Author Archives: keenosafc

Arsenal cruise to victory as Arteta gives stars a rest

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“Odegaard has been dropped” was what one of my pals said when the team news came out.

I then proceeded to make it very clear that the Arsenal captain had not been dropped, he had been rested, and Mikel Arteta had rotated his team.

Last season we suffered a little due to fatigue in the run-in. Arteta had played the same small group of players in every possibile game. He rarely rested or rotated his stars.

With the acquisition of Kai Havertz and Declan Rice this summer, and Jorginho and Leandro Trossard last January, the manager has options to rest players.

Sheffield United at home is a game you have pencilled in for resting a couple of key players. Back in the 90s, Fergie would have made 7 or 8 changes and his side would have come away with a win. Pep Guardiola also would have used an easy home game to give Erling Haaland or Kevin de Bruyne (if fit) a break.

So why then was the narrative that Arteta had dropped Martin Odegaard, rather than given him a rest?

Against Chelsea and Sevilla, Odegaard was poor. He looked tired.

Only Ben White and William Saliba had played more minutes this season for us, and neither get through the workload Odegaard does.

He is not only our creative outlet, but also the man that triggers our high press. It should not be a surprise that at some stages during the season he looks both physically and mentally fatigued.

Gabriel Magalhaes was also given a weekend off, with Jakub Kiwior coming in for the Brazilian. Interesting that the same pal who said “Odegaard dropped” later said “Gabriel has been rested”.

The hope would have been that we destroy Sheffield United, and do not have to bring on either Odegaard to try and win the game, or Gabriel to try and hold on. At 5-0 I would say the rest and rotation tactic worked.

The comfortable win also saw Ben White get a little break, taken off with half an hour left to play. Gabriel Martinelli was also taken off at the same time.

10-minutes after those two subs, Bukayo Saka was taken off. He was followed by Emile Smith Rowe and then Declan Rice.

We finished the game with Raya, Tomiyasu, Saliba, Kiwior, Zinchenko, Elneny, Nelson Havertz, Vieira, Trossard, Nketiah. You could easily argue that just 3 (Raya, Saliba, Zinchenko), were part of our strongest XI. Maybe 4 if you include Kai Havertz.

That is how you want to finish a game after a European away. A nice easy win and hardly any of your first XI on the pitch at the final whistle.

When we signed Kai Havertz, I blogged that he provided Arteta with 6 tactical options. One of those was that it would enable the manager to rest Odegaard, with Havertz playing on the right of the two-8s. That is exactly what happened Saturday.

With West Ham mid-week in the cup, I expect Arteta to play a bit of a 50/50 team and have an eye on Newcastle.

I expect Odegaard’s rest to continue and we will likely see both Saka and Martinelli on the bench. That will mean starts for Havertz, Trossard and Nelson. We will probably also see Emile Smith Rowe and Eddie Nketiah start.

In defence, it will be White and Takehiro Tomiyasu on the flanks and Kiwior at centre back. He will be joined by either William Saliba or Gabriel. Expect either Mohamed Elneny or Jorginho to come in for Declan Rice, with Aaron Ramsdale in goal.

Newcastle and Sevilla will see Arteta returning to the “strongest possible XI”, before he rests a couple at home to Burnley in the league.

Last year we would not have suffered the burn-out had Arteta had the players available to him to rest and rotate during the early season games. Rice, Havertz, Trossard and Jorginho are 4 players we did not have 12 months ago. All 4 give Arteta those options to give players a rest without seeing a huge drop off in quality.

Get used to players being rested, as I expect to see Arteta continue to shuffle the pack. And a player being rested does not mean they are dropped – if we were playing Man City at home on Saturday, Odegaard would have started.

PS: What a hat trick for Eddie.

UTA.

Keenos

MATCH REPORT: Arsenal 5 – 0 Sheffield United

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Arsenal (1) 5 Sheffield United (0) 0

Premier League
Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU
Saturday, 28th October 2023. Kick-off time: 3.00pm

(4-3-3) David Raya, Ben White, William Saliba, Jakob Kiwior, Oleksandr Zinchenko; Emile Smith-Rowe, Declan Rice, Kai Havertz; Bukayo Saka (c), Eddie Nketiah, Gabriel Martinelli.

Substitutes: Aaron Ramsdale, Gabriel Magalhães, Martin Ødegaard, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Leandro Trossard, (Jorge Luiz Frello Filho) Jorginho, Fábio Vieira, Reiss Nelson, Mohamed Elneny

Scorers: Eddie Nketiah (29, 50, 58 mins), Fábio Vieira (88 mins), Takehiro Tomiyasu (90+5 mins)
Arsenal Possession Percentage: 67%

Referee: Tim Robinson
Assistant Referees: Eddie Smart, Nick Greenhalgh
Fourth Official: John Busby
VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Michael Salisbury.; AVAR Nick Hopton

Attendance: 60,153

Mikel Arteta has made four changes in our first home game in the Premiership since beating Manchester City here in North London before the international break. Great to see Emile Smith-Rowe getting a start today, and as he has taken the place of our captain, the armband today is worn by Bukayo Saka.

We started the match completely on the front foot, with the ball almost breaking for Kai Havertz in the penalty area, but a quick-thinking lunge from defender Jack Robinson stopped him from getting an early shot at the goal, which could easily have opened the scoring for us.

The boys are pressurising the visitors, and from a Gabriel Martinelli corner, Jakub Kiwior desperately tried to get to the ball, but it flew way past him, which was a wasted chance.

After a thirty-five yard shot from the visitors courtesy of Gustavo Hamer which went wide of our goal, Bukayo Saka won a free kick in the Blades’ half, which although went nowhere, it was a great chance to open the scoring. The visitors are playing it really tight today, doing everything they can to keep out our strikers, but they surely could not keep this up for ninety minutes. Can they? No they can’t, actually.

After Gabriel Martinelli was receiving some treatment from the medical team after a bad tackle, Declan Rice crossed the ball into the penalty area, and after defender Auston Trusty missed it completely, Eddie Nketiah hit a beautiful right-footed shot from the centre of the Blades’ penalty area into the bottom left-hand corner of the net. Sheffield United came back at us briefly after the restart, but we quickly regrouped, got it together and put more pressure on the visitors’ goal.

Bukayo Saka passed a beautiful ball over to Gabriel Martinelli, whose left-footed shot from the left-hand side of the penalty area was saved by goalie Wes Foderingham as the ball was heading for the the top left hand corner of the net. We are in complete control of the match now, coming up to the half-time break. After a couple of corners in which Wes Foderingham miraculously kept our strikers from scoring the second goal, referee Tim Robinson brought first half matters to a conclusion.

Arsenal started the second half in fine fettle, pressurising the visitors’ goal relentlessly, which resulted in a well-deserved goal just five minutes after the restart, courtesy of a Bukayo Saka corner which found the trusty right foot of Eddie Nketiah, who shot from the left side of the six yard box to the top right-hand corner of the net; it was thought, however, that Ben White was impeding Wes Foderingham but the VAR team cancelled out the visitors’ appeals.

Eight minutes later, we were three goals up when Emile Smith-Rowe perfectly set up a beautiful ball for Eddie Nketiah to crack it into the back of the net from twenty-five yards for his hat-trick and our third goal of the afternoon. Great play, chaps.

We almost grabbed a fourth goal soon afterwards, when Gabriel Martinelli ran down the wing, cut the ball across to Ben White, whose strong shot was saved well by Wes Foderingham.

After sixty-six minutes, Ben White and Gabriel Martinelli were replaced by Takehiro Tomiyasu and Leandro Trossard, just to get some fresh legs on the pitch. Our boys are in complete control of this match now, and it is now starting to look like a training match at London Colney.

With fifteen minutes of the game remaining, Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith-Rowe were replaced by Reiss Nelson and Fabio Vieira to give new legs a run out for the rest of the match.

We had a penalty appeal turned down when Eddie Nketiah took a tumble in the penalty area after a clumsy clash with centre-back Auston Trusty, and with two minutes of the match remaining, Fábio Vieira was hacked down by Oliver Norwood on the very edge of the penalty area, with referee Tim Robinson being asked to go to the pitchside monitor by the VAR team to check. A penalty was given, and Fábio Vieira made no mistake from the penalty spot.

A minute later, Mohamed Elneny replaced Declan Rice, and in the ten minutes of injury time, Takehiro Tomiyasu scored our fifth goal of the day when he hit a beautiful right-footed shot into the back of the net from the centre of the penalty area following a corner, and despite a VAR check again, our Japanese international’s first goal for the club rightly stood.

A couple of minutes later, referee Tim Robinson blew the whistle for the end of the match, much to the relief of our visitors here this afternoon.

All in all, it was a total wipeout for us today here at the Emirates, we were in complete control from the start of the game until the end.

Big congratulations to Eddie Nketiah for his hat-trick (particularly his sensational third goal) this afternoon. Everyone played very well today, with twelve shots on goal, (eight on target); with these impressive statistics, our confidence will be on the up for the Carabao Cup match against West Ham United on Wednesday evening. And, most importantly, we are just two points behind Tottenham Hotspur in the Premiership table tonight. Very well done, chaps.

Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as this season is going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Our next match: West Ham United at the London Stadium on Wednesday, 1st November at 7.30pm (Carabao Cup). Be there, if you can. Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon

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