TIME TO FREE THE LAC(OZI)AUBA by Nicholas O
Lacazette and Aubameyang playing together in a system that complements them and have them both in the attacking duo role would be mouthwatering. We have seen potential that this can do. However, spice that up with an Ozil at the top of his powers and you have frightening prospect for the opposition to face and Leicester can testify to this.
This season Ozil has been pushed to the right wing to find space for one Aaron Ramsey. Ramsey has not set the division alight and there is a case for Arsenal to cut their losses and send him into the market store. But, on the day that he was not called upon and Ozil got back to his favorite position, suddenly Ozil has become the match winner we have known him to be capable of doing. The question is what system will have Ozil and the Lacauba playing all in their favorite positions?
A 4.4.2 diamond would do this very well. It is a generic 4.3.3.
————-Auba—-Laca————-
—————–Ozil———————
——-Iwobi———–Xhaka———
—————Torreira—————–
Monreal–Holding–Mustafi–Bellerin
—————–Leno—————–
Forget Ramsey, he confuses things right now and he is not performing worthy of being allowed to bring such confusion right at the moment. If Emery can convince Iwobi to play closer to the central positions in order to cover the areas in the centre and invert to the wing when necessary to conjure attacks.
So Ozil is at the top of the diamond, and Torreira is at bottom of it with Iwobi and Xhaka on both sides of the diamond midfield. Ramsey can help in rotation and if he still is not playing well Emile Smith-Rowe can be brought in to gather some confidence in this position. Monreal and Bellerin would help out on the wings and our rotation would have Welbeck, Mhkitaryan, Guendouzi and Nketiah available to be brought in to offer depth.
Arsenal can rise and rise even some more. COYG!
Nicholas Oyoo
I don’t agree with the line up, I will stick with the formation we used against leceister, and iwobi is doing well as a winger we shouldn’t stop his progress there.
and also we can’t play both strikers the same time we have many matches to play.
Unai Emery knows best. Different match calls for different formation before and during matches. Gone are the days teams already know how we are going to play during AW reigns as manager. Unai Emery has make the team unpredictable this season.
Well said! ✌
Love ur comment
I believe we should continue with the formation that suits us (4-2-3-1), and not change Iwobi’s role in the team. Aubameyang and Lacazette can play together, but it’d be advisable that we keep rotating. The season is still long, we must therefore avoid fatigue and unnecessary injuries. Welbeck, Iwobi and Mkhitaryan are doing very well to cover up. We need to have either Lacazette or Aubameyang in bench sometimes to act as the game changer in some matches.
…………………leno….. ……….
bell……… Sok…….. Koss… Mon……
…………….torr……. Xakai………….
…………………ozil………..
Iwobi……. Lacca……… Auba….
………..
I hope Emery would exclude the no 10 in the next EPL away match, because the squad need an extra midfielder in a tough away game
Sounds good. I’d consider dropping Xhaka for Mkhitaryan though. At a whooping £180k-a-week we really need to start thinking of how we can integrate him into the starting line up. As a right winger he simply isn’t cutting it. If we can’t fit him into the team then he should be sold immediately. It was a shrewd decesion by the board not to give in to Ramsey’s demands, it may not look like that in the short-term, but in the long-term it will go a long way in limiting these constant contract stand offs. Ozil set a precedence, if you want more money just delay signing and the board will reward you with a bumper new deal. Ramsey borrowed a leaf from Ozil’s book and had the board submitted to Ramsey, contract renewals would have turned into a nightmare for Arsenal. Currently Mkhitaryan’s presence in the team undermines the board’s actions when we continue to have a big earner doing nothing much to justify his salary. We have seen how the underperforming, bench-warming snake’s £500k salary at man utd has complicated things with the mediocre Luke Shaw squeezing out a 200k a week deal for himself. Just my opinion of course.
Good observation
Ozil and Sanchez are lucky b*s+*rds that saw the situation very well. I never blamed them for getting huge salaries though, because it was the big clubs’ mistakes when they made those decisions
Unfortunately Xhaka is also on high payroll and we need his dead ball talent, hence he has to play. The only way to incorporate Mkhitaryan is selling Ozil, which is very difficult to be done
I like Jim Wall’s team, at the moment it’s just about our best team we can put out, however I also like QD’s post about Miki. The good thing to come out of this is the fact Unai Emery has the players now to swap it about and that will get better when he brings two or three more in at the next window, hopefully. Got to say how wonderful it is to have a brilliant tactician in charge, such a difference to Wenger, waiting for 70th minute to make changes and putting it down to fatigue because we all know that Wenger could never admit to picking the wrong side. It’s no coincidence that we’ve been stronger in the second half of games after Unai’s changed things at the break. Soon he’ll settle in to a more regular side and I for one am convinced this man will take us back to the top. It’s looking that way already.
I’d like the front four to consist of Laca upfront,Auba on the left wing,Iwobi or Mhiki on the right wing with Ozil in the middle.i think that would cause real trouble to the opposition defence.
when you make comments about changing formation upfront to accomodate both laca, auba,ozil and iwobi. don’t forget vulnerability at the defence ,so i suggest 4.2.3.1 or 4.4.2(this without ozil or ramsey).
It would be the dynamic 4-4-2 they used against Fulham, because the positions of Arsenal four attackers were unpredictable:
…………………..Leno
Bellerin . Mustafi . Holding . Monreal
Mkhitaryan . Torreira . Xhaka . Iwobi
………..Lacazette …. Welbeck
Ozil splitted Leicester’s defense with his perfect through ball, but he cannot create perfect through balls like that consistently and it is not good to keep waiting for a perfect pass. I trust Emery’s high pressing strategy more, where all Arsenal players should press harder to force their opponents to make mistakes
Gotanidea,
I don’t know why I’m bothering to reply to you but anyway I’ll try again.
Pierre -Emerick Aubameyang’s record at Borrussia Dortmund was 98 goals in 144 games so when Arsenal paid £53 million for him, personally, I was over the moon and thought that was a cheap. He’s now scored for Arsenal 16 goals in 22 games. The guys on fire. Is that not enough for you.
And you’d put Welbeck in front of him? You are funny gotanidea
Well he does got(have) an idea. Pity it’s a plain daft one though.
Others have talked on you benching auba for welbeck so I’ll focus on what you said about ozil
The only thing that can stop ozil from providing passes like that of Leicester is his willingness, and I believe it’s not where, as in the stadium, he’s playing that determines that
I trust Emery
He tailors each match to each opponent
He isn’t afraid of big changes like 3 at the back then back to four.
He doesn’t play players out of position
He’s been spot on with substitutions and not subbing too late
I think with our lack of depth and lack of quality in parts of our starting line-up, he’s done a great job at helping winning us matches.
Also Emery has won 3 Europa Trophies. He knows the right line-up to help us win tomorrow night. His experience is invaluable
I have had enough with Ramsey. He isn’t an attacking central midfielder. He should play behind in central midfield or sold in January. He is a good squad player like OX was but doesn’t deserve the huge money because he shouldn’t be a starter next season.
?
Haha! Why is Xhaka STILL starting? The guy is such a liability. Did you not see him, YET AGAIN, give the ball away multiple times in really dangerous areas against Leicester? He does this all the time! And one performance, at home, against an average side, does not make Ozil WC again. Against easy opposition, of course play these two, but against any quality side, especially away from home, and wouldn’t dare put them in the starting lineup!
I am not a big Ozil fan and I have been saying that he should be played in easy home games against these midtable teams until he can show some consistency.
He keeps having these bursts of brilliant games each season mostly in our home games or against small clubs. But then he will go back to being sloth / koala bear Ozil that frustrates the hell out of some of us. The best i have ever seen Ozil play as an Arsenal player was last season from the 26ths of october away at Everton to maybe the start of December. For those few weeks he was absolutely amazing but then it all wore off from december until the Leicester game on Monday this season. He has been so poor since december last season.
I keep trying to give into the Ozil hype whenever he has a good game here and there but at the back of my mind (due to his history at Arsenal) I know he will go back to the typical anonymous Ozil that infuriates and frustrates me. So I am left skeptical about him every time he has a good game or a few good games in a row. You always know that he can’t sustain it and will default back to the typical hiding / full of excuses Ozil.
But i give him credit for his performance against Leicester, this is the Ozil some of us keep asking for. Be more consistent, take more games by the scruff of the nake more often. The Leicester performance should be the norm for Ozil rather than the exception.
This has always been my take on the Ozil matter.
Goonster, Ozil, along with Sanchez, was fantastic in our 3-0 drubbing each of Chelsea and ManU at the Emirates a few seasons ago.
@Lance.
When we beat Chelsea 3-0 at the Emirates, can you remind me of their form or they were doing in the league at that time? If I can remember well Chelsea were going through a transitional period when we played them. They were playing a different formation in that first half and in the second half they changed it and went for the formation that led them to win the league that season I think. And what did we do away at Chelsea or United?
Not to take away from our Chelsea 3-0 win that season but we caught Chelsea at a period where Conte was experimenting with formations and they were inconsistent at that time. But once Conte sort out his formation in the second half of that 3-0 Arsenal defeat they went on to do really well and beat us comfortably in the return match.
I say, at home against the smaller team or Top 5 teams that are not in form Ozil does well. But when was the last time he performed away from home against any Top teams in the EPL or CL?
Just saying..
As you said. Conte was experimenting and we destroyed them. The difference is Emery is experimenting and still winning. Perhaps we can improve even more like Chelsea did?
? nice one Admin ?
There is no need to complicate matters when we can accommodate Laca and Auba by deploying the system employed successfully by Liverpool where Salah and Mane play wide and high while Firmino drops deeper and engages with his midfielders and attacking full backs.Laca is a very intelligent player who’s movement off the ball is a joy to watch.When Ozil is played in the number ten role as he was against Leicester he links very well with Lava who creates space off the ball.This to me is the sensible way forward and one i think Emery will adopt against Crystal Palace.Iwobi who is blossoming under Emery should start ahead of Mik who has yet to come to the party this season
One day Grandad , by the law of averages, you will say something with which I disagree. But I reckon I’ll be long dead before you ever do. Certainly has not happened yet!
We can still according our two best strikers. But so far so gud the rotation re yielding profit
i was very impressed with Xhaka when he moved to left back after Guendouzi came in.we could play like that,it made it look like we had 15 players out there,they couldn’t cope
For your formation to work well Iwobi needs to be replaced by AMN when fit. Until then this formation will not be well coordinated.
Also the match against Leicester had arguably better suited style of free flowing football. I do not understand why would you wish to break that coordination just for the sake of it
I perefer niles,torrea,gundouzi
behind Auba,laca,ozil
Bell.will overlap
When Ozil cuts inside on the right while Niles does it on the left instead of Monreal who will keep the back balanced.
4132
It’ll come in the EPL, only a matter of time I think before we see this as a real formation for a top team.
Leno(Cech)
Bellerin(Lich)-Mustafi(Holding)-Sokratis(Kos)-Monreal(Sead)
Torreira(Guendouzi)
Mkhi(AMN)-Ozil(ESR)-Iwobi(Nelson)
Laca(Welbroke)-Auba(Nketiah)
Mkhi and Iwobi are not wingers in this formation, they are AM who offers a bit more width than a ACM but they are dynamic, they run with the ball in and around the edge of the oppositions box. The Fullbacks will be the wingers when in pos of the ball, could say the formation would change then to 2152
Without the ball, one of the CF can drop into the ACM role and our wider ACM split out to fill the winger slot, turning the formation into a 4141.
Spot on.. I also said similar few weeks ago… but a lot ll depend on Ozil defensive ability when we are without the ball in this system.
I’ve suggested it before the start of season. it also frees up Ozil from defensive work. MKhi and Iwobi can drop to cm position when defending giving 4-3-1-2 formation
Well in my humble opinion, of course without offending anyone who thinks differently from my point of view, but also by looking this matter in a different way and without fighting and by trying to make it clear, and by considering each and every one opinion, I honestly believe that I completely forgot what I was going to say.