blrgooner
Established Member
Agree with this. I think we have two major problemsAs I'm saying, we are just masking the problem by overloading our backline with defenders. 3 CB's, 2 defensive minded FB's and even Xhaka often become a part of that backline. All that comes at the expense of our attacking play where Pepe, Auba and Laca will struggle a lot. Our midfield is constantly being overrun because other teams have more players.
As soon as we move to some normal tactics worthy of a top club, our defence would become a massive issue again. There's just not enough quality there and Arteta can't do much about it atm so I can understand his decision to play like we are playing, but saying we would be stable otherwise is wrong for me
1) No speed in defence - Our defenders are mostly very slow and are very poor 1-1. This means that we have to play with our defenders very close to our goalkeeper. On top of that, with the current quality of defenders, we need to play with 3 narrow defenders. This means that our wingbacks are more of defenders than attackers.
2) No physical / Ball carrying capability in the midfield - Even when we get the ball to our midfielders, we don`t have a capability to move the ball forward either through dribbling skills or through physical dominance.
This combination means that we basically play with 7 players in our half for most of the game (Especially if we score and have a lead to protect). Our attackers are almost never supported consistently by the midfielders.
Arteta is doing a Jose Mourinho now I think(Except for Sp**s game where he got outdone by Jose). I think we are playing this system because of the players we have and hope Arteta doesnt find a long term solution in this system. We need to bring in atleast 2-3 first team starters to even get into a stage where we can compete with top 4.