The Eurostar gets you to Paris faster than planes do I suppose…
Arsenal are ridiculously tough to play through. They are defensively pretty solid (apart from their defensive setpieces). Why would they need another DM if all they are doing is inverting their full backs ?
Everytime Pep decides an innovation in the game , Arteta does little other than blindly copy him.
Lewis-Skelly will probably continue as a left-back for now.
Zubimendi coming in would mean 6 players for 3 midfield spots. 3 starters, and 3 back-ups. It’d be good solid depth.
Sure , but considering that arsenal invert their wingbacks into the midfield. Why would they need another midfielder ? I get the depth but arsenal have had solid depth this season in the midfield anyway.
They may still end up getting djokeres but where’s the service coming from.
They can’t play Havertz , Odegard seems as if he’s lost a step. Where’s the creative force coming from ?
I guess Partey’s contract extension by one year (if he agrees to it) is probably to keep him around for that depth, but they’d primarily use Zubimendi, Rice, Odegaard, Merino and Havertz ahead of him.
Think I’ve mentioned somewhere that arteta’s transfer history with the exception of Gabriel hasn’t been very good.
I get Merino’s doing his best in a more forward role but that wasn’t what he was bought for.
The best players for arsenal are still the youth academy guys and the people bought in under Emery(even if Saliba wasn’t used).
And I get Rice , Trossard , Timber etc. But those haven’t been needle movers.
I think the interesting thing to me is how different his interview and Rice’s interview were last night.
Mikel doing his “we were the better team but luck/injuries etc means we didn’t get what we deserved”. Where as Rice was talking about “cutting out individual mistakes that cost us at crucial times”.
Coupled with his nonsense about how they’d have won the league this year and it’s so clear he’s deflecting from another season of not achieving what they set out to do. To me he’s setting that team up to blame anything but themselves for their short comings and that’s not a great way to motivate a team. You can see how the fans have lapped it up too and that’ll permeate into some of those players as well. First bit of adversity next year and it’ll be “refs this, VAR that, so and so are just lucky”.
At least Rice is taking some responsibility and knows they could have been better.
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Arsenal were lucky AF not to be 3-0 down in the first leg. PSG had the much clearer chances in the Emirates.
He has done his usual in saying they were the better side and the best team is now out of the CL. He claims that one of Luis Enrique’s bench said as much to him after the game. Luis Enrique has laughed that off that.
There is a very Rodgers like quality to Arteta that really comes into focus when they’re not doing well
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At this point , it’s more of convincing himself as far as Arteta is concerned.
A wise man once said: “Why argue with an Arsenal fan, when you can just wait…”
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Arsenal were the best team in the CL this season according to lego head. Why do they keep crying for signings then?
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Maybe Arteta will use him as a new CF. Don’t underestimate his genius.
Or a backup left back?
They may have a new one. Its Arteta’s yearly routine.
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It occurred to me that Arsenal in this era is really very similar to the Liverpool of the mid-2000s under Rafa. Very different personalities, different constraints, and of course they don’t have a crown jewel like 2005. But this season for them was a lot like many of those - solid league campaign to secure top 4, not really much threat of winning it though, shifted focus to a promising CL campaign, and being left with not much to show for it. Not much different at all from 07/08.
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This season there is a conventional wisdom that built on what their needs in the summer were, that Arsenal just needed a better striker. This idea that a team can only improve by adding more goals from a new striker is one of the biggest over simplifications in football. This was especially true for Arsenal for whom their false 9 was a big part of why they were so difficult to play against. When a team is set up like that there are big trade offs you have to make to bring in a more orthodox forward and so even if you ear mark someone as good as a 2008 version Torres last season’s Arsenal team would not automatically be better for just adding that quality of forward. I think Arteta’s acceptance of that is likely whey they didnt spend money.
Interestingly though, with the way their approach has evolved this season they are a lot less dynamic, and a lot of this had already happened even before Havertz got injured. With this new way they play maybe they are able to just pop in a penalty box goal scorer and not have much of a trade off in losing all around contributions of their false 9. It seems like a fork in the road for Arteta now in deciding which direction he wants to go in and it will be interesting to see how he approaches it this summer.
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Mikel Arteta latest Arsenal claim is frankly ridiculous and Liverpool response will say everything