Tag Archives: Arsenal

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

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

Winning the title is not easy – it is a rollercoaster of emotions

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This season is not my first rodeo. Not my first title race.

I have seen us win the title from a losing position (1998), lose titles from winning positions (1999, 2003), romp away with it (2004) and stumble over the line to victory (1989).

Every title race has always been a rollercoaster of emotions. And this year has been no different.

We are in an era of football never seen before.

Four of the last 5 seasons the champions have got north of 90 points. And twice during that period, the runners-up got over 90 points.

In the previous 25 seasons, the league was only won with 90+ points 7 times.

When we won the league in 98, we lost 6 games and drew 9. 15 games we dropped points in.

2002 we dropped points in 12 games – losing thrice and 9 draws. 2004, we went unbeaten, but still dropped points in 12 games.

In this current era of 90+ points, you can not afford to drop points in more than 10 games and expect to win the league. In 3 of the last 5 years, the champions have dropped points in just 6 games. That is simply incredible.

And that makes dropping points away to West Ham so much more painful.

In years gone past, you could go to West Ham, go to Southampton, go to Everton, come away with just 2 points and still win the title. In 2023, failing to get 3 points in those games will cost you the title.

A mate of mine says every week “wining the Premier League is not easy”. He then usually follows that with a rant as to how some fans think it is easy to get 90+ points and romp away with the league.

The fact we could get 90 points this season and fail to win the title shows just how hard it is to be champions.

Yesterday we had a sliding door moment.

At 2-1, up stepped Bukayo Saka with a chance to restore Arsenal’s two-goal lead. Two minutes later it was 2-2.

“Hit them hard, hit them early” was the game plan. And 2-nil up after 15 minutes, we were talking about how many we would get. In the end we dropped points. And with that it could be the end of our title chances.

We looked lost in the second half. Not structure or intensity to our play. We never looked like retaking the league after going 2-2.

After Manchester United, Aston Villa and Bournemouth, I blogged how we can no keep expecting to score in the last minute to take 3 points. And Sunday at 2-2 it just never looked like we had what it would take to grab a winner.

Tiredness is not an excuse, we are only playing once a week. You simply can not drop points against a relegation threatened side when 2-nil up.

I am not really sure what else to say. Two days on and I am still gutted. But then I remember this is the hardest league in the world to win.

But as my mate says, we are still top of the league with a 4 point gap.

We will go again, whether it is this season or next. We have a great young team with a fantastic manager. But right now it hurts.

In other news, we have seen the pile on yesterday over the way players “treated” the mascot.

It needs to be noted that at no point have the mascots family said they were mistreated by the club, nor have any club mascot or their family every mentioned their disappointment at the day.

This is just a pile on by those bland football accounts who copy/paste content for hits, added to by some gutter press and celebrities who will do anything for attention.

The club does a lot wrong, as we document, but Junior Gunners is one area they have always been very attentive.

It is laughable that many of these accounts said “they all have their headphones on” and “no player spoke to her”. Yet the video they posted showed the majority did not have their headphones on and many did speak to her. It is alsmot they like post videos without watching them and steal others comments.

The day for a mascot is much more than welcoming the players as they come off the bus. The 1 minute video was just part of a brilliant day for the young lady. A day these faceless accounts are now trying to drag through the mud.

Interesting to note one account piling on is called “The72”.

The72’s brand is built on hating everything Premier League. Last week they contacts us with an enquriy to buy SheWore.com. “We’re looking to broaden our current portfolio…we think shewore.com would be a good addition”.

So a company built on hating the Premier League is looking to buy a Premier League clubs blog to expand. Maybe the cash cow of the “The72” brand has dried up and they will soon be rebranding “The92” and deleting all those tweets attacking Premier League sides.

The72 website is also interesting viewing. The entire site is covered with gambling advets. So you can see where their morals lie…

From trying to be an Arsenal blog to slaughtering Arsenal players in the space of 4 days. Alright lads. It is a no from us!

Attacking Arsenal, people calling us a “nasty club” and saying “this is no surprise from them” just highlights people just read the headlines and do not take the time to learn about the club they are commenting on.

Players do so much seen and unseen for younger fans, from zoo visits, school visits, hospital visits and more. Sadly, many of these big accounts only highlight a perceived slight by a club as that is what gets them the RTs and follows.

Have a good Tuesday.

Keenos