The midfield is critical to Arsenal and Freddie has to make some hard choices
The Arsenal defence is shambolic but the truth is that the midfield is not much better. There really is a poor set of players for Freddie to choose from but if he plays them in their correct position and gets the right balance then he may get the best out of them.
He will most likely go with Granit Xhaka, it really is a sad indictment when he is probably our most effective midfielder.
I expect he will recall Matteo Guendouzi basically because he really does lack options and I suspect Lucas Torreira will also play. A bit of a defensive midfield but I cannot see what else he can do.
I am expecting him to drop Mesut Ozil, he has been ineffective since his return to the first-team and I get a feeling that he will give Nicholas Pepe the traditional role just behind a front two.
In effect, it is really a three-man midfield and as I have already opined, it will be Pepe that sits in behind the front two.
So, this is the midfield I think that Freddie will go with.
Granit Xhaka
Matteo Guendouzi
Lucas Torriera
If Freddie does go with these three then he has to play Torreira in front of the back four and allow Guendouzi and Xhaka the freedom to roam in front of the Uruguayan. Hopefully, he will have learned that Torreira is not as good when played out of position.
Dump the whole lot, and play the youth team! They cannot possibly do any worse.
Where’s A Maitland-Niles?
he`s not good enough
At least he doesn’t pass only sidewways like Guendouzi, and he also oes not get shoved off the ball that easily.
Twig.
Please don’t, behave yourself!
Xhaka,Sokratis,Luis,Bellerin, unfit to wear the Arsenal shirt, we are in serious trouble and unless something drastic happens, we will be fighting relegation, do not think ah it won’t happen to us.Leeds and Blackburn fans thought the same
Add Ozil into the equation
This is the worst time to be a gonner
Agree with the three midfielders as starters, but I don’t think Torreira would sit in front of the CBs. Have you ever seen Kante sit in front of CBs?
Kante always plays as mobile DM alongside a more static DM like Matic/ Drinkwater and he has got three goals in EPL this season because of his box-to-box playing style. Torreira’s playing style is like Kante’s and Torreira doesn’t have the height to be CDM like Matic/ Fabinho / Fernandinho:
…………….. GK
RB ….. CB ………. CB ….. LB
…………… Xhaka
….. Torreira ……. Guendouzi
RW ……………………….. LW
…………….. CF
Play a 442 with pace with lac lace and pea up front
4-4-2 only gives us two central midfielders. Which are not enough to control the games, since our central midfielders are not good in playmaking and winning the ball
It is similar to 4-2-3-1, which reduces the number of central midfielders by using a no 10. Unless the no 10 has Okazaki’s work ethics, who was one of the main reasons in Leicester’s success
Doesn’t matter as long as we do not play 4-1 with Luiz or Chambers to cover CBs, it won’t make a difference at all. We simply can’t play forward out of this formation!
For now, Brighton just passed us by, we are 4 points from relegation and by the look of next EPL fixtures, we will be fighting for 17th place, relegation zone!
We now have a clear picture of what we lost since Wenger left. It was already all shaky last season, we got very lucky everyone performed poorly to make it to EL football. Now gradually it showed how far down we fell.
To sack Wenger like a stranger, a dog was Kroenke plan and action, using fans as an excuse to do so! Kept him with no money for a decade strong, messed up pivotal transition killing Suarez and Kante deals!
We would be champions with Suarez and even more so with Kante for years and CL title, fighting for both titles til this day!
Blame it all on Wenger while he was jerked as Arsenal and fans in procesa! Look at us now Mr Kroenke greedy cowboy!They won’t move before january! No top team has fell appart so fast in history! Keep on disrespecting Wenger! Idiots!
How is acknowledging Wenger’s faults disrespectful towards him? If anything, it’s the opposite! Fanboys can only see the positives, whereas realists look at the whole picture. If you truly respect someone, you tell it how it is.
Wenger and Gazidis ran this club into the ground! So much so, Emery inherited the worst Arsenal squad in over 30 years. Awful mentality, zero clue how to defend, tons of injury prone players, no structure on and off the pitch, etc. Ultimately, it wasn’t fully their fault though. Kroenke let this happen. He should have got rid of both of them 2012 at the very latest.
theres always a tendency to make the past out to be some glorious dream. We were a disaster than too, just to a lesser extent. Was still going nowhere fast. So many problems under Gazidis and Wenger, and just because we are doing poorly now doesn’t mean getting rid of them was the wrong thing to do. One thing I will admit, Kroenke has been able to get away with having a total lack of vision for the club because of AW, who at least had a footballing philosophy and (faulty) plan for Arsenal.
So 2 years on we are still lamenting that Wenger put us in a bad position in what have we done better since Wenger left and with the amount we have spent? Wenger left us with the worst squad, yet we have brought in more than 5 new players since he left and we haven’t got anywhere close to being as good as WENGER’S worse.
Eat your humble pie and admit hounding out Wenger the way you did is haunting the club
The best comment i have read ever since Mr Wenger left
Bring back George Graham 😉
👍 Even at his age George would put the frighteners on this group of wimps.
Don’t play Sokratis, Luiz or Mustafi in defense
Dont play Xhaka
Dont play Laca and Auba together
Preferably don’t play Özil
This should go a long way
Ljungberg, Mertesacker and the Gunners should have listened to Dixon’s advice
Make the formation more compact and shorten the distances between the players to improve the passing accuracy
Attack and defend as a unit. Attackers should be the first defenders and the defenders should be the first attackers
You’d think some of this is obvious, but havent seen a single performance all season like what you have described. It is always one or two players willing to press while everyone else sits around. The forward line does NOTHING in terms of pressing, and there is always so much space out wide. Arsenal have looked like a bunch of individuals on completely different wavelengths all season. And our CB’s love to just back up, never commit to a challenge and then act surprised when a goal goes in.
Do they even know the meaning of the word “pressing”?
It is we who are being pressed game after game, and neither the players nor the staff seem to have any idea how to play against that. It has been going on for years…
you press WITHOUT the ball as well which is obviously what I’m talking about. There is a reason teams bypass our entire attack and midfield so easily every time and then easily run at our dopey CB’s. Watch most replays and you can find several Arsenal players standing around or jogging backwards.
gotanidea playing players too close to each other is part of the problem we have too many static players. nobody in our midfield or defense can bring the ball foward with pace we might be compact defensively but we will be too blunt in attack
Leno
chambers holding mavropanos Tierney
torreira guendouzi
smith Rowe
Pepe martinelli Nelson
anything else Freddie out after the game don’t care who’s injured
I rather like that lineup, Ramterta. These young guys have everything to play for. Maybe AMN instead of Guendouzi? It will give more forward momentum.
Maitland Niles has been really poor this season would let him play a couple of cup games to see if he’s ready for the premier league
The lineup wont matter if the coaching is poor. Every team seems to get 10+ shots on us and are deadly on every counterattack. Arsenal dont know how to press, dont know when to to drop back or when to push up, don’t have any plans for covering other players… it’s just a mess and our form rivals Watford. The problem is way bigger than personnel.
SPOT ON.
I’ve given up with the “suggested line-up” game.
Currently it matters not, due to severe deficiencies elsewhere in the club.
One thing I will say though;
ANM – Seriously?
2toff u r right…the fans are worse…it is not a strange thing to go a goal down at emirate but the stadium fans are worse… arsenal as a team has a big problem right now n they need full support…when arsenal levelled again Brighton I was hopeful we r gonna but the fans were not pushing the boys with electrified noise in the stadium…even as at 2-1 I still believed we can win but booing couldn’t help…now relegation is really not far…I will see how they will support arsenal in championship next season
We lack a Ramsey sooooo badly. All the attacking shortcomings stem from that problem. I assume that’s why Unai has tinkered with Torreira in the more advanced role. He was looking for Ramsey number two. I want to go back to selling Auba in January again. I only see it as a good thing. At them moment, he and Laca, when played together definitively have to compromise a bit to facilitate the other one and for that reason, aren’t at their absolute best. Selling Auba will give us 100% Laca and our front three with Gabriel, Nicola, and Alexandre should be more fatal than any other forward combination we had since the start of the season. Now, if Auba manages to go for around 70 million, if by some incredible luck, we manage to find both a Ramseyesque box-to-box midfielder and a no-nonesense defender, we’re back in Europa, baby!