Bergkampesque

This Interlull gives us an opportunity to review Unai Emery’s league performance.

First a look at Arsenal’s record after the first 12 games of every Premier League season.

Based on previous seasons Unai’s performance in the first 12 games of 2018/19 was acceptable and gave us hope for a positive change of guard and boded well for Arsenal’s future.

The start to the 2019/20 season has washed those hopes away; he has equalled the lowest amount of wins (4) the lowest goals scored since 1998/99 (16) the second highest goals against (17) and equalled the lowest amount of points (17). 

Here are the results of his last 19 Premier League games; I chose 19 as its equal to half of a season.

This is a shocking indictment of his abject performance as Arsenal manager!

We have 24 points out of a possible 57 or 42.1% of the points available, goals for average of 1.26 per game and goals against average of 1.53. Home advantage looks like a thing of the past as it is as poor as our away results.

Here is what a full season of those results would equal:-

W12, D12, L14, GF48, GA58, GD -10, Points 48.

That looks like mid to lower table mediocrity to me but it seems that our B.O.D have a different opinion and have given him a vote of confidence.

Over to you…………..

GunnerN5

VTF – Volatile Tolerance of Frustration

I would like to reflect on a few Arsenal games played between the October and November interlulls, using the basic 1 to 10 scale. I’m sure you are also disappointed for most of them, but maybe the levels and the order in your case are different. Don’t hesitate to share your insights in the comments below.

We couldn’t keep a clean sheet at home against Wolves – ☼☼ (2 of 10)

A clean sheet is not everything. There could be infrequent lapses of concentration, individual mistakes, impossible-to-defend rockets or superb team attacks; so as long as only a single goal is conceded I don’t really panic. The team’s job is to minimize the number/probability of chances created by the opponent, limit the severity of such attempts, and even if we concede they should respond to it with 3-4 goals of our own. If I would be a manager, I would set a 3:1 win as an expectation and would reward my players compared to the differences with the actual result.

We dropped out from the Carabao Cup against Liverpool – ☼☼☼☼ (4 of 10)

I don’t like being dropped out. Not just because of the reputation or one less chance to win a trophy, but each missed cup game is 990 minutes lost for fringe players to gain maturity, confidence, or just to experiment with different tactics. With that being said I did not expect do go through as we were unlucky to draw Liverpool at Anfield, so we were not the favourites of this tie (well, I am quite confident that Arsenal has one of the strongest B-teams in the world – maybe behind Manchester City, but definitely ahead of Barcelona and Liverpool – but this could be the topic of another post for the future). Therefore I was a bit sad, but not really frustrated, as this was kind of foreseeable before the game – but less expected at 1:3 and 2:4.

Emery experimenting with different formations – ☼☼☼☼ (4 of 10)

As a general principle I support experimenting. So kudos for Emery for trying to change. But I still don’t understand that a manager/coach of his calibre cannot see that the number of shots on goal is closely connected to the chances created, and in order to improve that, we need either a midfield overhaul or creative players. The 5-2-2-1 formation we started against Vitoria Guimaraes realized neither. Maybe he was surprised of the outcome, but I wasn’t. Sorry to say that, but probably it was good that the Portuguese team equalized eventually, otherwise he could have thought that he found/invented something viable. Anyway, experimenting only makes sense if one is smart enough to realize if a particular alternative is a dead end.

We conceded 5 goals in 90 minutes against a ’B team’ – ☼☼☼☼☼ (5 of 10)

I’m on my way to become a Zen-master, but these 5 goals are still not such an unmitigated disaster. This defence is (hopefully) not that poor. We had an unlucky own goal, a penalty, and a few individual mistakes. If we would replay this fixture, we wouldn’t concede 5 goals, for sure. But we wouldn’t score 5 either, as we got away with an offside, a few (but huge) individual mistakes, etc. At the end of the day I think luck was evenly distributed between the two sides. Both defences were playing poor that night, but that made it quite an enjoyable game. Too bad that we didn’t have the last laugh though.

Poor game management and sub-optimal team selection again and again – ☼☼☼☼☼☼ (6 of 10)

This makes me only moderately frustrated, but rather perplexed (and slightly amused). Last year Emery made Arsenal the team to salvage the most points from losing situations, now we are probably the team losing the most points from winning situations. Have aliens abducted the manager and replaced him with Sam Allardyce? Being serious, the common thing to both situations is that you need a bad starting line-up; but while last year the substitutions and the fighting spirits led to turnarounds, this year even our weaker line-ups are capable to score goals, but we don’t have neither the discipline nor the experience to save our leads – especially when unprofessionally stupid changes are made.

4 shots, 2 on target, 1 goal at home – ☼☼☼☼☼☼☼ (7 of 10)

OK, that started to p*ss me off. If we lose points it’s bad enough, but at least we should lose them in style. Have bad luck, referee bias, VAR-malfunction, act of god, etc. But – unless we get beaten by a clearly superior opponent – I want to feel proud for our play and feel angry about hitting a post 3 times and being denied multiple obvious penalties. But feeling lucky for a home draw against a weaker team is an emotion I am not familiar with as a Gunners-fan. Arsenal had a signature style of playing eye-catching attacking football, overwhelm the opponents with creativity, etc. that was one of the reasons I started supporting this great club. Oh, I miss Wengerball so much…

Double standards everywhere (among fans and bloggers) – ☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼ (10 of 10)

I had to relinquish my dream that all Arsenal fans are my brothers and sisters. It was such an attractive dream, as someone cheering for the Gunners must have great taste, must be smart, and must have superior analytical skills, right? Well… not exactly. Sometimes ‘former arsenal legends’ seem to know shit about football (and I’m no expert, so if someone knows less than me, that would probably qualify for shit), and people are easily influenced by populist pundits, lousy commentators and stupid tweets. But what really p*sses me off are the double standards.

If the reaction after Luiz makes a penalty-foul is “get rid of this clown” then Martinelli should get the same treatment. Mustafi made an unforced own goal against Liverpool, but he made 13 (!) clearances in the same game. You cannot give a rating of 3 after that. If Xhaka as a CM gets criticized like “sell him now, ffs” when he doesn’t prevent a cross from the by-line, then you cannot be forgiving with Guendouzi who couldn’t head the ball away when Origi (the player he man-marked) managed to kick (!) the ball into the net.

Yes, football is an emotional game, but emotions should be limited to actually watching the game or the highlights. When reflecting, one should switch into analytical mode, and replace feelings with unbiased arguments and objective reasoning. If someone does not have the emotional self-awareness to realize that s/he is not calm enough to see the clouds in his/her judgement that should have the decency to refrain from instant reaction. Or we find ourselves in a sad and unnecessary and senseless witch-hunt like the fans have against Xhaka – see TA’s link to the great Arsenal blog post a few days ago.

By PB.

“Behind what hills does happiness hide, to lurk and plot its return?”

(From ‘At the loch of the Green Corrie’ by Andrew Greig).

So here we are on the first Monday of the last interlull: two points from the last four games and since the last interlull we have moved from a promising albeit flattering third position in the league to an equally flattering shared fifth position now. The gap with the top-four is a whopping eight points, so over just four PL games we have more or less imploded. The Chavs and the Foxes are firing on all cylinders and Pool and Citeh are in class of their own, despite the Northern Oilers current fourth position. Season over?!

Of course it is only early days; another 26 PL games will have to be played this season. A good run could do miracles and we have the squad to do that.

There are, however, very few supporters left who believe that Emery has the ability to turn things round. Our players work hard but there is little belief in the way the team is set up and asked to play. Our best midfielders, with the exception of Emery’s pet project Guendouzi, have all had issues with Emery: Ozil was ostracized, Xhaka humiliated and Torreira messed about. Furthermore, Ramsey was not convinced to stay to flourish in Emery-ball and neither was Mkhi.

Instead, Emery convinced many fellow Gooners  that Guendouzi, Willock and possibly Ceballos are the future of Arsenal, and this may well be true. But that future, if it’s ever to come to fruition, is significantly disconnected from the here and now. Our current midfield set-up is at the level of relegation-battling teams which should be a real concern to everyone connected to the club.

Our defence is not great either but there is potential to become much better soon. The interlull will do Bellerin, Tierney and Holding good after a few hard games and you won’t tell me that Emery cannot put a good defence on the pitch with the sort of quality defenders we have. But of course ‘a defence’ will work much better if the whole team, and especially the midfield, also help defending.

I didn’t do my normal ‘eight observations’ after the LC game as I would just have been repeating myself; and if I am sick of this I am pretty sure you are too. But one thing I would have said is that despite Emery’s 3-4-3 formation and effectively putting seven defence-minded players on the pitch (excluding goalkeeper), we still were easily picked apart and crumpled as soon as the first goal went in. We lost by two but it could have been more.

Our attacking options are very good, we all know this, but to get the best out of them we need to play as a team with a system of football and appropriate tactics to let them strut their stuff. It must be said that Auba and Laca did not have a great game against the Foxes, but as a team Arsenal did not make up for this, and that is our biggest problem: we don’t defend as a team and don’t attack as a team, and the clue is in midfield.

The big question is how is it possible that we are still not a strong unit, a team bigger than the sum of its parts and on the road to somewhere? Forget our position in the league, it is now all about the existence of a plan, a road through the wilderness and collective belief in the future for players and supporters. The BoD and manager are failing in this and dark clouds have gathered above Ashburton Grove.

The BoD are apparently sticking with Emery till the end of the season at least, which is brave and should be applauded to some extent. However, after the current interlull there will be no respite: every game will have to be a battle for the points and failure will accumulate fast. With the lack of connection between manager and the players, both in terms of tactics and in man-management style, it is hard to see a way out of our fast descend towards midtable or worse. Many supporters are already looking at this season, with six months to go, as a write-off.

A football club and their supporters live by the hope and belief in better: in a vision of progress. The BoD have their work cut out to give us this.

By TotalArsenal.

Emery on the Edge?

It’s just an away match in the midlands–one we won 5-2 the season in which Leicester actually went on to win the PL title–but it’s also a match that seems to represent everything about Arsenal’s current malaise.

Will it be Unai Emery’s last match in charge?  Frankly, I doubt it, especially if Arsenal can eke out a result (a draw keeps the gap at 6, a win, of course, would cut it to three) but a loss would make this Arsenal team sit in the middle of the table and 9 points from the top 4.

At least we now know who Emery will be playing.  Here are your line-ups:

Arsenal: Leno, Bellerin, Holding, Luiz, Kolasinac, Torreira, Chambers, Guendouzi, Ozil, Lacazette, Aubameyang.
Subs: Tierney, Papastathopoulos, Pepe, Martinez, Willock, Martinelli, Saka.

Leicester City: Schmeichel, Ricardo Pereira, Evans, Soyuncu, Chilwell, Ndidi, Perez, Tielemans, Maddison, Barnes, Vardy.
Subs: Justin, Morgan, Gray, Albrighton, Ward, Choudhury, Praet.

Referee: Chris Kavanagh (Lancashire).

It looks like a 3 CB formation with young guns Rob Holding and Calum Chambers flanking David Luiz in the center; Sead Kolasinac and Hector Bellerin working as wing-backs.  With Granit Xhaka likely done as an Arsenal player (at least if Emery continues as our manager) and Dani Ceballos hurt in midweek, our midfield options are limited so less favored guys like Lucas Torreira and Mesut Ozil get their chances alongside Matteo Guendouzi.  Then goal-a-game guy (and new captain) Pierre Emerick Aubameyang will work it out with a (maybe) fully fit (we hope…) Alex Lacazette.

In my mind it’s a strong line-up–and I like the group at the back–but I have to wonder what a coach with a more let-em-play attitude might have been able to create (by this time) with the available group (including big signing Nicolas Pepe and, of course, Xhaka, whose fitness issues are not physical).  Unbelievably, besides Ceballos, our only injured player is Reiss Nelson, a player who might add value but certainly not one we would have expected to rely upon.

I never believe that a single result should define management policy–nor who stands in as the on field coach–but many will disagree.  For me, Emery should have been done after a single (failed) season–with (for me) unwatchable football and a routing shunting of blame away from himself–but he got a 2nd season.  Will he be able to complete it–and meet the expectations of the club and it’s supporters?  Another chapter gets written–right now.

I’ll be watching and trying to describe the action but I’m just 2 eyes (and 10 fingers–and one very small mind).  Help me out, eh…

Go on then…

by 17highburyterrace

Arsenal v Leicester City – November 9^th, 2019

Formed in 1884 by a group of old boys of Wyggeston School as “Leicester Fosse”, the club joined The Football Association in 1890. Before moving to Filbert Street in 1891, the club played at five different grounds, including Victoria Park south-east of the city centre and the Belgrave Road Cycle and Cricket Ground. In 1919, when League football resumed after World War I, Leicester Fosse ceased trading due to financial difficulties of which little is known. The club was reformed as “Leicester City Football Club”, particularly appropriate as the borough of Leicester had recently been given city status.

The club moved away from Filbert Street in 2002 to a new 32,500 all-seater stadium. The stadium was originally named The Walkers Stadium in a deal with food manufacturers Walkers. On 7 July 2011, Leicester City confirmed the Walkers Stadium would now be known as the King Power Stadium. In 2015 their vice-chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha stated plans were in place to increase the capacity of the stadium to around 42,000.

The club’s home colours of royal blue shirts, white shorts, and either white or royal blue socks have been used for the team’s kits throughout most of its history. The first sponsorship logo to appear on a Leicester shirt was that of Ind Coope in 1983. British snack food manufacturer Walkers Crisps held a long association with the club, sponsoring them from 1987 to 2001.

The club have three main nicknames – The Foxes, The Blues and City. “The Foxes” is the most common nickname for the club, whereas “The Blues” and “City” are more local terms, usually used by supporters. Other names include “The Filberts” and “The Fossils”. An image of a fox was first incorporated into the club crest in 1948, as Leicestershire is known for foxes and fox hunting – this is the origin of the nickname “The Foxes”.

The club mascot is a character called “Filbert Fox”. There are also secondary characters “Vickie Vixen” and “Cousin Dennis.” Since 1992, the club’s badge has featured a fox’s head overlaid onto a Cinquefoil; the Cinquefoil is similar to the one used on the coat of arms of Leicester. Prior to 1992, the club’s badge had a range of designs. In the 2009–10 season, the club’s 125th anniversary year, the home kit featured no sponsor and a new central crest with “125 Years” written beneath it.

Leicester won the 2015–16 Premier League, their first top-level football championship. They are one of only six clubs to have won the Premier League since its inception in 1992. A number of newspapers described Leicester’s title win as the greatest sporting shock ever, considering at the start of the season they were favourites to face relegation. Multiple bookmakers had never paid out at such long odds for any sport. As a result, the team was dubbed “The Unbelievables”, a spin-off harking back to Arsenal’s undefeated team “The Invincibles”. The club’s previous highest ever finish was second place in the top flight, in 1928–29, then known as Division One.

The club hold the dubious record of having been defeated in the FA Cup Final on four occasions – in 1948–49, 1960–61, 1962–63 and 1968–69. This is a tournament record for the most defeats in the final without having won the competition.

Our away record:

By GN5

TotalArsenal’s Preferred Line-up (GN5 does not like doing them):

If Emery were to put out this team – 4-3-1-2 – I am convinced we would get something from this game, but it is highly unlikely to happen. As Tierney, Bellerin and Holding played on Wednesday, and they are all coming back from long injuries, I would reluctantly start with Kola and Big Sok in defence. In attack I reckon we need Ozil to play in the hole, and as captain, with two of Pepe, Auba and Laca up-front. We don’t need three finishers, two is enough… let’s play some football and the goals will come again.

But the big area that needs sorting out is our midfield. Both Xhaka and Torreira HAVE to play to have a chance in this game. I would play three in midfield and make sure they keep in a horizontal line a lot to protect the back AND work together to dominate midfield and get our passing game going again. If we allow the Foxes as many shots on goal as we have been doing we will get slaughtered, so let’s keep it compact and disciplined, and pass the ball around with conviction and forward thrust. 

I make it sound simple and in my mind it is, but WTFDIK. Let’s see what Emery comes up with this time.

Vitoria Guimaraes 1 – 1 Arsenal

Well that game was not a compliment to the eyes but an away draw in European football is not bad, the statisticians will tell you, and Mustafi – MOTM – had one of his better games. I am afraid that is as positive as it will get in this post.

In all European competitions we have won only 1 out of 8 away games in Portugal, and we knew from the return game that Vitoria are a well organised, hard to beat, typical Portuguese team. On top of that it rained the whole game and things at the club are not great: Xhaka has been dethroned and that will not only have upset him in the team, we dropped seven points in the last three PL games, and our manager and our football look stuck in a cul-de-sac of a cul-de-sac. All are also aware that we will face the high-flying Foxes on Saturday and that game may well turn out to be decisive for the continuation of Emery’s Arsenal career.

Whether it is yesterday’s game or any other game we played under Emery in recent times, our biggest problems are the balance in midfield, the lack of cohesion in our play, lack of added dimension (our football is stale) and inability to get the best out of our players. In fact, the way Emery has us play seems to make our individual players lose their groove and confidence. He puts 11 players on the pitch but it looks like only 9 are playing. We allowed 15 shots, one every six minutes, with four on target; despite 65% of possession Arsenal only managed 7 shots of which just one was on target.

Our midfield set-up does not protect the back nor does it support the attack, and it makes every midfielder in Emery’s team look poor and clueless. Arsenal under Wenger were the masters of midfield play for the best part of 20 years, so this is extra hard to swallow. Don’t believe one second that Xhaka was only saddened by the poor response by some of the Emirates’ ‘support’ when he was so ostentaniously subbed by the manager; the way Emery has the team play and how that makes him play and look also made him mad. And I am sure he is not the only one who feels (or felt) like that!

We had three willing attackers in Saka, Pepe and Martinelli but they were constantly outnumbered where it mattered. We played 3-4-3 so this should not have been the case, but both Tierney and AMN struggled to aid the attack and the central midfield duo of Willock and Ceballos had just too much space to cover and sat too deep. Everything we tried was via the wings and the Portuguese had this covered all day long. We had nobody manning the hole, in fact there was an empty yellow/blue triangle from the Portuguese box all the way to the midfield line for most of the game. We hardly put more than two passes together in the areas where we could hurt them, as we were not compact enough, not mobile enough and were basically clueless and plan-less.

Pepe, Saka and Martinelli looked frustrated despite trying hard to make things happen. Ceballos had to come very deep to get the game going and covered many miles before he had to come off with a hamstring injury (no surprise really). He could not get the team going in the way we were set up to combat the rugged opponents, and Emery’s subs made a bit of change but not enough to improve our poor football significantly.  It was urine-poor for 90 minutes and I feel sorry for those loyal away supporters on that wet and insipid night of football that will have hurt the wallet hard.

The defence almost got their clean sheet but that game did not deserve a winner. Mustafi, who played the best passes on the night, scored a solid Championship sort of goal to get us ahead, but Vitoria hit back with some fine technical improvisation by Duarte de Silva who levelled things with a good scissor-kick that somehow eluded all our frantic defenders in the box.

We are close to going through to the next round and this game will be quickly forgotten. I reckon the same cannot be said about our pivotal encounter with the Foxes on Saturday. Sink or Swim.

By TotalArsenal. 

Vitoria v Arsenal – 6 November 2019 Preview & Line-up

After dropping four costly points at home in two PL games, the manager and boys will be happy to be in sunny Guimaraes for  their fourth EL group game. Having said that, there is 70% chance of rain around kick-off time (15.50 BST) so the pitch may well be wet and fast.

The Portuguese gave us a big scare a fortnight ago but we were saved by the bow and arrow of Pepe, who turned a losing position into a winning one with two of the finest bullseye-freekicks.

It was clear that we underestimated the opponent at the home of  football and I am sure the boys will be much better prepared tomorrow. Now we can sit back a bit more and force the Portuguese to come at us, and then we can pick them off on the break. We can put out a  team to be very effective at this; and as I am expecting Xhaka to be returned to the starting-11 for this away fixture, and a few in-form youngsters to be chomping (or champing) at the bit, it should be a good game to watch.

This would be my preferred line-up (and I don’t think it will be too far of Emery’s either):

I want to see the Luiz/Holding combo in action. Robbo needs to play RCB and Luiz is our best LCB. Kola and Bellerin are no-brainers and Xhaka to get help from Willock in protecting the defence and do the B2B stuff. ESR to play a bit more ahead but helping out in midfield as much as possible too. Up-front we have the mobile beast of Saka, Laca and Martinelli, who can dance the Chulas and all get on the score/assist sheet. Some may argue that Pepe should start, and I would not mind that either, but I feel that he could do with a break and start again after the interlull.

As most agree, the cup games are a breath of fresh air compared to the PL games, and let’s hope Emery doesn’t mess things up with his late and strange substitutions this time.

COYRRGs!

By TotalArsenal.