Category Archives: Arsenal

5 things learned from Man U defeat

4 Replies

Eric Ten Hag wanted to make a point

As we blogged yesterday, Manchester United treated the game as a competitive fixture, whilst Arsenal played it as a friendly.

Man U were aggressive and direct, and Ten Hag was certainly not “trying anything new”. The way Man U played against Arsenal will be how they play for the whole of next season.

One comment on the She Wore Facebook page summed it up: It was obvious Arteta had said “this is a friendly. Take no risks, etc.” Ten Hag had said “we need to make a point here”.

And I think that is a fairly accurate assessment.

Ten Hag would have been happy with his teams gritty, determined, aggressive win, but neither he or his players would have learnt much. Arteta and the players would have learned plenty. And you do not get any points for a pre-season friendly…

Havertz hate

Two games in, plus the mess around charity thing, and the hate from so called Arsenal fans towards Kai Havertz is also showing. I really do not know why.

Those that are hating on Havertz are clearly not Arsenal fans. They have an agenda to push. And that agenda is by throwing hate to towards Arsenal players for attention.

They are the same fans that hated on Granit Xhaka, that hate on Edu and Mikel Arteta. The same people that wanted PierreiEmerick Aubameyang to “bag goals for fun” for Chelsea so that it would support their anti-Arteta agenda.

I saw a quotes from one YouTuber from 12 months ago saying “people are hoping he [Auba] flops like they hope Chelsea do and also hope Arteta comes good”.

Auba scored 1 goal in 15 Premier League games, Chelsea finished 12 and Arteta’s Arsenal finished 2nd. He could not have been much more wrong. And that is why those sort of fans opinions are so easy to ignore.

They do not think Havertz is a bad player. They just want him to be a bad player for Arsenal.

Had Arsenal missed out on Havertz and he joined Manhcester United, they would be complaining that “Edu can not land top players”. Changing the narrative to suit their agenda.

Imagine if these fans were about when Dennis Bergkamp joined Arsenal, or Thierry Henry, or Robert Pires. All of these had very slow starts to their Arsenal careers, and yet each one became an Arsenal legend.

The fans hating on Havertz have also begun hating on Rice. It is just really odd behaviour to carry around so much negativity at all times throughout your life.

New boys will take time to settle

It is not exactly a genius view point saying that new signings will take a while to settle. Almost every player needs to adapt when they join a new club. And that is why I do not really get the over-the-top reaction to performances by Declan Rice, Kai Havertz or Jurrien Timber. And price-tag really does not matter.

Rice is going to have to get used to playing for a team that dominates posession, rather than a team that looks to defend first whilst battling relegation. He will be spending more time looking for forward passes, than the sideways and backwards football David Moyes plated.

He is also going to have to adjust from being the superstar of the team, the man that drives his side forward, to being a cog in Arteta’s midfield.

He is playing a similar role for Arsenal as he does for England, where he sacrifices his attacking game to allow others to flourish, so he has the game to do it.

Meanwhile, Havertz is having to re-learn his position.

He was signed from Leverkusen by Chelsea as an attacking midfielder. Various managers then shunted him around from position to position. His versatility counting against him.

Once he has got consistent game time in the left sides central position, you will see a superstar.

As for Timber, the Premier League is a huge step up from the Dutch league. Hoewever the signs are there already that he is a class player.

Guardiola has been known for slowly integrating new signigns into his team. It takes them a while to learn how he wants them to play. We are going to go down a similar path.

You will not see Havertz or Timber week in week out whilst they settle into the new way of playing. And those of you talking about fees, jus tlook how little Jack Grealish played for Manchester City in his first season…

The importance of Thomas Partey

When we signed Havertz, I called that he would end up playing as an attacking left sides 8. In pre-season thus far Arteta has utilised him there.

I also added the caveat that between Havertz and Rice, Arteta now has an option to go attacking or defensive in his midfield make-up.

When we play lesser teams in the Premier League, expect us to go with the midfield of Havertz, Rice and Odegaard.

Rice will control the game from deep as we dominate in posession, whilst Havertz will allow us to overload the box.

We have not seen much of Gabriel Jesus in pre-season, but hit movement is so important to how we want to line up.

As Jesus drops left to create an overload with Gabriel Martinelli, or right to join Bukayo Saka, it will be Havertz that will push forward from the midfield position.

Then when we play tougher games, I expect Havertz to drop to the bench, Rice to push further foward and Thomas Partey to come in.

Against Manchester United, we went for the more attacking midfield of Rice, Havertz and Odegaard. It is pre-season which is when new things get put into practice. But I am sure that when we face Man U in September, it will be Partey, Rice and Odegaard. That will give us a bit more defensive stability and control over the game.

That does not mean Havertz is to be dropped. I expect him to start the first 3 games of the season. It just gives us a bit more tactical fluidity.

You often see Mancester City change things up depending on the opponent.

Pep Guardiola would go with Kevin de Bruyne, Jack Grealish, Bernardo Silva and Riyad Mahrez against weaker teams. Then in tough games, Ilkay Gundogan would come in providing them more defensive awareness and control.

It will be so important next season for Arteta to have the option of Partey and Rice to go more defensive where required.

Chelsea and West Ham fans more invested in Arsenal than their own teams

It was interesting following social media as the game went on. It seemed like opposing fans were more invested our performance than we were.

Arsenal’s tweet replies were filled with West Ham and Chelsea fans (and some odd Aston Villa fans that are still trying to create that rivalry) mocking us for losing a friendly.

West Ham fans who spent a month telling us Rice was the best defensive midfielder in the world and how we should pay £120m or shut up, now saying they had our pants down over him, we overpaid, he was not that good and carried by Tomas Soucek. The same Tomas Soucek who their fans slated throughout last season for not being good enough.

Chelsea were also celebrating Arsenal’s struggles, pointing out that Havertz was a poor player, whilst ignoring that he has been their best player over the last couple of years.

On the Chelsea fans, had we won 2-0, they would have been all over Man U’s tweets making the same comments about Mason Mount.

The game was 10pm on a Saturday. Why were they spending their time indoors, watching a friendly on a dodgy stream that was not their side, whilst posting on social media? What sad little lives they must live! Get out on a Saturday, get down the pub, out for a meal with the misses. But of course, we know that they probably don’t have mates, don’t have a misses.

Arsenal have a similar fanbase as mentioned above. Odd incel fans that need to get out more.

The Chelsea and West Ham incel fanbases are going to be heavily invested into Arsenal this season. They will probably get more delight over us losing a pre-season friendly than they do their team winning an actual game.

Note: I understand social media tends to breed these wierdos and, like with Arsenal, the match going fans are very different. Those that go to Stamford Bridge or the London Stadium and do not live their lives on Twitter have already moved on from Rice and Havertz.

Keenos

Arsenal off the pace against an aggressive Man U

6 Replies

One team treated the game as a pre-season run out, the other team treated it like a proper competitive game.

Manchester United looked sharper, and were certainly more aggressive as they ran out 2-nil winners.

Whilst Arsenal used the game to put patterns they had learnt on the training ground into practise, Manchester United were much more direct.

The core of this Arsenal squad knows what Mikel Arteta wants as a Plan A. This pre-season has been about creating new patterns of play that will benefit us in the long term.

Yesterday we saw Jurrien Timber come in as an inverted right back. This will give us a different option to Oleksander Zinchenko playing in the same role on the left hand side.

We also saw Kai Havertz play as a more progressive 8 than Granit Xhaka did. The German made some good runs into the box and will be an attacking threat next season.

The easy option for Arteta would have have been to play the exact same way as last season, not try and develop our play and run out winners. But that is not what pre-season was for.

Meanwhile, Eric Ten Haag clearly valued getting the win over trying to get his side playing a fluent attacking style. They were all sit deep, long ball, and aggressive in tackles.

What probably sums up the different approach to the game both sides took was the challenges. Man U put in a few naughty ones that you do not really expect in a pre-season game.

As expected, the fallout on social media was “crisis”, although it seems much of the criticism came from Chelsea and West Ham fans. Both piling onto Arsenal tweets. Sums up their lives that they spent their Saturday evening watching us in pre-season.

With any friendly, how serious you take them as a fan depends on your agenda. If you just want to moan and criticise, you will act like a defeat is the worst thing ever.

A valid point to make is that our good season last year was set up by our very positive pre-season games. Victories against Everton, Chelsea, Sevilla, amongst others. And we took the good season into the start of the Premier League.

But you could make a case that we started last season too good, and that is why we ran out of steam at the business end.

Any distance athlete will tell you that they aim for negative splits. Go out at 80% to ensure you have plenty left towards the end of the race.

We were playing at 100% from day one set season. Manchester City were at 80% up until Christmas. They were able to keep a little back whilst keeping on Arsenal’s coattails.

As the season progressed, they cranked up to 100%, whilst Arsenal tailed off to 80%. They won the league, we finished 2nd.

Maybe Mikel Arteta has learned from that and, looking at the fixtures list, will be looking to start the season in and around 80%, building to 100% effort as the season progresses.

The final analysis by Adrian Clarke was spot on. Manchester United players and management treated this like a proper game.

At the end of the day, the most important thing is who wins when the two teams face each other in September.

Keenos

Having spent £580m, would not winning the league be failure for Mikel Arteta?

2 Replies

The goal posts have been moved again.

It used to be “I do not expect Arsenal to win trophies, I just expect us to compete for them.

Now the line seems to be “Arteta has spend £400m, if he does not need win the league than he is a failure”.

To prove their point, they produce infographics which show that since his first summer transfer window (2020) and prior to this window, Arteta has spent £380million, whilst Pep Guardiola has spent £280m.

Kai Havertz, Declan Rice and Jurrien Timber will take his spending to £580m.

Of course, anyone with half a brain will realise Arteta has spent big rebuilding an entire squad, whilst all Guardiola has done is make changes here and there to a squad that won the league title in the two seasons prior to the on Arteta joined us in.

Of Mikel Arteta’s first 18 man squad (a 1-1 draw against Bournemouth in December 2019), Bukayo Saka, Granit Xhaka, Reiss Nelson and Emile Smith Rowe are the only players still with us. You would not be surprised if 50% of those leave us this summer.

Two days later, Manchester City beat Leicester City 3-1. 9 of the 18 are still with Manchester City.

In that period, Manchester City’s squad retention has been 125% more than ours, yet our purchases have only been 35% more.

That shows that whilst Arsenal have spent more, Manchester City have averaged more per player. We have rebuilt a squad whilst City have made tweaks.

And whilst Arteta had spent around £100m more than Pep in their respective transfer windows up until this one, Manchester City’s 2022/23 squad cost them more than 80% more:

The above highlights shows just how far behind others were are in terms of squad investment.

The £200m we look set to spend this summer would only see us leapfrog Liverpool in the table. And the gap between us an City is basically the equivalent of us repeating this window again next summer, and Manchester City not signing (or selling) any players over the next 3 windows. We all know that will not happen.

Imagine a world where we sign Victor Osimhen for £100m (based on his Transfrmarkt value), Josko Gvardiol (who will probably join City this summer) for £65m and Romeo Lavia for £30m.

We do not sell Gabriel, to make space for Gvardiol, or Gabriel Jesus to make space for Osimhen. And Lavia comes in as cover for Declan Rice with Thomas Partey staying at the club.

That is the sort of dealings we would need to do to close that gap on City. And again, they would have to sign no-one.

At that point, then yes, I would say not winning the league would be seen as a failure by Arteta. But not now whilst the gapis is still big.

“Arsenal have outspent 99% of the league” is another thing that I have seen.

Firstly, it is no surprise that these people have stupid opinions because the clearly failed at school.

99% of 20 is 19.8 teams. Which obviously makes no sense. It reminds me of when City were winning 5-0 and were signing “who put the ball in the Cockney’s net, half of Manchester City”. Ignoring that half of 11 is 5.5 (which is what we sang back!).

If you also take into account that you can not outspend yourself, to outspend everyone else in the league would be 19 teams. And that needs even more maths (you’d have outspent 18.81 of the 19 teams). But I will keep it simple for you and stick with the “5% per team”.

The truth is that 5 times have spent more than us on their squad – prior to this season. 15 have spent less. That means we have only actually outspent 75% of the league.

And even if the argument is that we have outspent 95%. The 5% we would not have outspent is Manchester City. And they are the only team that finished above us last season.

If we finish 2nd, or even 3rd, behind Manchester City (and lets say Liverpool), it should not be seen as a failure.

If you hold yourself to the level that “anything other than 1st is failure” then you are going to spend a lot of your life disappointed.

We have won 13 league out of 124 English top flight titles since we were founded in 1886. That would then be 111 years of failure.

Why would you invest your life in something you deem is a failure 90% of the time? You would not follow a boxer who loses 90% of his fights…

Because of course, football is not just about trophies. And not winning the league, or a trophy, does not mean failure. People only push the line of “if he does not win the league he is a failure” line to push an agenda.

I am delighted that the club, and Stan Kroenke, are finally backing a manager. Investing heavily in the squad. Interestingly, we are following a similar path of KSE’s American franchises.

Exciting young coach, big outlay on bright, younger talent. And that philosphy has bought the group a lot of success the other side of the pond.

So this season for Arsenal? We need to be competing withfor the league again. But I am not going to begin calling for the managers head if we finish behind Manchester City (who could so easily win another treble or have another 95+ points season).

As many others say, ensure you enjoy the journey…

Keenos