I'm seeing 2 major flaws in the squad at the moment and people will hate 1 of them. Our managers seem to think Lascelles is a must start and they're forced to pick ASM due to him being the crowd favourite. ASM is class with the tricks and the dribbling and I loved watching it. Its not what we need at the moment though. we need people who can pass and move, create space and create chances for our goal scorer, not show pony's. Willock like Longstaff before him got smoke blown up his arse and his goalscoring record which was never going to be replicated plastered over some poor performances from him last year too.
My honest opinion is that arsenal look to be becoming a very good side. They've got better players in literally every position and you can see they're playing like City.. Off tg ball was what caught my eye. I was way off on them before today.. They look a good side
You could pick whatever 11 you want, whatever formation you want and draw as many triangles as you like on a white board all week, but sometimes the other side is worth hundreds of millions more and it just ain't going to happen
I was impressed with the speed of their pressing and they follow the press with getting a tackle or at least a challenge in. We close the gap to 5 yards then jog away. I get jockeying if your a wing back to block crosses and not give away a penalty but our entire team just stop yards away from the ball or player and don't have any idea how to block a pass.
Not saying you and we're all guilty of this at times, but our instant view is that max playef badly, but seriously tomiyasu? He was absolutely tremendous. He defeated max mentally and physically within minutes
I think it's worth pointing out that arsenal had to go through a very tricky spell to start seeing the fruits of good coaching. We're going to have to go through that in spades
He had a good game mate, sure we were linked in the jan window a couple of years back. But.......something is not right with maxi man. He's giving up too early game in game out at the minute. I know he scored last week but I wasn't impressed by what I seen from him up till that point. The amount of times he tries one man too many is frustrating as ****, the amount of times he doesn't look up and play simple passes to people in goal scoring positions is ridiculous. It's basic basic stuff.
His defending is good as you’d expect from his time in Italy. Max and Wilson have been out of form for a few games now too.
Some of these players are un-coachable now. Lascelles is a lost cause, Fed will never get faster, Ritchie will never be a lwb or regain any pace, Manquillo won't get quicker and Unless Darlow walks down the Yellow brick Road - he's never going to get braver.
Max is excited and great entertainment but he's always going to struggle vs a side that's tenacious off the ball.. In the rare moments we won the ball Literally within a second.. Boom they're on you in numbers and if they didn't win the ball the ref allowed them to push and shove our lads off the ball
I agree but did you know that Manq is the fastest player in the squad.. Might be max or Fraser now but he's right up there
Aye his pace may be alright at top pelt, its just his acceleration is that ****ing ****e it takes him 800m to reach it
Things have changed because of signings but as you can see Manq is still right up there Jacob Murphy – 36.5 km/h Miguel Almiron – 36.3 km/h Joe Willock – 36.2 km/h Jamal Lewis – 35.1 km/h Jamaal Lascelles – 34.9 km/h Allan Saint-Maximin – 34.2 km/h Joelinton – 34.2 km/h Javier Manquillo – 34.0 km/h Callum Wilson – 34.0 km/h Ryan Fraser – 33.3 km/h
I don't understand it, I really don't. I coach young kids and know when someone shouldn't be in midfield or is a liability up top, I refuse to believe it's any different at elite level. I also understand that primarily a game is won or lost from the middle of the park. We have a team that has, for the past two years, played its' best football and got best results with a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 model. We have really good options from LW and RW and a decent CF. That happened today was Max was a LM. It's a different discipline, not helped by having the league's weakest LB behind him. Joelinton playing with Wilson up top for the first time ever was a random choice. Fraser on RM was anonymous, Krafth at RB was hopeless. The CB's weren't our weakest link today, there was a constant problem with both full backs and a gap between MF and CB, with nobody able to take the game forward until Almiron came on. For me, we need to play 4-2-3-1 against stronger sides, and like it or not will have to pick Hayden in matches to protect the defense. We can go 4-3-3 against those on a par with us and play a DM, we then go 4-3-3 with a playmaker instead of Hayden against the weaker sides. In every formation, we play the same front three, and we pick a solid back four of Manq, Fede/Lascelles, Schar and Lewis. Hell, even pick the u-23 kid at LB but for ****s sake drop Ritchie, he cost us a goal yet again today. Some say today was 3-4-3, but I'm afraid 90% of the time it was a Howe staple of 4-4-2 with Shelvey/Willock over-run in the middle - something (2 midfielders often against 3) that has been an issue since forever. I cannot fathom how successive managers fail to get to grips with this basic premise? I'm sick of saying it, I'm sick of seeing 2 weak as piss players in CM, I'm sick of seeing the repeated selection of **** non-full backs. Just pick the right ****ing players to fit the squad, then when Jan comes get the players to fit a different style and formation.