Rival watch

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PleaseNotPoll said:
You'd know better than me, obviously, but I also get the feeling that he's burning players out again.
How many times has he started about 8 of those that were in the XI against Shakhtar?
Meanwhile the likes of Jorginho and Zinchenko barely set foot on the pitch. They'll have to when things get busy and they'll be rusty.
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I think the main issues are the lack of structure and misprofiling of the squad. Players like Odegaard and Saka will always be huge misses for any team, but we shouldn't be so reliant on them. We rely on them too much for build-up, rotations, creativity, ball retention, playing between the lines etc. Now that they're not in the team, who is meant to be taking on their workload?

Ultimately, we have some players who are doing too much work and other players that aren't doing enough. And it's not because they're being lazy, it's a lack of balance and poor distribution of responsibilities. Our wingers and fullbacks have to do so much work, whereas our midfielders/players operating in more central zones don't. Rice last season was excellent playing as defensive midfielder in the #6 role, but this season, he's taking up such advanced positions as a high #8, so we lose his positional discipline and orchestration from deep.

Arteta may well figure out how to readdress this balance, but my worry is he will only do it when we look down and out, as opposed to doing so proactively.
 
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BrunelGunner said:
I think the main issues are the lack of structure and misprofiling of the squad. Players like Odegaard and Saka will always be huge misses for any team, but we shouldn't be so reliant on them. We rely on them too much for build-up, rotations, creativity, ball retention, playing between the lines etc. Now that they're not in the team, who is meant to be taking on their workload?

Ultimately, we have some players who are doing too much work and other players that aren't doing enough. And it's not because they're being lazy, it's a lack of balance and poor distribution of responsibilities. Our wingers and fullbacks have to do so much work, whereas our midfielders/players operating in more central zones don't. Rice last season was excellent playing as defensive midfielder in the #6 role, but this season, he's taking up such advanced positions as a high #8, so we lose his positional discipline and orchestration from deep.

Arteta may well figure out how to readdress this balance, but my worry is he will only do it when we look down and out, as opposed to doing so proactively.
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Some bad signings. A bunch of Chelsea rejects, Trossard? Even before that, you have to question what was seen in Jesus. He isn’t the centre forward so badly needed. They may improve squad depth, but are not the quality required to be winning league titles and challenging in Europe.
The defence looks good though.
 
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littleDinosaurLuke said:
Some bad signings. A bunch of Chelsea rejects, Trossard? Even before that, you have to question what was seen in Jesus. He isn’t the centre forward so badly needed. They may improve squad depth, but are not the quality required to be winning league titles and challenging in Europe.
The defence looks good though.
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It's Arsenal
 
littleDinosaurLuke said:
Some bad signings. A bunch of Chelsea rejects, Trossard? Even before that, you have to question what was seen in Jesus. He isn’t the centre forward so badly needed. They may improve squad depth, but are not the quality required to be winning league titles and challenging in Europe.
The defence looks good though.
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I think this is slightly harsh.

Havertz, since moving up top as a CF, has been pretty good. We need better, but he's been impactful up top compared to when he was in midfield, where he looked completely out of his depth. Was he worth £65m? No, but he has contributed his fair share.
Jorginho has been decent for us as a 4th/5th choice midfield option. You need squad players like this and he's done his job there. He didn't cost a lot.
Trossard, again, has been impactful for us and scored some big goals. Between signing him for £23m and getting Mudryk for quadruple that price, I think it's been a no brainer.

I agree we need better options and we've overspent/misspent/neglected some areas, but some of the players you've highlighted haven't been bad at all.

Overall though, it's a mix of poor squad building (in terms of profiles) and poor tactical setup by the manager.
 
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They'll be dancing in the streets of Total Network Solutions tonight...
 
There's no early Saturday Premier League game tomorrow. Sky do have the delights of Morecambe v Chesterfield, though.
 
Just finished watching Real Madrid 0 Barcelona 4. On form,maybe Barca were expected to win but,honestly,Real treated the first half like a half hearted kickaround (I thought).They could have scored something like 6 or 8 goals!...then let Barca score 4.Hope they get their pay stopped!!!!
 
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