Areas where I would like the team to improve – By Ibrahim
Going by the comments on JA’s readers and contributors, there seems to be excitement in the air about the upcoming season.
The acquisition of the new players and the pre-season performances tops the list of reasons for optimism among the fans.
Personally, my excitement has gone a level down last season and as a football fan living in Seattle, Washington, I used to wake early in the mornings to watch matches involving Arsenal, however that changed sometimes last season where I started recording on DVR some matches for the 1st time especially the lunch kick-off. Waking up at 3AM only to get disappointed repeatedly has taken its toll. I hope the excitement of the new season materializes and takes us back to the glory years.
Now to the topic of the article. Mikel Arteta is now nearing to complete the 3rd year of his contract and having changed the personnel to his likings, there shouldn’t be any more excuses if the team fails to reach the target in the upcoming season. People have different expectations, personally I feel the bare minimum should be top four and win one the cup as an added bonus.
While getting players of his own might help MA achieve the set goals, I believe there are some areas that the team and the manager were lacking last season and need big improvements that will elevate the team to the next level.
Dull and Boring style – The past two seasons, most of the matches were dull, boring, rigid, and sore to the eyes to say the least. There was no identity in how they played, the pattern of plays was predictable, and there was no urgency most of the time. Personally, I enjoyed the 1st six month of MA’s era more than the last year and half.
When he arrived, he set the team to play counter attacking football to get the maximum out of them. By sitting back to limit the goals conceded and hitting back at the opponent with the use of Auba’s speed, it was a perfect setup for a rookie manager to get the results needed. And we knew what to expect from them, but the last 2 years were a roller coaster.
The attack stagnated, and the much-taunted improved defence conceded 48 goals in the premier league. The most difficult part was that we saw glimpses of what this team is capable of, as evidenced when they played Man City out of the park before the red card. Winning ugly here and there is fine as long as it is not their main default tactic. Maybe the new players will change that but if the continuation of last season happens, I doubt if this team will be able to achieve much the coming season.
Pressing – Whenever Arsenal players press, it’s always broken and feels half-hearted. You will see a couple of players pressing hard while others are just standing around, thereby allowing the opponent to bypass them with ease. Since Arsenal is now the youngest team in the league, I think this is one of the areas that they can easily improve on.
Lack of Plan B – it was clear that Arsenal didn’t have any other plans when plan A was not working. They keep on doubling down on dosage of more Plan A when it’s clear that another strategy is needed. I am not sure if the lack of enough players limited MA to implement other strategies, but plan A can only take you so far unless your plan A is really good and very reliable. Even the best teams like Liverpool and Man City have various ways to overcome the opponent when things are not going well.
Tactics and game flow – In recent times, the team start the matches either slow or on a back foot. I have yet to see more than a few games where Arsenal controlled the game from start to finish. Sometimes we see them playing well one half and bad the other half as if different players were playing either of the halves. Most of the time we are on the edge of our seat because the team is so unpredictable and never in full control of the game. To be in the big boy’s league, they would need to dominate more games and impose themselves on other teams.
Finally, Rotation, Rotation, Rotation – With additional players and more games I am hoping that Arteta will rotate the players as needed. Relying heavily on only 12-14 players like last season is not a winning strategy and can only cause more damage to the performance and confidence of the players, and above all cause long-time injury to crucial players. Last year, there was a time that players like Saka were not performing and needed a breather, but MA couldn’t rotate him due to the reasons only known to him. Since this is a world cup year, rotation is more needed than ever, and all hands-on deck approaches should be used if they want to reach the next level.
Ibrahim
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