Quote Originally Posted by Mac76 View Post
REALLY DISAPPOINTING YESTERDAY BUT WHILE WE CAN LOOK AT THE PLAYERS IT REALLY DIDN'T HELP THAT arteta reorganised the midfield because he wasn't prepared to play Tavares, which was a mistake in itself IMO, if you aren't going to give a player more minutes at home v Brighton you're basically writing them off so we're now another player short

Having Odegaard further back was a mistake, ESR can't play CM IMO, he's better on the wing

If arteta really didn't want to play Tavares he could have put Cedric at LB, White at RB and brought Holding in

And how about all those players unavailable through being loaned or sold - Chambers, AMN, Balogun, Saliba, Torreira, Guendouzi, Kola....

Chambers in particular can play at RB, so could have allowed Cedric to swap without moving White
As yourself and others have said on the Arteta thread in the Main forum, Arteta's game management of some of the squad players has been atrocious. Starting Xhaka at left back and putting that alien Midfield together of Sambi, ESR & Odegaard was a sackable offence. Way too many positional changes necessary in such an important game irrespective of the opposition.

His game management of Pepe hasn't been great either, all this talk of "Nico has improved he looks a different player" yet he hardly gives him any minutes. I accept hindsight is a wonderful thing but Arteta has definitely fallen short in this area.

What worries me is this appears to be a trait of his and quite a knee jerk one at that. Assuming we buy a whole heap of players this summer similar to last summer, is Arteta going to discard any player who comes in and performs poorly? He needs to trust his squad more.