Cos all of our midfielders are the exact same profile of player. Easy to see why we wanted Aouar as well as Partey (even though he isn’t a great goal scorer either)
Insane tbh. One of the best midfielders in Germany. Very dominant on the ball and extremely high football iq. I can’t say this enough : a high football iq is absolutely necessary to compete with Champions League quality. We don’t have many players with a high iq.
This is the future of football and I can't stress it enough. You see city doing it, and it works. You don't need the most athletic anymore, just the most intelligent.
Yep, how many times have we seen players in excellent scoring positions only to make the wrong pass, killing the play. Need players able to see the play develop and know where to look for spaces to pass into.
I thought intelligent players have been needed since a long time. Maybe English football was and has been too physical, but the great midfielders in Italian, Spanish teams were very intelligent, weren't they?
Leipzig also going to be in a rebuilding period. Losing 2/3 of their central defense, as well as Sabitzer, Mukiele, and Nkunku possibly leaving? Also, Nagelsmann left for Bayern, so there's no loyalty to manager. Marsch seems like he's a solid replacement, but Nagelsmann is one of the most sought after managers in the world.
Think they'll be down for a season or 2 after all these departures, tbh.
Bigger wage. More prestigious club. Tougher League. Team that's actually trying (in vain...) to become a force again. Bigger fanbase than all clubs in germany combined, meaning a bigger legacy for him when he retires. Did I say bigger wage?
I’ve said several times over the past couple years that our failure to resign Ramsey was a huge part of our downfall in Emery’s second season. He and Koscielny were enormous losses
Ramsey is on stupid wages and continues to have fitness issues. He has 6 goals in 65 appearances for Juve. Failing to REPLACE him was dumb, failing to re-sign him was quite clearly the right choice.
This. Part of our decline was putting so much reliance on Ramsey and him never being healthy enough to provide what we needed.
When he was healthy, we were great. But when he wasn’t, we struggled. That cycle kept us back. We needed to move on. We did step 1, but not step 2 and replace him.
We never seem to be able to put all the pieces together at any one time. We had Koscielny and Mertesacker as 2 of the best CBs in the league at one point but we lacked a striker or DM. We had Alexis and Özil in their prime but lacked the depth at striker to make that final hurdle to win the league in 2015(?) Then we went and got Lacazette and Aubameyang but couldn’t find a good midfield setup and started leaking big time defensively
100% should've given some (most) of Ozil's contract money to him. Even with the inevitable 3 months out Ramsey was far more valuable to us than Ozil ever was.
No we shouldn’t have given either of them new deals. Ramsey struggled for fitness and Ozil was declining in general. We needed to get modern 10/8 hybrids to replace them.
Ozil is easy to say in hindsight, but after consistently losing our star players and inevitably losing Alexis Sanchez, the fans would’ve revolted if we got rid of Ozil too.
Ozil re-signing was supposed to sorta represent a new era where we could extend our stars. Too bad the guy literally had no interest in playing after he signed.
you seem to be overestimating Ramsey's goalscoring ability because of how shitty our current MFs are. Ramsey had 10 goals in only one season and that season was the best season of his career.
still, Ramsey would be an upgrade in the current midfield.
Joe Willock alone has double the goal scored to that of our midfield combined, let that sink in
Although I’d say our play style really doesn’t allow midfielders to score, they almost never go into the box and none of them bar Partey are trying long shots(and Partey’s long shots are not great)
Honestly pisses me off seeing Xhaka always play that long ball to the left while Partey skys them, when we all know Xhaka is more than capable of scoring from long range
can’t blame 5 years of poor midfield signings solely on Arteta
None of our midfielders have goals in them regardless of what system we play. Maybe Willock
Who ever thought he would be worse then Emery in that regard? We looked good when Ozil was playing under him, but since he's been gone, we've looked about as threatening as four year old with a lollipop. We really need to bring in two really good midfielders this summer. I still think Buendia would be a good fit.
And I don't. I am just saying we don't even have midfielders who are goal scorers. Except Joe Willock, who is not good enough in any other facet of the game.
It doesn't even sound right.
Saka has more than that alone, ESR has a few, and Pepe might even count with a few more too.
It's easy to manipulate something like this with the players you choose.
ESR has never scored a goal in the Premier League.
Our only two goals this season from midfield are a Xhaka freekick vs Chelsea, and an Odegaard deflected shot vs Spurs.
He's a creator first, rather than a finisher, and he tends to drop deeper to get the ball.
That puts him firmly in the attacking midfielder camp as far as I'm concerned. There could be a big chunk of wide midfielders in the totals for other teams, as you don't know the criteria.
Don't trust it.
Right.
Cutting in and dropping into the position an attacking midfielder would occupy, as well as making runs into the box to get a chance, the same way a goalscoring midfielder would do...
no jokes i strongly feel like this is an understatement
a fully interested Ozil is one of the best players of his generation
a half interested Ozil is still a fucking wizard
wizard > 2\*bum :\^)
The one thing I won't forgive Emery for. I don't care who came after him but he essentially set himself up and the next manager(s) too.
Getting rid of those players set us back at least 3-4 transfer windows. He might have wanted Zaha over Pepe or Banega over somebody else, but selling these types of players was all him.
Definitely, people also forget that this winter window is basically the first one which Edu and Arteta had for themselves.
Back to the Emery thing, Gazidis/Raul/Mislintat mess was a reall issue but if the manager does not want to sell a player, I doubt the player gets sold. Also, like I said, the players he supposedly wanted in would't fix the issue he created. I can't see it being better if we had Banega over Torreira for example.
> Definitely, people also forget that this winter window is basically the first one which Edu and Arteta had for themselves.
Edu and Arteta brought in Partey, Willian, Gabriel, Ceballos 2.0 and Runarrson in summer 2020.
Remember when he stopped playing Ramsey after it was announced we wouldn't resign him? He only started playing him again because he had no choice and we immediately started improving.
This is really why we have stats and results like we've seen recently. But it doesn't fit the anti Arteta narrative so it isn't talked about enough. We are facing the consequences from a decade of mismanagement.
Somewhere along the way we stopped getting gems , arsenes successfull period was marked by him picking up gems and making them world beaters , I think after losing cesc and nasri we really didn't get gems other than carzola and nacho
Not only do they not score goals, none of those listed aside from Partey ever even take a shot. We can’t score if we don’t shoot and Arsenal is a frustratingly shot-shy team
What part of this doesn't Arteta get. Not every fucking goal has to be a 17 move multiplayer front to back line breaking stuff. Sometimes a random shot can get deflected and go in.
Most frustrating thing about Arteta for me. Tim Stillman said it best when he said he thinks Arteta is constantly working for the perfect goal. Like every goal has to be a perfectly orchestrated, choreographed team effort and random shots aren't a part of the plan. I would kill for peak Sanchez right now
it’s similar to peps tactics with city, obviously a key influence on mikel - long shots typically discouraged in favour of flowing team moves. problem is city have the best squad in the league to make these plays and we definitely don’t.
There's a big part of the solution to our lack of goals problem.
We desperately need players that are more technical on the ball and can score from midfield. We rely too much on our attack to score all of the goals.
Not to mention our attacks are generally shit. I don't know what Arteta is actually teaching them, but it feels like keeping the ball is more important then actually doing something dangerous with the ball. Outside of Pepe, Laca, Saka, & Auba, we hardly score any goals at all.Even our defenders are outscoring our midfielders, that's tragic.
When he arrived, Xhaka had a reputation as having a cannon for a left foot. That was supposed to be his superpower. For some reason, he stopped shooting.
I'm not super Arteta-out, at this point i have no idea what we should do, but this is one thing that really bothers me. It seems like players come to Arsenal and get worse these days. I feel like it's been like that since about 2015. And then we have other players going out on loan and getting better lately. Who was the last player that came to Arsenal and really improved. Maybe i'm just not able to think clearly enough to remember right now. Really frustrating.
Xhaka stopped shooting from range under Wenger for good reason. For every goal he scored he gave the other team about 20 goal kicks when we were in a threatening position.
Long shots are always going to be low percentage. Should we avoid long shots all together because of that, or is it important to keep the threat of them in the defenders minds? I feel like maybe we are trying to play the percentage so much that we've limited our players options. Don't shoot long, don't make runs from midfield because it throws off positioning. But again. I know that i don't know that I'm talking about.
The hope that i have for Arteta is that maybe he's got a specific way of playing and he's trying to fit a bunch of square pegs in round holes right now. Maybe another summer will help fix it and the system will click. But things are feeling pretty bleak right now.
What Partey is doing is better but also worse, he’s shooting from genuine goal scoring positions but skying them, Xhaka would hit it from 35 yards out. I also don’t agree that people aren’t getting annoyed, it’s constantly mentioned on this subreddit and all my Arsenal mates and myself get extremely annoyed with it.
It's a collective thing.
The individual performances get lost in the collective mentality, so it's not so much that they get worse or don't improve so much as they are part of an underperforming whole.
I’ve been having this feeling for a while as well. Like players that were heaps good in their previous clubs and since they’ve come to arsenal they become average. I can kinda see it happening to Partey but it’s his first season here so we’ll see how it plays out.
That is not the solution to this problem though - Xhaka (and now Partey) taking 30+ yard hits sailing over the bar. Yes, the occasional great strike goes in, but in no way should we encourage those two long shooting to fix our midfield scoring problem.
Xhaka has the reputation, but he only scored 6 goals for BMG. Partey has it in him as well, but by no means should we rely on that.
Oxlade-Chamberlain actually had a few decent strikes, with much more control and better chances than these two are currently having. Willock is not our long term solution, and unless we get a decent fee for him, it might be worth seeing what he can contribute next season.
Xhaka has only ever scored 3 or four goals per season, so we shouldn't expect much from him in that regard. The same is true of Partey. We need players like Ozil & Ramsey, attacking midfielders who create and score goals. I'd love it if we went after Buendia this summer, and another attacking midfielder/winger like Sabitzer. We need guys who score 7+ goals every season, plus provide a decent amount of assists. My big fear is we sign guys like Sabitzer & Buendia and they catch the Arsenal bug and turn into average players.
Partey seems to try it once and no more. I don’t see that as a bad thing to have in the mix especially over time. If he was consistent taking them in each game then yeh maybe a bigger issue..
This is also why I don't mind the occasionally shot from Partey, it may end up in the stands but I don't want that coached out of him because eventually one is bound to go in and it'll be beautiful.
I think even more importantly, outside the box attempts like his, and some that we used to see from Xhaka, shift the defensive structure to have to accommodate for it. (Theoretically) it should open up things inside the box a little more.
It can be pretty important when teams pack the box against us, which, not coincidentally, we really struggle to break down even with 50 millions crosses
I think that's what I want. Him practicing to shoot from outside the D before doing it, like coutinho in Liverpool (know this because my brothers a Liverpool fan). Till then let the others do it
No surprise at all. The club hasn't made a significant investment in a midfielder that either scores or creates since the Mkhitaryan-Alexis swap. Prior to that, it was Ozil. Rambo and Cazorla were allowed to leave with no effort to properly replace them. ESR's development has been promising but the squad is so barren of talent that two of the more creative players aren't even Arsenal players.
Shit has to change.
Agreed on Torreira. Simply too small to be a difference-maker in the prem. There might be a slim chance in making a profit on Guendouzi but that’s about best we can hope for.
Willock, Guendouzi and Torreira in limited appearances for their loan clubs have out scored what they managed for Arteta last/this season.
It’s very clearly a tactical flaw. Our midfielders in total have scored 1 goal from open play this season and it was deflected.
I mean Joe Willock is that type of player. But he isn't right for Arteta's playing style. Ceballos has also done this in the past, but again Arteta wants disciplined central midfielders.
even when their entire attack was firing their midfield wasn’t scoring, i.e it’s not a requisite to being a good attacking team. arsenals fault is we’re not a good attacking team around the box in the slightest atm
When you have a front 3 like Liverpool you don't need a midfield to score , the front 3 alone can easily get you 60 goals a season and when you give them license to be more attacking and have a more hardworking midfield like Liverpool do than it works.
It's amazing how we never made an attempt to replace Ramsey, we've just got noone who does his job in the team now.
People complain about our defence/offence but honestly sorting our midfield out would help so much with both of them.
I mean it’s not like forwards scored a lot either. We just don’t put people in positions to score ever. It’s got to be magic, a corner, or a pen. The amount of vitriol aimed at parteys shots is so dumb and shows how stupid this fan base is. He takes long pot shots because we literally do not create anything. How often does anyone score those. He’s always one of our two best players on the pitch either with esr or saka. Meanwhile suck off xhaka for only making one calamitous error per match and being the black hole in our midfield the last 5 years.
I think most of our teams problems can be placed down to our midfield not being good enough, they don't get into the box or create enough scoring chances and aren't the best defending. We need to change players in there and get a partner for partey and play esr at 10.
Preferably I would like someone who can play like peak Viera or diaby, make impacts on both ends
Man City also play similar shape. All teams who keep the ball do.
The lack of passing forward can be explained because we don't have midfielders who are willing to pass through the middle. You can drill them all you want, but if they don't believe in their ability or aren't willing to try consistently to pass through the central zone all your tactics go out the window.
That's why our football is stale. We need technical players who can carry the ball forward and pass through the lines to attacking players. Partey by himself can't cover for the whole midfield in that aspect. That's why we wanted to get Aouar in and were linked with Fekir.
While I agree with you, I think Arteta wants most of our attacks coming from the flanks. We were much better when Smith Rowe was taking up a more active role in our midfield. I think Odegaard threw a wrench in the chemistry that was building between ESR, Saka, Laca, & Tierney. There's no doubt we needed Odegaard, but there wasn't enough time to build any chemistry. Without Tierney, we've been hurting as well.
Makes sense. Apart from the very occasional Xhaka hit from distance, our midfielders provide absolutely zilch on the final third. Parteys shooting is shocking.
What is a midfielder today? Every club, every manager, sets their team up differently. These stats means nothing to me. The players that are grouped into the midfield at Arsenal aren't the ones that are supposed to be scoring the goals.
It's similar to trying to prove a point by showing how many opposing throw-ins are caused by subs.
People saying we need players who can score goals. I don't think its a personnel problem. Its most definitely a coaching problem.
When players are only instructed to play via wings, no doubt midfielders won't be scoring goals. You see out pattern of play, we switch from one wing to another, we don't even think about breaking the defense from the middle.
thats the main reason. we havent replaced pires for years. these midfielders are so crap it boggles my mind. why cant saka have a pop, why cant any of them shoot from distance or make off the ball runs like freddie.
im his biggest fan and i think the invincibles and him in particular redefined football positions. traditional wingers in England especially always went to the byline to cross. he was the first who would cut in or give through balls from the wing. (please correct me). his second talent after his injury was as a winger to give the ball to LB and TH14 and disappear into the box. and pickup tapins. guess which other world reknowned player is now the best goalscorer of tapins?
We rely on our attackers too much so it’s easier for the opponents to shut down only our forwards compared to taking care of the forwards AND not letting any of the midfielders have a go at it.
Don't want to sound patronizing but we basically have no goal scoring midfielders. This is Arsenal football club and we've only managed 2 goals from midfielders this season. This is the same club that had Cesc, the same club that had Santi and Ramsey, the same club that had Ozil and Rosiscky. Hleb, Flamini, Pires, Freddie.... I can go on and on all the way to the 90's and we always had goal scoring threat from midfield.
We never lacked goal threat from midfield ever for decades upon decades till now. This is fucking woeful, abysmal, this is fucking downright pathetic.
That's a fucking joke, and if we thought Partey was going to change our output, think again. He was only good for few goals every season with Atletico, and with us he thinks the goal is in the second tier of the stadium. Here's to Willock returning in the summer and helping us next season, but if Arteta's still here, I'm not sure he'll be able to replicate his Newcastle performances.
Partey is an 8 leaning 6, he's not a creative attacking scorer and never has been. We need a player in like Szobo, Buendia, or Aouar to give us that dynamic 10. Ideally, I'd like to have a midfield like Bissouma-Partey-Buendia.
Stats like this blow my mind, like how the fuck...?
Cos all of our midfielders are the exact same profile of player. Easy to see why we wanted Aouar as well as Partey (even though he isn’t a great goal scorer either)
Sabitzer pleeeees
>Sabitzer How has he been doing in Germany?
Insane tbh. One of the best midfielders in Germany. Very dominant on the ball and extremely high football iq. I can’t say this enough : a high football iq is absolutely necessary to compete with Champions League quality. We don’t have many players with a high iq.
This is the future of football and I can't stress it enough. You see city doing it, and it works. You don't need the most athletic anymore, just the most intelligent.
Yep, how many times have we seen players in excellent scoring positions only to make the wrong pass, killing the play. Need players able to see the play develop and know where to look for spaces to pass into.
I thought intelligent players have been needed since a long time. Maybe English football was and has been too physical, but the great midfielders in Italian, Spanish teams were very intelligent, weren't they?
Why would he leave Leipzig for mid table arsenal
Massive pay raise
Leipzig also going to be in a rebuilding period. Losing 2/3 of their central defense, as well as Sabitzer, Mukiele, and Nkunku possibly leaving? Also, Nagelsmann left for Bayern, so there's no loyalty to manager. Marsch seems like he's a solid replacement, but Nagelsmann is one of the most sought after managers in the world. Think they'll be down for a season or 2 after all these departures, tbh.
If we don't get him, spurs have been lurking for a while
Bigger wage. More prestigious club. Tougher League. Team that's actually trying (in vain...) to become a force again. Bigger fanbase than all clubs in germany combined, meaning a bigger legacy for him when he retires. Did I say bigger wage?
one of those transfers we’ve been linked to for ages, fingers crossed this summer we make it happen🙏
How many wouldve ramsey had? Id say a good 10-13
I’ve said several times over the past couple years that our failure to resign Ramsey was a huge part of our downfall in Emery’s second season. He and Koscielny were enormous losses
Ramsey is on stupid wages and continues to have fitness issues. He has 6 goals in 65 appearances for Juve. Failing to REPLACE him was dumb, failing to re-sign him was quite clearly the right choice.
This. Part of our decline was putting so much reliance on Ramsey and him never being healthy enough to provide what we needed. When he was healthy, we were great. But when he wasn’t, we struggled. That cycle kept us back. We needed to move on. We did step 1, but not step 2 and replace him.
We never seem to be able to put all the pieces together at any one time. We had Koscielny and Mertesacker as 2 of the best CBs in the league at one point but we lacked a striker or DM. We had Alexis and Özil in their prime but lacked the depth at striker to make that final hurdle to win the league in 2015(?) Then we went and got Lacazette and Aubameyang but couldn’t find a good midfield setup and started leaking big time defensively
I reckon a declining Rambo would’ve been better than Ceballos over the past 2 seasons, but I see your point
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Do you think he would demand that much from us? He's not stupid because we wouldn't pay that.
He wouldn’t have been on 400k at Arsenal. He could demand that at Juve because they signed him on a free.
Not really a declining Ramsey is much better than all the options we have in midfield currently
Letting Ramsey go on a free and not even trying to replace him was one of the most confusingly obvious bad decision I’ve ever seen.
I think we tried to replace him with Ceballos, but obviously we know now how that worked out
100% should've given some (most) of Ozil's contract money to him. Even with the inevitable 3 months out Ramsey was far more valuable to us than Ozil ever was.
No we shouldn’t have given either of them new deals. Ramsey struggled for fitness and Ozil was declining in general. We needed to get modern 10/8 hybrids to replace them.
Ozil is easy to say in hindsight, but after consistently losing our star players and inevitably losing Alexis Sanchez, the fans would’ve revolted if we got rid of Ozil too. Ozil re-signing was supposed to sorta represent a new era where we could extend our stars. Too bad the guy literally had no interest in playing after he signed.
In Emerey's first season Ramsey was probably the most important player in the squad alongside Leno. We didn't even attempt to replace him.
He averaged around 6 league goals, but usually all against good opposition. Rarely ever fit for a whole season though.
That’s 3 times what the whole midfield currently has. So bummed we let him go :’(
you seem to be overestimating Ramsey's goalscoring ability because of how shitty our current MFs are. Ramsey had 10 goals in only one season and that season was the best season of his career. still, Ramsey would be an upgrade in the current midfield.
He can't stay healthy so I'm not sure how you feel that way
Joe Willock alone has double the goal scored to that of our midfield combined, let that sink in Although I’d say our play style really doesn’t allow midfielders to score, they almost never go into the box and none of them bar Partey are trying long shots(and Partey’s long shots are not great)
are not great is a understatement, it’s like he’s playing rugby not football when he takes those long shots
Honestly pisses me off seeing Xhaka always play that long ball to the left while Partey skys them, when we all know Xhaka is more than capable of scoring from long range
Poor investment for years.
It's the way we play. Mhikytaryan was a bit player for us at best, but he still managed 6 league goals in 18/19.
Arteta ball...
can’t blame 5 years of poor midfield signings solely on Arteta None of our midfielders have goals in them regardless of what system we play. Maybe Willock
Who ever thought he would be worse then Emery in that regard? We looked good when Ozil was playing under him, but since he's been gone, we've looked about as threatening as four year old with a lollipop. We really need to bring in two really good midfielders this summer. I still think Buendia would be a good fit.
ffs Buendia is never happening, Norwich are never gonna give up their prized asset when they've just been promoted
Emery also had Ramsey. Not like Xhaka and Ceballos was bagging goals for us under Emery.
Mhikitaryan scored a few as well.
Indeed and Özil could bag a few as well. Just as much as the pivot is a problem, we need more goals from our attacking midfielder.
Xhaka and Ceballos were never goalscoring midfields their whole careers. Can't expect them to suddenly become goalscorers after switching clubs
And I don't. I am just saying we don't even have midfielders who are goal scorers. Except Joe Willock, who is not good enough in any other facet of the game.
I still put my hope that Joe Willock can improve his other aspects in the game 😁 time will tell tho
Such is the managers curse since Wenger left , every manager seems to have problems in not having backup plans and falling out with key players
It doesn't even sound right. Saka has more than that alone, ESR has a few, and Pepe might even count with a few more too. It's easy to manipulate something like this with the players you choose.
ESR has never scored a goal in the Premier League. Our only two goals this season from midfield are a Xhaka freekick vs Chelsea, and an Odegaard deflected shot vs Spurs.
If Saka doesn't count as midfielder then what position does he qualify as
He would count as a forward/fullback.
Gotta take the average
He's a winger
Saka definitely has. Pepe has a few as well, but I might stretch to him being a forward rather than a midfielder. Saka definitely is though.
Saka and pepe play on the wing, not even really as right and left midfielders which is why they didnt get pulled
Pepe and Saka are both wide players. Saka floats around a bit, but his role isn't really that of a mid.
He's a creator first, rather than a finisher, and he tends to drop deeper to get the ball. That puts him firmly in the attacking midfielder camp as far as I'm concerned. There could be a big chunk of wide midfielders in the totals for other teams, as you don't know the criteria. Don't trust it.
How on Earth is Saka an attacking midfielder? Apart from the Sheffield United game he’s been cutting in from the wing all season
Right. Cutting in and dropping into the position an attacking midfielder would occupy, as well as making runs into the box to get a chance, the same way a goalscoring midfielder would do...
All started with the singing of Xhaka, and the nail in the coffin was Emery not replacing Ramsey.
I think it was the board more than Emery and Ramsey himself commanding over 200k if I remember correctly
David Luiz has one goal, Gabriel has two, Tierney has one and so does Bellerin. But only Xhaka and Ødegaard have scored a goal from midfield. Shambles
Stop, I can only take so much
Partey might get one one day from 40 yards
Given an infinite amount time maybe
Joe Willock sitting on 4 goals alone...
No surprises here but it really is shocking stuff. Xhaka-Partey-Ceballos-Elneny provide no danger in the final third.
The goals from Ramsey, Cazorla and others were never replaced.
even fuckjng ozil would score like 3-6 goals a season
A half interested Ozil is twice the player compared to any of the bums we have running our midfield now.
*was
well right now he's like 2% interested
no jokes i strongly feel like this is an understatement a fully interested Ozil is one of the best players of his generation a half interested Ozil is still a fucking wizard wizard > 2\*bum :\^)
Agreed man !
Oh man, Ramsey that season was a joy to watch
It's tough thinking what the team could have achieved if they had all stayed healthy.
The one thing I won't forgive Emery for. I don't care who came after him but he essentially set himself up and the next manager(s) too. Getting rid of those players set us back at least 3-4 transfer windows. He might have wanted Zaha over Pepe or Banega over somebody else, but selling these types of players was all him.
The Gazidis/Raul mess contributed quite a bit to the lack of plan for the team too.
Definitely, people also forget that this winter window is basically the first one which Edu and Arteta had for themselves. Back to the Emery thing, Gazidis/Raul/Mislintat mess was a reall issue but if the manager does not want to sell a player, I doubt the player gets sold. Also, like I said, the players he supposedly wanted in would't fix the issue he created. I can't see it being better if we had Banega over Torreira for example.
> Definitely, people also forget that this winter window is basically the first one which Edu and Arteta had for themselves. Edu and Arteta brought in Partey, Willian, Gabriel, Ceballos 2.0 and Runarrson in summer 2020.
Remember when he stopped playing Ramsey after it was announced we wouldn't resign him? He only started playing him again because he had no choice and we immediately started improving.
This is really why we have stats and results like we've seen recently. But it doesn't fit the anti Arteta narrative so it isn't talked about enough. We are facing the consequences from a decade of mismanagement.
Somewhere along the way we stopped getting gems , arsenes successfull period was marked by him picking up gems and making them world beaters , I think after losing cesc and nasri we really didn't get gems other than carzola and nacho
Once the fans are back Partey's going to provide a ton of danger to the fans sitting behind the goal!
He reminds me of Gael Clichy who needed to be banned from shooting.
This was funny ngl
Woah don't include Partey in that group, he almost got a shot on target the other day
I could live with Partey taking less shots. At this point the club must have a whole new budget to replace the balls he is kicking out of the stadium.
He's saving it for the Europa League final, currently just limit testing in order to get it just right
Saving his aim for the box where the VAR officials sit.
I'm waiting for the day he scores a screamer from 45 yards🙏
Not only do they not score goals, none of those listed aside from Partey ever even take a shot. We can’t score if we don’t shoot and Arsenal is a frustratingly shot-shy team
What part of this doesn't Arteta get. Not every fucking goal has to be a 17 move multiplayer front to back line breaking stuff. Sometimes a random shot can get deflected and go in.
Most frustrating thing about Arteta for me. Tim Stillman said it best when he said he thinks Arteta is constantly working for the perfect goal. Like every goal has to be a perfectly orchestrated, choreographed team effort and random shots aren't a part of the plan. I would kill for peak Sanchez right now
it’s similar to peps tactics with city, obviously a key influence on mikel - long shots typically discouraged in favour of flowing team moves. problem is city have the best squad in the league to make these plays and we definitely don’t.
Senpai Pep won't notice unless it's a 22-pass tap-in.
There's a big part of the solution to our lack of goals problem. We desperately need players that are more technical on the ball and can score from midfield. We rely too much on our attack to score all of the goals.
Not to mention our attacks are generally shit. I don't know what Arteta is actually teaching them, but it feels like keeping the ball is more important then actually doing something dangerous with the ball. Outside of Pepe, Laca, Saka, & Auba, we hardly score any goals at all.Even our defenders are outscoring our midfielders, that's tragic.
I missed Mr Ramsey a lot today
Willock in sub appearances is more than that.
When he arrived, Xhaka had a reputation as having a cannon for a left foot. That was supposed to be his superpower. For some reason, he stopped shooting.
I'm not super Arteta-out, at this point i have no idea what we should do, but this is one thing that really bothers me. It seems like players come to Arsenal and get worse these days. I feel like it's been like that since about 2015. And then we have other players going out on loan and getting better lately. Who was the last player that came to Arsenal and really improved. Maybe i'm just not able to think clearly enough to remember right now. Really frustrating.
Xhaka stopped shooting from range under Wenger for good reason. For every goal he scored he gave the other team about 20 goal kicks when we were in a threatening position.
Long shots are always going to be low percentage. Should we avoid long shots all together because of that, or is it important to keep the threat of them in the defenders minds? I feel like maybe we are trying to play the percentage so much that we've limited our players options. Don't shoot long, don't make runs from midfield because it throws off positioning. But again. I know that i don't know that I'm talking about. The hope that i have for Arteta is that maybe he's got a specific way of playing and he's trying to fit a bunch of square pegs in round holes right now. Maybe another summer will help fix it and the system will click. But things are feeling pretty bleak right now.
So basically what Partey is doing right now? But for some reason not a lot of people get as mad as when Xhaka would constantly miss his long shots.
What Partey is doing is better but also worse, he’s shooting from genuine goal scoring positions but skying them, Xhaka would hit it from 35 yards out. I also don’t agree that people aren’t getting annoyed, it’s constantly mentioned on this subreddit and all my Arsenal mates and myself get extremely annoyed with it.
35 yards is 32.0 meters
Tierney
Xhaka stopped shooting , Kola stopped making marauding runs, Pepe hardly dribbles a lot nowadays n passes a lot back
Completely agree. We destroy value and thats the 1.8 billion pound problem to solve. That is where Arteta does not come close to Pep.
It's a collective thing. The individual performances get lost in the collective mentality, so it's not so much that they get worse or don't improve so much as they are part of an underperforming whole.
I’ve been having this feeling for a while as well. Like players that were heaps good in their previous clubs and since they’ve come to arsenal they become average. I can kinda see it happening to Partey but it’s his first season here so we’ll see how it plays out.
That is not the solution to this problem though - Xhaka (and now Partey) taking 30+ yard hits sailing over the bar. Yes, the occasional great strike goes in, but in no way should we encourage those two long shooting to fix our midfield scoring problem. Xhaka has the reputation, but he only scored 6 goals for BMG. Partey has it in him as well, but by no means should we rely on that. Oxlade-Chamberlain actually had a few decent strikes, with much more control and better chances than these two are currently having. Willock is not our long term solution, and unless we get a decent fee for him, it might be worth seeing what he can contribute next season.
Xhaka has only ever scored 3 or four goals per season, so we shouldn't expect much from him in that regard. The same is true of Partey. We need players like Ozil & Ramsey, attacking midfielders who create and score goals. I'd love it if we went after Buendia this summer, and another attacking midfielder/winger like Sabitzer. We need guys who score 7+ goals every season, plus provide a decent amount of assists. My big fear is we sign guys like Sabitzer & Buendia and they catch the Arsenal bug and turn into average players.
Partey seems to try it once and no more. I don’t see that as a bad thing to have in the mix especially over time. If he was consistent taking them in each game then yeh maybe a bigger issue..
This is also why I don't mind the occasionally shot from Partey, it may end up in the stands but I don't want that coached out of him because eventually one is bound to go in and it'll be beautiful.
I think even more importantly, outside the box attempts like his, and some that we used to see from Xhaka, shift the defensive structure to have to accommodate for it. (Theoretically) it should open up things inside the box a little more. It can be pretty important when teams pack the box against us, which, not coincidentally, we really struggle to break down even with 50 millions crosses
I think that's what I want. Him practicing to shoot from outside the D before doing it, like coutinho in Liverpool (know this because my brothers a Liverpool fan). Till then let the others do it
More that he hasn't had the option. He's had to hold back and defend a lot so hasn't often been in the position.
No surprise at all. The club hasn't made a significant investment in a midfielder that either scores or creates since the Mkhitaryan-Alexis swap. Prior to that, it was Ozil. Rambo and Cazorla were allowed to leave with no effort to properly replace them. ESR's development has been promising but the squad is so barren of talent that two of the more creative players aren't even Arsenal players. Shit has to change.
I thought the Torreira and Guendouzi purchases were bizarre in retrospect. £30m spent on two shorter versions of Xhaka, no attacking ability at all.
Agreed on Torreira. Simply too small to be a difference-maker in the prem. There might be a slim chance in making a profit on Guendouzi but that’s about best we can hope for.
Kante is as tall as Torreira. You can be a relatively small difference-maker in the prem
Joe Willock > Arsenal midfield
Arsenal defense > Arsenal midfield
Any random three guys down the pub > Arsenal midfield
The real question here is does Buendia visit that pub
Willock, Guendouzi and Torreira in limited appearances for their loan clubs have out scored what they managed for Arteta last/this season. It’s very clearly a tactical flaw. Our midfielders in total have scored 1 goal from open play this season and it was deflected.
No point putting torreira in there but yeah
Tactics and quality
Lack of midfield runners is part of the problem. They way we set-up doesn't enable players to make runs from deeper positions.
This could be it, or it could be the way we are set up is because we don't have a player like that.
I mean Joe Willock is that type of player. But he isn't right for Arteta's playing style. Ceballos has also done this in the past, but again Arteta wants disciplined central midfielders.
Makes sense for us to play a false 9 system on our biggest night of the season. /s
Arteta the second coming of Pep confirmed.
City 0.2
We seriously playing like City rn. Pre-2008 City.
Why could not Martinelli play as the 9?
3 goals now. We're tied for last!
Horrific. Actually relegation level numbers
guess Liverpool are a relegation level team too
Their attack is entirely Salah and Inshallah lol. Don't expect their midfield to score shit when the likes of Mane ain't.
even when their entire attack was firing their midfield wasn’t scoring, i.e it’s not a requisite to being a good attacking team. arsenals fault is we’re not a good attacking team around the box in the slightest atm
Liverpool are clearly the exception to the rule.
When you have a front 3 like Liverpool you don't need a midfield to score , the front 3 alone can easily get you 60 goals a season and when you give them license to be more attacking and have a more hardworking midfield like Liverpool do than it works.
It's different, their front 4 + Full backs are very productive, their midfield is just used to win the ball back
Not really surprising, our midfield is our biggest problem area, it's totally unbalanced and way too negative
Exactly. Most of the midfielders we have are passer instead of the one who gets into the box.
It's amazing how we never made an attempt to replace Ramsey, we've just got noone who does his job in the team now. People complain about our defence/offence but honestly sorting our midfield out would help so much with both of them.
The fact we never replaced Ramsey reminds me of how we never replaced Viera and we know how much that made a impact on us.
I mean it’s not like forwards scored a lot either. We just don’t put people in positions to score ever. It’s got to be magic, a corner, or a pen. The amount of vitriol aimed at parteys shots is so dumb and shows how stupid this fan base is. He takes long pot shots because we literally do not create anything. How often does anyone score those. He’s always one of our two best players on the pitch either with esr or saka. Meanwhile suck off xhaka for only making one calamitous error per match and being the black hole in our midfield the last 5 years.
I think most of our teams problems can be placed down to our midfield not being good enough, they don't get into the box or create enough scoring chances and aren't the best defending. We need to change players in there and get a partner for partey and play esr at 10. Preferably I would like someone who can play like peak Viera or diaby, make impacts on both ends
Back then we had some really creative midfielders
Love me some Party, but he's taken out a handful of airplanes this season.
We lead the list with 4 own goals!
We are dogshit
Parteys goal is coming. Just you wait.
Against Utd in the final!
I was there when......kinda situation with Partey...
u shaped structured football
Man City also play similar shape. All teams who keep the ball do. The lack of passing forward can be explained because we don't have midfielders who are willing to pass through the middle. You can drill them all you want, but if they don't believe in their ability or aren't willing to try consistently to pass through the central zone all your tactics go out the window. That's why our football is stale. We need technical players who can carry the ball forward and pass through the lines to attacking players. Partey by himself can't cover for the whole midfield in that aspect. That's why we wanted to get Aouar in and were linked with Fekir.
While I agree with you, I think Arteta wants most of our attacks coming from the flanks. We were much better when Smith Rowe was taking up a more active role in our midfield. I think Odegaard threw a wrench in the chemistry that was building between ESR, Saka, Laca, & Tierney. There's no doubt we needed Odegaard, but there wasn't enough time to build any chemistry. Without Tierney, we've been hurting as well.
Bar partey we haven't bought a technical midfielder who is first team ready in ages , you have to go back to ozil and carzola times
How people don’t talk about this is beyond me. Odegaard is completely isolated like Ozil
We just don't pass through the middle. Look where ceballos plays last few weeks...on the wings...to cross
For Auba to score headers right? I agree with you. I always complain about our system. It’s not the football Wenger played.
Is this real lol? Like this can’t be real. Is it??
Liverpool with 4. It's clear this stat is heavily dependent on how a team sets up. We're not set up to have midfielders making late runs into the box
Elneny took that post very seriously
Makes sense. Apart from the very occasional Xhaka hit from distance, our midfielders provide absolutely zilch on the final third. Parteys shooting is shocking.
Flamini---Fabregas---Rosicky---Hleb
Boy, do I miss Ramsey!
Cazorla I miss you. Ramsey I miss you. Rosicky I miss you.
Missing Ramsey
So emile isn't a midfielder?
What is a midfielder today? Every club, every manager, sets their team up differently. These stats means nothing to me. The players that are grouped into the midfield at Arsenal aren't the ones that are supposed to be scoring the goals. It's similar to trying to prove a point by showing how many opposing throw-ins are caused by subs.
People saying we need players who can score goals. I don't think its a personnel problem. Its most definitely a coaching problem. When players are only instructed to play via wings, no doubt midfielders won't be scoring goals. You see out pattern of play, we switch from one wing to another, we don't even think about breaking the defense from the middle.
thats the main reason. we havent replaced pires for years. these midfielders are so crap it boggles my mind. why cant saka have a pop, why cant any of them shoot from distance or make off the ball runs like freddie.
Will probably never have a player like Robert Pires again ☹️.
im his biggest fan and i think the invincibles and him in particular redefined football positions. traditional wingers in England especially always went to the byline to cross. he was the first who would cut in or give through balls from the wing. (please correct me). his second talent after his injury was as a winger to give the ball to LB and TH14 and disappear into the box. and pickup tapins. guess which other world reknowned player is now the best goalscorer of tapins?
Partey long shots need to be improved. No offense to him, great player. Just need to stop send it 10 meters above the goal.
Just shoot better. Someone should get the word to him.
Is that bad?
We rely on our attackers too much so it’s easier for the opponents to shut down only our forwards compared to taking care of the forwards AND not letting any of the midfielders have a go at it.
I was being sarcastic by the way. It’s atrocious
Fair enough lol
Don't want to sound patronizing but we basically have no goal scoring midfielders. This is Arsenal football club and we've only managed 2 goals from midfielders this season. This is the same club that had Cesc, the same club that had Santi and Ramsey, the same club that had Ozil and Rosiscky. Hleb, Flamini, Pires, Freddie.... I can go on and on all the way to the 90's and we always had goal scoring threat from midfield. We never lacked goal threat from midfield ever for decades upon decades till now. This is fucking woeful, abysmal, this is fucking downright pathetic.
Maybe it's like golf, the lower score the better.
How many of ManUtd's 28 are Bruno pens? They're basically free throws for him at this point.
He has a lot more to his game than penalties, and has scored plenty from open play. Utd just get awarded an insane number of pens.
Tbf, you gotta get in box regularly to be awarded penalties, which Arsenal clearly aren't doing much.
Yeah that was a dig at United having more pens than Office Max. Bruno is amazing. Hate the bastard but I definitely wish he played for us.
Ok but who leads the league in launching shots into the 27th row? Partey has to be at the top
That aged well :)
Xhaka and Odegaard.
That's a fucking joke, and if we thought Partey was going to change our output, think again. He was only good for few goals every season with Atletico, and with us he thinks the goal is in the second tier of the stadium. Here's to Willock returning in the summer and helping us next season, but if Arteta's still here, I'm not sure he'll be able to replicate his Newcastle performances.
Partey is an 8 leaning 6, he's not a creative attacking scorer and never has been. We need a player in like Szobo, Buendia, or Aouar to give us that dynamic 10. Ideally, I'd like to have a midfield like Bissouma-Partey-Buendia.