Tactical tweak needed if Saliba and Zinchenko absent again

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Against West Ham, Mikel Arteta stuck with the tactics that saw him lead his team to top of the table.

At 2-0 up, no one would have had complaints over how we lined up. And had Bukayo Saka not gave Arsenal a sliding doors moment, I probably would not be writing the blog.

But against Southampton, Arteta should make some tactical tweaks if William Saliba and Olexsandr Zinchenko are still missing.

Arsenal a certainly a team that is greater than the some of its parts, and that is primarily down to the way Arteta sets them up. But with Rob Holding and Kieran Tierney, the change in personal has an affect with how we play.

Zinchenko famously plays as an inverted full back, tucking inside and joining the midfield to create an overload.

In doing so, Gabriel’s starting position is a little more over to the left side than a normal left sided central defender would be. This gives him a better starting position when we lose the ball and need to quickly transition from defence into attack.

Gabriel is able to play a little less centrally because to his right he has William Saliba.

The Frenchman has the pace, power and one on one ability to man mark any striker.

With most teams playing one up top these days, it often leaves Saliba man marking their front man, with Gabriel covering Zinchenko. Against West Ham, Gabriel was unable to play that little bit wider.

Holding’s lack of pace means it is dangerous to leave him one on one with an attacker, so Gabriel has to take a few steps right to cover his teammate.

Michail Antonio pinned himself to Holding and, having got the better of the Englishman west in, Gabriel had to move his starting position right a few yards to help out.

With Tierney trying to replicate Zinchenko, that left far too much space on our left hand side, space that West Ham then flooded.

The lunge by Gabriel on Lucas Paqueta was due to Gabriel being a little too far over to his right, trying to cover Holding. That left him out of position and having to make a last ditch challenge.

Had Saliba been playing, I am certain Gabriel’s position would have been more over to the left, and in turn he would have been closer to Paqueta, and not needing to make the lunge.

Arsenal can not afford to have Gabriel pushing wide left when Holding plays.

Tierney is also no Holding. He does not have what it takes to play that little bit more inside.

The Scotsman is at his best bombing down the wing, putting in dangerous crosses. He simply does not have the technique or speed of thought to replicate Zinchenko. No one does.

So against Southampton, we should probably line up how we should’ve done against West Ham. If Saliba and Zinchenko are out.

You can not expect Gabriel to cover Holding to the right of him and Tierney to the left at the same time.

Play a traditional back four instead of the hybrid one. Have Tierney as a traditional left back, getting chalk on his boots.

Tierney’s presence a bit deeper and wider will then allow Gabriel to play more centrally, covering Holding.

It might only be a small change but it should help cut out the space on our left hand side, and free up Gabriel to assist Holding. A little bit more defensive, with a tighter back four will make us more secure.

I would not make any more drastic changes other than this tweak. A draw away to West Ham doesn’t make a table topping team poor overnight. There is a reason we are leading the way.

Win tonight and we are 7 points clear of Man City going into the trip to the Eithad. But the focus needs to be on tonight.

UTA

Keenos

Manchester City having to show record breaking form to keep up with Arsenal

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“Arsenal have bottled the title”
“Going to finish 2nd in a one horse race”

After being top for so long (and we still are top), it had to be expected that some noise would come from opposing fans after we lost two 2-nil leads in a row to draw 2-2.

But this “Arsenal bottled the title” and “going to finish 2nd in a one horse race” really is a myth. A falacy.

Yes, we had an 8 point lead at one point, but that was only after 18 games.

Later on in the season, we once again had an 8 point lead. And that league table is being used to highlight our downfall. But little is mentioned of Man City having a game in hand at that point, and us having to travel to the Etihad.

At no point were we romping away with the title. At not point were we lengths ahead. It was always just one body length. And now it is a head.

This has always been a close title race.

We held a real 5 point league from 24 to 29 games. That has now been whittled down to a 3 point lead after 30 games. Anyone who actually lives and breaths football rather than sits behind a laptop and builds their opinion for clicks will now a 3 point lead after 30 games is not huge. And neither is a 5 point lead with 9 games to go.

In our last 9 games, we have won 7, drew 2. That is an average of 2.55 points per game. Enough to reach 97 over a 38 game period. This is not the sign of a side stumbling in the title race.

In Manchester City’s last 9 games, Manchester City have won 8 and drew 1. 2.77PPG. That would have them on course for 105 points. 105 points would break the Premier League record by 6 points.

So Manchester City are showing record breaking form, whilst Arsenal’s last 9 game form would have seen us get more points than all but 3 previous Premier League champions.

I remember before the World Cup, fans up and down the country were saying “Arsenal will collapse after the World Cup”. But we did not.

Since the World Cup, Man City have gained 1 more point than us. they have played 16, we have played 17.

This Premier League title has always been a two horse race. At no point were Arsenal out front in a comfortable position. We were not streaking away with it only to hit a fence and fall. Manchester City have always been holding on to our tail, not letting that gap grow.

On Sunday we hit a fence that saw us stumble. But we still have 18% of the season to go. Another 7 fences to jump.

I will be disappointed if we do not win it. But I will also be proud of what we have done this season.

It would not be a surprise if Manchester City win every game between now and the end of the season. That will be 14 games won in a row.

To bring that run into perspective, Tottenham have never won more than 9 in a row. And never gone unbeaten for more than 14 games.

Manchester City have been up there with us throughout the title race. We have maintained our form whilst they are looking like they are kicking on.

At no point has this season been a one horse race.

Keenos

Mascotgate – The Final Word

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The Arsenal first-team has suffered a massive social media pile-on in the last 24 hours, following a well-intentioned Twitter post from the club showing the players signing a shirt held by the mascot for the game at West Ham as she looked wide-eyed at her heroes. What the players didn’t do in this clip was seem to acknowledge her in any way.

I don’t know his football allegiances, if he has any, but being a media personality you’d think he’d know the pitfalls of offering his opinion on a short video offering the briefest of snapshots of the mascots experience on her special day – I’ll return to this later.

Taken out of context that possibly looks bad. And of course it was taken out of context and copied liberally on Twitter, first by some pretty awful click-bait blogs, and then by the BBC’s own Nick Knowles (from DIY SOS I believe).

You might have guessed that TalkSport would pick up this Twitter furore, and so they did.

What’s disappointing is that, from what I understand, Arsenal supporter Laura Woods availed herself of their own sticking in of the boot. This is disappointing not just because she supports Arsenal and should be shouting down the clowns that pervade that channel, but because one of her previous jobs in the media involved her working in the area of the players tunnel on match days and she will absolutely know that this video was not representative of the experience of the Arsenal mascot at any game.

I guess when you take the dollar of the reactive phone-in type of radio show then you end up toeing the line.

How do I know that the matchday experience of the Arsenal mascot isn’t accurately shown in the video? Well the answer is simple – my nephew has been one.

At Sunderland in 2012, the final game of Thierry Henry’s second spell (at which the great man scored the last minute winner) our Freddie was the Arsenal mascot.

Like every other Arsenal mascot he was given the time of his life by Arsenal (and Sunderland). He met the players in the dressing room, had his photo taken with everyone, then was taken on to the pitch by the club photographer Stuart MacFarlane for more photos with the players.

Anyone who goes to watch Arsenal, home or away, will see this happening at every single game.

Freddie then led the team out with Robin Van Persie on to the Stadium of Light pitch, lined up with them for the pre-match formalities, and then met the Sunderland skipper and match officials at the coin-toss. Stuart took more photos. Then Freddie joined the family in the away end for the game.

Arsenal gave him a full away kit for the match. They sent through the photographs taken by Stuart.

He had an amazing, never to be forgotten day as the Arsenal mascot. And it didn’t cost a thing – as a member of the Junior Gunners he was selected at random for the day of his life.

The way in which the Quy’s, Debs Wakeford, Sue Campbell and others ran the Junior Gunners has thankfully remained part of the clubs main values.

Most of the other clubs charge for this experience, and it isn’t cheap – West Ham had 10/11 kids there the other day whose parents had paid literally hundreds of pounds each for the privilege.

A friend of mine had to pay for her boy to do the same thing at Spurs a few years ago, 500 quid plus, and she then had the option of buying a match ticket for herself to accompany the lad!

Now back to Mr Knowles and his Twitter platform, given to him by his role in the BBC, and his irresponsible use of it – all a bit Lineker, this.

He was tweeted by the father of the young girl who was the Arsenal mascot in the video. In this tweet we found out that she’d had a brilliant day and loved every single minute.

Mr Knowles has not apologised, nor has he deleted his own tweet that caused the pile-on to Arsenal’s players overnight. In a week where Bukayo Saka has once again been abused online for missing a penalty (and these idiots claim to follow Arsenal, albeit from afar) it shows a frightening disregard from someone who also lives in the public eye to ignore the power of social media as a stick with which to beat someone.

Shame on you Mr Knowles.

Dover Marksman