Category Archives: Arsenal

Arsenal squad review – 2022/23

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With the transfer window padlocked up until Christmas, it is time for a little review of the Arsenal squad.

Now I have seen some on social media claim that “Arsenal have a paper thin squad” after missing out on Douglas Luiz and deciding not to pursue Youri Tielemans.

I must point at that these fans are mainly the Arsenal-incels that I have describe previously.

They spent Friday posting up picture of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. They hate that William Saliba is still at Arsenal. They spend more time supporting Matteo Guendouzi (and Nuno Tavares) in Marseille than they do Arsenal.

Despite us being top with a 100% record, they have moaned about Ben White, about Martin Odergaard, and lately about Bukayo Saka.

Largely, their viewpoint can be ignored because they take a position to be negative no matter what the situation is. It is all about hits, clicks, RTs and attention.

It gets to a point where you have to feel sorry for them.

Their “online negative persona” will transfer into real life and they will end up very unhappy people.

But how does Arsenal’s squad actually look?

Goalkeepers (3)

Aaron Ramsdale
Matt Turner
Karl Hein

It feels like we have returned back to the “old school” method of squad building with our goalkeeper.

Rather than trying to accomodate two international keepers – utilising one in the Premier League and one in Europe – we have a clear first and second choice.

I expect Ramsdale to play every Premier League & FA Cup game. Turner will come in for the League Cup and might get the group stages of the Europa League. But expect Ramsdale to come in as cup games become more important – no more playing the 2nd choice keeper in a final.

Hein ticks the boxes of not requiring registration which would free up spots elsewhere (if required).

Summary: Turner might be a drop off from Leno, but I would be surprised if he plays 10 games this season. More than happy.

Defenders (8)

Takehiro Tomiyasu
Cedric Soares
Ben White
Gabriel
William Saliba
Rob Holding
Kieran Tierney
Oleksandr Zinchenko

Jose Mourinho always spoke about having two quality players for every position.

Now we are not Manchester City so can not afford to have £50million centre backs sitting on the bench.

At right back, we have 3 solid options in Tomiyasu, Soares and White.

Some might question why Soares is still with the club (the same people who moan that the squad is too thin!) but it is due to the potential of Brooke Norton-Cuffy.

Excpect BNC tp prove himself in the Championship as being as good – if not better – than Djed Spence last season. No point spending big money on right back cover when you have a potential £20million teenager out on loan getting experience.

Centre back excites me.

Whilst some were arguing over who starts between White, Gabrial and Saliba, I was just delighted that we have 3 top class central defenders.

Yo udo not see Manchester City fans arguing over Laporte, Stones, Dias and Ake. Or Liverpool fans with VvD, Ibrahima Konaté and Joel Matip.

With 50+ games to play, we need 3 quality defenders. We now have that. And in Rob Holding we have a 4th solid option who should allow us to rest 2 in the Europa League.

Left back we have improved dramatically with Olexsandr Zinchenko coming in for Nuno Tavares. Real competitionm for places there.

Summary: Arguably the best defensive options since the invincibles.

Midfield (6)

Thomas Partey
Mohamed Elneny
Granit Xhaka
Albert Sambi Lokonga
Martin Odergaard
Fabio Vieira

Like in defence, we have 2 players for every midfield spot.

The elephant in the room is that Partey and Elneny are both out injured. Should we have addressed this in the summer?

This is where I take a leaf out of Jurgen Klopp’s book – you should only be buying players to cover an injury if they were a player you wanted prior to their injury. You should not be bringing in a player on a 5-year deal to cover a player out injured for 6 weeks.

At the moment – with the pair out injured – we do look a little short. However, Lokonga played well as the deepest midfielder against Fulham and we also have the option of Zinchenko there (if he is not required at left back).

Moving forward, it made little sense to sign Youri Tielemans this summer whilst Xhaka is at the club – we blogged on this a few times.

Xhaka has shown himself to be undroppable, and is covered by Lokonga, Zinchenko and Vieira.

On the other side, we have signed some class creativity to cover Odergaard.

One of our issues last season is we did not have adequete cover for our star players (Odergaard and Saka) which led them to be over played.

Signing Vieira has resolved this for Odergaard.

Summary: It might feel like now, but Partey will only be out for 3-4 weeks and we have plenty of cover for him. With Elneny longer term out, we could have covered him in the summer window but were right not to over pay. Expect someone to join in January.

Forwards (6)

Gabriel Jesus
Eddie Nketiah
Bukayo Saka
Marquinhos
Gabriel Martinelli
Emile Smith Rowe

If we are short anywhere, it is in the worward line.

Martinelli, Jesus and Saka is top class, but the drop off to ESR, Nketiah and Marquinhos is too large.

Arteta expects his front line to work hard – pressing, harassing and closing down. But over the course of the season this will take its toll and if workload is not managed properly will lead to their explosiveness diminishing.

What we needed was another top class winger to give us 3 options outwide (like we have at centre back) so we could rest and rotate Saka and Martinelli.

I am also unsure if Nketiah is the top class cover for Jesus – although we have seen with the likes of Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham in recent years that “2nd choice striker” is not an easy position to recruit for. And can be expensive.

What we needed was that 3rd top class winger which would have allowed Martinelli to be an option through the middle.

ESR had a great season last year and needs to back it up, whilst no one really knows anything about Marquinhos. I would be surprised if he would be ready to replace Saka in case of long term injury – but I have been wrong before.

Fabio Vieira is an option outwide, but it gets too a point where we have too many players covering too many positions.

Summary: We are one short out wide.

Overall Summary

We have a 23 man “senior squad” – Two players for every position and a 3rd choice keeper.

Due to the ages of some of the players, we will only have 18 registered in the A list for the Premier League; so there was plenty of space to rectuit had we wanted too.

How does a 23 man senior squad compare with our Big 6 rivals?

Liverpool – 27
Manchester United – 27
Tottenham – 26
Chelsea – 25
Arsenal – 23
Manchester City – 23

Alongside Manchester City, we do have the smallest squad of the top 6. But these figures can be missleading.

Manchester United’s 27 man squad includes the likes of Phil Jones, Brandon Williams and Axel Tuanzebe. they are only still with the club because no-one else wanted them – even on loan.

Whilst Tottenham’s squad is boosted by Bryan Gill (who they tried to get rid of on deadline day) and Harvey White (who?). They also have 3 right backs (Matt Doherty, Emerson Royal, Djed Spence).

Chelsea had a 23 man squad going into deadline day and secured Denis Zakaria and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang late Thursday evening.

The reality is, Liverpool aside, every club has a core group of around 18 senior outfield players that they will rely upon throughout the season. The rest of their squads are players they do not really want – but could not sell.

For the first time in a long time we have a squad where everyone is wanted. Everyone will get game time. We are not carrying everyone.

Yes, I think we needed a winger. And we could have signed another central midfielder. But if the primary targets were not available (especially in midfield) then we are better waiting for January to get them than spending big on temporary cover.

Will our squad be good enough to challenge for the title? Manchester City look imperious.

Will it be enough to be Top 3? I think so.

Now it just depends whether those incels move their goalposts to continue moaning…

Keenos

Arsenal need to learn lessons from this summers transfer window

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And that concludes the 20th English summer transfer window.

Sometimes I think back to the 90s when “transfer deadline day” was sometime in March.

The transfer window reveloutionised the game – and is one of the changes in the modern game that I agree with.

Personally I would go further and have the transfer window shut on the eve of the first day of the season (this was trialled a couple of years ago). I would also not have a January transfer window.

You name your squad before the season starts and that is your lot for the season.

This year Mikel Arteta spoke about Arsenal being able to work under a different strategy from previous seasons.

Instead of having to sell to buy (to free up squad place rather than because we needed money), Edu and his team were able to recruit the players they needed without the fear of having too large of a squad.

Edu’s team have worked hard in the last 18 months to cut the squad down and the reward was that this summer we could get our business done early.

And this season more than any, those clubs who got their business done early have been rewarded.

Most people are saying that Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham have done the best business this summer. All 3 clubs got the bulk of their business done in June and July.

We secured Fabio Vieira, Marquinhos, Matt Turner, Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko all before the end of July. £115million spent.

At the time, £45m for Jesus and £30m for Zinchenko and Vieira did feel huge. But what has gone on since in the Premier League has been crazy!

When you look at what Manchester United spent on Antony, Casemiro and Lisandro Martínez (over £200m combined) and Chelsea on Wesley Fofana, Marc Cucurella and Raheem Sterling (£180m+) and others on the likes of Darwin Nunez, Alexander Isak and Richarlison, you can really see how good Arsenal’s (early) business was.

Jesus is clearly the best attacker our of Antony, Sterling, Nunez, Isak and Richarlison. Whilst the likes of Martinez, Fofana and Cucurella would not get in the Arsenal team ahead of the returning William Saliba and new signing Zinchenko.

For the first time in a long time, it has felt like we were being pro-active rather than reactive. We could do this due to not having a squad filled with deadwood.

We had a plan of what players we wanted to sign and went out and got them.

When players (Martinez, Raphinha) prices rose above what we were willing to pay, we stepped away and targeted others.

Whilst some Arsenal fans might have woken this morning with a tinge of disappointment that we did not sign Douglas Luiz, there is no need to go OTT.

Us targetting a defensive midfielder this window was only due to theinjuries of Thomas Partey and Mohamed Elneny. It is not something we planned for.

And it ended up not being too dissimilar with what happened with Dusan Vlahovic in January.

In January the possibility of a deal rose with Vlahovic and we decided to go for it. After the deal fell through we made the decision to not sign a striker.

We did not go out and panic-buy Dominic Calvert-Lewin or Isak. We knew Jesus was coming free for the summer and kept our powder dry.

Yes, it might have cost us top 4, but DCL or Isak did not exactly have good seasons so who knows what impact they would have made.

And that is the stance we have made in midfield.

In the closing days of the window, Douglas Luiz sort of became available. He was a long term target of the club so we tried our luck. But as he was not a key target we did not want to break the bank securing him

On deadline day a couple of bids were rejected so we walked away.

In January we will re-explore our options – I am thinking either Danilo from Palmieras or back in for Douglas Luiz who will probably be even cheaper.

We still need to work on selling players – just over £20million in fees received despite Guendouzi, Torreira, Leno, Mavropanos, Lacazette, Pepe, Tavares, Mari, Maitland-Niles and Bellerin all at new clubs. But this will come as we now have more control over the wage structure.

Hopefully we have learned how important it is to get deals done early, and this summer is replicated moving forward!

All in all, a fantastic transfer window.

Enjoy your Friday.

Keenos

MATCH REPORT: Arsenal 2 – 1 Aston Villa

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Arsenal (1) 2 Aston Villa (0) 1

Premier League

Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU

Wednesday, 31st August 2022. Kick-off time: 7.30pm

(4-2-3-1) Aaron Ramsdale; Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, Kieran Tierney; Granit Xhaka, Albert Sambi Lokonga; Bukayo Saka, Martin Ødegaard (c), Gabriel Martinelli; Gabriel Jesus.

Substitutes: Emile Smith-Rowe, Eddie Nketiah, Rob Holding, Cédric Soares, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Fabio Vieira, (Marcus Vinicius Oliveira Alencar) Marquinhos, Matt Turner, Matt Smith.

Scorers: Gabriel Jesus (30 mins), Gabriel Martinelli (77 mins)

Yellow Cards: William Saliba

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 60%

Referee: Rob Jones

Assistant Referees: Lee Betts, Ian Hussin

Fourth Official: Craig Pawson

VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Darren England; AVAR James Mainwaring

Attendance: 60,012

Although the record books clearly state that we have won eight of our last eleven Premier League matches against tonight’s opponents, past glories count for nothing in this pressure cooker of a league. However, we can expect a good match, jam-packed with incidents and accidents, along with a well-organised opposition, which reflects the personality of their much decorated manager, Steven Gerrard, formerly of Liverpool (as a player) and Glasgow Rangers (as a manager). Should be an interesting ninety minutes tonight!

The Villains kicked off proceedings, and although both teams looked a tad nervous in the opening stages, it was Arsenal who got themselves together to work out a way to break through the visitors’ defence. We were exploiting their defensive frailties in the wide areas of the pitch, mainly because their 4-3-3 system is far too narrow to cause us any real issues (so far). We had a penalty shout denied by Rob Jones when Tyrone Mings hurled Bakayo Saka to the ground after seven minutes, only to be followed by Ben White, who clashed with John McGinn. A little while later, Gabriel Jesus was desperately unlucky not to score, when he had three chances in as many minutes to place the ball in the back of the net, but sadly his efforts were denied by a panicky Villa defence. Jacob Ramsey became the first player tonight to end up receiving a yellow card, when his poor tackle poleaxed Gabriel Martinelli, who was unlucky not to escape with a serious injury. Absolute pandemonium happened in the visitor’s six-yard box, when two excellent Martin Ødegaard efforts was somehow cleared by the Villa defence, and with a quarter of the match gone, Arsenal were by far the dominant side. And still the chances keep coming; Gabriel Martinelli ran to the by-line and crossed the ball for Bukayo Saka to run in on and score, but his first touch sent the ball over the bar and into the crowd, denying himself a perfect opportunity to open the scoring in front of an open goal. On the half hour, we took the lead when Granit Xhaka’s shot took a slight deflection at the near post and Villa goalie Emiliano Martinez fumbled the ball, caught by the small change in direction, and Gabriel Jesus’ left-footed shot from the left side of the six-yard box ended up in the back of the net; a real poacher’s goal. We certainly didn’t rest on out laurels, as our strikers endlessly went on the hunt for more goals, and as we were doing so, the visitors merely capitulated and found it increasingly difficult to hold our players back. Just before the break, our players were simply lining up to shoot, and how the ball didn’t end up in the back of the Villa net, nobody knows, but in the two minutes injury time, our resolve to score never wavered at all, and when Gabriel Martinelli hit a twenty-five yard shot on the volley, we all thought that our second goal had been scored, but we went into half-time a goal ahead. It should have been more!

A much anticipated second half kicked off in style with us oozing confidence, with the boys stroking the ball around with style and panache. William Saliba was booked for a silly tackle, and although it was looking like Villa were waking up, our defenders were not threatened very much at all. Nine minutes after the restart, a Martin Ødegaard left-footed free-kick brought out an acrobatic save from Emiliano Martinez, who was involved in a bizarre head-locking incident with Gabriel Jesus in which the Villa goalkeeper should have been booked (at least), but somehow got away with it, so to speak. We were not allowing the visitors to get into the match at all, and although they have been marginally better in the second half, their threat level was almost non-existent. Ben White was substituted for Takehiro Tomiyasu after sixty-three minutes to reinvigorate the defence, and a few minutes later, John McGinn received a yellow card for a terrible tackle on our captain, which saw him go to ground in a heart-stopping few minutes. In the wake of the free-kick, Gabriel Martinelli’s right-footed shot from outside the box was blocked, and the visitors broke out with the resulting shot being tipped over the bar by Aaron Ramsdale, fortunately. Out of nowhere, a corner by the visitors saw Douglas Luiz level the scores controversially, as it was felt that he impeded Aaron Ramsdale; referee Rob Jones consulted the pitchside monitor on the advice of VAR, and it was unbelievably given. Not to worry, though, as a minute later, we retook the lead when Bukayo Saka crossed the ball over to Gabriel Martinelli, whose left-footed shot from the left side of the six-yard box went past Emiliano Martinez, who palmed it into the high centre of the goal. Incredible comeback! Emile Smith-Rowe replaced an injured Martin Ødegaard with ten minutes of the game remaining, and then Aaron Ramsdale went to ground holding his leg, which was not a good sign. Thankfully, he got up and carried on, and as Steven Gerrard started to put more and more substitutes on, it was looking like the last few minutes of the match would be a bit frenetic. With four minutes of the game remaining, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Jesus was replaced by Rob Holding and Eddie Nketiah, to bring some fresh legs into the proceedings. The game started to be an end-to-end affair now, with the feeling in the stadium that anything could happen at any time. The announcer told everyone (to a universal groan) that there would be five minutes’ injury time to be played; both teams showed urgency in trying to score, none more than Eddie Nketiah, who ran sixty yards, and was unlucky not to score as his shot went narrowly over the bar, but it made no difference, as just seconds later, Rob Jones blew the whistle and we collected another three points.

Five wins in five matches, for the first time since 1997, what a great start for the boys! Mind you, they have to learn to be more ruthless and finish teams off and neutralise their opponents quickly; tonight we showed character and fortitude in despatching the Villains, but we may not be so lucky against other teams. Still, every man tonight played their part, from defence to attack, and it’s good to see the chaps playing for each other, and it’s also great to see an Arsenal team playing with belief again. Sunday’s match at Old Trafford will be an interesting one, and if they show the same attitude there as they did tonight, then we have nothing to fear at all. Well done lads!

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: Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday, 4th September at 4.30pm (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