He still has to acclimatize to the league. Hincapie that is. I don’t see a point in signing a CB right now. Especially when Kwior’s used to the premier league and does a fair job at it.
Szobo was at RB for a few games, doesn’t make him a RB for the season. Madueke might do a job at both wings, but Eze is not brought in to be Saka’s backup on the right.
2 Likes
Kiwior wanted to leave to get more games
Missed that then. They’ve still got Mosquera , Califiori , White who do a fair job at CB. Does seem overkill to be stacking up on so many defenders.
Mosquera gives them their third dedicated CB. Everyone else who is an option there is filling out a squad role in one of the FB positions as well and so once you take that into account as @Zoran pointed out, the number of bodies is about right - 8 or 9 depending on how you count Zinchenko (more out than in) and MLS (may not be being considered for LB this year)
Especially with injury issues to White and Timber, they would not have been able to get rid of Kiwior and not replace him without leaving themselves short.
2 Likes
Zinchenko has signed for Forest on loan.
1 Like
They are already have that warmed us as an excuse.
1 Like
Arteta needs to find a way to let Arsenal express themselves and play with some joy. They have a smashing team and a great squad. He is coaching them to within an inch of their lives, which sounds good, but in the relentless pursuit of marginal gains it looks to me as though they have forgotten something of greater importance.
Trust them to play! He’s wound up so tightly, which is why he spends every game out of his technical zone, kicking every ball, gesticulating and shouting at them, and generally ‘over-coaching’ (not sure if I’ve just coined a new phrase there, or if it is already a thing).
1 Like
Yes, agreed. They’d be better off letting the players express themselves.
Let’s hope he keeps on making this mistake.
1 Like
Ref should yellow card him more he’s on the pitch sometimes.
1 Like
I don’t think there is any benefit to playing down the quality of Arsenal. And Arne probably would agree.
Outside of Dom’s effort, I think Arsenal actually created a couple of good chances. Probably better chances to score than we had. We had Gakpo’s long ranger going wide. Virg’s interception Which he couldn’t take on his right as that avenue was blocked… He would have to have taken the shot on his left.
For Arsenal there were a few exceptional blocks by Kerkez, a shot blocked by Virg’s body, a mad scramble from an Arsenal corner. There was a bit of a flurry of activity between 30 and 55 mins where Arsenal had some half chances, we had some quarter chances. Any other way that Kerkez defended that 35min attempt probably would have resulted in a very good shot on goal for Arsenal.
The point being made is that no team really dominated and created anything apart from the FK goal. We could replay that game 100 times, majority are going to be score or scoreless draws given how tight it is between these two teams, and we’ll probably take a greater share of the remainder but not by much.
If we were dominating them and peppering their goal, then I’d have a different opinion, but this was a tight contest decided on a free kick that was reflective of the match as a whole - a moment of quality for us got us the 3 points. On another day, it could have been Rice burying it into the top corner instead of skying it into the crowd on his effort.
1 Like
I’m ok with your general point but not sure us defending successfully can be classed as a chance for Arsenal.
That’s what a defender is there for.
3 Likes
If Ali made a worldy save in goal, is that a chance for Arsenal? I don’t see how it would be any different if a LB gets a critically timed block on a goal-bound shot. It wasn’t a run-of-the-mill nonchalant Virg tackle where you’d back Virg to make the tackle 95 times out of a 100: It was a desperate lunge where i’d say the chances of Kerkez repeating a similar block would be 15-20 times out of a 100. That’s absolutely not a dig at him btw, but more how I read how difficult that situation was.
We also scored (an offside) goal and clearly had the better chances.
A ‘goal’ from offside you say?
Again. That’s what they’re there to do. We don’t play with 4 traffic cones and 1 in goal.
Ha ha @manchester United
Not sure how to put it more plainly but we scored a goal, but it was flagged offside. Had it not been offside nor bundled into the net, we would also have probably got a pen. We had the better chances (plural) than Arsenal.
Then it wasn’t a goal.
Think that’s the point he’s making.
It’s either offside or it’s a goal, it can’t be both.
2 Likes
More to the point, the opportunity came as a result of us setting up Wirtz to shoot with a clearer opportunity than any they created all game. That not an isolated sequence, but representative of how the final 30 mins or so played out with us increasingly having showed signs of having figured out the challenge they posed.
We had a succession of clear openings that we didn’t take because that is football and sometimes you need several openings before you make one count. Their best openings in contrast were ones that were sniffed out by defenders who had not yet been beaten before it became a clear chance. I think their clearest was maybe the Eze one where he dived rather than try to shoot, but I think that wouldnt have been in our top 5 clearest opportunities. The difference would have looked much clearer had Mo not been playing like Emile Heskey in oversized wellies and passing up multiple good opportunities, but we still had to open them up for him to fluff his lines like that.
2 Likes