In less than 7 days, the Gunners begin their 2022–23 campaign when they play Manchester City in the Carabao Cup. There are a lot of expectations for what Arsenal ought to achieve next season.
With Arteta managing to pull off headline deals that have seen Declan Rice, Kai Havertz, and Jurrien Timber join, and there being at least hints of other deals to be closed, like that of David Raya, having a quality squad may not be the issue. The issue may be which tactics are employed and how the players implement them on the pitch
With a lot of changes like Xhaka leaving and Rice and Timber potentially being introduced in the starting 11, there may be a struggle for the team to be perfect, which raises the question, “What will Arteta do to prevent errors in his team in order to finally outwit Guardiola to PL Glory?”
Last season, after drawing 3-3 with Southampton, he admitted errors cost him, saying, “The concern is turning around those moments, especially if the players in some moments are in doubt. In football, you go through moments when you make errors and are not in a good moment, but you have to come away from that.”
Well, he and the boys will just have to work hard on repetition on the training ground. There is no other way.
Arteta may set up his best team; he may decide on the game plan. However, once the players get over the white line, he can only trust them to limit their errors.
Ultimately, he must believe in them. He has picked them.
Darren N
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What they do on the pitch is greatly affected by the manager.
I agree to an extent.
Once they cross the white line they are on there own and need to carry out the instructions
Closing down
Pressing
Defending and most important…scoring goals
Whilst MA has the influence of changing formation, substitution and starting line up which at times I questioned his tactics, he is reliant on the team he sends out to carry out the plan
“But once the players on the pitch it’s up to them”
It is for this reason we must stick to basic and don’t complicate it, example Rice and Partey are defensive players, why are we already overthinking as to which one to play further up the park.
Their primary responsibilities is to protect the defenders or eliminating any threats while getting the attacking players going.
I disagree – Saka, odegaard, martinelli and jesus are all attacking players, but if they don’t all do their part defensively, we’ll drop plenty of points during the season. It doesn’t overcomplicate their roles, it just means they have to play roles for the team.
It’s not overcomplicating things to say rice should play box to box – he actually played that way loads of times for whu, and he’s talked plenty about it (my understanding is that he started as a DM who stayed back to allow soucek to go forward, but over the past two seasons or so, they’ve shared attacking and defensive duties between them). It’s simply asking him to play the role xhaka played in last season – and his role wasn’t weighted especially towards attack or defence – he was a typically box to box midfielder, really.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the idea of defensive midfielders being purely defensive players, if it’s not a new idea, only really became prominent recently – it used to be far more common for midfielders to be box to box, with one simply staying back when the other went forwards. The idea of a DM who doesn’t move forwards was really popularised quite recently by makelele, and then busquets imo – however, they’d typically play with box to box midfielders around them (e.g. Xavi or essien).
The players couldn’t break the defense of highly-organized low-block teams, because they didn’t have other way to do it
If they had someone to win and hold the ball in the final-third, we would likely have been able to win those games
I think we’ll repeat the same mistake, by only relying on our midfielders and diminutive CFs to feed the attackers
Other big teams signed powerful CFs to lead their front-lines, yet we’ll try again with Jesus and Nketiah
GAI, I agree with you somewhat but not entirely. Mancity managed to win several titles with Aguero and jesus leading the line. Kai Havertz can be used in a CF role against the team with Low blocking or packing the bus.
Guardiola’s tactics are better than Arteta’s, so he could use small CFs and sometimes played without one
I agree that Havertz could be used in that position though
Gai, I must say I m really surprised with Arsenal/Arteta not considering a towering CF . ManCity, Liverpool, ManU, Chelsea, NCastle all have taller CF than Arsenal. I”ll wait to see what Arteta has on his sleeves. I see a season that won’t be easy for Arsenal considering how other teams have signed players..
I think Arteta is really confident with his tactics, hence no effort to sign a powerful CF
Hey Folks. what happened to jon fox? I haven’t seen usual rant for a while. Hope is ok.
On holiday..
I have to ask the question then, what are substitutes for?
If plan A isn’t working, then I assume plan B comes into operation…. and that’s down to the manager isn’t it?
You are right Ken.
Also dropping those in poor form to further limit mistakes.
Competition should make everyone better, hopefully best in form playing and relying on their sharpness rather than hoping gaff prone don’t make mistakes.
This year depth or player options can’t be an excuse, we finally have options for every position, and simply no excuse to overplay the same players again this year.
Trossard on wings or as striker, ESR on wings or Odegaard backup, Havertz/Rice/Partey/Jorginho rotate in midfield (Zinchenko also.
Depth at FB, both Tomiyasu and Timber can play on either side, and Tomiyasu, White, and Kiwor can rotate as CB’s.
Yes Durand and now we need to see the plan B in action, if required.
We should fear no one in the PL and must look to go further than the KO stages of the CL, as that wasn’t deemed good enough with the players we had when last competing in said competition.
It’s going to be a very interesting season, that’s for sure.
What will be interesting is if the standards have changed, something we have discussed before.
1. Will early exits from competitions have any consequences?
2. Is top 4 or else back in effect?
I think Arteta will do well; has HIS players and HIS team to carry out his tactics.
Even backup players are his choices, so no reason not to rotate anymore.
I think another successful season challenging for the title and hopefully some silverware at the end; don’t mean the one-off community shield.
Those questions will be answered in the coming season Durand.
Like you, I think MA will be successful… but will help be judged on the criteria that was used for UE and AW?
If anything, after spending money as if it’s gone out of fashion, I suggest it should be much higher and top four wouldn’t be a succesfuk season.
Do we have a team of footballing talent or a group of robots? Playing as a team and sticking to the game plan is all part of the tactics. However, fundamentally the players need to be technically competent to do it, and whatever the tactics, individual quality often wins games. Our success depends on competency on and off the field, but once the game starts natural discipline over adaptive discipline will prevail. That is why MA has non negotiable’s, everyone has to adapt to his way, but some are more natural than others. That is why some fit and some don’t. Tierney is a case in point IMO.
The defensive players need to counter press as well as the attackers press. Our holy trinity in midfield needs to do both and control. It’s about combinations in each departments to create the equilibrium in the team. We probably have the nearest manager-like captain in the league in Martin Odegaard. He will probably need a couple of lieutenants in other departments to keep other players in check.