The Arsenal v Liverpool, Emirates stadium, 4.30pm Sunday 7 Januaey

[Niall_Quinn]

I’m going to assume from this that you don’t really have anything substantive to add to your point. Though in my experience people who feel the need to lecture others on misogynistic or intemperate language are usually the dark horses

It also appears that I wasn’t the only one less than impressed by Nelson. I have no problem in him coming on in games to add a bit of energy but given the opposition we were playing he did im afraid look out of his depth, and Alexander Arnold was clearly far more troubled by Martinelli when he came on.

I thought it was only fair to give him a start especially as Martinelli is massively out of form, but the gulf in quality was quite evident

Nelson was fucking terrible. If that's the standard coming through the ranks then get the chequebook out pronto. I think some people get carried away just because a player will occasionally move at more than 1 mph or push a ball on and try to beat a defender. Well 10/10 for ambition, but when you have no talent it's just quicker to pass to the opposition and get it over and done with. And yes, I did watch him in particular because I haven't seen much of him and was interested to see if he could provide more than the slumbering millionaires who snuggle in the regular first team. Nothing at all. I would say more of the same, but it's actually less.

[IBK]

Do you know anything about professional rowing? I've only been getting into it for the last 3 years but in that time I've come to appreciate what teamwork actually is, as opposed to the increasingly individual focus in football. But getting into it, I mean observing of course. I'd be dead after 2 minutes if I tried to actually do it, such is the excellence, selflessness and supreme conditioning required at the top level. When I watch Odegard take the ball, look up and then misplace a pass (for the 20th time) I laugh at how unprofessional and how selfish and uncommitted he quite obviously is. We could say that's Arteta's failure to motivate him, but if he can't motivate himself to respect the shirt and his teammates as a base, minimum standard then how will a manager get anything useful out of him. People were rolling their eyes when I mentioned the appalling kit. We'll you'd never see Oxford or Cambridge out on the river on race day in anything other than their traditional kit, because that's a small piece of a thousand pieces of tradition and respect and identity that makes those boats and crews excellent before a blade is dropped. You don't get anything like that coming from this Arsenal cash machine brimming with mercenaries. So maybe they fancy playing one day, maybe they don't another. The rowing crews do it for the sport, the footballers do it for the cash. It couldn't be more obvious and it's the explanation for why a player like Saka can be unplayable one day and distracted the next. He's not a real professional and he doesn't have sufficient respect for his team. I'm not just picking on him - every modern player is the same. 65 million for that chav who strolled around the park and can't even kick a ball straight (I bet he could if he had an ounce of respect for his team or a speck of pride in himself). And then 200K+ in his pocket as a reward? So why's he going to burst his blood vessels and collapse from exhaustion?

I know a bit about rowing - as I did it myself at Uni.


Your comments re mentality in other sports are fine to a point, but I have to disagree that the players you have highlighted - and indeed many of the other players in our team lack professionalism/committment. For me, Odegard is perhaps our most professional player and I don't see his lack of goals (the other parts of his game have been generally of a high standard) as selfishness or lack of committment. Similarly, I cannnot look at Saka - bearing in mind his meteoric rise over the past couple of seasons - and see anything other than a model professional young man. By all accounts he is one of the most disciplined and committed players in the squad in terms of his off field preparation for games. Put simply few people acsend to elite professional sport without having massive committment and professionalism as part of their DNA.


You can say that footballers are over-rewarded for their talents compared to other sports and I agree with this. But its also the case that a minute fraction of the young people who aspire to be professional footballers ever get anywhere near the riches of the higher leagues.


I don't buy the idea that Arteta picks any player who has not shown up in training - if anything its the opposite. His persistence with Eddie; Reiss Nelson; Havertz a below par Ben White; speak to an over emphasis on effort and an under appreciation of individualism/independent spark. Similarly, I feel that our current malaise is due partly to over coaching - both in terms of physical and mental fatigue, and suppression of independent thought/instinctiveness. To me, Saka looks like he is trying to follow instructions whenever he receives the ball rather than doing what comes naturally to him. It has cost him a second of reaction time and its not difficult to imagine that he has been drilled into playing it safe and not surrendering possession unless there's a high chance of scoring. The same goes for other members of our front line. Trossard in particular looks a shadow of the lethal finisher we saw at times last season and Martinelli is not getting shots off. This conservatism means that scoring opportunities are fewer and further between, as we allow time for opposition defences to set. We are so scared of turnovers that we ignore our ability to recover possession and thereby create space and unpredictability - yet ironically we inevitably give the ball away anyway having to play in such cramped spaces.


As for our collective lack of finishing - my personal theory is that the players who do have scoring opportunities often feel the weight of pressure caused by (1) the effort that has gone into making the opportunity - feeling that they might let the collective down; or (2) the knowledge that there is so much riding on often scant scoring opportunities. This might be regarded as 'unprofessional' - you could say that a forward should know where the goal is and have the technique to finish - but in the real world there is a mental element to executing properly. We see this in every single sport, where talented players lack the mindset or composure at key moments - however many thousands of hours they have spent in training.


We are still a young team, and it is arguable that the Citeh juggernaut and the pressure of expectation this season have racked up the pressure levels that are finding us out in the key moments. This to me is why Liverpool - with far more experience - and Villa/Spurs - with the freedom of no expectations at all - are doing so well. I think that Arteta would do well to try to take the pressure off his players and allow them to express themselves a bit more - playing a system that does not introduce such high jeopardy for counter attacks when it breaks down.


Our problems are IMHO in the head; not the heart, or the graft.

[IBK]

Nelson was fucking terrible. If that's the standard coming through the ranks then get the chequebook out pronto. I think some people get carried away just because a player will occasionally move at more than 1 mph or push a ball on and try to beat a defender. Well 10/10 for ambition, but when you have no talent it's just quicker to pass to the opposition and get it over and done with. And yes, I did watch him in particular because I haven't seen much of him and was interested to see if he could provide more than the slumbering millionaires who snuggle in the regular first team. Nothing at all. I would say more of the same, but it's actually less.

Agreed with you that Nelson has been praised because of his dynamism rather than any end product. However that speaks volumes for our sluggish ball progression generally, and lets face it lack of end product is universl ATM. If we think about it - those moments that quicken the pulse are diminishing generally this season. Sterile possession is pointless.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Agreed with you that Nelson has been praised because of his dynamism rather than any end product. However that speaks volumes for our sluggish ball progression generally, and lets face it lack of end product is universl ATM. If we think about it - those moments that quicken the pulse are diminishing generally this season. Sterile possession is pointless.

I would argue that the Liverpool game presented us with more than just sterile possession. I think ultimately we ran out of ideas and reverted to type but actually was quite impressed with how we mixed up the play a bit. But of course, casting a wider net I would argue that our play has been sterile…never remotely looked like getting back into the game against Fulham . Not that I’m comparing us to Guardiola’s Barcelona, but there was the same familiar bluntness when things weren’t going for them. You look at the 2012 semi final against Chelsea and Barcelona for all their possession play had about as much penetration as a marshmallow Willy.

[Mac76]

Using rapist as a pejorative to describe a horrible first touch (which he consistently showed and I’m sorry but he did) is not a particularly pleasant analogy, but it speaks more to your over sensitivity than it does to sexual deviancy on my part. But as we’ve established many times when it comes to understanding people you’re not especially very good at it.

there's a million different ways you could describe a poor touch but you chose that one - something which i suspect wouldn't even occur to most people, yet alone be the first example they chose - that's what's disturbing, not the actual content per se - perhaps you can understand that now?

[Niall_Quinn]

I know a bit about rowing - as I did it myself at Uni.


Your comments re mentality in other sports are fine to a point, but I have to disagree that the players you have highlighted - and indeed many of the other players in our team lack professionalism/committment. For me, Odegard is perhaps our most professional player and I don't see his lack of goals (the other parts of his game have been generally of a high standard) as selfishness or lack of committment. Similarly, I cannnot look at Saka - bearing in mind his meteoric rise over the past couple of seasons - and see anything other than a model professional young man. By all accounts he is one of the most disciplined and committed players in the squad in terms of his off field preparation for games. Put simply few people acsend to elite professional sport without having massive committment and professionalism as part of their DNA.


You can say that footballers are over-rewarded for their talents compared to other sports and I agree with this. But its also the case that a minute fraction of the young people who aspire to be professional footballers ever get anywhere near the riches of the higher leagues.


I don't buy the idea that Arteta picks any player who has not shown up in training - if anything its the opposite. His persistence with Eddie; Reiss Nelson; Havertz a below par Ben White; speak to an over emphasis on effort and an under appreciation of individualism/independent spark. Similarly, I feel that our current malaise is due partly to over coaching - both in terms of physical and mental fatigue, and suppression of independent thought/instinctiveness. To me, Saka looks like he is trying to follow instructions whenever he receives the ball rather than doing what comes naturally to him. It has cost him a second of reaction time and its not difficult to imagine that he has been drilled into playing it safe and not surrendering possession unless there's a high chance of scoring. The same goes for other members of our front line. Trossard in particular looks a shadow of the lethal finisher we saw at times last season and Martinelli is not getting shots off. This conservatism means that scoring opportunities are fewer and further between, as we allow time for opposition defences to set. We are so scared of turnovers that we ignore our ability to recover possession and thereby create space and unpredictability - yet ironically we inevitably give the ball away anyway having to play in such cramped spaces.


As for our collective lack of finishing - my personal theory is that the players who do have scoring opportunities often feel the weight of pressure caused by (1) the effort that has gone into making the opportunity - feeling that they might let the collective down; or (2) the knowledge that there is so much riding on often scant scoring opportunities. This might be regarded as 'unprofessional' - you could say that a forward should know where the goal is and have the technique to finish - but in the real world there is a mental element to executing properly. We see this in every single sport, where talented players lack the mindset or composure at key moments - however many thousands of hours they have spent in training.


We are still a young team, and it is arguable that the Citeh juggernaut and the pressure of expectation this season have racked up the pressure levels that are finding us out in the key moments. This to me is why Liverpool - with far more experience - and Villa/Spurs - with the freedom of no expectations at all - are doing so well. I think that Arteta would do well to try to take the pressure off his players and allow them to express themselves a bit more - playing a system that does not introduce such high jeopardy for counter attacks when it breaks down.


Our problems are IMHO in the head; not the heart, or the graft.

Okay, good response. But I think I probably didn't get my point across properly. You are talking about the professionalism and commitment the individuals possess and I'm talking about the team, in fact the whole club, and how that professionalism and commitment must be aligned and focused from top to bottom, in every aspect. And I'm not highlighting Odegard for his lack of goals, even Henry couldn't score every time he touched the ball. I'm talking about the small stuff, the basics. It's astounding to see a professional, committed, highly paid, supremely privileged sportsman misplace a simple pass for the nth time, especially when execution of the simple pass could provide the opportunity to score some of those goals we are currently lacking. I find such lack of application to be unacceptable at this level. I don't expect him to take the ball from box to box, beating every opponent on the way. I expect him to execute the basics with machine like regularity because he's supposed to be the best. If you applied this lack of performance in a boat you could soon open a seafood restaurant. And the club is no better. If you can't step onto the pitch with the task at hand laser focused in your mind, your flags, banners and armour proudly on display - if you instead turn up dressed as Leeds Utd and worry about which knee you should take at the critical moment when battle is about to begin, well, start as you mean to go on.

Which Uni, btw, if you don't mind me asking? Which you probably do. Because that's what I'm following right now, university rowing.

[HCZ_Reborn]

there's a million different ways you could describe a poor touch but you chose that one - something which i suspect wouldn't even occur to most people, yet alone be the first example they chose - that's what's disturbing, not the actual content per se - perhaps you can understand that now?

Ok cards on the table, I don’t believe for a second you are genuinely disturbed by the comment. And if you genuinely believe that it denotes a prediliction for sexual violence then I have to say you’re even less of a serious person than I took you to be.

The other reason it carries no weight is because it’s not even a metaphor I came up with, and metaphors like that were common currency before it was decided by disingenuous hand wringers that they shouldn’t be.

Actual Rape is bad, off hand comments that use the word outside of the earshot of actual Rape victims is anodyne.

But you can continue down this pathway as an alternative to a footballing argument if you like. But as for saying almost no one else would think of it? Well clearly they did, and if you weren’t convinced by my using the Ad Populum argument there’s no reason why I should be compelled when you use it

[Mac76]

But as for saying almost no one else would think of it? Well clearly they did

did they? when?

i've only seen you use such examples on here, with the possible exception of NQ i can't think of anyone who would jump to using such a comparison as opposed to something more everyday

and what does it even mean anyway? how do you know how a rapist touches as opposed to anyone else?

[Niall_Quinn]

there's a million different ways you could describe a poor touch but you chose that one - something which i suspect wouldn't even occur to most people, yet alone be the first example they chose - that's what's disturbing, not the actual content per se - perhaps you can understand that now?

Why don't you address his argument instead of trying to assassinate his character in the most sinister manner? Obviously you've led a sheltered life. 10 minutes on the trading floors where I worked as a kid and you'd have been a jelly. This new drive to control language by assuming fake virtue is boring but also far more dangerous than any rapist.

[Niall_Quinn]

did they? when?

i've only seen you use such examples on here, with the possible exception of NQ i can't think of anyone who would jump to using such a comparison as opposed to something more everyday

and what does it even mean anyway? how do you know how a rapist touches as opposed to anyone else?

Yeah, I tumbled your fee-fees when I was mean to Nicola Sturgeon, that fine example of a woman you were defending. How did that one go? I was being venemous towards her not because I hate women, as you claimed, but because I had knowledge and all you have is Pavlov's bell.