Sure there is. We're trying to build from the back and play a possession game similar to what City do (with better players) and Brighton do (with worse players). We have a very young team - youngest starting 11 in the PL by a wide margin - and sometimes it clicks and sometimes it doesn't, but it's very clear what we're trying to do.
The defence did really well with corners and dead ball situations.I thought the defence did really well, Brighton had a lot of shots but most were pretty speculative efforts and didn't have any clear cut chances really.
I agree with the gist of this although in the case of the Sp uds game the possession in the first half was ours. After that we just sat back and held on to the result.Attempting to playing possession and ceding possession and chance creation to Brighton doesn't add up.
I'd also say it's more accurate to say we play with a parked bus than to say we play possession football. Possession football revolves around winning the ball back. We don't do that under Arteta. Instead he's coached them to all drop deep and park the bus. Even against a very poor Sp**s side they had more overall possession than us.
I think we had issues all over the pitch but out of our front 4 only ESR did ok. If Saka, Ode & Auba are all struggling we are not going to play well.Boring to watch, and largely disappointing following last week. I find partey on a bad day tends to go real bad. Lokonga and he were too slow to progress the ball.
Lots of players slightly off the boil today.tomi, Ode, partey. Ramsdale error seemed to be directly due to the level of water our there, as their keeper repeated the same error. Other than that I thought he was good.
I think on balance, this will be looked back on as a good point. They have been in great form, have a real identity, and played very well. We nullified it largely, and with any form at all in the front 3 we could easily have taken it.
We make way too much of a big deal when Arsenal beat Sp**s these days.
Why do we have so much staff? There was like 70 guys in that picture. Didn't we sack loads of people during covid?Not a fan of the full player and staff picture after the game, then
Why do we have so much staff? There was like 70 guys in that picture. Didn't we sack loads of people during covid?
Arteta needs to stop sacrificing our midfielders freedom so that Tierney can play high and spam crosses into strikers who are useless in the air.
So James mcNicholas, Charles Watts and James Benge were in the photos?Thinking about it...I don't think most wee actual staff/coaches, reckon they were just Arteta's hype-men.
Brighton had 20+ shots, but apparently Mikel is the next Arrigo Sacchi uno
I see we're back on the "at least we're solid defensively" train again.
Didn't we have 30 shots versus Norwich?Brighton had 20+ shots, but apparently Mikel is the next Arrigo Sacchi uno
Didn't we have 30 shots versus Norwich?
Didn't see you saying how impressed you were by that.
So is it only Brighton who are excellent for having 20 shots and not scoring, but Arsenal are ****e for having 30 shots and scoring one??
Can't figure the inconsistent sticks to beat Artera with here.
Not really no.How about we did okay against the worst team in the league but got played off the pitch by the 6th placed team in the league who will probably finish much lower. Does that work for you?
Different managers, different players. Must be chance?As I said, our away form has been poor for years, seems to just be a thing with our players ...as long as he has a very good home record, we can still do well.
In 17/18 and 18/19, we had terrible away records...but still qualified for Europa in those seasons due to being almost unbeatable at home...would take that this season.
Apart from the poor pressing, Arteta insists on this left sided attacking. In his positional play system Lokonga was found wandering over to the left of the pitch covering for Tierney. Then when we lost the ball which was frequent, our midfield was wide open with just Partey trying to cover 2/3 marauding players coming through the centre. Lokonga looked lost, like he didn’t really understand what he was meant to be doing.
Good, clear analysis on how Potter's co-ordinated press suffocated us on the day. Added to that, our disjointed press, which @BobP alluded to during the match, and Aubameyang's inability to operate as a target man, left us with no way out on the day.
Arteta has to work on a proper co-ordinated press, and maximum attention from players like Partey and Lokonga in midfield, to prevent transitions. Mikel, just work towards a press that Potter demonstrated on the day.
On another note, Gabriel is showing his class of late with some super performances.
Different managers, different players. Must be chance?
Yeah, looking forward to playing Lincoln Red Imps in the Europa conference. Still, at least we’re not getting embarrassed by losing to teams in the last 16 of the Champions League eh?Feel we have become a bit of a soft team away from home...but if Arteta wins the majority of the Emirates games and gets us back into Europe, I will take that for now, hopefully it's something we can fix in the future though.