I am not sure if it is YouTubers chasing views or fans bored while news is quiet, but is it me or has there been an overreaction regarding a couple of pre-season defeats? To stress, I would be saying that no matter the result of any friendly, I have never put any emphasis on the scoreline. I can name you years when our summer fixtures went well but our campaign did not, and vice versa.
The real point of Arsenal’s Far East tour
For those Gooners concerned about our performances in Asia, I really think they are missing the point of what Arsenal were looking to achieve when they arranged to play in the Far East. The Gunners’ priority in Singapore and Hong Kong was never winning matches, preparing the squad or giving ourselves the best possible preparation for Old Trafford. If it was, Viktor Gyökeres would have arrived sooner and Eze would have signed by now.
Arsenal’s pre-season Asia tour will be deemed a success purely because of the money made, which was the only reason for the trip in the first place.
What Mikel Arteta has failed to do against AC Milan, Newcastle, Spurs and Villarreal is demonstrate that tactically things will be different from last year. That was the question mark over the Spaniard in May when he looked like a man who needed a holiday.
The changes Arteta must consider
No one is asking the 43-year-old to change his ethos six years into his managerial career. No top coach would do that. Yet it is equally a skill set to admit your mistakes, recognise when something is not working and adapt.
Can our boss’s ego allow him to concede his approach has been too conservative? That he needs to give the likes of Martinelli more freedom? That there is too much pressure on Ødegaard to be the sole creative spark? That while he finally has a proven goal scorer to work with, he can tweak his current system to convert possession into chances?
Of all the changes Arteta has to make to turn us into champions, he needs to change himself.
I am not sure he can.
Your thoughts welcome in the comments.
Dan Smith
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The article is right about the reason for the tour of the Far East – money. Why else would Arsenal go all that way just to play the likes of Newcastle and Sp*rs? I don’t know how much money Arsenal made from the tour, but let’s hope it was worth it.
As to Arteta, after several unsuccessful seasons (albeit near misses etc.), the “same old, same old” isn’t likely to work in 2025-26, particularly as the competition for the title (at least) will almost certainly be much stronger than recently when it’s been Arsenal vs City or Liverpool.
Add to that all the new, and very expensive, players brought in so far – with possibly more to come – and the expectation that brings, Arteta will have to show he can adapt to these new circumstances very quickly.
As I’ve said in other posts, I think the coming season will be his biggest challenge as Arsenal coach and consequently he’ll have the most pressure on him now to succeed. While we all hope he will, of course, nobody knows for sure one way or the other.
Arsenal have a higher change of finishing 25/26 in 5th position than 1st
Not even the performances are that important.
Clearly his starting lineup at the Theatre of Dweebs is not going to be any of the ones we’ve seen preseason, and we have no idea what side he’s put together in training.
Why would you telegraph this to your opponents before opening day?
A lot of people here hiding behind, “Pre-season results don’t matter”
Then there’s quite a few saying pre-season games are just for fitness and there’s time to better performances which is very true. What they are completely missing is that people aren’t complaining about the pre-season form, they are complaining that what we look like in pre-season is exactly the same as the last 1-2 years meaning zero change.
It’s not pre-season form thats the issue, it’s the persistence of poor tactics and ideas that don’t seem to be changing
@PJ-SA
👍🏾
On the money PJ-SJ.
I hope Villareal’s goals will make Arteta analyzing why all of them came from our half-spaces
He would likely not change his tactics drastically, but Stuivenberg and Heinze can surely point out what to do
We’ve missed the chance to sign Sesko, but Samu Aghehowa is still available to help us breaking the defense of highly-organized low-block teams
If we sign Aghehowa to play with his back to goal and win aerial duels in the front-line, Gyokeres can play LW to cut inside and shoot from the left wing as he loved to do in Portugal
The way to beat a low block is play faster and more positive passing, it’s not some magical player that we don’t have
Faster play means making more high-risk forward passes and dribbles, which are prone to counter-attack by the opposition
It would be much safer to force through our attack using a strong towering CF
@gotanidea
Liverpool does it successfully. That’s why you hardly see teams sit back against Liverpool the way they do against us.
We need to start taking those risks and also cover ourselves well at back. We have players that can do that. We did it in 2021 and 2023 season.
How do we expect to win the title if we continue to be conservative and not take risks?
But we’d likely get stuck with Arteta throughout the whole season and he’s shipped out all overlapping fullbacks who could allow us playing faster
This is why I recommend an attacker who could be very suitable for his slow build-up and high ball possession tactics
,@Gai, I kept saying Arteta needs to evolve his tactics. After staying as Arsenal caoch for 5 years what matters now is winning major trophies. Not just playing a possession based football. The fans wants more A coach can only be remembered at a club for the trophies he won not for how well his teams played. Arsenal haven’t won Epl isn 20 years.
Do you really believe it is so simple? Surely, if it was so straightforward the coaches at Arsenal would have introduced those ideas.
It’s certainly better that slow lethargic high possession play we see, or is that the way you think the low block will be beaten? It will certainly help speeding up play at times, well you disagree that’s fine but what we doing isn’t working
Or do you think it’s a magical player we don’t have that will beat the low block?
No David it’s definitely more complicated than rocket science. I guess in 20 years time with some of us in the grave, MA will still be trying to figure it out in phase 15 or so. Never underestimate the complexity of football
It’s not really clear what you are talking about. Why don’t you try writing something that makes sense.
I don’t think we ever saw the starting 11 all on the pitch at the same time in this pre-season. Our midfield trio has played less than 45 min total together.
What was concerning was the feeling of deja-vu from the last seasons struggle with low block.
Maybe it was just certain fans who felt it was deja-vu Ackshay?
I only watched the highlights, but I’m off to the game tomorrow, so let’s see how that works out.
I don’t think we ever saw the starting 11 all on the pitch at the same time in this pre-season. Our midfield trio has played less than 45 min total together. Gyokeres and Odegaard played like 13 min.
What was concerning was the feeling of deja-vu from the last seasons struggle with low block.
For me its not the results that overly bother me. It’s the getting caught on the counter attack far to easily, something we struggled with last season.
The side to side slow play needs to stop as well. Organized sides are happy to lets us play in front of them passing side to side because we’re not hurting them.
While winning pre-season games is neither here nor there really, what’s concerning is that even in pre-season we don’t seem to be addressing the problems that we had last season. And one more pre-season game isn’t going to remedy that I fear.🤷♂️
For me the biggest issue is in our lack of quality in depth at the back. The fact Gabriel didn’t play again and we conceded more goals should be a worry. Kiwior and co are just not up to the task. Hopefully the return of Timber will help shore up the leaky defense? As for the recent results, I’m not overly concerned because it’s more about fitness and integrating new players. That will be more beneficial in a few weeks, I’m sure. I do feel we’re a little light going into the season and challenging for the EPL title. Martinelli definitely needs some stiff competition which I feel is still missing.
I’m a little bit worried TBH, but I think it’s not necessary considering we still have some strengthening to do. Hopefully the recruitment team react soon enough.
The most worrying aspect of the pre season is the
consistency of slow/predictable play like City had 3-4 seasons ago. As City discovered this brand of football
will not win any major trophies any longer. Been able to unlock defenses of the teams below us on the table will be critical as it was the last 2 seasons.
that is where the title was lost. Therefore looking at pre season and insisting on using the left side 75% of the time does not show any progress as of right now. Maybe things change but looking at it as it stands we need to realistically realize EPL is not in our reach. Hopefully we get/need a major upgrade on Martinelli and another option than Odegaard. Both those areas need to be addressed before most of us can say we are going to compete for the title.
Money is beside the point, this tour is a golden opportunity to test the calibre of new recruits and how they blend with the different team formations. Knowing every players strength and weaknesses are pivotal to selecting a winning combination.