Mikel Arteta | Lego Pep watch

Daydreamer said:
I could not agree more. This was especially bad in the first half.

It was also entirely predictable, I think our entire fan base could have seen it coming.
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It’s a real pity about Martinelli. I genuinely thought he would be world class. He had such quick feet and was lightening quick. One of those players that had the fans on their feet whenever he got the ball one on one.

It’s hard to understand what has happened to him and where that player has gone.

Time to find someone else who can match Saka on the left hand side and give the full back a real game.
 
Maluco said:
It’s a real pity about Martinelli. I genuinely thought he would be world class. He had such quick feet and was lightening quick. One of those players that had the fans on their feet whenever he got the ball one on one.

It’s hard to understand what has happened to him and where that player has gone.

Time to find someone else who can match Saka on the left hand side and give the full back a real game.
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He’s still a a threat against teams who play a high line, but the number of teams who do that against us is consistently shrinking. He doesn’t have the skill, positioning, or more importantly the decision-making to pull apart packed defences.

I would seriously love Leao to join and make him a bench option.
 
Daydreamer said:
He’s still a a threat against teams who play a high line, but the number of teams who do that against us is consistently shrinking. He doesn’t have the skill, positioning, or more importantly the decision-making to pull apart packed defences.

I would seriously love Leao to join and make him a bench option.
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Or Nico Williams. I’m a reasonable man - either would be fine.
 
PepG said:
He is just the Spanish Pochettino.. Great at building an exciting young team and playing good football in the process but no trophies delivered. The more time passes and no trophies are won, the more football becomes dire and ugly..
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The Poch comparison is a good one. I think if they don’t win the title this season then pressure and questions need to be asked. Big money spent
 
Zen said:
That just short of 8pts over a season though... so hardly a better way of looking at things, it just another way of showing a backwards trajectory.
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It's also just a one win swing to being on par with an 89 point season.

Listen, I'm not going to pretend I'm delighted how the season is panning out. I didn't see the game today as I was doing family Xmas stuff, but as soon as I seen the line up today, I thought we'd struggle for creativity. As @Daydreamer points out, moving Timber to left back and having Partey right back loses any attacking thrust from full back from both sides of the park. Then you just amplify that with having Jorginho and Rice in midfield.

He basically choose seniority and moved players around to say playing Lewis Skelly or gambling on Tierney's fitness, a poor decision and not for the first time this season unfortunately. It's quite worrying he can't see that it compromises the fluidity of the team when he does that.
 
Daydreamer said:
But your plan to score was to pick us off on the break. Your possession had no real attacking intent, hence the 40 minutes it took to have a shot and the 60 minutes it took to have an effort on target.

I’m not saying this to denigrate your style of play (there’s enough fans pretending to care about how good their rival’s football is in this thread) but because it’s the only way you can have an honest tactical discussion.
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Let's have it then. Our plan was to control the game, but we were unfortunately not brave enough to force the issue when we broke through (our wingbacks simply weren't that great going forward until Amad came on).

Don't believe me? Go onto sofascore and check out the average player positions for both teams. Our backline was higher than yours, and our shape more compact, but without our attackers very high, but with our wingbacks very narrow. We weren't sitting deep, which is what teams playing on the break do.
 
Yeah their football has regressed.

Firstly I think the whole copying Pep with Cb’s at Fb’s has backfired. They don’t seem to create overlaps or overloads down the flanks anymore.

They’re a bit too reliant on Saka to create.

They’re still brilliant off the ball mind. Like Fulham created very little today and they snuffed them out, pressed them really well. They should probably spend a bit more work on their attacking play and less on set pieces.

They won’t win the title now, at that’s gotta sting a lot considering how off the pace city have been. But it’s just their luck that Liverpool and Chelsea have stepped over them. And predominantly because both of those sides attack better than them.
 
marcus agrippa said:
Let's have it then. Our plan was to control the game, but we were unfortunately not brave enough to force the issue when we broke through (our wingbacks simply weren't that great going forward until Amad came on).

Don't believe me? Go onto sofascore and check out the average player positions for both teams. Our backline was higher than yours, and our shape more compact, but without our attackers very high, but with our wingbacks very narrow. We weren't sitting deep, which is what teams playing on the break do.
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Playing on the break doesn't necessarily mean sitting deep. It also doesn't necessarily mean negative football. I honestly wasn't making a value judgement on United's football (as I keep repeating, I think there's a ton of commenting on rival's style of play that's pretty disingenuous in this thread).

United did not come to the Emirates to try and create a lot of chances by playing through us. That's just a fact. It's not even a criticism, I think that's exactly what Amorim should have done seeing as he's new to the league and the players are new to the system. But, as I've mention several times, our kryptonite at the moment are teams that sit in a well organised mid block - particularly if they play with wingbacks. Our usual game plan revolves around building towards 3-2-5 in attack. Against a back 4 we have an overload. However, a disciplined back 5 defend against us man-to-man and use their wingers to double up on our wingers. We are very inconsistent at breaking that down.
 
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marcus agrippa said:
WHAT?
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Both Arsenal of Arteta and Tottenham of Pochettino were /are capable of playing good football, lets not kid ourselves.. the pressure of not delivering the trophies eventually gets them and football becomes boring subsequently..
 
PepG said:
He is just the Spanish Pochettino.. Great at building an exciting young team and playing good football in the process but no trophies delivered. The more time passes and no trophies are won, the more football becomes dire and ugly..
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That's actually a very good parallel, notwithstanding the good football part, which is really being tested this season - although, that was similar with Poch, he did at first have that team playing some really exciting stuff, and then become more and more solid, and in the process, more boring.

Time will tell with Arteta, but they both reek of "almost" managers. Which doesn't make them bad, and in fact makes them very good in particular contexts.
 
Serious questions need to be asked this fraud. Spent £700m and still not delivering, understand the ‘real’ Arsenal fans that are annoyed.
 
PepG said:
He is just the Spanish Pochettino.. Great at building an exciting young team and playing good football in the process but no trophies delivered. The more time passes and no trophies are won, the more football becomes dire and ugly..
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Mad how true this is looking.
 
The tactical great Arteta unable to beat or score against a poor Everton team at home and to think some pundits thought Arsenal would be good enough to win the league this season?
 
Six points behind this Liverpool side who have played a game fewer.

They won't win anything this season so surely time's up.
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
Arsenal fans can delude themselves all they want, but the shift from Arteta to Set Piece FC and playing far uglier football will cost him his job if he doesn’t win anything. 0-0 at home to Everton with a full strength squad is garbage
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We haven't really shifted to set piece FC. We're playing more conservatively but it's not a massively different style of play from last season. I think our poor attacking form is a combination of teams figuring out how to defend against us from open play and most of our attacking players looking quite poor, bar Saka.

I also don't think we're scoring massively more set pieces than last season but because we look so poor from open play, those goals have dried up and the set piece goals stand out more. Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong about that though.
 
I don’t know what the plan was today. All their attacking players are woefully out of form. They’re getting nothing from Martinelli, Trossard, Havertz, Jesus. It makes so easy to load up on marking Saka out of the game when no one else is providing any attacking threat.

Odegaard has been disappointing the last few games after a couple of encouraging performances when returned back to the team.
 
Torino said:
Serious questions need to be asked this fraud. Spent £700m and still not delivering, understand the ‘real’ Arsenal fans that are annoyed.
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Talk to me brother, what has Arteta or Arsenal in general done to you. You can tell us, it's a safe space here!.
 
If City beat United tomorrow they go ahead of arsenal despite their unprecedented crisis. They've blown their chance I feel
 
Not sure what's happened with this lot. Gone from a really fine attacking outfit to relying on set pieces.

Even we blew Everton away at home, so it's an absolute unforgiveable couple of lost points, missing a superb chance to take 2 points off Liverpool who at least had a 75min handicap of 10men for not winning their home banker.
 
Jordan_mufc said:
He does have a point tbf
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AshRK said:
This is arteta discussion thread. What do you want people to do. He is asking a valid question
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He does, but my man just comes in, copy and pastes his post about the spend and Arteta, then fecks off until the next drop points then rinse and repeat.

Doesn't really post about anyone or anything else, even Newcastle. Of course, he can post how he sees fit, but I'm just wondering if there's any background to why 90% of his posts are nearly all the same, that's all.
 
Yep I do have a point, let’s discuss Arteta rather than me then?
 
SER19 said:
If City beat United tomorrow they go ahead of arsenal despite their unprecedented crisis. They've blown their chance I feel
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Unless they spank us by 8-9 goals, City aren't overtaking Arsenal tomorrow.
 
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