Monthly Archives: October 2023

Martin Odegaard is Arteta’s Dennis Bergkamp

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One Arsenal trivia question that love is “which Arsenal player was substituted off most by Arsenal Wenger?”. Those who bought The Arsenal Quiz book will know the answer. Dennis Bergkamp.

Against Sevilla, Mikel took Martin Odegaard off in the 73rd minute as we looked to hand on to a one goal lead. That led some to comment “Odegaard subbed again after another stinker”. it showed a complete lack of understanding of football.

The Odegaard sub myth

In the 13 games this season, Odegaard has been taken off in 6 of them.

Those who are good at maths will quickly be able to work out that is 46% of the games, which would lead you all to think “how can it be a myth?”. Well, lets compare to others:

Leandro Trossard: 100%
Gabriel Martinelli: 87.5%
Eddie Nketiah: 87.%%
Gabriel Jesus: 57%
Bukayo Saka: 50%
Martin Odegaard: 46%

So out of our 6 main attacking players, Odegaard has been subbed off the least. And at 1,137 minutes played already, only defenders Ben White and William Saliba have had more pitch time.

Odegaard being subbed gets mentioned, but others who are taken off more often do not get a mention. Is it perhaps there is an agenda amongst some fans against Martin Odegaard?

Not unusual for attacking players to go off

At a big team like Arsenal, we are always more likely than not to head into the last 15 minutes of games with a lead. The result is we take attacking players off for more defensive minded ones.

If Arteta has more defensive minded midfield options on the bench in Thomas Partey and Jorginho, it makes a lot of sense to change the midfield from the 60th minute onwards if we are defending a lead.

If it is a midfield trio of Rice, Havertz and Odegaard, we have seen first Havertz and then Odegaard go off. If it is Jorginho/Partey, Rice and Odegaard, then the tactical change will always be to take of the more attacking player – Odegaard for either Partey or Jorginho.

If Arteta left Odegaard on and the opponents equalised, fans would only moan about Arteta’s poor in-game decision to not go more defensive.

Fresh legs and change of approach

Odegaard leads from the front on the high press.

He gets through an awful lot of work off the ball, so it is no surprise that after 75 minutes he is blowing a bit.

Swapping ODegaard for Kai Havertz gives us fresh legs without losing too much in attack. It also provides us the opportunity to go a little longer.

Against Sevilla, Havertz became a target man for David Raya and was able to win the high ball and bring it down in the opponents half, often winning free kicks or throw-ons in the process.

Fans would only moan if Odegaard was left on despite having run out of steam.

A change in attack

We have also seen this season Arteta take Odegaard off for Havertz or Fabio Vieira in an attempt to freshen up the attack. Again, this is no issue.

Sometimes a player is having a poor game, or is being snuffed out by an opponent. Making a change can have a huge impact, like it did against Chelsea.

Gabriel Martinelli and Odegaard were fairly ineffective in the 2nd half. They were taken off for Havertz and Trossard who were both key for the equaliser.

The only men in the front line immune to being taken off to freshend up the attack is Gabriel Jesus and Bukayo Saka. However, both are bought of regularly first when a game is won.

Why is it only Arsenal that get criticism for their manager making game changing substitutions that lead to a postive outcome?

Is Odegaard Arteta’s Bergkamp?

Dennis Bergkamp was often the man sacrificed by Arsene Wenger when he wanted to either go more defensive, or change up the attack.

You would see Bergkamp go off for a Ray Parlour or Edu as we went to 451 – we would never take off Thierry Henry as he was the main outlet. Likewise, Bergkamp would go off for a Kanu or Wiltord if we were struggling to break a door down.

Havertz, Vieira and Trossard give something a little different in attack in comparison to ODegaard. So if Plan A is not working, we turn to Plan B.

Also, a midfield of Partey Jorginho Rice will be near impossible to break through.

A final, final thought…

Odegaard has 4 goals and 1 assist this season and has been “poor”.
James Maddison has 3 goals and 5 assists and is being labelled as “the most influential player in the Premier League.

Maddison has been better than Odegaard this season, but is 1 less goal and 4 more assists really the difference between being infleuntial and poor? A goal contribution difference of 3?

James Maddison: 8
Phil Foden: 6
Martin Odegaard: 5
Bruno Fernandes: 5
Dominik Szoboszlai: 2
Jack Grealish: 1

It probably highlights the high standards Odegaard has set for himself after last season that the talk is about him being poor this campaign, whilst contributing more than almost every other player in his position in England.

We are unbeaten in the league, could go top today, and some fans seem more intent on digging out Odegaard, David Raya and Havertz, spreading their negativity…

UTA.

Keenos

Arteta already knows when Aaron Ramsdale will make his first team Premier League return

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Saturday 25 November 2023 at 17:30, Aaron Ramsdale will return between the posts for The Arsenal in the Premier League.

Barring injury, Ramsdale is gauranteed to start this game due to on-loan David Raya not being allowed to play against his parent club.

Now we have got the clickbait out of the way (sorry! I had to do it!), we do actually need to have a discussion around Raya and Ramsdale.

Against Chelsea, “there is only one Aaron Ramsdale” was sung by some of the away fans following Raya passing the ball directly to a Chelsea player. This was swiftly drowned out by the majority of the away section singing their backing of Mikel.

Raya does not yet have his own song, so chanting about Mikel was the way to show the majoirity of the fans backed both the new goalkeeper, and the managers decision to play him.

Some fans had it in for Raya before he even joined. They have not been willing to give him a chance due to Ramsdale being one of their favourite players.

It is not that they thought Ramsdale was a better keeper (although they will try and convince you this was the reason), it is because they liked Ramsdale’s character. And this leads them to be prejudice against Raya.

Some fans are almost sitting there waiting for Raya to make a mistake so that they can jump on it. So that they can scream “get Ramsdale on” or post pictures of the Englishman on social media, commenting “my keeper”.

Their agenda is exposed as they refuse to praise Raya for anything, whilst going out of their way to criticise.

Against Chelsea, Nicolas Jackson went clean through. Raya kept his composure, did not lunge in, and ended up grabbing the ball off the Chelsea forwards toes. “Jackson messed that up” some Arsenal fans claimed, refusing to acknowledge Raya’s good goalkeeping.

Then when it came Mykhailo Mudryk’s scuffed cross, they went out of their way to highlight that Raya was at fault for the goal. He was not.

Much of goalkeeping is predicting what a keeper will do, this allows them to shift their weight and be that split second quicker in reacting. When a winger slices a cross, it will almost always catch the keeper out.

Most of the time, the sliced cross goes into Row Z. But every now and against it goes into the top corner making the keeper look silly. But the goalie did nothing wrong.

Seeing the criticicsm of Raya for conceding the 2nd Chelsea goal made me think about Arsenal legend David Seaman.

Old Safe Hands was a world class keeper, but also one who had an error in him. Nayim in 1995, Ronaldinho in 2002. It is actually quite sad that Seaman is often remembered for his howlers rather than the performances that led him to play over 1,000 times for club and country.

Anyway, the point is back in 1995, if social media was about, there would have been fans calling Seaman a liability and demanding we sign a new goalkeeper that summer – or start Vince Bartram.

Arsenal’s last truly world class keeper was Jens Lehmann. The German was also not immune to the odd error or 6. But he retained the backing of the Arsenal faithful due to being a crowd favourite. Being a character. I wonder if that would have changed had he made those errors in the social media era rather than prior to it.

Now I will not say Raya has had an exceptional start to his Arsenal career. He has looked shakey at times. But lets not pretend that Ramsdale has been in sparkling form.

When Ramsdale lost his place to Raya, he was ranked as the worst keeper in the Premier League based on expected goals prevented.

His shakey start was off the back of a poor finish to 2022/23, where he often conceded from the first shot he faced.

Raya, meanwhile, conceded 6 goals less than he “should” have, with only Bernd Leno and AlissoThe metrics show that last season Ramsdale conceded 1 more goal than he “should” have, which highlights that whilst he was excellent, he also had periods where he would have a drop off in form.n bettering him.

Now Raya’s critics will disregard the stats and tell you that “my eyes tell me something different”, but that is why statistics are much better than an opinion.

Opinions are influenced by your agenda. You often see what you want to see. They are subjective. Stats are objective. They remove individual bias.

Yes, Raya has made errors, but Ramsdale was not infallible.

The blunder against Fulham earlier this season, the mistake against Southampton at the back end of last season. The narrative spun by many seems to indicate that Ramsdale was a giant in goal. A reliable keeper who never made an error. He was far from it.

Some fans are even saying “playing Raya will be Arteta’s downfall” and “Arteta’s decision making will split the fans”. No. It is not Arteta’s decision making that will split the fans. It is those fans who feed off negativity that will try and create the divisions. Those grew from the WOB v AKB debate. They want to make it Raya v Ramsdale, rather than supporting the team, backing the players.

My final thoughts come from Arsenal legends George Graham and Thierry Henry.

In the early 90s, Graham sold fans favourite John Lukic and recruited Seaman. Graham thought that whilst Lukic was one of the best keepers in England, Seaman was the best. Like now, some fans were up in arms at the decision. Graham was proved right.

There was also a great interview from Henry where he discussed that Arteta bought Ramsdale to take us from 8th to top 4, and the manager thinks Raya could be the man to take us from contenders to Champions. Similar to when Pep Guardiola dumped Claudio Bravo after a single season, replacing him with Ederson.

Ramsdale will get a run-out in the League Cup against West Ham. He will also play against Brentford. I will be at both games back the man inbetween the posts. Just like I will be at Sheffield United tomorrow backing Raya who will be the keeper of the day.

Instead of looking to jump on every Raya mistake, why not try backing the player? Stop with your agendas and support the team.

Keenos

Arteta squad gives him tactical options he did not have in 2022/23

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Morning!

What a difference a single game makes.

Prior to the game, I spoke about how our group was looking a little too tight for comfort. No team had a 100% record and as a result all 4 were still in the battle for the top 2. After game week 3, that picture has changed.

In a single game, we have gone from looking over our shoulder to being able to possibly qualify in 2-weeks time when we face Sevilla at home.

Winning that game will take us to 9 points. It will be mathematically impossible for Sevilla to overtake us. And then if Lens beat PSV in Eindhoven, the Dutch team will also be unable to finish above us.

Those results will see Arsenal on 9, Lens on 8 and Sevilla and PSV on 2.

Even if PSV beat Lens, you would still be very surprised if we fail to progress – both teams would have to beat The Arsenal in the final two-games to finish above us and win their game against Sevilla.

Last night was by no means a brilliant performance, but I will never moan about us winning away in Europe.

Whilst some commented on Martin Odegaard being subbed again (Arteta’s Bergkamp?) and David Raya looking a little shakey, I would rather focus on the positives.

Takehiro Tomiyasu is back to his brilliant best, which is a huge plus for Arsenal.

The Japanese defender (and I will call him a defender rather than full back because he can play anywhere across the back line) was fantastic for us in his first season. Last year his level dropped as he bounced from one injury to the next.

Still only 24-years-old, I was baffled why some fans were saying “get rid” last summer. He is clearly a quality defender and gives us an option of being a bit more defensive.

For everything Oleksandr Zinchenko adds to us in possession, the Ukrainian can be a bit of a liability in defence; although much of this is due to the way he is asked to play resulting in him often being out of position if the opponents do a quick turnover.

Having Zinchenko and Tomiyasu gives us the option of being either attacking or defensive.

You can certainly see this weekend, against Sheffield United, Zinchenko being a better option. We will look to dominate play so Zinchenko provides us with that additional outlet.

But in those games where we might have to soak up a bit of pressure, or our opponents have a winger that hangs out high and wide regardless, Tomiyasu will become the better option.

Mikel Arteta has also shown that he is comfortable changing them in-game depending on the situation. We have often seen Tomiyasu coming on for Zinchenko in tight games that we are looking to hold on for in.

Considering both men have had their injury issues over the last 12 months, having them “job share” depending on the opponent is not a huge issue when we are facing a 50-game season.

Another man to step up constantly recent weeks is Declan Rice. He has been superb.

What he adds that Granit Xhaka did not is that ability to pick up the ball deep in his own half and run with it into space, releasing pressure.

When we are defending deep and opponents are over-committing, Rice can then exploit the space and turn defensive positions into attacking. In those situations last night, Xhaka would have either played the ball to no one in particular up field, or looked for a shorter pass that could have played the team into trouble.

In his time at the club, Rice has shown that he is a vastly superior “6” than he is an “8”. It will be interesting to see once Thomas Partey is fit as to who Arteta picks to play further forward.

Like with Tomiyasu and Zinchenko, Arteta has an attacking and defensive option with the Rice / Havertz / Partey trio.

Those teams we look to dominate against, it will be Rice and Havertz. In those tricky away games, it will be Rice and Partey (or Jorginho if the Ghanian is out).

The good signings over the summer have given Arteta more options through their versatility and quality. We just need to keep taking it one game at the time…

On to Sheffield United at home!

Keenos