Tag Archives: She Wore

Arsenal need Man City balance

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Manchester City have assembled a truly incredible array of talent.

At one point during their game against Brighton in Saturday their was a goal mouth scramble.

Leroy Sane put the ball in, Sergio Aguero had a chance, Raheem Sterling followed it up before Bernardo Silva’s shot was cleared to the edge of the box, where David Silva was waiting to recycle the ball.

What this passage of play showed was how much attacking talent City have. And Kevin de Bruyne, Gabriel Jesus and Riyad Mahrez were not involved. That is £147m of talent there.

To take that into perspective, City not playing those 3 is the financial equivalent of Arsenal not starting Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette and Mesut Ozil.

Danny Welbeck, Alex Iwobi and Emile Smith Rowe don’t quite have the same ring to them as Aguero, Silva and Sane do they?

But this isn’t a blog about the difference in the financial strength of the sides. We know that already.

What was eye-opening was that City were able to have all 5 on the pitch in one go, and look incredibly balanced.

Meanwhile Unai Emery is trying to fit Aubameyang, Lacazette, Ozil and Aaron Ramsey into the same team and it looks anything but balanced.

City do have the advantage that there players have been together for a while now.

Aguero and David Silva joined in 2011 & 2010 respectively. Raheem Sterling is in his 4th year at the club, Sane his 3rd season. Bernardo Silva the new boy having joined in the ah summer of 2017.

They are also entering their 3rd season under Pep Guardiola.

It would be completely unreasonable to expect Arsenal to look as gelled and balanced as City with Unai Emery having only been at the club for 4 months. Players are still getting used to the system, how they are expect to play.

But to be competitive again, Arsenal need to look at City, aspire to be them.

The Manchester club ran away with the title last year, and are top of the league this year. Whilst we should not currently expect to compete with them, there is plenty we can learn.

Perhaps the most important thing Guardiola does to ensure balance is have round pegs in round holes.

Aguero is a striker. Sane a left winger. Sterling a right winger. Silva and Silva number 10s. He has players playing in their natural positions. This gets the best out of them and gives the side natural balance.

Compare this to Arsenal against Watford.

We have Aubameyang, a striker, playing left wing, then we have Mesut Ozil, a number 10, playing right wing.

It is square pegs in round holes, and no surprise we look unbalanced.

If we Emery is going to continue with 4231, we need to ensure that we are playing the right players in the right positions. Ultimately this will mean that we have to spend more on the right players.

The Spaniard has to stop trying to show horn Ozil and Ramsey into the same team.

City do it with the two Silva’s (with de Bruyne coming in when fit), playing just Fernandinho behind them. But they can afford to do this when they have 70-80% possession, like they did against Brighton.

Playing Ozil and Ramsey central, behind a striker is not an option at the moment. Emery knows this, hence playing one out wide. Unfortunately this means we do not get enough out of Ozil.

In the Premie League, Ozil averages a goal or assist every 157 minutes. He is one of the best creative players in the league, no matter what the fat lad down the pub says.

Emery clearly recognised that long term, his side can not have both Ozil and Ramsey in it. It is the primary reason why the contract for Ramsey has been taken off the table.

If he was willing to sign to £120k, as a squad play – understudy for Ozil who does miss a few famed – I am sure everyone would be happy.

But a 4 year deal on a reported £200k a week would not make sense. He would easily be our second highest player, but not a regular first teamer.

If £200,000 a week was on the table, this means Arsenal have £52m over 4 years in their budget to play with. If we do sell Ramsey for £20m in January, this increases io £72m.

This works out at £18m a season of salary and amortised transfer fees.

In basic terms, we could go out and buy a £46m winger. We could pay him £125k a year, and our yearly expenditure would stay the same as it would if Ramsey signed his new deal.

£47m and £125k a week. That is. It too far off the Lacazette figures.

If, like me, you back Sven Mislintat, and see what he has already done with the likes of Sokratis, Lucas Torreira and Matteo Guendouzi (combined cost £47m), you will be getting very excited.

A new winger will just give us more balance than the current set up. £47m gets you a Sterling or Sane. A young player already performing at a high level at a lower club, but has the talent to become one of the worlds best.

This solution, however, is at least 4 months away (January) and more realistically 9 months away (June). In the short term, we have to get the balance from within.

That means dropping Ramsey, moving Ozil into the middle, and playing with Henrikh Mkhitaryan or Alex Iwobi wide right. Both of these players we still wider a lot more than what Ozil currently does. They will also give Hector Bellerin a bit more protection.

The left side is a bit more complicated, as Arsenal do not currently have a natural left winger.

At the moment it is a straight choice, Aubameyang or Danny Welbeck. The Gabonese striker is clearly the superior player and is ahead in the pecking order.

He is a square peg in a round hole, but we do not currently have any round pegs. This does not leave Emery with many options but to play Aubameyang out wide. It is not suitable and adds to our imbalance as he looks to come inside.

At the moment we are wasting both the talent of Aubameyang and Ozil playing them as wingers.

With Iwobi and Mkhitaryan capable of doing a job wide right, the Ramsey money and the focus of Mislintat should be on securing a threat on the left.

Much of the list of options remains the same as the summer. The likes of Leon Bailey, Ousmane Dembélé, Christian Pulisic and Anthony Martial.

It is Martial that interests me the most.

At 22-years old, it is easy to forget how young he is. A year younger than Raheem Sterling, a month older than Leroy Sane. He is as good as both of the Manchester city players; and I think that we could secure him for that £40million mark. And as early as January if we push.

I think it is unrealistic to expect us to compete with City any time soon.

Look at Liverpool. This is Klopp’s 4th year with the Merseyside club. Whilst they have started the season off well, I expect City to pull away and win the league by double figures.

City have a settled side and a great manager. And when you see them linked with Kylian Mbappe, it highlights their financial clout. They spent £67m on Mahrez in the summer as a squad player.

Whilst I do not expect to compete with them, for this season at least, we should cast an eye over at what they are doing and how they get their team set up so balanced.

Keenos

When apathy turns to hope

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Last season I wrote about anger turning to apathy. I had had enough.  I think I even stoped caring to a certain extent.  I didn’t look forward to going to games, I didn’t enjoy the wins as much as I should have and the defeats just became expected.

I sat in a half empty stadium and would became obsessed with watching Wenger do nothing. I would have got more enjoyment going to the casino and sticking my ticket money on red or black

I wasn’t one of those who wanted us to lose for the greater good, but I couldn’t argue with that sentiment either if I am honest. The defeats no longer hurt, I didn’t even walk out with any anger in the end, I went because it’s what I’ve always done.

But now, I’m actually really enjoying this. On Saturday when the first goal went in I felt that sense of relief that had been missing for so long. I really wanted to win that game.

Lets be honest, we aren’t watching the type of football where you are scared to take your eyes of the pitch. We aren’t talking about moments of pure class that we will remember forever. But we are talking about the game again. We are talking about the result and on the whole, most of us are fairly optimistic.

Unai inherited a legacy that runs deep. The frailties have been massively exposed this year. We know what needs to be done, we know what we need to address. A good manager gets the best out of his side, Emery is doing that right now. The fact that we are seeing a new and improved Iwobi, Welbeck and Rob Holding is something I’ve waited years for. English youngsters improving and becoming an integral part of our future.  Torreira has been the anchor we have been crying out for. He sprays the ball around and makes people move. He’s not afraid of a long ball up the park to mix things up.

There won’t be many teams who fancy playing us right now.  As it stands, we are the only team in the PL who have won their last 5 league games. An Arsenal who battle it out and win ugly is not want anyone wants at this stage.

A defeat will feel disappointing again, but not expected.  We are gathering that urgency now and making winning, a habit. Many will say ‘but we’ve only played, bar City and Chelsea, average sides’. That’s absolutely true, but beating average sides gets you 3 points.

Watford are a good side, bullies,  who won’t give you any time to play your own game. We aren’t retreating like we did in days gone by. We are battling and no longer easy to get off the ball. When Ozil is sticking his foot in you know there is an aggression back in the side.

It won’t be easy this season, we will get taught a few lessons along the way. But I’m smiling again. I’m watching Match of The Day and I’m looking forward to the press conferences. I’m back in love with The Arsenal.

JD

Match Report: Arsenal 2 – 0 Watford

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Arsenal (0) 2 Watford (0) 0
Premier League

Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU
Saturday, 29th September 2018. Kick-off time: 3.00pm

 

(4-2-3-1) Cech; Bellerín, Mustafi, Holding, Monreal; Torreira, Xhaka; Ramsey, Özil; Aubameyang, Lacazette.
Substitutes: Elneny, Guendouzi, Lichtsteiner, Mkhitaryan, Iwobi, Welbeck, Kolasniac, Leno.
Scorers:Cathcart (o.g.), Özil

Yellow Cards: Mustafi, Torreira
Referee: Anthony Taylor
Attendance: 60,019

And so a welcome to Hertfordshire’s finest, the last of four home games in the Premiership and a couple of cups too. Amazingly enough, we didn’t play The Hornets in the league until 1982, but since then, despite relegation and promotion issues for them over the years, they have earned a certain reputation for playing open, attacking football, a style that has paid off for them in this campaign, as they currently (at the time of writing) occupy the fourth position in the Premiership.

We started this match slowly and sluggishly, but all this was quickly forgotten when Alexandre Lacazette was desperately unlucky not to have been given a penalty in the fifth minute when he was blatantly tripped by a Watford defender; he valiantly carried on (although to be fair, most strikers in the modern game would have gone to ground) and was unlucky not to have scored from a very difficult angle indeed. Arsenal allowed Watford to make their mark on the game shortly afterwards and for the rest of the half looked disappointing at times, although it should be noted that our bandits (Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang) looked dangerous on the break, and when supported by the midfield, looked likely to score. Now the bad thing. In injury time of the first half, our magnificent gardien de but, Petr Cech pulled up with a hamstring injury that will keep him away from his duties for circa three weeks. Woe. However, cometh the hour, cometh the man, and now is the time that our £19 million summer acquisition Bernd Leno is to come to the aid of the party.

Second half at The Emirates, and as form follows finction, we all know what that means; a kick up the backside and a clip round the ear from Mr. Emery during the break and they all start to play as if their very lives depend on it – only at first it looked like The Hornets were the home team and not us with the amount of good and clear chances that they had during this time. It has to be said that Bernd Leno was very much on his game and prevented Watford from scoring on several occasions. Then Mr. Emery played a superb trump card, and hey, what a card it was, too. Enter young Alex Iwobi and the rejuvenation in the chaps was there for all to see. Ten minutes from time, Alex Iwobi found space for himself over on the right and slipped a low ball to the near post where Hornets’ defender Craig Cathcart diverted it beyond the grasp of his own keeper. Two minutes later, Alex Iwobi and Alexandre Lacazette played a superb one-two movement before the Frenchman passed the ball into the area near the far post where the much-maligned Mesut Özil lay in wait like a killer in the sun to administer the final act. Despite one or two late clashes, that was really the end of it all, and we can leave this match with three very important points, and another win on the board.

Okay, here we go, here comes the critique. Not wishing to be hypercritical, but at times it was a very tight match and we appeared to make heavy weather of things, particularly in the first half (surprise, surprise). We lack width and when it comes to playing the top sides (and we all know who they are), they will exploit this weakness in the formation. Arsenal need to play with concentration and vigour throught the whole of the match, and not just the second half, as one day a team will play us knowing that we are below par in the first half, and our punishment will be so bad, not even a half-time talk from Mr. Emery will be able to square that circle. Having said all this, we are looking fitter and there are signs of improvement; after all, this is our seventh win in a row across all competitions, so we are obviously ticking many boxes here. Our next match in the Premiership is an away tie at Fulham next Sunday before the international break, so fingers crossed that the chaps can continue their winning streak. Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as these early days are going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. 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.