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Naturally they are. Are we expected to win every single game?Quote:
Originally Posted by Chippy
The point we stop winning (now) and don’t change anything becomes the focus.
If Arteta wants to take us places, he needs to be able to adapt quicker. He also needs a squad, beacuse if he is limted to playing the current 15 or so into the ground, then it’s unsustainable
We’ve had a near flawless start so a come down was inevitable. It’s about how we react now, we’ve got 3 league games left before the World Cup and need to put everything we’ve got into getting results from those games. It would be a shame to end this great start and go away on a sour note.
I know we need to dip into the squad more but I don’t see that many reliable options beyond the first 11 if I’m honest. Hopefully we’ve got a January target or 2 because this squad definitely needs beefing up.
I am famously scathing of people losing their shit after a billion wins in a row and then us drawing a game, but I am worried about the level of performance. There seems to be a particular trend of us dropping off in the second half of games which indicates a tiredness I don’t think should be there this early in the season.
We all knew squad depth was going to be an issue this season but there are already some worrying signs. All that said, you’re going to have dips in any season, hopefully we will get going again and rack up a decent number of points before the World Cup. That break could work for us this season.
I don’t think anyone has been losing their shit. But last night was worrying…if Cody Gakpo understood the offside rule we would have been hammered.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Our performance levels have dipped from that early season burst. We are definitely going through a bit of a rough patch, the only positive with it is that we have actually won and drawn games we would probably have lost last season last night excluded.
We need to step it up though, going into the world cup in this form with more dropped points would not be great. Our run of fixtures after the world cup, is in my opinion make or break for the season.
The problem is Arteta's failure to understand that players aren't robots and also his lack of nous.
Given we only need 1 point in the EL and had a home game against a not-very good side coming up, he should have saved our better players for the Zurich game instead of panicking and throwing them all on last night.
Yes our squad is thin but players need regular game time to be in tune so his playing the same first eleven all the time has guaranteed that the rest of the players are rusty and key players are playing too many minutes
The only way his actions make sense are if it's all a plan to make the Board give him a lot of money to spend in January
Some good (and measured) comments here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac76
We are in a period of malaise. No doubt about it. This has been happening since Bodo Glimt away and has therefore extended to 5 matches now. If we are looking for positives, it's that we have taken points in this period that we would likely have dropped last time out, but the negatives is that we have been flat and looking tired in all of these games.
The things that worry me most are:
- Has Arteta pushed his fairly threadbare team too hard starting pre-season? It's all well and good looking dangerous when we are able to play at 100% and our key players are firing on all cylinders, but this is not going to happen every game, and like Mac says the manager's recent comments about player fatigue not being an issue look naive. This may be the case at Citeh, where they have the depth and talent within their squad to control games and allow their players to 'rest' within games (the likes of Haaland manage their games really well - whereas Jesus tries to play at 110% all the time, and this is affecting him). Our problem is that we do not have a great number of options to mitigate this and our back up players are not providing the relief that we all hoped they would.
- Areteta looks like a great manager when we are on a roll, but on the evidence of last season his approach does not look effective when we are in difficulties. This applies to 'in game' changes - which at times look desperate and rushed, as well as difficult periods more generally. The manager can shore up our defence when we are protecting a lead, but we struggle to find an attacking Plan B when we go behind. This is in part due to a lack of options off the bench, but last night our first teamers made no difference at all. In any event, I don't think his management of our substitute players sees them confident and ready to change game states.
- Our aura of invincibility earlier in the season now looks brittle and illusory. They were at home, yes, and had to go for the win, but PSV were not intimidated by playing us, and both Leeds and Southampton looked like they worked us out and their changes after our customary fast starts neutralised us. Other managers will be looking at our weaknesses - particularly our high line and goalkeeper's achilles heel - and we are suddenly looking one-dimensional.
We should have too much for Forest at home, and can hopefully return to winning ways in a convincing performance, but pressure seems to return so quickly to Arteta's set up, and the manager and players desperately need to nip this slump in the bud. Teams with pretensions of finishing in the top places in the league need consistency of performances better than we have shown lately.
It’s hard to downplay the significance of Thomas Partey to team performance, that when he is injured or not played that can affect us.
Of course there are reasons that disprove this, the performances against Aston Villa and even Man United were not overall poor (he didn’t play in either game) and he was poor against Liverpool and we still put in an effective performance.
But a fit and in form Partey is one of our best guarantees of a good performance and a win and the stats bear this out. Which for me still comes back to what I’ve said repeatedly which is central midfield is the most important area in the park. Without dynamism in there it affects the likelihood of Odegaard,Martinelli and Saka seeing the ball….and this is especially so when Arteta plays a right back at left back and a centre back at right back meaning there is no auxiliary attacking support from the full backs.
I think there is more than just physical fitness at being overplayed at stake, Eddie Nketiah and Vieira have also both been very poor recently and Lokonga has been our worst player this season….in regards to giving the ball away, being caught out of position etc.
Whatever I personally think of Xhaka, it’s clear Arteta rates him…but he’s the player that has been ridiculously overused and he looked totally flat last night.
For me whilst I don’t think it’s unfair to be critical of Arteta for not rotating the larger issue seems to be a lack of Squad depth which can only be addressed in the transfer market.
I think we need another striker or at least a wide player who can contribute. As much as I’d love Eddie to succeed I don’t believe he’s going to be that guy for us. Part of me thinks we only kept him because it was cheaper than buying someone and he also ticked the home grown box. One thing with Arteta that is very obvious is that it’s easy to see when he doesn’t trust a player.
That result and performance was huge earlier. As was Reiss Nelson contributing from the bench. Massive positive today, Chelsea next away.