Mikel Arteta, First-Team Manager

[theHotHead]

Good points from Angelito and PnG.

But ultimately for me, Wenger could easily have tightened up our defending by sacrificing a little offence. But he ignored it. You can't tell me Fat Sam can go to a club and improve their defending immediately with the players they have and we can't/couldn't (I'm talking back in the Wenger era).

The issue with the recent game is having the wrong players on the pitch as others have mentioned, thats why I disagree with DG.We know the strengths and weaknesses of the players, why did Ceballos not start with Elneny, the latter of which can actually defend and plays simple balls and hardly ever gets caught on the ball ?! I just think the tactics stunk in that game, Arteta got it wrong.

[DiamondGooner]

I never said Ceballos shouldn't of started, imo he should of hence why I mentioned "the Xhaka curse" because apparently he must be 1st choice every match.

What I'm saying is you can't expect the big change when Arteta hasn't even got any significant outfield players from this window yet.

The poor git if he's lucky will end up with Gabriel, Willian and one of Partey / Aouar.

Hardly an inspiring change to the squad, its not exactly Auba, Ozil and Sanchez levels.

So he hasn't even got the bare minimum from a window yet.

[Power n Glory]

Gabriel and Ceballos will probably start tomorrow.

[Angelito]

Good points from Angelito and PnG.

But ultimately for me, Wenger could easily have tightened up our defending by sacrificing a little offence. But he ignored it. You can't tell me Fat Sam can go to a club and improve their defending immediately with the players they have and we can't/couldn't (I'm talking back in the Wenger era).

The issue with the recent game is having the wrong players on the pitch as others have mentioned, thats why I disagree with DG.We know the strengths and weaknesses of the players, why did Ceballos not start with Elneny, the latter of which can actually defend and plays simple balls and hardly ever gets caught on the ball ?! I just think the tactics stunk in that game, Arteta got it wrong.

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, Wenger sacrificed defending to ensure a fluid attack during Arsenal's prohibition. He made sure that we would win enough games to finish in UCL places.

It makes no sense to play 3 at the back against most sides as we do these days unless it's a manager who has that verve with the three-man defensive system like Conte or van Gaal to a lesser extent.

My argument wasn't about what Wenger did right or didn't. He had a mediocre squad in 11/12, or for more or less last decade, and didn't need perfect players to play an attacking brand of football. So, the defense of Arteta, while true for someone who is a rookie, isn't a universal truth.

Pep buys the best players in the world to create records and win titles in style. If Mikel needs specific players to adopt a 4-3-3, or a 4-2-3-1—players who are at the high end of the demand scale—it's really a case of the manager failing to use what he has in a more efficient manner.

Remember, we are not going for the title. A fifth place finish would be considered as a success by many here.

Wenger could setup an attacking unit no matter who he had. Most of the time, we played beautiful football under him. We had our chaos with defending but we had the faith that we could outscore opponents. And, he did it on a shoestring budget.

I was watching Rafa's masterclass on Sky from about 9 months ago. You can clearly see why we was so successful. It really teaches you a lot about football management and coaching. He indicated that if he had better players, he would have adopted a different strategy. Liverpool also had awful owners at the time. With the right backing, Rafa would have no doubt won the League. That Milan side he beat had world class players in every position.

It was so refreshing hearing a top manager speak about tactics and football. Wish we had more of that. But I digress.

I have faith in Arteta. I do have issues with his timing and use of subs. I also think that he hasn't been able to organize our defense as much as he's been credited for. We play with 5 defenders more or less and a sweeper in Xhaka. Niles classifies as a wing-back under Arteta. But we have sacrificed our potency up front to defend. It hasn't yielded in the League yet.

We wanted Wenger to go for change and progress. I don't consider Emery a factor because he was always a wrong recruitment. With Arteta, I except fluidity in attack, solidarity in defense. It will come. But we should also be critical and vigilant.

That 11/12 season was an example when Wenger had the worst squad ever. But he was capable of rallying his players, installing his beliefs and philosophy on a mediocre bunch, and we still played some lovely football that season. Arteta hasn't been able to do that. Even against Fulham, the first half was appealingly boring.

Finally, the acquisition of Partey would mean that we're buying a player we haven't had since Song, and Song was bang average. Aouar isn't Ozil. At this stage, he is Nasri-esque, with less flair, more control as a CM.

It's not as if we are getting prime Ozil or Alexis. There aren't many of that kind.

We didn't defend well against Liverpool. A 0-0 or a 1-1 would have been a terrific result. We still have creativity issues in the final third. It's a process and I trust it. That doesn't mean we can't learn or borrow from past precedences.

[gooney]

They said the 3 at the back was temporary thing. We are stuck with it now and people dont want to admit. But he is stuck with hiding his teams deficiency and has become reactive manager. Rather than be proactive manager. For the big teams, 3 at the back we will struggle even against the smaller teams. Its way too defensive, specially with the personal we have

[DiamondGooner]

They said the 3 at the back was temporary thing. We are stuck with it now and people dont want to admit. But he is stuck with hiding his teams deficiency and has become reactive manager. Rather than be proactive manager. For the big teams, 3 at the back we will struggle even against the smaller teams. Its way too defensive, specially with the personal we have

Emery tried to get us to play 4-3-3 over and over and kept having to revert back to 3 atb.

Its obvious why, really doesn't need explaining.

We are 2/3 up against Liverpool using 3-4-3, I hardly think that ratio against the champs is an excuse for everyone to cry about it.

Remember when we couldn't buy an away win?

Fact is we don't have a midfield capable of dominating the top 4 hence why we load up on defense and the wings, playing 3-5 midfielders with our squad is playing our weaknesses not our strength.

[jayramfootball]

nvm

[gooney]

They said the 3 at the back was temporary thing. We are stuck with it now and people dont want to admit. But he is stuck with hiding his teams deficiency and has become reactive manager. Rather than be proactive manager. For the big teams, 3 at the back we will struggle even against the smaller teams. Its way too defensive, specially with the personal we have

Emery tried to get us to play 4-3-3 over and over and kept having to revert back to 3 atb.

Its obvious why, really doesn't need explaining.

We are 2/3 up against Liverpool using 3-4-3, I hardly think that ratio against the champs is an excuse for everyone to cry about it.

Remember when we couldn't buy an away win?

Fact is we don't have a midfield capable of dominating the top 4 hence why we load up on defense and the wings, playing 3-5 midfielders with our squad is playing our weaknesses not our strength.

I understand having poor midfield. Who has we bought to address that? You cant go a whole season give up the midfield and hoping for success. Its a receipt for disaster. This is why every match against small teams are close for us. Either fix the midfield or give up. If we cant afford 2 new midfielders, then we have to look at the other signings who was not needed. If we dont get 2 new midfielders this season is done.

[LMAO]

They said the 3 at the back was temporary thing. We are stuck with it now and people dont want to admit. But he is stuck with hiding his teams deficiency and has become reactive manager. Rather than be proactive manager. For the big teams, 3 at the back we will struggle even against the smaller teams. Its way too defensive, specially with the personal we have

Emery tried to get us to play 4-3-3 over and over and kept having to revert back to 3 atb.

Its obvious why, really doesn't need explaining.

We are 2/3 up against Liverpool using 3-4-3, I hardly think that ratio against the champs is an excuse for everyone to cry about it.

Remember when we couldn't buy an away win?

Fact is we don't have a midfield capable of dominating the top 4 hence why we load up on defense and the wings, playing 3-5 midfielders with our squad is playing our weaknesses not our strength.

I understand having poor midfield. Who has we bought to address that? You cant go a whole season give up the midfield and hoping for success. Its a receipt for disaster. This is why every match against small teams are close for us. Either fix the midfield or give up. If we cant afford 2 new midfielders, then we have to look at the other signings who was not needed. If we dont get 2 new midfielders this season is done.

Fulham 0 - 3 Arsenal

Shots
5-13

Shots on Target
2-6

[theHotHead]

I dont agree that we have to play 3 at the back. Look at teams with less than us that give everyone a go (give every team a battle/fight), they don't play 3 at the back.

People have this herd mentality when it comes to formations, all of a sudden 3 at the back is the saviour, thats bullcrap. We can easily play 4 at the back we just need tactics/system to suit the players we have - and there are a f**k ton of those to choose from. The manager needs to find one that suits us, one that gives both offensive and defensive capability. Coach the players to then play the system.

[Arsenal Tone]

I dont agree that we have to play 3 at the back. Look at teams with less than us that give everyone a go (give every team a battle/fight), they don't play 3 at the back.

People have this herd mentality when it comes to formations, all of a sudden 3 at the back is the saviour, thats bullcrap. We can easily play 4 at the back we just need tactics/system to suit the players we have - and there are a f**k ton of those to choose from. The manager needs to find one that suits us, one that gives both offensive and defensive capability. Coach the players to then play the system.

What we need is a proper DM to protect the back four. We don't have one, that is why we have to play that formation. It is also why we need partey more than aouar.

Aouar is the more attacking player but we'd still need to use this formation. Partey means we can switch to a back four without losing the defensive stability. Of course bringing both aouar and partey in would completely transform us!

[LMAO]

I dont agree that we have to play 3 at the back. Look at teams with less than us that give everyone a go (give every team a battle/fight), they don't play 3 at the back.

People have this herd mentality when it comes to formations, all of a sudden 3 at the back is the saviour, thats bullcrap. We can easily play 4 at the back we just need tactics/system to suit the players we have - and there are a f**k ton of those to choose from. The manager needs to find one that suits us, one that gives both offensive and defensive capability. Coach the players to then play the system.

And look at those teams without the quality to play a back four over an entire season. They don't end up in the upper part of the table.

It's currently suicide to not play three CBs until we have the midfielders that'll allow us to play a back four.

[ESR10]

I dont agree that we have to play 3 at the back. Look at teams with less than us that give everyone a go (give every team a battle/fight), they don't play 3 at the back.

People have this herd mentality when it comes to formations, all of a sudden 3 at the back is the saviour, thats bullcrap. We can easily play 4 at the back we just need tactics/system to suit the players we have - and there are a f**k ton of those to choose from. The manager needs to find one that suits us, one that gives both offensive and defensive capability. Coach the players to then play the system.

What we need is a proper DM to protect the back four. We don't have one, that is why we have to play that formation. It is also why we need partey more than aouar.

Aouar is the more attacking player but we'd still need to use this formation. Partey means we can switch to a back four without losing the defensive stability. Of course bringing both aouar and partey in would completely transform us!

I think we lack the qualities of both equally. We need a DM who can intercept, tackle and carry the ball forward (Partey is excellent for this role) and someone who can unlock defenses. Ceballos is the nearest we have to that, but he isn't enough as we watched many times that we often struggle to create enough chances.

[Dejan]

I dont agree that we have to play 3 at the back. Look at teams with less than us that give everyone a go (give every team a battle/fight), they don't play 3 at the back.

People have this herd mentality when it comes to formations, all of a sudden 3 at the back is the saviour, thats bullcrap. We can easily play 4 at the back we just need tactics/system to suit the players we have - and there are a f**k ton of those to choose from. The manager needs to find one that suits us, one that gives both offensive and defensive capability. Coach the players to then play the system.

What we need is a proper DM to protect the back four. We don't have one, that is why we have to play that formation. It is also why we need partey more than aouar.

Aouar is the more attacking player but we'd still need to use this formation. Partey means we can switch to a back four without losing the defensive stability. Of course bringing both aouar and partey in would completely transform us!

Agree



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[theHotHead]

Of course we need a proper DM but we don't need to play 3 at the back either. We get overrun because we over commit in certain transitions. How did we do it under George Graham? Lee Dixon used to get forward and cross balls but we rarely ever had Winterburn in the final third at the same time.

Even under Arteta we saw what worked in a 4 at the back, with the full back tucking into midfield to provide an extra body. You could have Elneny play a disciplined DM role and not get pulled left right and centre and only commit one full back forward during the attack so when a counter attack takes place the DM can cover the near side and the spare full back can shuffle across to plug the hole in the middle. Perfectly workable and allows your front 3, an attacking full back, your CAM/AM and one other maybe box to box midfielder to attack.

4 outfield players is plenty to repel a counter attack.