Summer transfer joy and happiness

[hobson's choice]

Long as Ramsey and Xhaka are on this team, they will be shoe horned into this lineup regardless of form.

I won't get excited bout our fortunes till those 2 are playing elsewhere.

[Penguin]

I thought Emery had plans of playing a 4-3-3 with Ozil going wide and three CM's in the middle. Maybe Xhaka, Ramsey and Torreira as the trio. But it looks like he's playing Ozil as a 10. I have no idea how that will work. Even with Torrira as DM, I think we'll be left badly exposed with Unai doesn't tell Ramsey to cut out the roaming forward and focus on distribution and pressing in the middle. Same goes for Ozil as a 10. He has to contribute more on both defence and attack. The guy has the feet and ball control to unlock a defence with his dribbling and wish he'd take more risks in possession and not play the percentages.

If Unai can't coach some discipline into these guys and get them to be more productive, he has to drop them. If he falls into the same trap as Wenger, we'll be in trouble. I don't want to see Ozil or Ramsey shifted on to the wing because they weaken our midfield only to discover they weaken our wing play as well. Same trap Wenger would fall into with certain players and I potentially see that happening if Emery isn't brave enough to drop unperforming players. I also think we have to be careful not to compound the problem by dumping more clay onto an already messy pile by dipping into the transfer market to buy players to compliment underperforming players with obvious weaknesses. Wenger made that mistake with Giroud when we bought Ozil. They were incompatible but Giroud was undroppable and then we bought another player that was undroppable. It could have worked if Ozil was more of a goal threat and made runs into the box. Giroud would have been great with the link up play. But on the other hand, Ozil needs a player that is faster and more of goal threat than Giroud.

Either way, a lot to look forwards to this season and we'll see how Emery addresses these the problems.

Last night Emery tried Ozil wide so I don't think the positions are set in stone yet. Ramsey was supposed to be the most advanced CM but he injured himself before the game.

The part in bold is important and without a doubt Ozil weakened our wing play last night. He plays the safe, obvious passes too often. He needs to be more proactive and take a few risks in the final third.

[Blink 1nce Quince 2wice]

Ozil wide is fine if it is balanced out by a very different player on the other side, otherwise I can't abide it. His ability to swing a ball in and cross from wide positions is probably his most underrated attribute to my mind, unless you take the view that his movement is still criminally under appreciated or acknowledged.

[Gooner23]

Any one else struggling to see what Mhiki adds to the team? The occasional glimpse of quality but then goes very quiet for big chunks of the game. Can't seem him getting too many goals either. Iwobi very similar.

[Power n Glory]

Last night Emery tried Ozil wide so I don't think the positions are set in stone yet. Ramsey was supposed to be the most advanced CM but he injured himself before the game.

The part in bold is important and without a doubt Ozil weakened our wing play last night. He plays the safe, obvious passes too often. He needs to be more proactive and take a few risks in the final third.

We’ll see how this Ramsey situation plays out. Either it’s a genuine injury or he’s about to be sold. If it really is an injury we really have to reconsider a new contract.

I didn’t see the game but not hard to imagine. I’ve seen how Ozil played on the wing for Germany and he’s done it for us on a few occasions and hasn’t looked great. To be fair, whenever we take a central player to play wide, they always look out of sorts. Plenty of examples to go by. Iwobi and Wilshere spring to mind. We’ll lose out on creativity and consistency if we try to play someone isn’t a natural born winger.

[I am invisible]

Any one else struggling to see what Mhiki adds to the team? The occasional glimpse of quality but then goes very quiet for big chunks of the game. Can't seem him getting too many goals either. Iwobi very similar.

An alternate option to Özil, mostly (and experience of playing with Aubameyang).

My biggest issue with him is that I don't think he and Özil should play at the same time, because they do the much the same job - if you already have Özil on the pitch, in a more prominent area, then Mkhi becomes kind of redundant, and ends up not really doing much at all. I suspect we'd get a lot more out of him, if he was being rotated with Özil rather than playing alongside him.

[Power n Glory]

Ozil wide is fine if it is balanced out by a very different player on the other side, otherwise I can't abide it. His ability to swing a ball in and cross from wide positions is probably his most underrated attribute to my mind, unless you take the view that his movement is still criminally under appreciated or acknowledged.

We missed a trick when we had Giroud. We maybe should have been playing Ozil wide left to swing in crosses to Giroud.

As for Ozil’s movement off the ball and ability to find space, It’s not something I think we should go crazy for. What purpose does it serve if it doesn’t really aide our attack? What I love about Cesc and Rosicky is that they’d find space and demand the ball when open.

[Power n Glory]

An alternate option to Özil, mostly (and experience of playing with Aubameyang).

My biggest issue with him is that I don't think he and Özil should play at the same time, because they do the much the same job - if you already have Özil on the pitch, in a more prominent area, then Mkhi becomes kind of redundant, and ends up not really doing much at all. I suspect we'd get a lot more out of him, if he was being rotated with Özil rather than playing alongside him.

MK definitely looks like another player that’s a central player. At this rate, we might as well play a 4-2-2-2 or diamond if we’re trying to keep all the main players on the pitch. Emery will have to cut a couple of big names for this to work.

[I am invisible]

Ozil wide is fine if it is balanced out by a very different player on the other side, otherwise I can't abide it. His ability to swing a ball in and cross from wide positions is probably his most underrated attribute to my mind, unless you take the view that his movement is still criminally under appreciated or acknowledged.

At the very least, I think he has all the tools to do the job. I mean, if you didn't know you were talking about Mesut Özil, and someone just listed out a lot of his best attributes... smart movement... great close control and dribbling ability... ability to swing in laser-guided crosses from wide positions... gets a lot of assists from cut-backs... then you might be forgiven for thinking that you were hearing about the tricky winger we all want?

It's not even unprecedented for him - he's played both wings for Germany many times, and he's played both wings for Madrid. Even when he plays as a no.10, he'll spend much of the game drifting wide. (I also think there's a more of a goal-threat in him than he likes to show.)

Granted, he'd have a bit of learning to do on the defensive side, but I think he's going to have to do that wherever he plays across the attack, if we're implementing a high-press?

Really not sure what the barrier is for him here? I can only assume it's a mental block or some kind of reluctance to give it a proper try?

[I am invisible]

MK definitely looks like another player that’s a central player. At this rate, we might as well play a 4-2-2-2 or diamond if we’re trying to keep all the main players on the pitch. Emery will have to cut a couple of big names for this to work.

I love how M's name gets shorter every time it's written!

Funny you should say that [about the 4-2-2-2]... I was just thinking that that's how most of these shapes / formations will probably end up in real-time when we're in possession. Most likely we'll end up Özil either coming more central to play through balls (or getting down the channels for cut-backs), with Auba hitting the near post, Laca ghosting in behind to the back post (hopefully unnoticed) and Ramsey following in as a delayed runner to give us a 3-pronged goal-threat. Any real width will be provided by the fullback on whatever side the play is on.

I've always thought that shape was more about how we regroup when we're defending anyway, and where our players should be starting attacks from - beyond that there's not much predicting how it will unfold, as wide players might come central, central players might go wide, advanced players might drop back (e.g. for hold-up play), deeper players might overlap, wingers might swap sides, etc, etc... basically anyone in the front 4 could end up anywhere, really! As long as the rest of the team maintains a more rigid, disciplined shape then I'm kind of happy for the for the attackers to freestyle it (to a certain extent).

This is why I don't think I'll ever understand why so many attackers care so much about the exact starting positions they're given - across the 90 minutes, they're likely to end up doing a bit of everything anyway, and in a high-press they're certainly all going to have to put in a defensive shift - is it really that big a deal? (Keeping in mind we're talking about "professionals" here, who are paid millions of pounds a year to do this for a living - just deal with it, please!)