I say this not as a dig, but one of the best things Arsenal have going for them in terms of dusting themselves off and going again is not many of their players would be particularly attractive to sides above them in the pecking order.
If you think of the relatively small number of clubs who could forcibly snatch a player from Arsenal, you’re talking probably only Saliba, Rice, and Saka who any of them might look at as the player they need. And for reasons, it’s probably only Saliba they’d have to play any defense over keeping.
Maybe there is some scenario where a lot of interest in Saliba gets Gabriel a bit unsettled and someone responds to it in an opportunistic way, but I cannot see him being the guy any club is banging down the door to wrestle away from Arsenal.
And then there are several players like Trossard, or any of the collection of FBs, who dont play as much as they would like might try to engineer something, but no one who is particularly important
Partey launched 11 throws into the box on Wednesday. Apparently that is some sort of record.
I prefer teams that play but I am not a purist. I think you hurt teams in the ways that are available for you to hurt them. I think it was Paisley who said something along the lines of it’s not about a short ball or long ball, but the right ball when addressing this idea, and it was one of the things I loved about Luis Enrique’s version of Barca. They retained the ability to pass you off the pitch but would go long quickly if there was room over the top to do it. I find it incredibly funny that this Arsenal side could go from a reasonable comparison to that Barca side to this, and in such a short amount of time without even really changing their personnel.
Yeah but by number 5 they were floating in like they were on a balloon and were struggling to reach the penalty spot. This is another example of Arteta being a one trick pony he had decided this was the plan and it was been stuck too very much like the corner routine.