Time to stop experimenting with the team, Arteta. by Lagos Gooner
Well, good morning family. Arsenal is going to be on break for almost two weeks. During this winter break, it is very pertinent to assess our season so far and find a way to improve on our performances over the past weeks in the league.
I may be wrong, but something tells me that our coach, Mikel Arteta is still experimenting with players, in order to find a perfect Arsenal XI that will make his work easier. He is relatively new in the coaching world and it is only normal he experiments in order to find a winning formula. But has he not over-experimented with the team? Is it not time for him to get his perfect Arsenal XI ready?
Every coach who comes newly into a team does his best to stamp his authority on his team. He does this by either choosing his own captain, or choosing a regular set of players who will execute his games or whatever other means he deems best. You find out that when a club changes its manager, some players get affected. The manager, who comes with a plan on how to make the team win games for him, may deem some players unfit to play for him, and such players would either be sold as early as the next transfer window or he could be loaned out to play in another team who may need his services.
Ever since Arteta came, the only players who have played regularly for him are Mesut Ozil, Alex Lacazette, Pierre Aubameyang (he has only missed a game for Arteta due to a red card he got), Granit Xhaka, Bernd Leno, and David Luiz. Players like Lucas Torreira, Guendouzi, Pepe, Martinelli and Sokratis have played in almost all the games Arteta has managed. Now, these set of players look like they will form the bulk of his perfect Arsenal XI, but then again, have they all done well to be regular players? I doubt it.
One of Emery’s undoing, is his regular change of tactics. He had no particular style or pattern of play. He changes tactics based on the opponents he was to play. It worked for him at times but in most cases, his players played as if they were lost on ideas! Most times, these players want to play with a clear sense of direction and when a coach keeps changing tactics and players, he just confuses them more.
Arteta has started well but what I will really want him to do is to stop experimenting with the players and start playing with players who he intends using for a long time. He needs to start now and if it means including the youngsters in the team, fine.
We are Arsenal and we are proud.
Sylvester Kwentua
I think Arteta has found out his regular players but suspensions and injuries are hindering his plans and he has to make alterations in his team selection. After the winter break we may be able to see the actual Arsenal team Arteta wants to play regularly.
Admin, the page looks great and i can see an updated league table down there. This is wonderful, a face lift on our page, i hope Arteta and his squad can do a face lift too and start winning us games once they are back from holiday.
I don’t think there is a perfect X1 in this squad,and I don’t think Mikel has one either, it will take a good summer spend for him to achieve that.
It’s problematic for now because of the importance of the Europa League this season.
Where would he regularly play his ‘perfect 11’?
In the league? I hope not. Winning the Europa gives us CL while we’re too far behind in the league. And rotation is absolutely indispensable in modern football if you play in Europe.
Its only going to be a perfect 11 if and when he realizes that Willock should play 8 not 10
Home:
Martinelli Aubameyang Pepe
Lacazette Ceballos
Torriera
Kolasinac Mari Luiz Bellerin
Leno
Away:
Martinelli Aubameyang Pepe
Lacazette Xhaka
Torriera
Kolasinac Mari Luiz Bellerin
Leno
Arsenal got too many managers making good point, but only one takes the decision…
Can we give MA time to do his work and judge him at the beginning of next season?…
Buy then he should have had the time to put his groups together..
Are you suggesting that all of our words of wisdom are not better than MA’s thinking – how dare you 🙂
I agree, he is in the midst of trying to change a culture and put a viable stamp on things. I am not a great historian of the past but it seems to me that the strong gunner teams had different identities.
Wenger’s stong teams gradually declined (still good but not able to win the PL and getting further and further away from that goal). Emery was still trying to hold the old bandages together and that really didn’t work.
For the first time in 20+ years (correct me, as I said, not a great historian) we are actually going through a rebuild. He needs time.
The other thing is that what comes out the other end may be different. I think Arteta will still want dynamic football but he will be more pragmatic. It may not be the “Arsenal Way” but he will win. And the “Aresnal Way” changes.
So then Sylvester, by your OWN words, you “want him to stop experimenting with the players and start using the players and start playing with players he intends using for a long time”. Hmm! Where do I even start picking the massive holes in that facetious statement! So for the long term, according to you he needs no new players then , by implication of your statement. How can he possibly use players he badly needs but who have not arrived yet, for the long time. Should he, alternatively, use such as Mustafi, Ozil, Zhaka, Sokratis, Luiz for the long term than? Or should he use none of these and play ONLY young players then? You have not allowed him the option to manage as he sees fit and to do what he is being paid for and what the majority of sensible fans can see him trying to do, even though hampered at every turn by the meanness of KROENKE. SO, FOR THE TIME BEING, he has no realistic alternative to having to make do with players who will clearly NOT BE HERE FOR THE LONG TERM! Why, Sylvester, are you incapable of thinking even one easily foreseeable step ahead for once? Your increasingly simplistic and unthinking posts are becoming more and more tedious in their unthinking nonsense!
How I crave a really thought out and sensible article on this site, except for the same few, mainly unthinking fans ,who post such naively written, unthought through, hurried trash! Even though those folk are UNDOUBTEDLY keen fans! I do not include Admins OWN posts in this comment.
My Lord
Please stick to the first section of the front page. Which is purely opinion and discussion posts…