Hello gooners, what a time to be an Arsenal fan- I am certain some are not happy right now, some are simply resigned, and many want the manager out altogether, but whatever the camp you belong, you can’t deny you love Arsenal and you want success for us.
Arteta caved in to fans’ demands that Aubameyang be played down the middle and it is a shame most have still not admitted that they were wrong. I don’t want to go too much into Aubameyang’s weakness or strengths, but those who pay attention to details would know that he is not suited to playing as a lone CF, especially in this league – he simply does not possess the strength, skills, and the technical know-how to play in that position. He will work there if we play counter-attacking football, but a lot of teams defend against us and he will easily be nullified.
In our set up, strikers like Firmino, Raul Jimenez, Giroud (my favourite Arsenal player in recent years, massive fan of his and Santi of course) and an in-form Lacazette will thrive better, except if we want to switch to a counter-attacking team, and that would mean parking the bus which I am sure we all dislike.
What makes our situation even worse right now is the fact that we are not creating ENOUGH chances to win games, and because of fans pressure, we are somewhat sabotaging ourselves by leaving Lacazette on the bench. The truth is, for now, we have no better player to play the role except Lacazette, and having Lacazette on the pitch alongside Aubameyang gives us more chances of winning the game.
Think of it this way, right now we are lacking chances and goals, are we not supposed to play our two strikers to boost our chances of winning? Why should we continue to leave one on the bench especially when we don’t have an elite winger?
Auba-Laca is supposed to be our Son-Kane, but now we are benching our Kane leaving only Son. As long as we don’t have a CAPABLE number 10, Lacazette must play and Aubameyang must play on the left, believe it or not, that is our best option FOR NOW, and we must play them.
I do not normally do this, but before our game with Wolves, when the line-ups for both teams were announced and I saw the midfields for both teams, I couldn’t help but compare – and in my opinion, we were worse off – and I found myself comparing our team with the other top 6 teams. It is a pity we wasted a lot of money on very average players and players that do not suit our philosophy, which has resulted in a bloated squad of low quality players that cannot be sold, and now Arteta gets all the blame.
He has made his own mistakes but to blame him for everything is unfair. How can a midfield of Xhaka and Ceballos control a midfield of Moutinho and Neves, when they can’t control Barkley and Douglas Luiz. Everton has Allan, Doucoure and Gomes. Spurs have Hojberg, Ndombele, Sissoko, Lo Celso. Liverpool have Ndidi, Tielemans, Maddison not to mention Henderson and co. How can Xhaka and Ceballos dominate these teams, how?
What do they have in common? Speed, tenacity, aggression, industry, and these are qualities a PL midfield MUST have. Our players lack these and can’t even create, on top of that. We used to complain of being light in midfield but with creativity now we have none! We can’t create from midfield, we can’t combine in attack to create chances let alone score a goal, how are we supposed to win?
As bad as it is, we can’t bench Xhaka right now, we just have to play him until we get a better player, he has more forward passes than Ceballos who is supposed to be the main creative player beside him, and that says a lot. People are calling for Niles and ESR, how far have we fallen? Or do we think this is the Fabregas era? I mean Chelsea has Kante, Jorginho, Havertz, Kovacic and still tried to sign Partey. I was seeing their game against Spurs and they subbed Werner and brought in Pulisic that’s insane depth, but we have who apart from Partey? We would celebrate and hype Drinkwater at Arsenal. Liverpool added Thiago to an already crazy midfield and Jota to a formidable attack, same with City, Spurs, Everton (James) etc.
Need I say anything about our disjointed and imbalanced attack? What I am saying is; the earlier we realise that our team is not good enough the better, and the less we will get frustrated.
Who is to blame? Blame it on the board and not any manager. We know the player Emery wanted and what he was given, Arteta still needs serious backing but he needs to get rid of some players first, he needs time.
Lacazette had a great game last night and may not be fresh for Sunday, but we need him back in the PL team no matter what. Aubameyang can do nothing without a creator or a creative strike partner.
Peace
Goonerboy