Joe Willock: The True Joerdie

[kash2]

Yeah exactly. He was at the base of the double pivot. 94% pass completion (42/46) and 2 assists in 70 minutes. Opposition notwithstanding, there’s more to come in that position.

its gonna be the year of Joe.

 

[Tir Na Nog]

If we had to choose between him and Ceballos to play in midfield then I'd rather give Joe a run of games at this particular moment. We all know what we're gonna get with Dani, which is mostly fluff.

 

[MikelHadADream]

Awful today again. I feel for the lad, he shouldn't be anywhere near the first team. He has good attributes, but his technical deficiencies are to big for him to be a player for us at the moment. He needs a loan where he plays league football every week and he can iron out these flaws.

 

[MutableEarth]

Positive 2nd half but just a little bit slow of thought at times when he could have made decisions faster. Just needs to have a little more conviction like he does in the EL. Trust himself a little bit. At the moment he just stands out a little bit in the sense that he doesn't seem quite as in sync with the team as you'd like.

He was by far our best midfielder on the night though. Xhaka and Ceballos were so unbelievably bad that it didn't take much for Willock to be better than they were.

 

[Atlas]

Not good enough to play for a CL club. He’s at the right place.

 

[Riou]

Disgraceful he was doing the interview post match, shows a real lack of balls from the senior players.

 

[Trilly]

Never takes his chance but not his fault tbh. I remember when prime Barca would have Bojan, Gio Dos Santos and co hitting 20 goals a season despite being only decent prospects.

When the team works you can slot in young players and truly assess if they’ll make it at the club but when you put them into something that isn’t working what exactly do you expect to see?

Saka broke through because of his freak decision making and Emery’s system favouring the LWB. It’s going to be tricky for our other prospects unless they’re also golden boy standard.

 

[blaze_of_glory]

I thought he was better than most other players today tbh.

 

[Pop Tart]

Same with Nelson and eddie, he is not grabbing the opportunity with both hands. Has to do it outside of league /fa cup and Europa competitions.

 

[RunTheTrap]

He was sh&t the first half and I was ready to drop my stocks in him but he improved when he moved out on the left. He's an interior, or a 8 but can Arteta stop using him as a 10? Use ESR instead.

 

[Geofranco]

Same with Nelson and eddie, he is not grabbing the opportunity with both hands. Has to do it outside of league /fa cup and Europa competitions.

It's a double edged sword. When the team is not performing well and there are injuries, young players will get opportunities.

But then there is more pressure to perform and every bad touch, missed chance or poor positional play becomes magnified.

The same thing happened with Iwobi when he broke through. Got chances because the team was horrendous in the second half of that 15/16 season, he was in good form to end the season. By 16/17 we had a stretch of playing some great football when we used Sanchez as a forward.

Once things started spiraling as they usually do, Iwobi was taking a lot of ****, the fanbase was very toxic and many wanted Wenger out.

Young players need a lot of guidance and to be managed with care. That's why they need the Veterans to be leaders and actually talented, so when things are rough, they can depend on them.

All young players will have growing pains. Even at this point, Saka is getting overplayed.

 

[Batman]

One thing nobody talks about with our academy kids is what a culture shock it must be to have been learning Wengerball since childhood and be used to quick free flowing expressive football played at pace and then try to transition to this garbage Arteta is coaching. Even someone like Willock who is limited technically will have come up playing far more fluid football than this. It's no coincidence that our football looks better the more of our academy lads are on the pitch. They aren't playing Arteta's draconian football they're doing their best to play Wengerball. My great fear actually is that Arteta's awful football seeps down to the academy level and poisons the well for future managers.

 

[Football Manager]

One thing nobody talks about with our academy kids is what a culture shock it must be to have been learning Wengerball since childhood and be used to quick free flowing expressive football played at pace and then try to transition to this garbage Arteta is coaching. Even someone like Willock who is limited technically will have come up playing far more fluid football than this. It's no coincidence that our football looks better the more of our academy lads are on the pitch. They aren't playing Arteta's draconian football they're doing their best to play Wengerball. My great fear actually is that Arteta's awful football seeps down to the academy level and poisons the well for future managers.

There is no free flowing football anymore in modern football. Player’s positioning and movements are micro-managed and “pre-installed“ to the player’s mind. “Free” football is just too easy to be exploited.

You can still play very attacking and beautiful flowing play with micro-managed tactics. It’s just that the play are all pre-practised rather than being “free”.
For example, Guardiola’s teams are very disciplined too. He applies micro-managed tactics into an attacking philosophy (Many other modern mangers would also micro-manage their team, just that they may apply it on another philosophy.) I’m glad that we have a modern manager who can carry out micro-manage tactics to a high degree, that’s a must in modern football. But it will be better if we can play with a more attacking/entertaining philosophy.

 

[kash2]

There is no free flowing football anymore in modern football. Player’s positioning and movements are micro-managed and “pre-installed“ to the player’s mind. “Free” football is just too easy to be exploited.

You can still play very attacking and beautiful flowing play with micro-managed tactics. It’s just that the play are all pre-practised rather than being “free”.
For example, Guardiola’s teams are very disciplined too. He applies micro-managed tactics into an attacking philosophy (Many other modern mangers would also micro-manage their team, just that they may apply it on another philosophy.) I’m glad that we have a modern manager who can carry out micro-manage tactics in a high degree, that’s a must for modern football. But it will be better if we can play with a more attacking/entertaining philosophy.

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

 

[Maybe]

It's not working well for him as number 10, but I'm 99% positive he was playing deep in midfield in his last u23 season, so why do our managers push him forward so much? I understand that he can score, but his goals are mostly coming from him when he arrives late in the box, a style suited for a b2b midfielder.
I'm also fairly disappointed with his lifestyle, you would want your young academy player to live for football and get better at it, but he is more focused on being stupid, which is probably the reason why he didn't improve at all for the last 2 seasons

 

[Geofranco]

It's not working well for him as number 10, but I'm 99% positive he was playing deep in midfield in his last u23 season, so why do our managers push him forward so much? I understand that he can score, but his goals are mostly coming from him when he arrives late in the box, a style suited for a b2b midfielder.
I'm also fairly disappointed with his lifestyle, you would want your young academy player to live for football and get better at it, but he is more focused on being stupid, which is probably the reason why he didn't improve at all for the last 2 seasons

A lot of times when you see players looking uninterested or being sloppy is because of the excessive partying. No one really talks about it, but most of the players, especially the young players do not live and breathe football.

 

[14Henry]

It's not working well for him as number 10, but I'm 99% positive he was playing deep in midfield in his last u23 season, so why do our managers push him forward so much? I understand that he can score, but his goals are mostly coming from him when he arrives late in the box, a style suited for a b2b midfielder.
I'm also fairly disappointed with his lifestyle, you would want your young academy player to live for football and get better at it, but he is more focused on being stupid, which is probably the reason why he didn't improve at all for the last 2 seasons

What do you personally know about what he does off the pitch?

 

[Big Poppa]

Same with Nelson and eddie, he is not grabbing the opportunity with both hands. Has to do it outside of league /fa cup and Europa competitions.

If you google at his heatmap against Wolves he was in an advanced left wing position, almost standing on Saka. It was the same against Leeds.

Arteta’s basically asking him to cover the space Auba was in because he wants to block teams from coming out down the right side of defence. It’s not the same role he plays in the EL. Chalk and cheese in fact. You could see him screaming at Joe whenever he wandered into the centre to get the ball.

Against Molde, he occupied a deeper right central midfield position alongside Xhaka. The role he’s being used for in the league is bizarre, and confusing, especially when we sorely lack speed and presence down the centre.

Our players aren’t as bad as is being made out. Arteta’s trying to be a bit too clever.

 

[tcahill]

He's an 8, simply as that. Looked better than our senior midfielders although that's not a high bar.

 

[novar]

A lot of times when you see players looking uninterested or being sloppy is because of the excessive partying. No one really talks about it, but most of the players, especially the young players do not live and breathe football.

That's good, living and breathing your job never ends up well.