We are still doing better than last season, in my opinion, and baring in mind we've had an injury crisis as bad as I can remember, I think Emery's pushed this squad to its limits.
Did anyone seriously expect us to be steamrolling our way through every single competition we're in?

We have the 6th best squad in the league and we are currently 6th. We are roughly where we should be based on the calibre of our players.
Xhaka, Mustafi, Welbeck, Iwobi, Mkhitaryan, Monreal, Kolasinac, Lichtsteiner, Cech, Jenkinson, Elneny - none of these players have the skillset or the minerals to get us to where we aspire to be. None of them would get into the squads of any of the teams above us. That is half of our first-team squad we are talking about.

In spite of this, we are still only 3 points off 4th and are one of the favourites for the Europa League. We're not in a terrible position.

3) There is a lot more reason to be optimistic about next season.

Definite departures in the Summer will be Cech, Ramsey, Lichtsteiner and Welbeck at the very least. So that’s around £500,000 per week on wages we’d get back.

Monreal may be included in that list but the club haven’t said anything about activating 1 year extension as per reports. Then the likes of Elneny and Jenkinson I expect to depart too albeit for modest fees.

From the sponsorship deals and kit deals, we should be getting around £80m-£90m a season. We also have some promising youth players who I believe will be pushing to get into the starting 11. Emile Smith-Rowe and Reiss Nelson will be back.

The only thing is the club can’t pissss the money up the wall like they did in 2016.

That’s the only question mark. But I trust the process and I trust the new regime.

COYG

 

On the whole I agree.

The only worrying thing is how many goals we are conceeding despite many tactical changes and adjustments. But I do think new personnel will help this dramatically. (If we can get players of the right quality)


However we have two TOP quality forwards in Aubamayang and Lacazette. Who are scoring goals despite the sides mediocre form.

But It's the young players that are the real cause for optimism.

Reiss Nelson looks like one hell of a talent. He is tricky, quick and can score goals. I think he saves us big money on an area we need to reinforce. Could potentially walk straight into the team.
Emile Smith Rowe certainly has the talent to suceed as well. As does Maitland Niles.

Torreira and Guendouzi are another real cause for optimism. Guendouzi only 19 is quick, energetic and can basically do it all. He's a proper Box to box.
Torreira at 22 is already up there with the best holding players in Europe.
I would like to see Emery add a playmaker to that midfield.

Plus Rob Holding is still young with great potential.
I also still maintain Hector Bellerin is one of the best fullbacks in Europe.

Personally when I look at the squad this is what I would do. (Obviously has to be financially feasible.)

---------------------------------Leno/NewGK------------------------------
Bellerin/AMN-------New/Sokratis------New/Holding-------Mon/New
--------------Guendouzi-------Torreira-------New/Xhaka---------------
------ReissNelson---------Lacazette---------Aubamayang-------------

With the outgoings we have I think that's highly feasible. Two new CB's, a new RB, a young keeper to replace Cech and compete with Leno and a midfield playmaker.