Morning all.
What we all probably feared has now become a reality. Injuries to key players! The news on Thomas Partey is vague but not promising, Takehiro Tomiyasu remains out for a couple of weeks yet and Kieran Tierney has been pretty much ruled out for the rest of the season.
I’m sure that playing both meaningless fixtures for Scotland didn’t help Tierney but why should he be expected to sit a game out when the Scotland manager is preparing for a World Cup playoff fixture? Not for one minute would I expect Tierney to turn down the opportunity to play for his country regardless of its meaning. Same goes for Partey but his matches were World Cup qualifiers.
We can blame the international break all we like but surely the amount of games a player plays for his club has to be considered too and I think I’m right in saying that the Arsenal starting eleven has been pretty much the same since Christmas, give or take one or two forced changes. The likes of Pepe, Nketiah, Elneny, Lokonga, Holding and Tavares haven’t been used. In my opinion, Mikel Arteta was/is, damned if he rotated more and damned if he didn’t. Tavares took a hammering in the media for his performance against Crystal Palace and in the last game he played so right now in his career, he’s perhaps not ready to be playing first team football although I do believe that dipping in and out of a team isn’t ideal, especially for a player who’s in his first year of English football. Now he might get a run of games and with them, improve.
Same applies to Lokonga I think. He’s been in and out more often than you and I would dancing the Hokey Cokey but pre Palace, I don’t think he’s had competitive minutes for Arsenal in a long time.
Mikel Arteta clearly doesn’t trust the players he could call on enough. His first 11/12 including ESR has been pretty much set in stone since the Man City game on New Year’s Day. Barring forced changes as said before. In my opinion, injuries to players was inevitable. Would anyone be surprised if Saka or Odegaard were next?
This isn’t a dig at Mikel Arteta, it’s a moan about the club who back in January had the opportunity to bring in a player or two to bolster the squad. Even if those deals were loans. So really, if Arsenal fail to secure European football come the end of the season, the club, and by that I mean the board/manager etc, only have themselves to blame. We all knew there was likely to be times when fixtures came thick and fast, so they did too. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
Looking back at the Palace game and the terrible performance by Arsenal, I think everyone was either knackered or just had a bad night. Whether or not they’ll recharge their batteries and scraped their chins off the floor enough by Saturday afternoon, only time will tell but if Graham Potter deploys similar tactics to those Patrick Vieira did, Arsenal could be in trouble.
But you know what, sometimes it takes a kick in the backside to reset before going again. This group of players have been beaten before and bounced back so they can do it again. If Partey is ruled out, this should be a huge opportunity for Lokonga to show what he’s made of, Tavares too. After all, it wasn’t that long ago a few of us were singing their praises.
See you in the comments.
Thanks for the post Rico, you do write a really good post I must say.
I’m minded to think back to 1988/89 and another youthful Arsenal team that was feeling the pressure, we’d lost our talisman in Brian Marwood to a season ending injury and a young Tony Adams was being ridiculed in the Press as the wheels looked to be coming off.
George Graham made a few tactical tweaks and one of them was in bringing experienced David O’Leary into a back three to play alongside Tony Adams and an inexperienced Steve Bould, it gave more defensive security to our inexperienced full backs Nigel Winterburn and Lee Dixon who could then bomb on to support an attack lacking it’s most dangerous attacker that season in Marwood.
The rest they say is history.
Jump to today and there are a lot of similarities, we have a team lacking a cutting edge and a defence that is showing signs of its inexperience so maybe a few tweaks is needed, especially in those away games coming up. So maybe Rob Holding could do a ‘David O’Leary’ for our central defenders allowing Nuno and Cedric to bomb on without the fear of them being exposed, it would also allow Martinelli and Saka to move narrower into the inside forward lanes where they would be more of a goal threat.
Unfortunately we don’t have an Alan Smith or a Paul Merson knocking in the goals with the current team so Arteta has to come up with a way of maximising the attacking potential that he has by fitting Lacazette, Smith Rowe, Odegaard, Xhaka, Lokonga and Nketiah into the remaining 3 positions?
Of course you could play Saka as left wing-back instead of Nuno and play Smudge as inside-right, but defensive security is what we’ve gotta aim for atm, 9 one-nils to the Arsenal is all we need, the aesthetics don’t matter at this stage all that matters is the three points…
Tavares is left defender but can also play right defender. In my opinion, he defends poorly, positions himself badly, often forgets to be where he should be, especially when attacking, which he does better than defending.
Extra football, I think he plays the violin.
Morning Rico and All
Looking at our injuries I raised the question last year should we sell Tierney and no one agreed so I ask the same question should we sell Tierney looking at his stat’s which I understand don’t show the full story, according to a leading sports station he has played 22 games for 1 goal 3 assist 15 shots at goal but only 4 on target and 7 off sides as a defender but he has Missed 38 games due to the following injuries, 1 shoulder 1 groin 1 ankle 2 knees and that does not count the groin injury he had when he first joined or the latest injury. 1 web site values him at 28 Million pounds.
Thanks Kev, morning to you and all.
Tactical tweaks, now there’s an idea. 😆
I think half the problem we have is the fringe players not playing enough and with the limited time left in the season, along with no other competitions to play in, Mikel can’t afford to play players who are either too young, inexperienced or not in his opinion, right for the team. But, a# you and I said only a week or so ago, sometimes an injury can open the door for another.
@Aussie
No, no, no
you want the entirety of arsenal fans to call for Arteta’s head? They think letting Auba and some other space ocuppiers go was a mistake since Wenger and Emery attained better positions with them.
In fact Sky already thinks everything in Arsenal is falling apart after just one lose. selling him now or in the near future or even the thought of it is suicidal.
Hi Geoff, I don’t think the club should sell Tierney, he just needs to be managed better which I imagine he’d would have been had Tavares been more reliable. Easy for me to say, but difficult to do I’d imagine, especially if hehe’s showing no signs of fatigue etc.
I wonder if Pepe’s illness is Covid.
That’s right Rico, maybe it’s time for Lokonga to step up and partner Xhaka post the injury to Partey and Tavares as a wing back in place of Tierney, I mean that surely was the point in signing them last summer?
Exactly Kev. I liked what I saw from Tavares when he first played. Lokonga too. They’re just rusty I reckon.
Three at the back bring in our best defender , that’s Holding and pl;ay Saka and Martinelli on the left , Odegaard and ESR on the right , loknonga and Xhaka in the middle and Nketiah up front and run Brighton off their feet.
Snow, you have to take everything Sky Sports say with a huge pinch of sodium, their whole raison d’etre is built around the theme of ‘Arsenal in crisis’ and it’s why an increasing number of Arsenal fans are cancelling their Sky subscription and going with other methods of accessing live football, there are many ways to bypass the pay-wall.
If you want to watch your football on Sky etc then just watch the game and don’t bother watching the pre-match, half-time and post-match bullshit. I watch the games with the sound off as I don’t need some commentator and his ‘analyst side-kick telling me what I can see.
If you base your Arsenal experience around Sky Sports, BT Sports or one of the EPL’s spin-offs then you’ll head up with your head in the gas stove.
They’re all wankers, always have been and they won’t change anytime soon…
Did anyone notice how super happy Wayne Rooney was at half-time when analysing Arsenal losing 2-0, he can barely put a sentence together and yet Sky employ this moron as an analyst.
Don’t get me wrong on his day Tierney is a good player, and I even thought he had a good chance to be a future captain, but the fact that he has missed more matches than he has played is a concern to me. All I am saying is, if we had a chance to buy a defender who in nearly 2 1/2 years has played 22 matches but missed 38 due to injuries and is now out again for several weeks with another injury would you want us to buy him or say thanks but no thanks.
Rooney can smile and say what he wants but at the end of the day they are still below us and we have a game up our sleeve.
G’day all, Kev Rooney’s serving his apprenticeship with Sky in preparation for his imminent sacking by Derby County when the sale of the club goes through. From what I saw of him, his weight has ballooned and he looks as if he’s been hitting the bottle pretty hard.
That sounds like a plan Potter. A good one imo.
I swerve the half time stuff Kev, they’re all bonkers on there..
Geoff Rooney’s club, Derby County, are 37 places below us and games in hand don’t come into the equation. 😉
Cicero, I’d imagine if you visited Rooney in his caravan you’d probably find his fridge full of beer and stodge, he’d certainly fit the archetypal salad dodger profile.
Cicero I didn’t know Rooney was even coaching I was talking about Man U
Kev you must be related to Mystic Meg, two of my grandchildren bought me a bright red hoody for Christmas emblazoned, in white, with the slogan Salad Dodger. They know me so well.
And Tommy Shelby Kev. 😆
I like Sambi. I think he won’t be able to play the deep position by himself.
Tavares is another story. He can’t defend and his positioning is woeful. There was a lot of smoke being blown up his hole when he had a good game against Newcastle. In that game he virtually played as a winger. He followed that up with two shockers against United and Everton. Since then Forest and Palace have been his only two starting appearances. You see the theme?
If he is used as a defender it must be in a 5 (good idea Kev), otherwise not at all.
Morning all, yes Pete regarding Tavares it takes away the need for him to defend as his strength is going forward where he can be chaotic but gets you off of your seat. It’s a moot point if Arteta will trust him again in a four, I’m not sure he will.
I guess we’re looking for a player or two who can emerge from the sidelines to make a difference during this period, be it Nketiah or Lokonga or Pepe?
Cicero I bet you look a magnificent specimen in your red hoodie…
Poor Nuno. 😆
New post up now