Morning all.
I’m still trying to get my head around the recent Europa squad which has been announced. Danny Welbeck, Rob Holding and Hector Bellerin are on the long list of players yet Konstantinos Mavropanos, our probable future centre back, is not. I know it’s probably down to number crunching to comply with the home grown ruling etc but surely there’s a player or two already selected who are far less worthy of a place than our young Greek. Personally I think his omission will prove to be a huge mistake. Mustafi or Mavropanos? Well I know who’d I’d rather see alongside eith Sokratis or Koscielny and it’s not the German. It’s a good job Atkinson missed, or ignored his shenanigans in the box against City otherwise we could have been down to ten.
Alexandre Lacazette, who has to be one of my favourite players right now. I love his ‘French’ attitude, his work ethic and everything else about him. Maybe he doesn’t score enough goals, certainly compared to his strike rate prior to him joining Arsenal but then half the time he seems to be back in his own half trying to win the ball because he really does put a shift in each game. When he does score though, they’re usually pretty special just as his goal against Cardiff was which has voted goal of the month by fans on the official website. He’s swooped both awards actually as he’s picked up player of the month too. No surprise really.
January has been a funny old month, just one of many since November really. Once our twenty two unbeaten run came to an end, to say we’ve stuttered would be an understatement. Good performances at home against Toots, Liverpool and Chelsea mixed in with a few stinkers against the likes of West Ham, Southampton, Brighton, Liverpool and City away from home. We’re not creating enough chances and the ones we are, we’re not taking. Aubameyang has squandered far more than he’s converted that’s for sure which for a player with his pedigree, is really poor. When a club pays £60m for a player, one would expect better. He’s a bit of a luxury really because if he’s not scoring goals, he’s not really bringing anything else to the team. He’s certainly very different to his strike partner in that respect. Aubameyang might run around a lot and look busy, but he’s not a competitive kind of a player in my opinion. I don’t recall him ever really fighting to win the ball with conviction. His aerial contribution must be close to zero. Yet he’s our leading goal scorer who seems to have formed a special relationship with Lacazette. Between them they should be hitting fifty goals a season at least in all competitions I’d say, or that me expecting too much?
According to the official Premier League website, these are our stats for this season.
- Goals scored – 51 an average per match of 2.04
- Shots – 308 with just 116 on target.
- Shooting accuracy – 38%
- Penalties scored – 2
- Big chances created – 48
- Hit the woodwork – 6
That doesn’t make good reading does it especially as we’ve conceded 36 goals so it’s clear we have a much bigger problem than just our defending. I still believe much of our problems sit in the the middle of the park. As much as a balanced team needs at least one top notch keeper, striker and centre back, it needs wingers to give us width and speed both in attack and defence along central midfield players who stop the opposition going through the middle of the pitch. Who have we got? Torriera, who regardless of how good he is, isn’t going to win much in the air is he? Xhaka isn’t going to sprint back to help his defence either which wouldn’t be such an issue if he could read the game in a way Gilberto could but I don’t think he can. I’m being polite. A left and right back who doesn’t leave his player would be handy too but that’s another story.
If Unai Emery can either bring through or sign the right players this summer, players who will give us a more balanced squad from back to front and especially in midfield it’s likely that the goals conceded tally will drop considerably and the goal scoring opportunities created numbers will increase also.
Then maybe Aubameyang, Lacazette and Nketiah if he makes the step up, will score more goals.
See you in the comments guys….
The problem is that the defence is not schooled properly – not drilled. I simply do NOT believe that Steve Bould is allowed to do so. I think he has been retained as old Arsenal furniture. (He was not allowed for long by Wenger either – fact!)
I don’t think Bould is involved much in training. Emery seems to have his own coaches. As I and others have suggested, he’s probably at the club because of his connection to the club during the change.
Morning all:
There’s no doubt that we should be more efficient in front of goal, and if we were, it’d take pressure off the defenders.
They make one error, it costs us a goal and they’re the worst in the world.
A striker stuffs up and he gets another chance soon enough.
Massive difference.
Good morning Rico, if the defence is not the problem it is a serious contributing factor. Mustafi is just not fit for purpose. If Koscielny was a car he would fail his MOT and be taken off the road. Lichtsteiner is not up to Premiership standards and Monreal is passed it. Bellerin and Kolascinac are just not attending to the defensive duties. Some of these deficiencies could be corrected with better coaching, but I can’t see where that coaching is to come from, certainly Bould is not the answer.
My take on it is there is no balance between the various sections of the team. This leads to selections being made on the basis of firefighting as opposed to being proactive. We have two strikers that most other teams in the premiership would like to have . One of them just scores goals and the other is a workaholic that gets the spectacular as well. However they both need service but in different ways and to give them this requires the kind of talent that Ozil supplies but Ozil needs someone to play off in midfield . THis leaves two box to box midfielders to do all the work if we have a back four. . If we go three at the back then we have no defensive width . To balance things we need a winger or another grafter in midfield. With a back 4 and a grafter no width , back three with a winger no defence..
We have players but not the right ones , Xhaka for instance doesn’t graft at the back and forward does not create. Elneny grafts but isn’t a tackler he kind of floats and holds position and that’s not what we need and of course Iwobi who wont play one touch if he can find fifteen to do the same thing . Suarez has just joined and although I will give him a chance looked to be lightweight in the hurly burley of the midfield. Kolasinac is big enough when playing back he is indisciplined and lets runners go and going forward is not a winger in the true sense and Lichtstiener is as far over the hill as i am .If we were playing on Hackney marshes he was so far away from Sterling that he would have been on the next pitch.
Okay I suppose when all the injuries are recovered we might have the makings of a defence but they are not and we haven’t. i am afraid that after Emery’s first season he must realise that it is not tweaking that’s required but a major overhaul especially as age is creeping up on Kos and Monreal.
Can the kids step up ? we don’t know ,and will not unless they play. but will the support accept us giving them the chance and slipping down a bit or for that matter will the board.
Morning Cicero. For sure it’s a factor but I just don’t think it’s our only concern.
Potter summed it up rather well I’d say. We have players but not many to do a specific job. The squad is so out of balance imo,even more so without Bellerin, Welbeck and Holding..
Good one Potter.
This will shock a few I’m sure. Whilst on the PL website, we’re pretty much the same stats wise as Totts. The interceptions/tackles is the only area they do better than us.
Hmm, I wouldn’t say that I’m shocked Rico, maybe a little surprised, intrigued even, but I’ll get over it, one just has to take these things on the chin and soldier on. 😀
Morning Gooner’s.
Morning Rico.
Morning Kev. 😅
Morning guys. Good article Rico, you do a serious amount of homework.
Wouldn’t it be something if we could get an “insider” and really get a grasp on what goes on behind the scenes?
I blame the shareholders who allowed this sly American, whose main focus is, American Football, to take complete control of the club.
I’d have thought that most, if not all of Wengers old staff should have been let go, re the Bould comments.
Don’t you get the impression that we have had to work pretty hard for our goals and then, in one instance of pure stupidity we give a goal away.
What’s George Graham (1-0 to the Arsenal) doing these days?
Hey, maybe they should try and pair Suarez with Özil in midfield?
Any votes?
Thanks Andorra, good job there’s the internet eh…
I was thinking Keown. If he could make Flamini a good left back, he might be able to sort Mustafi out. On second thoughts….
Andorra, George spends his time playing golf with Frank McLintock.
Wenger wouldn’t tolerate Keown coaching the defence as Keown wanted the whole team to defend whereas Wenger wanted the focus to be on attacking areas. Remember Dixon talking about it a few years back.
It all comes back to balance again. Ever since 2005 when the ‘stadium project’ started to drain transfer funds the team has lacked proper balance.
Now Wenger managed to put out an un balanced team sacrificing certain areas. In effect he sacrificed the defensive midfield to add to the attack. It worked particularly against mid to lower table teams, but backfired spectacularly against the top 4. Wenger managed to keep it going until he got stale, unlucky, or other power mongers started interfering with transfers (Gazidis, Stat DNA, etc). Then he couldn’t balance the unbalanceable and we slipped out of the top 4.
Emery has the same problem but rather than sacrifice the defensive midfield he is sacrificing the creative midfield.
And in truth he is achieving results about the same as Wenger did in his last couple of seasons.
Interesting Arsecast featuring David Ornstein, some little snippets about all not being well within the club despite public appearances.
The Man City directors were a bit surprised that most of their opposite number weren’t at the game on Sunday, apparently they were in the USA supporting the Rams.
The right back I insist that with Liechteiner we play with 10 and a half players. I can not help noticing why Cedric or even Emerson was not tried. Emerson, was bought in January by Barcelona to A. Mineiro and loaned to Betis. It has already been realized that Jenkinson does not count and MLN is a resource. To look at a team and always know that there is no right back, is to enter “lame”.
Arsenal have had all the teams in recent years, lack of reference from key players, usually for injuries such as Cazorla or Van Pierse, or for poorly filled positions such as Almunia or Denilson. Not timely replacement of these players, may have been the cause of failure at the time.
We returned to Ozil. I doubt it does not create bad atmosphere in the team. As I doubt, Ramsey does not look any more because there is Ozil.
As for Bolt: I wonder if he does anything in training. These technical teams need is a reference of the Club, to be a link between the technical team and the fans, the structure of the Club and all the fans.
All not well at Arsenal? I’m not at all surprised..
Oh dear! That’s a snippet I wasn’t aware of allezkev, so glad you brought it to our attention.
You wonder whether the players noticed?
The directors probably got first class tickets with all the trimmings, limousines, the best hotels etc
The Rams lost, ah, what a shame. Ha bloody ha!
Evening all and thanks Rico.
I`m not surprised also by Kev`s revelations on the Arsenal elite as I read somewhere today that the elite at LA Rams want Arsenal to play some games at the Rams new stadium when it opens !………………………………will probably play in our yellow and blue away kit as it is the same colours as Rams……………………..heading the ball wearing a horny helmet will be a problem though !
I can understand the Kroenke family being at the Super Bowl. Why wouldn’t they…
Usain Bolt, I suspected that he wasn’t taking training seriously.
https://arseblog.com/2019/02/episode-513-behind-the-january-transfer-window-with-david-ornstein/
Thanks for the link Kev.
New post up.