2018-19 Squad Analysis and Tactics

[DiamondGooner]

Concerned about Emery big time tbh, not getting in a wide player, loaning nelson, loving the 10 role, sticking out best goalscorer out wide, worrying tbh

As Pudop answered all your queries.

Emery actually came in favoring a 4-3-3 but you have to adjust to your personnel, Emery doesn't sign players Misinslat does, Auba has scored more from that wide position and again Emery is trying to accommodate everyone without breaking a formation.

What would be your answer?

Play Ozil out of position so he gets raped on the wing defensively?

Bench Laca for Auba up front?

Play a formation which doesn't suit half of your top players?

What you propose sounds very Wenger-ish, been there done that.

[ag6789]

We can only mount a challenge if four of our most talented attackers, Ozil, Mikhi, Laca and Auba can be put up together, and if they play with intent and intensity.
Of course, Mikhi has not shown much good form, but he has the capability to produce good things.
Problem is after every 3-4 games they tend to slack off, and we lose the momentum.
Seems like, lately, the defense is gelling barring odd mistakes.

[DiamondGooner]

We can only mount a challenge if four of our most talented attackers, Ozil, Mikhi, Laca and Auba can be put up together, and if they play with intent and intensity.
Of course, Mikhi has not shown much good form, but he has the capability to produce good things.
Problem is after every 3-4 games they tend to slack off, and we lose the momentum.
Seems like, lately, the defense is gelling barring odd mistakes.

have to agree really.

LMAO plus additional solid defense and solid DM's are the only way we're going to be successful.

........... but saying that we do have an issue now, without Welbeck this no longer works, we don't have that spare striker now to move to two up front every game.

I actually think now we only have two strikers we should probably go back to that 45mins for Auba in the 2nd half of a prem game on for either Iwobi or Mkhi whoever is having the worst game and then 70mins in the Europa up front with Nketiah getting the last 10-20mins depending on how well he's performing.

The dynamic has now changed with Welbeck gone unfortunately.

[Marsbar100]

I don't think any of us our privy to what happens between unai and Sven, end of the day we needed a winger so bad, its all well and good saying he doesn't make the decisions but he is going to need to be strong because it's his neck on the line at the end of the day he isn't going to get the grace Wenger got.

Without this width he is very handicapped to what he can do, the problem we have is xhaka and ozil in a 3 is not great on a defensive front it's quite easy to play against, I really worry for us if we play that against Bournemouth and spurs.

If we bring guendo In next to torreira, the reality is with torreria-guendo we lose xhakas ability to get the ball forward, now if we had a couple of top wingers they could pass to, we could probably get away with having a very defensive double pivot but we don't.

I think we should go to a 4-3-3, flood the midfield torreria-xhaka-ramsey, make us hard to play against, get some control of the midfield and then hope ramsey-ozil-pea-laca can do some damage.

When we played ozil out wide earlier in the season and he got ruined there is a few factors to take in consideration, the first two games we was up against Chelsea and city trying to implement complete new things, we had no torreira to protect ozil, ozil was prob not at full fitness and if we play a 4-3-3 instead of 4-2-3-1 we have an extra cm to cover to.

I don't really like pea and ozil out wide but until we get reinforcememts we probably have to make do.

Maybe a 4-3-1-2 would work better, all I saying if Emery wants to persist with xhaka and ozil in a 4-2-3-1 I am not optimistic

[ag6789]

We badly need a third striker and hopefully another Central/Holding midfielder in January, if we have any aspirations of winning anything, League cup, FA or Europa lge. All competitions are tough, and we need to focus on each separately.
Our bench strength is nothing to talk about, consisting of unproven academy players and mediocre El Neny, etc. Hopefully, Emery and the recruiting group will understand the gravity of the situation.

[#ST]

4312
With Torreira and Guendouzi doing the defensive work for Xhaka (I give up making lineups without him, it's obvious he will play every important game under Emery as well)

[theHotHead]

I don't get the howling over wingers, I don't think wingers or width is our problem. I think having players that can beat other players is a problem and I also think that the players we have are all a bit inconsistent. Were they not inconsistent people would not be claiming we need wingers.

We get plenty of width as it is. Iwobi unfortunately can beat players but has poor end product - although this season has shown an improvement. Both Laca and Auba have been pretty shit when it comes to build up play, they don't hold the ball up well, they have also squandered lots of chances. Ozil has shown flashes of brilliance but not enough and you can see him go hunting for the ball, dropping as deep as his own half to get the ball at times. Mikhi has been the worst player in the squad.

These are good players, Laca, Auba, Ozil, Mikhi, we need them to play well, its that simple I think.

[DiamondGooner]

I don't think any of us our privy to what happens between unai and Sven, end of the day we needed a winger so bad, its all well and good saying he doesn't make the decisions but he is going to need to be strong because it's his neck on the line at the end of the day he isn't going to get the grace Wenger got.

Well, we are .............. Ivan Gazidis was very clear on the matter.

Emery is Head Coach.

A Head Coach is not a manager, his job is .......... train the team, instruct the team, prepare for football matches, is in charge of the team on match days.

His job is not ......... to recruit players, has any decision on which player we buy, he does not scout for players.

Now of course he'll have discussions with Misinslat about what he feels he needs, he may even make some recommendations of players he'd like, but its Misinslat's decision on who we buy, he'll be taking into account great deals for the club, not just who Emery favors, Misinslat has his own scouts and will work off their feed back and reports.

If Emery had any sway on who we actually buy we would of got Inzonzi, Emery made it clear he'd like to work with him again.

Emery's job ultimately is to work with the players Misinslat gets him, again they'll likely work together on "So Emery what sort of players do you think we need for the squad?" but that's as far as it goes.

[thebigbangtheo]

With Holding now out for the rest of the season, reverting to a flat back four against Huddersfield would be the obvious thing to do given it's also the defensive arrangement we are most familiar with under Emery.

Prior to Wednesday, Koscielny was being scheduled for the dead rubber game at home to Quarabag for his first start and I think that should remain the same.

Mavropanos has returned to training too, but is much further back on the road to full fitness and similarly needs the 2 or 3 build up games before being considered for a competitive match.

Whilst I appreciate that playing 3@the back is a solution of sorts to address some of our defensive frailties, to persist without three bonafide defenders especially in a league game, would be one hell of a gamble.

If Nacho was fit and available then I could go with that as he is a proper defender, but the only other option would be Elneny who once played a blinder in the role too, but on balance I would rather we simply reverted back to a 4.

If the concern is Kolasinac's defensive inefficiency at orthodox left back, then I would suggest we drop him for Xhaka and hammer home the point to him that for all his brilliance going forward, it's his lack of defensive prowess that will see him permanently removed from the team, and in my opinion this guy loves playing for our club.

After his performance on Wednesday I would retain Guendouzi in midfield to partner El Torrito if playing 4;2;3;1, regardless of Xhaka being used at left back or not.

However, being mindful of the indifferent form of Mhkitaryan and Iwobi, I would be inclined to go with a 4;3;1;2 formation for this one and have Xhaka and Guendouzi flanking Torreira with Ozil (I expect him to be available) ahead of them.

The formation might also go some way to alleviating a few of the issues with Kolasinac at full back, as Papa will switch to left centre back along with Xhaka screening left midfield. Ozil having his 'free' role behind the strikers would also be compensated for by having 3 central midfielders behind him.

I understand Emery's reluctance to play both our strikers now that we don't have the fallback of Welbeck, but that neither of them will even be in the squad for the Europa league game, I would unleash the Laccazette-Aubameyang pairing to hopefully wreak havoc and give the coach a massive headache for the upcoming league games.

[thebigbangtheo]

I know that keeping a clean sheet against a Huddersfield side with 9 players in defence is no biggie, but if we could string 3,4,5 games together without conceding, that in itself should breed an additional source of confidence to galvanise that from our unbeaten run.

Again, beating Qarabag to nil shouldn't result in occupying the first three pages of the sun, but the acorn would now be planted prior to Southampton, whose attack is not exactly tipped with depleted plutonium and we'll have our best defender back along with his bi polar side kick for the game against Brighton.

Whilst suddenly turning into scrooge would offer no guarantees for those games following Southampton, conviction that Emery was suitably addressing another issue from our era of malaise and dereliction of duty would be more tangible, and offer much greater substance than hope.

With this in mind, I'm inclined to favour reverting to a back 4 for this dead rubber match, consisting of Lichtsteiner, Jenkinson, Koscielny, Monreal.

However, with Emery displaying the guile of a grand master so far this season, I'm not too sure that he'd start with both Koscielny and Monreal as opposed to swapping our captain for the Spaniard after 60-65 minutes.

Having said all that, I have an inkling that our coach has a bit more faith in our defensive capabilities when playing with a back three in recognising the deficiencies of our full backs.

With that in mind I'd be intrigued to see how a set up of Lichtsteiner, Koscielny and Monreal in front of Cech would fare in this match, given the abundance of been there, done that t-shirts on display, but it might not be appreciated that the teams came out to Clive Dunn's 'Grandad' on the p.a system and the pitch being ringed with Zimmer frames and Wurthers Originals.

[coolaa]

I don't expect much money we can spend in the winter, but hopefully we can get a CF/WF: Arnautović and CB: Bailly or Cahill. Think they r decent players and can add more steel in the team. Get rid of softies like Ozil, Elneny.

[Angelito]

At this stage, we'd be better off signing Koulibaly for £80m. Would sort our defense for 3-4 years.

[haklenda]

I don't expect much money we can spend in the winter, but hopefully we can get a CF/WF: Arnautović and CB: Bailly or Cahill. Think they r decent players and can add more steel in the team. Get rid of softies like Ozil, Elneny.

Bailly is average central back and Cahill is old. We don't need them, buy some proven defenders that will improve our defense automatically. Arnautovic? Why? We have Auba and Laca, we should by one classic wing player...

[coolaa]

I don't expect much money we can spend in the winter, but hopefully we can get a CF/WF: Arnautović and CB: Bailly or Cahill. Think they r decent players and can add more steel in the team. Get rid of softies like Ozil, Elneny.

Bailly is average central back and Cahill is old. We don't need them, buy some proven defenders that will improve our defense automatically. Arnautovic? Why? We have Auba and Laca, we should by one classic wing player...

be realistic , we won't have money for top defender , and we will be playing 343, so need wingers. u need someone can play CF/WF. and arnautovic is physically big, have pace and dribbling skills. Auba has pace, Lacazette can score with unexpected angle, and arnautovic offer something different, a giroud upgrade

[Santi]

I think Bailly would be a fine addition, f***ing huge, strong and quick (as we saw vs Auba). Would be the physical guy we need next to Papa, assuming that Kos isn't at his best anymore.