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Jack_the_boy

Definitely Not Manberg
I think it’s because that when we think of possession football, we think of attacking teams that apply possession to drag opponent out of the way, playing high up the pitch to break the opponent defence patiently.

Arteta’s “possession” is nothing about that. We sit deep, pass from the back, draw opponent players up the pitch and then play counter attacks, rushing everything, and dint care about keeping possession in the final third near the opponent box, because Arteta wants to attack the opponent as quick as possible.

I agree, but what do we do when the opponent is stubborn, plays a low block and doesn’t come out of their shell? We don’t have many answers to that. Have to score the first goal but it’s easier said than done.
 

Football Manager

Copy & Paste Merchant
I agree, but what do we do when the opponent is stubborn, plays a low block and doesn’t come out of their shell? We don’t have many answers to that. Have to score the first goal but it’s easier said than done.
Then Arteta should get rid of having possession at the back and stop rushing everything in the final third.
We should play attacking football, be patient, and have possession in the final third.
 
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EinmalImmerEwig

Bent on his knees by asking to get banned !
Just FYI - from my perspective I can’t see who you’re chatting to so I’ve obviously got them on ignore. It’s one hell of a tool.
It was manberg
Ignore is an option, and it's awesome, I agree
As I'm new on this forum I like to get to know everybody first to see if there are possible members to go on the ignore list, and tbh I usually only ignore the obvious wum's, although even they bring something to a forum, and sometimes they can be very funny.

Manberg though is fairly tedious. And of course wouldn't be on the normal courtyard exercise regime anyway, so is probably worthy of being ignored.
 

SingmeasongSong

Right Sometimes
Possession football is boring. Peps football is boring in my view. Highly structured football is boring. The idea that only one style of football is worthy and the rest aren't is destroying the game. Go read a United forum or West Ham or basically any teams forum and see how many times boring or a synonym for it is used to describe a game.

Kinda true to large parts, but not all are doing it, many are looking to copy Klopp, which generally has more of a counter and press high speed style of play, which is very direct.

Well, he certainly has the team adapted to a more Pep'esque football at times, but sometimes you need a second style to survive.

Imo classic Klopp and every other manager who worships him, is looking at an alternative that was even more successful than Pep's football.
 

Jack_the_boy

Definitely Not Manberg
Then Arteta should get rid of having possession at the back and stop rushing everything in the final third.
We should play attacking football, be patient, and have possession in the final third.

We try to. Unfortunately too many players make too many turnovers and moves keep breaking down.
 

Makingtrax

Worships in the house of Wenger 🙏
Trusted ⭐

Country: England

Player:Saliba
I think it’s because that when we think of possession football, we think of attacking teams that apply possession to drag opponent out of the way, playing high up the pitch to break the opponent low block patiently.

Arteta’s “possession” is nothing about that. We sit deep, pass from the back, draw opponent players up the pitch and then play counter attacks, rushing everything, and don’t care about keeping possession in the final third or near the opponent box, because Arteta wants to attack the opponent as quick as possible.

This is the difference in how you two sees the game.
Except in the Sp**s game there's a very good analysis by Carragher, somebody posted on here, where he shows in freeze frame sequences how poorly we sit back. Bellerin in particular was far too high leaving a big area for Son Min to attack, which he exploited well.

Also we mostly don't attack very quickly and our ponderous transitions have frequently allowed the opposition to get back into formation.

There's a reason we're bottom half of the table and it isn't all about poor quality players.
 

Jack_the_boy

Definitely Not Manberg
Except in the Sp**s game there's a very good analysis by Carragher, somebody posted on here, where he shows in freeze frame sequences how poorly we sit back. Bellerin in particular was far too high leaving a big area for Son Min to attack, which he exploited well.

Also we mostly don't attack very quickly and our ponderous transitions have frequently allowed the opposition to get back into formation.

There's a reason we're bottom half of the table and it isn't all about poor quality players.

It was frequently an issue under Wenger in his last few years too. I remember too many games where we were passing too slowly and side to side. Hasn’t changed.
 
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Makingtrax

Worships in the house of Wenger 🙏
Trusted ⭐

Country: England

Player:Saliba
It was frequently an issue under Wenger in his last few years too. I remember too many games where we were passing too slowly and side to side. Hasn’t changed.
Last 2 years of Wenger were very different, the man was slowly folding, even trying to be a reactive manager. Now let me think, I wonder why that was. . . .
 

Jack_the_boy

Definitely Not Manberg
Here’s a le grove article from 2014 and it’s not very different from the words people use to describe our football now:
https://le-grove.co.uk/2014/10/19/boring-boring-arsenal/comment-page-2/

Edit: Stay away from the comments. I took a glance and had to cringe. Check this out:

Arsène will never quit the comfy job he has.

I’ve though long and hard about this.
I really think we will be better off dropping out of the race for the mediocre’s fourth place trophy. We’ve lost our way as a club, anyone can see that. We are hostage to everything but excellence. It’s all about money now.
 
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Makingtrax

Worships in the house of Wenger 🙏
Trusted ⭐

Country: England

Player:Saliba
Here’s a le grove article from 2014 and it’s not very different from the words people use to describe our football now:
https://le-grove.co.uk/2014/10/19/boring-boring-arsenal/comment-page-2/

Edit: Stay away from the comments. I took a glance and had to cringe. Check this out:

Arsène will never quit the comfy job he has.

I’ve though long and hard about this.
I really think we will be better off dropping out of the race for the mediocre’s fourth place trophy. We’ve lost our way as a club, anyone can see that. We are hostage to everything but excellence. It’s all about money now.
Mediocre 4th place? :lol::lol::lol: The football was breathtaking and he achieved continual top 4 spending well below his rivals. There are complete idiots in every walk of life.

Wonder how they're enjoying the years where we truly are mediocre. The only small crumb of comfort out of forcing Arsène to his knees, is that fools like these and AFTV have now got to reap what they've sowed and watch Arsenal break records of the wrong kind.
 

Tir Na Nog

Changes Opinion Every 5 Minutes

Country: Ireland
Le Grove, that's all you need to know about that. One of these big pseudo-intellectual know-it-alls with a habit of saying an incredible amount without actually saying anything at all.

Gotta be honest, where we pass isn't even as big an issue now as the tempo in which we pass at is so incredibly slow. There's highlights of our game vs Liverpool in the 2013/14 season and then thing that stands out is simply how quickly we move the ball, everyone takes one or two touches before moving it on, the movement is better, everything is so slick. Now you give the ball to Xhaka, he takes about 10 touches before slowly passing it to one of the full-backs, opposition are in shape, Ceballos takes 4 touches and instead of passing forward, or going into space he'll pass it backwards or sideways or by the time he does pass it forward the player is crowded out with no space. Only WBA we've seen anything even remotely similar and even that was well off the way we used to be. You can't ignore the comparison in technical quality. Going from Arteta to Xhaka, Ramsey to Ceballos, peak Özil to a youngster, Cazorla to a striker out wide. Not that we're trying to play Wenger ball in any case but even so Wenger himself would struggle to replicate it with the options we have now, tho I've no doubt he'd tweak a lot of things in any case.

But this all goes back to appoint a manager like Emery to replace Wenger who had completely different ideas, initially didn't even want to use Ramsey, froze out Özil, couldn't get the best out of Mkhitaryan, let Cazorla go, let Wilshere go, brought in Torreira and in general completely changed the way our midfield operates. Went from a team that dominates in that area to a team that bypasses it completely and builds through the wings and at times Arteta has had the similar approach post lockdown. So really it's a mixture of philosophy changes in terms of how you build up play and the lack of technical quality in central areas in comparison to what we used to have.
 

Bloodbather

Established Member

Country: Turkey
Agree. It’s a great tactical battle/chess like game that involves great calculations.

If you understand what’s in green, you shouldn’t find pep’s teams boring. Because every passes before the goal has the purpose to create the final pass, they are the the build up of that. They are equally important because without the passes before, you won’t have the final pass.

I haven’t played video games for years but I’d give you an example. It’s like a game of Watch Dog, which you will have to take down the gangsters’ boss. The most exciting part is not when you execute the boss. The most exciting part is when you create a strategy to take down his people one by one, to distract the group and get his guards away from him. Every single move is equally important and you are step by step, closer and closer to the final boss.

Now back to football, each pass is like eliminating one gangster out of the way. Every-time you see a pass you would think: great, that’s correct, now the next step, right, and then the next step. ...until you open up a gap for the killer pass to happen, which it cuts through the opponent defence beautifully. Every passes are clever and thoughtful, they are preparation for the final pass. Without them, you won’t open up anything. So that’s why I don’t find those passes boring. They are not meaningless passes, their purpose is to open up gaps. They are smart and beautiful.

It's just a matter of taste, mate. Early 2000s Wengerball was what made me fall in love with the game, so I like my football more direct. I prefer teams that combine athleticism, smart movement and flair - which is why early 2000s Arsenal, Heynckes-era Bayern Munich and the 2014 World Cup winning German side were my favorite ever teams to watch.

What I disliked about Barcelona, and especially the Spanish national team, was the lack of speed in the game. They didn't give up the ball, so you had next to no transitions in the game, which took away the directness that I enjoyed. It may be telling that I'm a massive fan of basketball and tennis also, so my gravitation towards athleticism, smart movement, flair and transitional play may be universal and not simply limited to football.

Another thing that made me dislike Barcelona and the Spanish national team was that they'd go into cruise control after getting the result, which they usually did pretty early because of their quality, and turn the rest of the game into a borefest. I really appreciated German teams for their ruthlessness in that regard.
 

Blood on the Tracks

AG's best friend, role model and mentor.
Trusted ⭐

Country: England

Player:Rice
Agree with the point about Guardiola's Barcelona and his style being boring. Aside from the one touch pass team goals they scored from time to time, prime Barcelona were pretty boring to watch on a 90 minute basis. Spain were even more boring, because they didn't have Messi to produce moments of individual brilliance. Never liked their style of play, though I did respect it. I think the first statement is a bit of a reach, though, few teams can even dare to emulate what Pep's Barcelona teams did. Some teams do play varieties of possession football, but it's always different passing-wise because they lack the quality.



Our team is one example, but such examples are rare. Most managers enthusiastic about emulating Pep's possession play realize after some point that their personnel isn't up to snuff and abandon the project.



Can't agree with this line of thinking, I think it's a shallow take. There's no such thing as "too nerdy", only wrong interpretations and applications. It's not like we only have one approach to the game because of the "nerdiness" involved. The game is more tactically varied than it has ever been, and it makes for interesting chess matches out there. Just in this PL season alone you have Klopp's gegenpressing, Guardiola's possession play, Mourinho's sit deep and counter-attack style, Solskjær's "through the middle towards the wings" 4-2-3-1, Rodgers' and Ancelotti's counter-attacking 4-3-3s, Bielsa's advanced 4-5-1, Hasenhüttl's set piece centered 4-2-2-2, Potter's 3-4-3, Dyche's oldschool British 4-4-2 hoofball and so on. Each of those tactics call for different personnel and allow us to see different attributes from the players.



That's true. We were a team that approached set plays in a direct manner in addition to the counter attacks. It's not like that style of play has perished from football, though, both finalists in the Champions League last season essentially played with the same approach.

Fair points, I think we probably agree mostly on the issue.

I think my issue is when people try to make out that tika taka is somehow the ''best'' way to play football. At the end of the day it's all subjective to us as fans it's not objective.

Personally I much prefer explosive, fast paced counter attacking football.

I can appreciate the skill involved in tika taka but it does nothing for me as entertainment.
 

Bloodbather

Established Member

Country: Turkey
I think my issue is when people try to make out that tika taka is somehow the ''best'' way to play football. At the end of the day it's all subjective to us as fans it's not objective.

There is more than one way to skin the cat, as they say. People keep skinning the cat different ways, and it pushes others to adjust, and that's what keeps innovation going.
 

Riou

In The Winchester, Waiting For This To Blow Over

Country: Northern Ireland

Player:Gabriel

God: "I need someone who can create the best football of all time, think you can do it?"

Arsène: "No problem, bossman."
 

Football Manager

Copy & Paste Merchant
It's just a matter of taste, mate. Early 2000s Wengerball was what made me fall in love with the game, so I like my football more direct. I prefer teams that combine athleticism, smart movement and flair - which is why early 2000s Arsenal, Heynckes-era Bayern Munich and the 2014 World Cup winning German side were my favorite ever teams to watch.

What I disliked about Barcelona, and especially the Spanish national team, was the lack of speed in the game. They didn't give up the ball, so you had next to no transitions in the game, which took away the directness that I enjoyed. It may be telling that I'm a massive fan of basketball and tennis also, so my gravitation towards athleticism, smart movement, flair and transitional play may be universal and not simply limited to football.

Another thing that made me dislike Barcelona and the Spanish national team was that they'd go into cruise control after getting the result, which they usually did pretty early because of their quality, and turn the rest of the game into a borefest. I really appreciated German teams for their ruthlessness in that regard.
Respect your taste, your knowledge and love for football.

Maybe it’s not for everyone. But though my example I hope you would at least understand why it is appreciated by many others around the world. I’m saying this because a lot of people here would never understand why other people find this playing style entertaining.
 
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Riou

In The Winchester, Waiting For This To Blow Over

Country: Northern Ireland

Player:Gabriel
When Tiki Taka first began in the late 2000s, it was mesmerising I will say...thinking of Spain at Euro 2008 and that perfect 2009 Barca team, some of the best ever football they played.

I think as time went on people lost sight of what made it so enjoyable at the start...instead of keeping the ball with a purpose, coaches just thought keeping the ball with endless sideways passing was Tiki Taka...when that happened, it ended up becoming like watching paint dry, which really harmed the spontaneity of the players and made many games VERY boring.
 
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