Arsenal vs Brighton - Player Rating and Match Reaction

[selassie]

I don't think there is such a debate about Zinchenko v Tierney defensively, but what Zin does by coming inside is provide another passing outlet - helping us retain and recycle the ball. So its not about Tierney per se - its whether in the system Arteta plays we rely on Zinchenko's ability to keep possession - which I think we do.

Of course it's all hypothetical and open to interpretation, but IMO the reason we find Brighton difficult to play against is that they are good both at keeping possession and breaking at speed. I think that Zin helps us retain the ball. Mitoma is a fine player and I agree that he destroyed Ben White in the second half but Zin helps us offensively - Tierney had only 6 or 7 touches in the first half IIRC.

I think a lot of these debates per say come down to us not having a strong enough squad. I am not suggesting that if we kept our starting XI fit all season we would have won the league, but right now the system and the performance level is reliant on pretty much our core starting XI being fit. As we have seen over the past few months and especially yesterday, our performance levels drop off a cliff when we have core players missing. MO touched on it earlier but our defensive record at home or more importantly recently has been actually really bad, we are conceeding 2 or 3 goals on average in a lot of games.

We have run out of steam and we are clearly not quite good enough when it comes to mounting a challenge on City to the final day.

This summer is going to be really crucial in terms of recruitment, we need to get it right and we need to purchasing players who are capable of slotting straight into the First XI without an obvious performance drop, this summer is not about finding gems, it's about finding quality players who are ready to contribute right now to a CL and PL challenging team, that's the standard we need to aspire to.

Obviously other factors come into play such as Arteta and the coaching staff and even the players within the club continuing to develop / improve, but we need to get the basics right first otherwise next season may not be anywhere near as enjoyable as this season.

[Mac76]

I think a lot of these debates per say come down to us not having a strong enough squad. I am not suggesting that if we kept our starting XI fit all season we would have won the league, but right now the system and the performance level is reliant on pretty much our core starting XI being fit. As we have seen over the past few months and especially yesterday, our performance levels drop off a cliff when we have core players missing. MO touched on it earlier but our defensive record at home or more importantly recently has been actually really bad, we are conceeding 2 or 3 goals on average in a lot of games.

We have run out of steam and we are clearly not quite good enough when it comes to mounting a challenge on City to the final day.

This summer is going to be really crucial in terms of recruitment, we need to get it right and we need to purchasing players who are capable of slotting straight into the First XI without an obvious performance drop, this summer is not about finding gems, it's about finding quality players who are ready to contribute right now to a CL and PL challenging team, that's the standard we need to aspire to.

Obviously other factors come into play such as Arteta and the coaching staff and even the players within the club continuing to develop / improve, but we need to get the basics right first otherwise next season may not be anywhere near as enjoyable as this season.

That last point is of concern to me - I'll keep an open mind but there's a potential version of next season that could be a bit grim, where Arteta fails to learn any lessons on squad rotation, teams and tactics, we lose some useful good players like Tierney, Balogun and Nelson but don't recruit sufficiently, other teams get stronger and we have an unkind early fixture list (which as we know, with the exception of this season, is pretty much the norm) - it could be a Chelsea-like season if we're not careful

think of the opposition now, it's no longer a big six but a big seven or eight - us, Citeh, Man Ure, Chelsea, Newcastle, Liverpool, Brighton, possibly Villa and possibly even Spuds if they themselves don't implode as much as I'm hoping...

[Mac76]

This is interesting - while Brighton, Newcastle and one or two others are also fairly low, we're by far and away the least-rotated side

[HCZ_Reborn]

This is interesting - while Brighton, Newcastle and one or two others are also fairly low, we're by far and away the least-rotated side

Yeah and Chelsea are equally there to show the folly of over rotating. But it is a concern, I felt we rotated too often under Emery and it showed that he had no idea what his strongest side was. But ultimately what we do is run players into the ground and then act surprise when players brought into replace them haven’t had enough match play to really find any kind of form.

I think what perturbed me the most was playing senior players in the Europa league and the fa cup when right off the bat they should have been treated as incidental fixtures.

The champions league is the premier European competition so yes of course we should play our strongest team (especially as we are not likely to be seeded and will have to face one of the big European sides in the group stage).

I do genuinely wish there was someone out there who struck me as likely to take this side further than Arteta otherwise it feels like too much of an unnecessary gamble. Though part of me would like to see Arteta sacked just because I dislike him so much, wipe that smug superior look off his stupid face

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

Yeah and Chelsea are equally there to show the folly of over rotating. But it is a concern, I felt we rotated too often under Emery and it showed that he had no idea what his strongest side was. But ultimately what we do is run players into the ground and then act surprise when players brought into replace them haven’t had enough match play to really find any kind of form.

I think what perturbed me the most was playing senior players in the Europa league and the fa cup when right off the bat they should have been treated as incidental fixtures.

The champions league is the premier European competition so yes of course we should play our strongest team (especially as we are not likely to be seeded and will have to face one of the big European sides in the group stage).

I do genuinely wish there was someone out there who struck me as likely to take this side further than Arteta otherwise it feels like too much of an unnecessary gamble. Though part of me would like to see Arteta sacked just because I dislike him so much, wipe that smug superior look off his stupid face

I do agree with you that Emery didn't know his best 11 when he was with us, but as shown again with the Villa stats, it was pretty much of an anomaly for him.

It might be that coming directly from PSG (where face it, he was forced to rotate a lot) he carried that bad habit with him.....but all the things we criticised him for, silly rotations and poor defending have been corrected in his subsequent clubs pretty fast.

We insisted on blooding this Rookie and well it can definitely be argued that by Rookie standards he's achieved amazing things.

But to say experienced managers, who've made most of the mistakes he's still going to make with us, cannot improve this team...as it is now...is quite silly to me.

Whatever happens, Arteta will probably get one more season, but I cannot currently fathom how he will be able to get this team to perform better in the league next season when they'll be playing the best in Europe every other week. Who knows, it'll probably be all over in January as usual.

Lets see though, we've waited 19 years, another 5 or 7 years in the wilderness should be ok for us to bear, no?

[Mac76]

We insisted on blooding this Rookie and well it can definitely be argued that by Rookie standards he's achieved amazing things.

But to say experienced managers, who've made most of the mistakes he's still going to make with us, cannot improve this team...as it is now...is quite silly to me.

Whatever happens, Arteta will probably get one more season, but I cannot currently fathom how he will be able to get this team to perform better in the league next season when they'll be playing the best in Europe every other week. Who knows, it'll probably be all over in January as usual.

yes, this is why i think if we were Ambramovic's Chelsea we'd be showing Arteta the door and getting someone in who has CL experience, knows how to rotate players and adapt tactics and style to suit the circumstances.

we won't though and sure, we probably should give him the chance to show he can learn from his mistakes, but i think we could well fall disastrously short next season.

tbh if we do terribly and it means he goes, then it could well be a blessing in disguise, rather than have years of his just doing well enough to keep his job but us always being fundamentally flawed

of course the irony is that at the piont when he is a genuinely good manager (if he ever gets there), he'll bugger off from his own personal training ground to Barca or somewhere

[HCZ_Reborn]

I do agree with you that Emery didn't know his best 11 when he was with us, but as shown again with the Villa stats, it was pretty much of an anomaly for him.

It might be that coming directly from PSG (where face it, he was forced to rotate a lot) he carried that bad habit with him.....but all the things we criticised him for, silly rotations and poor defending have been corrected in his subsequent clubs pretty fast.

We insisted on blooding this Rookie and well it can definitely be argued that by Rookie standards he's achieved amazing things.

But to say experienced managers, who've made most of the mistakes he's still going to make with us, cannot improve this team...as it is now...is quite silly to me.

Whatever happens, Arteta will probably get one more season, but I cannot currently fathom how he will be able to get this team to perform better in the league next season when they'll be playing the best in Europe every other week. Who knows, it'll probably be all over in January as usual.

Lets see though, we've waited 19 years, another 5 or 7 years in the wilderness should be ok for us to bear, no?

The problem you and Mac76 have is that you talk of this better, more experienced coach

But you can’t name him

Chelsea make moves to remove their coach if they can be guaranteed a better person…in the past that might have been true but they replaced Thomas Tuchel with Graham Potter

There just isn’t this parade of experienced and top managers to choose from.

PSG for example replaced Pochettino with Galtier from Nice.

I genuinely wish there was an outstanding candidate to go for. The way there was ten years ago when it was obvious we should have moved Wenger on and brought in Klopp


At this moment in time it would feel like ditching Arteta for the sake of it and as much as part of me would like to do that because I don’t like him, it doesn’t feel like a sustainable move when there isn’t a glaringly obvious replacement

[Marc Overmars]

It can’t be denied that despite the crushing disappointment of how this season has ended, Arteta has delivered something meaningful and that’s CL qualification for the first time in 6 seasons. Will probably be our highest points tally in a generation too.

Far too early to talk about moving on from him, he’s earned the right to carry on. Whether he will learn from his mistakes or not remains to be seen, but his rookie years are over now and he should have gained enough experience to evolve as a coach. He’s won a cup, rebuilt the team and flirted with the title. Roll on next season.

[IBK]

I think a lot of these debates per say come down to us not having a strong enough squad. I am not suggesting that if we kept our starting XI fit all season we would have won the league, but right now the system and the performance level is reliant on pretty much our core starting XI being fit. As we have seen over the past few months and especially yesterday, our performance levels drop off a cliff when we have core players missing. MO touched on it earlier but our defensive record at home or more importantly recently has been actually really bad, we are conceeding 2 or 3 goals on average in a lot of games.

We have run out of steam and we are clearly not quite good enough when it comes to mounting a challenge on City to the final day.

This summer is going to be really crucial in terms of recruitment, we need to get it right and we need to purchasing players who are capable of slotting straight into the First XI without an obvious performance drop, this summer is not about finding gems, it's about finding quality players who are ready to contribute right now to a CL and PL challenging team, that's the standard we need to aspire to.

Obviously other factors come into play such as Arteta and the coaching staff and even the players within the club continuing to develop / improve, but we need to get the basics right first otherwise next season may not be anywhere near as enjoyable as this season.

Pretty much. Your comments re our home form are correct as well - and we were shipping goals when saliba was in the team too. The problem is that we press high - and this is exposed particularly when at home, the onus is on us to attack. Funny how 2 seasons ago we were much more effective defensively but we don't seem to have found the balance - does Arteta trust too much in our ability to retain possession further up the pitch?

I am also worried a bit about last season. For all our successess this season - it can't be denied that several of the stronger teams have underperfomed from where they would normally be expected to be. That said, the main disappointments for us have come against teams in the lower half of the league.