Re: ***The Official Arsenal Gunners" Thread***
Current, and arguably future personnel warrants 5 at the back. Between Kola, Bellerin, and AMN filling in at right-back I think sending the wings forward is important. Todays miss wasn't necessarily because of the defense though, against a BATE squad that we knew were going to throw bodies behind the ball and do their best to stop everything in the box, it's insane to me that we didn't have our creative best out there. Ozil wasn't performing well the last time he played in the league, but had he been given the space to operate that BATE were allowing outside the box, I believe he could have created more than FOUR chances. Iwobi is a fine player, but he absolutely should've sat out this game, he's a big physical winger that this game didn't need at all. Had I been in charge of sending out the squad, I probably would line up
Cech
AMN/Mustafi/Kos/Monreal/Kola
Guendouzi/Xhaka
Ozil/Ramsey
Laca
It gives us two creative players in the half spaces between Kola/AMN and Laca, allowing us to either control the ball on the wing and work it into the box, or sending in crosses to Laca. Xhaka gets to play more forward and set-up four attackers, two on the flanks, and two through the middle, this also pushes the defense a bit wider, so Xhaka could even set up one of his patented booms that either knocks out a spectator in Row T or rises to the top of the highlights on r/soccer. Guendouzi gets to control the midfield, something he's shown that he loves doing, and gives us an ultimate like-for-like replacement with Torreira coming in off the bench if Guendouzi's quality is lacking.
I think our player selection was wrong, I think the tactic was mostly correct though. As I've said this year isn't about winning silverware or going back to being "Arsenal" it's about the beginning of a process, and throughout, I've accepted the defeats where I thought we still did what we needed to do, and been happy with the overall progress in creating a definitive shape of play, today's team selection leaves me wondering a bit about after the process though, while I agree with playing people based on merit, it's an absolute fools errand to not change the team based on the opposition. Even in Football Manager I follow that.
Today was a disappointment, and a step back, we'll see if we can pick up the win in 7 days at the Emirates, if we don't, it'll be a catastrophic failure. Emery has his work cut out for him, and this will honestly be a sticking point for me in my support if he fails to adapt.
Current, and arguably future personnel warrants 5 at the back. Between Kola, Bellerin, and AMN filling in at right-back I think sending the wings forward is important. Todays miss wasn't necessarily because of the defense though, against a BATE squad that we knew were going to throw bodies behind the ball and do their best to stop everything in the box, it's insane to me that we didn't have our creative best out there. Ozil wasn't performing well the last time he played in the league, but had he been given the space to operate that BATE were allowing outside the box, I believe he could have created more than FOUR chances. Iwobi is a fine player, but he absolutely should've sat out this game, he's a big physical winger that this game didn't need at all. Had I been in charge of sending out the squad, I probably would line up
Cech
AMN/Mustafi/Kos/Monreal/Kola
Guendouzi/Xhaka
Ozil/Ramsey
Laca
It gives us two creative players in the half spaces between Kola/AMN and Laca, allowing us to either control the ball on the wing and work it into the box, or sending in crosses to Laca. Xhaka gets to play more forward and set-up four attackers, two on the flanks, and two through the middle, this also pushes the defense a bit wider, so Xhaka could even set up one of his patented booms that either knocks out a spectator in Row T or rises to the top of the highlights on r/soccer. Guendouzi gets to control the midfield, something he's shown that he loves doing, and gives us an ultimate like-for-like replacement with Torreira coming in off the bench if Guendouzi's quality is lacking.
I think our player selection was wrong, I think the tactic was mostly correct though. As I've said this year isn't about winning silverware or going back to being "Arsenal" it's about the beginning of a process, and throughout, I've accepted the defeats where I thought we still did what we needed to do, and been happy with the overall progress in creating a definitive shape of play, today's team selection leaves me wondering a bit about after the process though, while I agree with playing people based on merit, it's an absolute fools errand to not change the team based on the opposition. Even in Football Manager I follow that.
Today was a disappointment, and a step back, we'll see if we can pick up the win in 7 days at the Emirates, if we don't, it'll be a catastrophic failure. Emery has his work cut out for him, and this will honestly be a sticking point for me in my support if he fails to adapt.
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