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.