Author Archives: keenosafc

Arteta’s Arsenal becoming harder to break down

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Under Unai Emery, one of the most concerning statistics coming out of every game was how many attempts we were conceding against opponents.

Whether it was 18 at home to Burnley, 24 against Wolves or 31 against Watford. It was simple too easy for opposing sides to get a shot off against us.

Sides found it very easy to carve through our midfield and defence to see the whites of the keepers eyes. Only Bernd Leno’s brilliance saved us from conceding more in many games this season. Too many shots conceded was a huge part of Emery’s downfall.

In just a handful of games, Mikel Arteta has addressed the situation.

Against Crystal Palace, Arsenal faced just 6 shots. That was our lowest in the Premier League this season and just 1 more than our lowest in all competitions (we conceded just 5 shots against Nottingham Forest in the League Cup).

Whilst it was frustrating to come back from South London with a draw, there was plenty to be optimistic about, especially in the way our players battled for the ball.

Arteta has the team defending from the front.

He has also got Granit Xhaka and Lucas Torreira battling for every ball in the middle again. No longer are we seeing opposing midfielders run away from Arsenal players. They chase them down, win the ball back. Gone is the lazy running and half-hearted covering,

We have also seen Sokratis and David Luiz step up their game at the back. Now moving towards the ball and engaging with the attackers rather than standing off.

The fact is, the less shots you concede, you reduce the chances opponents have of scoring. When you let you opponents have 31 shots at goal, like Arsenal did against Watford, there is always a high chance 1 or 2 will go in.

In the Premier League under Unai Emery, Arsenal were showing relegation form when it came to chances conceded to opponents. In just 4 games Arteta has turned that around and we are now showing top 4 form.

Whilst Arteta wants to be playing free flowing, attacking football, he knew his first job was to come in and fix Arsenal’s leaky defence. Key to that was to reduce how many chances we concede to opponents.

Arteta’s Arsenal concede 40% less shots than Emery’s. A huge improvement.

With 2 clean sheets in the first 5 games under Arteta, Arsenal’s defence is moving in the right direction – Emery’s Arsenal had kept just 5 clean sheets in all competitions; 3 of which were in the cups.

The rest of this season is going to be about rebuilding the structure of the team. Getting us tactically proficient and raising fitness levels. Once Arteta has sorted out that aspect of the game he can then encourage the players to be more extravagant in attack.

Arsenal are becoming harder to score against. There is still some way to go but we are now moving in the right direction.

Keenos

Henry v Aguero – There is only one King of the Premier League

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This weekend Sergio Aguero overtook Thierry Henry as the highest scoring foreign player in English football.

Both are incredible strikers capable of turning a game on their own god given ability alone, capable of scoring all sorts of goals.

There goal scoring record in the league is near identical.

Henry scored his 175 goals in 258 games, Aguero’s 176th came in his 255th game. As goal scorers, it is pointless discussing them as their records are identical.

However when it com4s to evaluating them both as a player, as a striker, Henry is clearly the superior player.

Henry is 11th on the Premier League all time list for assists; Aguero is 47th.

In Thierry Henry, Arsenal had a player who got the goals of Aguero and the assists of Kevin de Bruyne. His 20 assists in the 2002/03 season is still a record.

When it comes to strikers, only Wayne Rooney is on par with Henry when it comes to scoring and creating.

The Englishman has 31 more goals and 239 assists than Henry – but also played 233 more games

Aguero and Henry are both great strikers, but there is only one king.

Keenos

Match Report: Crystal Palace 1 – 1 Arsenal

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Crystal Palace (0) 1 Arsenal (1) 1
Premier League
Selhurst Park Stadium, Selhurst, London SE25
Saturday, 11th January 2020. Kick-off time: 12.30pm
(4-3-1-2) Bernd Leno; Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, David Luiz, Sead Kolašinac; Lucas Torreira, Granit Xhaka, Nicolas Pépé; Mesut Özil; Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette.
Substitutes: Emiliano Martínez; Rob Holding, Joe Willock, Reiss Nelson, Mattéo Guendouzi, Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka.
Scorers: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (12 mins)
Red Cards: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
Yellow Cards: Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Nicolas Pépé, Alexandre Lacazette
Arsenal Possession Percentage: 58%
Referee: Paul Tierney
Attendance: 25,468
After Monday’s disastrous start against Leeds United when Mikel Arteta began with three at the back, it was refreshing to see that he learned from his understandable error and reverted to the tried and trusted four man defence; all of which bore fruit in a satisfying first half that led the way as early as the twelfth minute with a well-executed goal from quick’n’slick Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Like all good things in our world recently, after receiving a clever pass from none other than David Luiz, ace midfielder Mesut Özil had an other worldly vision in which he slipped the ball through to Alexandre Lacazette, who, in the blink of an eye, placed it into the path of our number one bandit, who wasted no time in opening the scoring. Afterwards, domination was ours, and the match could have been there for the taking, as simple and cut and dried as that. We consistently and constantly applied pressure to The Eagles’ goal; although we were unable to score another one, we were clever and commanding in all areas of the pitch. In fact, the home side only threatened us on one notable occasion, which was when Cheikhou Kouyaté came close to equalising the scores; otherwise we quite rightly went into the hiatus feeling that the second half would bring us more opportunities to add on to our early lead.

Well, you know what the half time break can do to teams, don’t you? Firstly, young Mattéo Guendouzi replaced colleague Lucas Torreira, who never appeared again after the break, due to a painful collision with Nicolas Pépé at the end of the first half, and secondly, because of this injury, our natural midfield rhythm was disturbed, thus allowing Crystal Palace to make their mark on the match. We started to fall asleep at different times, which became disturbing to witness. Just nine minutes into the second half, we were punished badly for our lack of concentration. After giving away a pointless free-kick, Max Meyer crossed the ball from the right, Cheikhou Kouyaté stuck out a hopeful leg which merely pushed the ball to Jason Ayew; his left-foot gauche effort ricocheted off David Luiz and in a kind of bizarre slow motion (yet in real time, you understand) agonisingly went past Bernd Leno and into the net for the equaliser. All manner of disasters now unfolded, in which petulance and downright niggling behaviour from both teams became the order of the day from now on. With twenty-five minutes left on the clock, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang completely lost his captain’s composure and launched into Max Meyer with a bone-crunching tackle that saw him sent off for his trouble (after the regulatory post-mortem VAR investigation, that is), an act that overturned his earlier yellow card incident. With a man down, Crystal Palace smelled blood from a wounded animal and so spent the rest of the match overtrying to score, but thankfully, to no avail; in fact, it was us that nearly grabbed the winner towards the end of the game with a superb strike from Nicolas Pépé that struck the post, only to fall back into goalkeeper Vincente Guaita’s arms. Thankfully, referee Paul Tierney drew proceedings to a close a little while later, and we came away from Selhurst Park with a point after a well-earned draw.

Despite the disappointing result, there were some good things out there in SE25. Ainsley Maitland-Niles superbly kept Wilfried Zaha at bay for most of the match, and Granit Xhaka certainly earned his money out there today, marshalling the midfield into a coherent unit. David Luiz and Nicolas Pépé played very well, but sadly Mesut Özil appeared to allow the match drift away from him, hence his substitution in favour of the excellent Gabriel Martinelli after seventy minutes. We are still deep in WIP (work in progress), and surely nobody is in any illusion that it will be a while for Mikel Arteta to stamp his marque on the team; he will, but patience is now the otder of the day, as mighty oaks from small acorns do indeed grow. 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: Sheffield United at The Emirates on Saturday 18th January at 3.00pm (Premier League). 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.