Mikel Arteta: Aston La Vista To The Title?

[Makingtrax]

People still going overboard about our defence.

Two things:
1) It folds quite easily when we meet a good side
2) Our defence has a huge amount of help from the midfield and forwards which is why we've been struggling to score this season, the whole team is so deep.
3) At this rate we're on course for 11 losses, which is more than what Unai got (10) in his full season with Mustafi, Kola, etc which everybody said we're worse than useless.
4) But also at this rate we're on course for only 44 goals, which is unsustainable. Unai got 73.

People just carried away because for the last 2 seasons we've been sooooooo bad, and now we're a bit better they're OTT. The truth is we've got young players who look decent and and we're improving . . nothing more.

 

[OnlyOne]

People still going overboard about our defence.

Two things:
1) It folds quite easily when we meet a good side
2) Our defence has a huge amount of help from the midfield and forwards which is why we've been struggling to score this season, the whole team is so deep.
3) At this rate we're on course for 11 losses, which is more than what Unai got (10) in his full season with Mustafi, Kola, etc which everybody said we're worse than useless.
4) At this rate we're on course for 44 goals, which is unsustainable. Unai got 73.

People just carried away because for the last 2 seasons we've been sooooooo bad, and now we're a bit better they're OTT. The truth is we've got young players who look decent and and we're improving . . nothing more.

Yeah? No one’s saying we’re winning the league.

Mod Edit: the last bit of language was unnecessasry

 

[Makingtrax]

Yeah? No one’s saying we’re winning the league.

I didn't say they did, but I pointed out our defence is currently no better than Unai's full season with Mustafi and Kola etc. Learning to read would help your posting a lot bozo.

 

[OnlyOne]

I didn't say they did, but I pointed out our defence is currently no better than Unai's full season. Learning to read would help your posting a lot bozo.

I don’t read half the nonsense you post MakingTrilly.

 

[Makingtrax]

I don’t read half the nonsense you post MakingTrilly.

Good. That proves I'm posting proper footballing speak instead of the incoherent patter that you engage in.

 

[Riou]

Our defence is definitely better than when we had Mustafi in it...for one, we don't have Mustafi in it anymore!

Sewer we let in about 60 league goals in Emery's first season?

The defence now is like the one in 2013-2014 under Arsène...very good, but will get beaten by the title contending teams ..which is fine, as Champions League qualification is our aim not the league itself.

 

[Makingtrax]

Our defence is definitely better than when we had Mustafi in it...for one, we don't have Mustafi in it anymore!

Sewer we let in about 60 league goals in Emery's first season?

The defence now is like the one in 2013-2014 under Arsène...very good, but will get beaten by the title contending teams ..which is fine, as Champions League qualification is our aim not the league itself.

It's not about how many goals you let in though, points are about loses draws and wins. You can afford to let in a few more goals if your team is further up the pitch and scoring a lot more.

Currently Arteta is on course for more losses and fewer points than Unai's season with all those players who supposedly needed a rebuild.

 

[Riou]

It's not about how many goals you let in though, points are about loses draws and wins. You can afford to let in a few more goals if your team is further up the pitch and scoring a lot more.

Currently Arteta is on course for more losses and fewer points than Unai's season with all those players who supposedly needed a rebuild.

I quite liked the 2018/2019 team.

But this is the first Arsenal team since 2016, that I am really excited about...feel we are better than we were in Emery's first season, feel we can definitely get Top Four...don't really care about points, just care about what position we are in at the end of the season.

 

[Makingtrax]

I quite liked the 2018/2019 team.

But this is the first Arsenal team since 2016, that I am really excited about...feel we are better than we were in Emery's first season, feel we can definitely get Top Four...don't really care about points, just care about what position we are in at the end of the season.

If we get top 4 with fewer points and more losses it's because the league is weaker. Mud in the eye of some posters on here.

 

[Riou]

If we get top 4 with fewer points and more losses it's because the league is weaker. Mud in the eye of some posters on here.

This is why we need him to get Top Four with less points, tbh.

Arsenal are back in the Champions League, plus it proves we were right about the league not being any stronger than it was in the past...win-win!

 

[Blood on the Tracks]

Our defensive is fine for our situation at the moment. Top 4 qualification.

Yeah, it gets taken apart by elite sides like Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool. Teams around our level or below we're pretty miserly.

We've conceded 17 in the PL to date.
11 came against Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool.
2 came against Brentford first game of the season with basically a different defence.

The other 9 games we've conceded 4 goals. That's fairly decent.

I'm not at all discounting the hatful we let in against the top 3 but it's one of those situations where the stats need a bit of context.

Conceding 17 in 13 isn't particularly good on the surface but when you see it's basically 3 games against top, top sides that skews our defensive data. The majority of our games we've looked pretty solid defensively.

Still, we need to cut down the amount we concede against the best sides.

 

[drippin]

If we get top 4 with fewer points and more losses it's because the league is weaker. Mud in the eye of some posters on here.

Hah, how can you deduce that? Tougher league can express itself in many ways in the league table.

For example make most teams have less points because any team can win any team.

 

[Paperino]

Our defensive is fine for our situation at the moment. Top 4 qualification.

Yeah, it gets taken apart by elite sides like Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool. Teams around our level or below we're pretty miserly.

We've conceded 17 in the PL to date.
11 came against Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool.
2 came against Brentford first game of the season with basically a different defence.

The other 9 games we've conceded 4 goals. That's fairly decent.

I'm not at all discounting the hatful we let in against the top 3 but it's one of those situations where the stats need a bit of context.

Conceding 17 in 13 isn't particularly good on the surface but when you see it's basically 3 games against top, top sides that skews our defensive data. The majority of our games we've looked pretty solid defensively.

Still, we need to cut down the amount we concede against the best sides.

Ramsdale is seen as a hero. Think about that.

 

[Tir Na Nog]

We'll see how good the defence holds up tonight and over the course of the festive period I feel.

Some of the games you felt it was more Ramsdale than our defence preventing is from conceding but it's definitely something that's growing, we'll see how far they've come.

 

[El Duderino]

Think the combo of Arteta being quite good at setting up a team defensively, plus the fact that we have a lot of individual match winners in our squad now... quietly confident that we win get Champions League qualification now, regardless of what you think of Mikel as a manager.

We are still not ready for the Big Three...but the likes of Saka, ESR, Ramsdale, Partey, Gabriel etc...can all beat the rest the league.

Even our players that aren't playing very well at the minute, Auba and Ødegaard, you still feel can go up a level at some point...pretty much everyone in our squad is contributing right now.

Auba and Pepe are done here. We all know that.

If Eddie or Balogun or Martinelli were borderline ready, or Laca had the ability to last for more than 50 minutes a March, Auba would be getting the Özil treatment.

 

[Riou]

Auba and Pepe are done here. We all know that.

If Eddie or Balo or Martinelli were borderline ready, or Laca had the ability to last for more than 50 minutes a March, Auba would be getting the Özil treatment.

Yeah, if Laca had Auba's stamina on the pitch, he would probably be starting for us.

Though I read somewhere that Pierre has the highest number of presses of any striker in the league... he's buying into what Arteta wants him to do, even if it is negatively affecting his own game... that workrate is probably helping the likes of ESR score more, as Auba is tiring out defenders.

Not sure how much Pepe will do much this season, but feel Pierre has a big part to play still.

 

[El Duderino]

There's nothing wrong saying the defense has improved, it better after spending all our budget on it.

Arteta should get credit for that, we defend better as a unit and always seem to be able to clear and cover if a defender is beaten and I've noticed a lot of second balls consistently going out way.

Thats not just down to quality, but to coaching.

Having said that, it has come to the detriment of our midfield and attack. We just simply don't pass the ball enough or string enough passes in a dynamic manner and it's quite appalling given thst the technical level of the side has risen a lot.

This team is super risk averse and will remain so and as I've said before, whoever Mikel sees as our ideal striker isn't really on our price bracket, meaning we have to go a step or two lower and that won't fix the problem that this team doesn't have a lot of goals in it if Auba continues to be played like he has or Pepe continues to ride the bench.

 

[Riou]

Still weird to me that strikers now are mainly being praised for defensive work (pressing) while CBs are mainly being praised for offensive work (ball playing) funny time for football

 

[El Duderino]

Yeah, if Laca had Auba's stamina on the pitch, he would probably be starting for us.

Though I read somewhere that Pierre has the highest number of presses of any striker in the league... he's buying into what Arteta wants him to do, even if it is negatively affecting his own game... that workrate is probably helping the likes of ESR score more, as Auba is tiring out defenders.

Not sure how much Pepe will do this season, but feel Pierre has a big part to play still.

We have a Ferrari and we're asking it to do the job of a delivery van.

It's positive that Auba is busting a gut for this guy, but the cost of it is that ESR and Saka just don't have enough goals in them yet (maybe ever?) and it's not fair to put this burden on them this early into their careers.

 

[A_G]