Source?Originally Posted by selassie
I mean, I seen it too but seemed a bit click baity, man.
Arsenal have a couple of players injured...let's link to every semi available player of that position. Naw sure I'm buying it.
This is a team who didn't buy a striker. For the entire second half of a season because the ones they identified weren't available. Now we're supposed to believe they're "scrambling" to cover a 2 week(?) Injury???
Nah.
How many CMs do you think they need. As already pointed out, they have 6 players for those 2 positions and that doesn't even include people like AMN.
3 good ones is better than 5 average ones and a crap one. It’s not the numbers, it’s more the quality that’s an issue to me.
Who do you think Arteta sees as options for CM?
Ahh, well I'm with you there. I've already said there's a quality argument but not a numbers argument. But the injuries to Partey and Elnonentity don't really push the quality argument anymore than where we were yesterday. The club ain't buying a player the level of Partey as it's cost too much (and he's only out for a couple weeks) and Elnonentity is fuckin shite anyway and literally any player in the squad, including that yank goalkeeper, could come in and do what he does in CM.
Arteta has already said Zinchenko can play there (attacking and holding MF) and he also stated "When Viera plays there" talking about Xhaka's position.
That's what he's said, it's not my opinion or interpretation, man. He literally said it.
He's also played Lokonga in the DM position before too, so even with Partey and Elnonentity out he still has Lokonga, Xhaka, Zinchenko and Viera.
Yet we've strenghtened since last year, when we only just missed out on top 4 - and TP was injured for huge parts of the season also. Look, I also have the 'Arsenal' condition of being pessimistic - and God knows its understandable given our fall from the top and the turmoil of the past few years but the way I see it, we have the WC in November (and are already at September). Then a transfer window opens in January. If we can't get the player(s) we have targeted before 2 September I can see the sense in not just signing anyone - we have been down this route before. I feel nervous too but lets not despair just yet...
Putting the laughter back into manslaughter
I was feeling rwally good after the first three games but came away from the Fulham one with some trepidation, albeit we did show character to win.
Arteta's faults are still there, underusing subs, thinking Xhaka should wear an Arsenal shirt, ignoring some useful players (anyone see how Tavares is scoring for fun now he's free of Arteta's undermining management style?) etc
Happy to be proved wrong but we need to beat Villa soundly and get at least a point at Old Shiteford to show we're serious
He’s the only midfielder who does that, but a big focus of all our recent recruitment has been putting together a group of defenders (and a GK) who can all do it too. Whoever the ball falls to in that defensive 6 now, we move it to the forwards as quickly and directly as possible - it falls to Partey, it goes straight to the forwards… it falls to White or Zinchenko, it goes straight to the forwards… it falls to Saliba or Gabriel, it goes straight to the forwards… it falls to Ramsdale, it goes straight to the forwards. Sometimes we’ll still have to go the long way round, but a lot of the time we’ll just bypass midfield completely.
Elneny as Partey-cover was never going to be exciting, but I could have lived with it if he hadn’t picked up this freak injury - I don’t think sticking with him was negligent or a gross oversight. He can’t do what Partey does, but we didn’t really need him to (and tbh I think he would have got in trouble if he’d tried) - all he really had to do was keep it simple, hold his position and make one extra pass to hand it off to one of those other defensive quarterbacks, or maybe make a shorter pass to one of our 8s who might have had to drop s little deeper. It would have slowed us down a little when it fell to him, but there’s other ways we could have built attacks.
Agree about the wide player (or at least I did before we lost Elneny - it’s more 50/50 on priority for me now). Aside from adding competition and cover (and hopefully goals) to our current wide options, my main reason for wanting that player is it frees up Martinelli to cover Jesus - the striker market looks dead this summer and I can’t see a more natural, like-for-like replacement that’s available anywhere in terms of the energy and tenacity he brings to the front line. We lose that energy and we really are a different team again.
I honestly think we need to stop over-reacting to individual results/performances. In any season you're going to get great results and performances and days where it all goes to shit. Happens to every club.
Sometimes you can play brilliantly and still not get a result - City last season, in All or Nothing I was once again reminded how we were robbed that day. Other days you don't play that well but still get a result somehow, the Fulham game was one of those. Let's see where we are at Christmas.
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