Quote Originally Posted by fakeyank View Post
I blame Arteta for the manner of yesterday's loss. The fact we were gonna lose was a foregone conclusion but the manner of it makes me angry. Quite why we werent utilizing a different system against City away from home makes no sense? You know that Holding will be bitch slapped by Haaland all over the place, yet we played a high line. Play on the counter, move Partey in CB and play Jorginho in the middle, play 3 at the back etc etc... Arteta went with exactly the system that didnt work the last 3 games before yesterday. Makes no sense!!

Having said that, we have made tremendous strides this season, especially in the quality of our attacking game, so I am going to cut him slack and acknowledge what a great job he has done. He does need to learn though... horses for courses, having a plan B and C is going to be extremely important if we are to even consider that we will be in the title race in the coming seasons.
Been wondering about the lack of plan B and C. Arteta is not stupid, and he will be able to read the game infinitely better than we can. He saw the potential for Ben White at RB. He played a masterstroke with Tomi at LB in the Liverpool game at home. While the inverted LB role with Zinchenko has let us down recently, for most of the season it was key to our ability to overload the opposition. We thought that he hated Martinelli at one point in time, but under Arteta he has become one of the most lethal wide attackers in the league - and found his scoring boots. I'm kind of thinking that we are seeing something similar to 2 seasons ago when we were rigid as hell and too predictable, but this laid the foundation for a mobile attacking unit once we upgraded our players. He seems stubbornly wedded to a system now, but maybe this is the basis for a further evolution once we upgrade again over the Summer?