Brentford vs Arsenal - Match reaction and player rating

[selassie]

Henry Winter has written a piece about how more fans have begun to trust the process. For me “Trust the Process” is the bleating of sheep on social media who don’t want to admit that they have placed their faith in a false dawn. I don’t trust Arteta, I don’t trust Edu and I don’t trust KSE…..I still think too many decisions get made unwisely.
However if in the unfolding of this season there are many more games like this one which show work rate and talent in equal measure, It will go some way to alleviating many of the doubts I have. I’m still of the view that Arteta should have been sacked in the autumn period of 2020. But if he is able to produce more results like Sunday, and is able to adapt from his own hubris that resulted in our 3-1 loss to United then there is hope that we can see a movement in the right direction

There is a middle ground too HCZ! I am somewhere in the middle at the moment, I like what I am seeing and I am relatively happy with our recruitment, Arteta and Edu have got to be commended for that, they have built a very good side in a short space of time. Spending money doesn't guarantee improved performances.

Both Arteta and Edu aren't perfect, they make plenty of mistakes, but they need to be given a bit of time considering they are both quite novice in their roles.

We have started this season very well albeit with a slightly favorable set of fixtures, but you can only beat what is put in front of you, so far so good. I am under no illusion that we won't continue this form and will face blips along the way, it's how we react to that which is important.

[HCZ_Reborn]

I don’t want to invoke the old Einstein said “the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” because apart from anything else, there’s absolutely no evidence that he ever said this.

But I guess all I’m saying is enjoy Sunday why not, it’s so rare that we ever play that well that it might as well be enjoyed

But like with the Queen’s funeral, the grand pageantry and impressive military regalia is fun to behold but once the finery is put away and things return to normal we can’t pretend that we are not in a frightful state.

This club is not in steady hands, it’s being presided over by a combination of sociopaths (Arteta) and well meaning incompetents (Edu, Josh Kroenke). Just because we have the odd nice day where we our hair isn’t falling out and we aren’t shitting and vomiting blood it’s not to say we aren’t dying slowly of a sustained, progressive sickness.

Almost three years of Arteta has shown me that he, Edu and that simpleton offspring of the owner need to go

But they are the merely the symptoms of a malign disease. The club needs complete and total restructuring of its leadership.

[HCZ_Reborn]

People who don’t like what I say fall back on two things - that I can’t admit when I’m wrong, failing to come to grips with how desperately I want to be wrong and how I’ve wanted to be wrong in the past only to have my predictions come to pass. I get no enjoyment out of panning Xhaka, I have no personal animus towards him but expecting him to suddenly be a decent player for any length of time rather than the liability he has so frequently been is like the alchemist’s dream of base metal into gold.

People say enjoy it whilst it lasts, well I have done I enjoyed it all of Sunday and Monday…but like with returning to work tomorrow after the first time I’ve had more than one day off from a job I despise in weeks…one can’t escape the fact that things return to normal.

Im not trying to be smarter than anyone else, I’m not…what I’m saying is so obvious it’s silly. And I don’t believe that everyone else is too stupid to see it, I just think football fans have an unsurpassed ability at ignoring what they don’t want to see.

[Mac76]

@HCZ some of that is a bit over the top but my own jury is definitely still out on Arteta:

1. the one time we played a top 6 team this season we got well done, no amount of victories against the not-so-good clubs disguises that

2. Arteta is awful at subs and is running our best players into the ground - after getting booked late in the game, Jesus is now on 4 yellow cards, one more and he's suspended for a game, plus he's being overworked - Arteta is completely failing to look after him, he should have come off after we went 3-0 up yesterday

3. we have wasted some good players and been too slow to introduce others - had we used Saliba last season, we would have made top 4 without a doubt

4. as you say Xhaka may be able to do well against smaller teams but he shouldn't be a starter against the bigger clubs, and definitely not captain after throwing the armband on the floor and telling our fans to f**k off

[IBK]

Praise from commentators like with fans is ephemeral, I could understand the point you were making if Xhaka was in his second season with us and that last season was him playing beneath himself whilst he settled in. But he’s one of our veterans….only Elneny has been at the club longer.

All that changing his position has done is make us more dependent on Partey remaining fit, he has done well this season because we’ve had a combination of playing mainly spastic opponents And Partey and to a lesser extent Zinchenko covered for the spaces he leaves in midfield. Xhaka has become in fact the microcosm for Arsenal under Arteta where I’m constantly waiting for it to go disastrously wrong and recent history has proved me right consistently.

My list of Xhaka’s attributes are what makes me afraid every time I see him on the team sheet, because in a league which is won by a mixture of pace and power….persisting with a player that lacks either along with any dribbling ability is tempting fate.

It’s not just that we can upgrade on him, it’s the failure to do so is masochistic. And it’s not because he’s a shit player. His ball into Jesus on Sunday was sublime, as was the one two he played with Jesus to put the latter in on goal.
When under little pressure he has excellent passing range at times. But this isn’t the Bundesliga, it’s not Series A…you don’t get that time and space continually…and he will be exposed for his limitations again as sure as night turns into day.

I struggle with having to explain this to people who are clearly around my age or older and have watched enough football down the years to be able to come to the same conclusion. And the only explanation I can render for it, is the delusional belief that because the laws of science are based on finite probability, that by some miracle there is a chance no matter how small that having Xhaka there won’t fuck us.


Singing about him, is the equivalent to saying having your uncle fondle your Willy as a small child made you the man you are today.

Problem is that you are approaching Xhaka this season with confirmation bias. You are waiting for things to go wrong with him based on what has happened in the past (btw I agree that he is too slow to be a covering MF for us), and your ideal of what his position requires, and therefore (in my view) failing to acknowledge what is actually an impressive adaptation to a new and much more effective role. The debate on the Manure game highlighted this. Xhaka was criticised for not being Partey - ie able to provide the defensive cover in MF that Partey can - and therefore he was blamed by some for Manure's goals happening down the centre - whereas the reality was that Lokonga was the weak link, not Xhaka.

It may be that he is found wanting against better teams (mind you - Brentford are no pushovers - however we made them look), and without Partey there. But the problem here is that Partey is fairly unique - and we ain't going to find a ready made Partey replacement to come straight into the team for less than £50M, and a Partey back up of sufficient quality isn't going to come as back up.

Over the past season or so, the manager has shown that he understands what is needed to put his vision into practice - yet there have been greater priorities than replacing Xhaka. In other words those with far more knowledge and understanding of the game than me or you have not seen him as the weakest link. So what if Xhaka has had to be moved to get him contributing more effectively (and less riskily) for our team? All teams are a blend. Henderson is a limited technical player for Liverpool but he has worked for them in a MF role. Jorginho divides opinion at Chelsea. The fact that Xhaka has been one of our best performers - and his skill set can be utilised effectively - this season in a new role is a good thing. Not all out players (or all players in any team) need to have pace and power - even in today's EPL.

I respect your views to the contrary, but for me Xhaka has earned the right to wait and see whether he will indeed become a weak link in Arsenal 22, rather than automatically assuming he is one.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Problem is that you are approaching Xhaka this season with confirmation bias. You are waiting for things to go wrong with him based on what has happened in the past (btw I agree that he is too slow to be a covering MF for us), and your ideal of what his position requires, and therefore (in my view) failing to acknowledge what is actually an impressive adaptation to a new and much more effective role. The debate on the Manure game highlighted this. Xhaka was criticised for not being Partey - ie able to provide the defensive cover in MF that Partey can - and therefore he was blamed by some for Manure's goals happening down the centre - whereas the reality was that Lokonga was the weak link, not Xhaka.

It may be that he is found wanting against better teams (mind you - Brentford are no pushovers - however we made them look), and without Partey there. But the problem here is that Partey is fairly unique - and we ain't going to find a ready made Partey replacement to come straight into the team for less than £50M, and a Partey back up of sufficient quality isn't going to come as back up.

Over the past season or so, the manager has shown that he understands what is needed to put his vision into practice - yet there have been greater priorities than replacing Xhaka. In other words those with far more knowledge and understanding of the game than me or you have not seen him as the weakest link. So what if Xhaka has had to be moved to get him contributing more effectively (and less riskily) for our team? All teams are a blend. Henderson is a limited technical player for Liverpool but he has worked for them in a MF role. Jorginho divides opinion at Chelsea. The fact that Xhaka has been one of our best performers - and his skill set can be utilised effectively - this season in a new role is a good thing. Not all out players (or all players in any team) need to have pace and power - even in today's EPL.

I respect your views to the contrary, but for me Xhaka has earned the right to wait and see whether he will indeed become a weak link in Arsenal 22, rather than automatically assuming he is one.

Again and with the highest respect to you, you’re talking out of your bum hole

It’s beyond me why I need to make this point again but we are beyond confirmation bias we are taking about Empirical evidence

What you’re asking is that I suspend my belief and have faith that counter to any sound principle of a players footballing progression that a player that has been bilge for the previous six seasons, is going to be useful to us in a seventh at the age of thirty when the legs are starting to go.

As to your argument that I’m waiting for him to make a mistake, not at all…the same mistakes have been on display in every game this season….we are just seeing more of him from an attacking sense because Arteta has given up on asking him to have positional discipline. I’d like to see the stats on which Arsenal player has given the ball away the most because if he’s not leading or in the top three I’d be astonished.

Brentford it didn’t matter because every time he did give the ball away Partey was there to wipe his bum for him…but Partey won’t always be there. Not just City either but a midfield like Spurs, Chelsea, even Liverpool will punish us for this. Even Brighton…Partey is playing and he’s playing well…all it takes is for him to be off form and we are going to have fuck holes carved into us like we are Jason Swift.

So no im not waiting for him to slip up, I'm waiting for us to be punished for his slip ups. We might get extraordinarily lucky and not have it happen to us….but empirical evidence suggests it will.

No one is asking you to agree with me, but if you can’t comprehend of anything but I hate Xhaka because he’s been shit in the past….then really it’s you who are being blinded by your own assumptions

I struggle to see this forward vision that Arteta has shown. His history includes persisting with Willian for half a season resulting in 7 defeats in ten games and a brief flirtation with relegation, persisting with Laca for just as long…not trusting his squad enough to rotate and giving both Eddie and Lokonga more game time. Throwing Nuno Tavares to the wolves.

The catalogue of this man’s personal and tactical failings are to say the least large.

I cannot see therefore how Xhaka’s continued presence at this club amounts to more than galaxy brained obdurateness

[Mac76]

Praise from commentators like with fans is ephemeral, I could understand the point you were making if Xhaka was in his second season with us and that last season was him playing beneath himself whilst he settled in. But he’s one of our veterans….only Elneny has been at the club longer.

All that changing his position has done is make us more dependent on Partey remaining fit, he has done well this season because we’ve had a combination of playing mainly spastic opponents And Partey and to a lesser extent Zinchenko covered for the spaces he leaves in midfield. Xhaka has become in fact the microcosm for Arsenal under Arteta where I’m constantly waiting for it to go disastrously wrong and recent history has proved me right consistently.

My list of Xhaka’s attributes are what makes me afraid every time I see him on the team sheet, because in a league which is won by a mixture of pace and power….persisting with a player that lacks either along with any dribbling ability is tempting fate.

It’s not just that we can upgrade on him, it’s the failure to do so is masochistic. And it’s not because he’s a shit player. His ball into Jesus on Sunday was sublime, as was the one two he played with Jesus to put the latter in on goal.
When under little pressure he has excellent passing range at times. But this isn’t the Bundesliga, it’s not Series A…you don’t get that time and space continually…and he will be exposed for his limitations again as sure as night turns into day.

I struggle with having to explain this to people who are clearly around my age or older and have watched enough football down the years to be able to come to the same conclusion. And the only explanation I can render for it, is the delusional belief that because the laws of science are based on finite probability, that by some miracle there is a chance no matter how small that having Xhaka there won’t fuck us.


Singing about him, is the equivalent to saying having your uncle fondle your Willy as a small child made you the man you are today.

(Apart perhaps from the final paragraph )

[IBK]

Again and with the highest respect to you, you’re talking out of your bum hole

It’s beyond me why I need to make this point again but we are beyond confirmation bias we are taking about Empirical evidence

What you’re asking is that I suspend my belief and have faith that counter to any sound principle of a players footballing progression that a player that has been bilge for the previous six seasons, is going to be useful to us in a seventh at the age of thirty when the legs are starting to go.

As to your argument that I’m waiting for him to make a mistake, not at all…the same mistakes have been on display in every game this season….we are just seeing more of him from an attacking sense because Arteta has given up on asking him to have positional discipline. I’d like to see the stats on which Arsenal player has given the ball away the most because if he’s not leading or in the top three I’d be astonished.

Brentford it didn’t matter because every time he did give the ball away Partey was there to wipe his bum for him…but Partey won’t always be there. Not just City either but a midfield like Spurs, Chelsea, even Liverpool will punish us for this. Even Brighton…Partey is playing and he’s playing well…all it takes is for him to be off form and we are going to have fuck holes carved into us like we are Jason Swift.

So no im not waiting for him to slip up, I'm waiting for us to be punished for his slip ups. We might get extraordinarily lucky and not have it happen to us….but empirical evidence suggests it will.

No one is asking you to agree with me, but if you can’t comprehend of anything but I hate Xhaka because he’s been shit in the past….then really it’s you who are being blinded by your own assumptions

I struggle to see this forward vision that Arteta has shown. His history includes persisting with Willian for half a season resulting in 7 defeats in ten games and a brief flirtation with relegation, persisting with Laca for just as long…not trusting his squad enough to rotate and giving both Eddie and Lokonga more game time. Throwing Nuno Tavares to the wolves.

The catalogue of this man’s personal and tactical failings are to say the least large.

I cannot see therefore how Xhaka’s continued presence at this club amounts to more than galaxy brained obdurateness

I do not think that you 'hate' Xhaka. I understand that you (and others) feel (a) that his skills are not suited for the EPL/our continued progress and (b) that he will revert to type - particularly in the 'big' games. Where I think you are biased in reaching your conclusions is in 3 respects. Firstly - you have (IMO) fallen into the trap of making Xhaka the lightening rod for our team's disappointments over the past few years. There is no other Arsenal player who has suffered as much from this phenomenon - despite plenty of them having far more to answer for in this regard. I have shown on other threads, for example, how his disciplinary record is not as bad as most people would think over his time with us. Yet the accepted truth is that he has cost us many games by being sent off. You also present as 'empirical evidence' the fact that the player has made mistakes - in particular giving the ball away. But this 'evidence' is totally meaningless in any determinative sense. Every player makes mistakes. Every player gives the ball away. You say you'd be astonished if he wasn't the worst, or in the top 3 in the team in this regard. I would be surprised if he was, and even if this is the case, you have to consider where he plays, and the fact that a MF is likely to have far more touches on the ball than other positions. The real reason for your conclusion is that this is pre-determined based on your own preconceptions.

The second 'trap' I think you fall into is equating what are admittedly present 'defects' in Xhaka's game (lack of pace and needing space to do what he does best - delivering passes) with general personal and tactical failings. If you think that Xhaka lacks personal qualities - leadership; committment; team player etc - then it is you, not I who is not looking at the evidence, or at the very least failing to balance the 'bad' with the good. I could list a number of examples of how Xhaka has displayed oustanding professionalism, but I think that the way in which he has turned things round since the nadir of that Crystal Palace game speaks for itself. You point to tactical failings (I get that you are speaking of Arteta here, but it is an important aspeact of Xhaka's game also). There have been no other players in our team who have been asked to play in so many different roles during his time with us - and this alone suggests an ability to understand the game tactically. Ian Wright's analysis of Xhaka last Sunday highlighted an interesting aspect of his game - and that was how he constantly looked around him when receiving the ball to assess what space he had to deliver a pass. This is not an attirbute of a player without tactical awareness - quite the opposite.

Finally, you fail (apparently) to understand that you need to look at the blend of a team rather than focussing on an individual player's stranghts and weaknesses, and fail also to acknowledge the effect that other players' performances has on how any individual plays. Xhaka is not a good DM for us principally because he lacks recovery pace. But he has been oustanding in his role for Switzerland, and this season in his advanced role. In assessing his worth to the team, it is only fair to assess Xhaka in a position/role that maximises his strengths as well as in a position that doesn't. This is the manager's role - and like with other aspects of a team that now looks to be clicking in a way it hasn't previously - Arteta seems so far this season to have got it right.

[Mac76]

you have (IMO) fallen into the trap of making Xhaka the lightening rod for our team's disappointments over the past few years. T

so why do so many people do that? it's not by chance - can it be because he really is the weak link in the team?

[HCZ_Reborn]

I do not think that you 'hate' Xhaka. I understand that you (and others) feel (a) that his skills are not suited for the EPL/our continued progress and (b) that he will revert to type - particularly in the 'big' games. Where I think you are biased in reaching your conclusions is in 3 respects. Firstly - you have (IMO) fallen into the trap of making Xhaka the lightening rod for our team's disappointments over the past few years. There is no other Arsenal player who has suffered as much from this phenomenon - despite plenty of them having far more to answer for in this regard. I have shown on other threads, for example, how his disciplinary record is not as bad as most people would think over his time with us. Yet the accepted truth is that he has cost us many games by being sent off. You also present as 'empirical evidence' the fact that the player has made mistakes - in particular giving the ball away. But this 'evidence' is totally meaningless in any determinative sense. Every player makes mistakes. Every player gives the ball away. You say you'd be astonished if he wasn't the worst, or in the top 3 in the team in this regard. I would be surprised if he was, and even if this is the case, you have to consider where he plays, and the fact that a MF is likely to have far more touches on the ball than other positions. The real reason for your conclusion is that this is pre-determined based on your own preconceptions.

The second 'trap' I think you fall into is equating what are admittedly present 'defects' in Xhaka's game (lack of pace and needing space to do what he does best - delivering passes) with general personal and tactical failings. If you think that Xhaka lacks personal qualities - leadership; committment; team player etc - then it is you, not I who is not looking at the evidence, or at the very least failing to balance the 'bad' with the good. I could list a number of examples of how Xhaka has displayed oustanding professionalism, but I think that the way in which he has turned things round since the nadir of that Crystal Palace game speaks for itself. You point to tactical failings (I get that you are speaking of Arteta here, but it is an important aspeact of Xhaka's game also). There have been no other players in our team who have been asked to play in so many different roles during his time with us - and this alone suggests an ability to understand the game tactically. Ian Wright's analysis of Xhaka last Sunday highlighted an interesting aspect of his game - and that was how he constantly looked around him when receiving the ball to assess what space he had to deliver a pass. This is not an attirbute of a player without tactical awareness - quite the opposite.

Finally, you fail (apparently) to understand that you need to look at the blend of a team rather than focussing on an individual player's stranghts and weaknesses, and fail also to acknowledge the effect that other players' performances has on how any individual plays. Xhaka is not a good DM for us principally because he lacks recovery pace. But he has been oustanding in his role for Switzerland, and this season in his advanced role. In assessing his worth to the team, it is only fair to assess Xhaka in a position/role that maximises his strengths as well as in a position that doesn't. This is the manager's role - and like with other aspects of a team that now looks to be clicking in a way it hasn't previously - Arteta seems so far this season to have got it right.

Again I’m afraid you’re doing that thing again. Words come out of the mouth not the Anus

I haven’t discussed Xhaka as a person, there’s no need to. I’m not talking about any personal or leadership failings. I’m talking about his ability as a footballer pure and simple.

I feel like I will go mad explaining this. Central midfield is the most important area in the pitch, it’s more often than not where games are decided. It’s not because Xhaka is lazy that he gives away the ball it’s because he lacks the ability to retain possession under pressure, it’s not that he was played for too long in the DM role that makes him a liability it’s because he lacks awareness of what’s going on around him when he doesn’t have the ball….he doesn’t have a footballing brain. Which means he cannot read, anticipate where he’s meant to be especially if we lose the ball he can’t anticipate and then as a result is more likely to make rash challenges…it’s not a personal defect, it’s a footballing defect.
As a footballer you either have it or you don’t, Walcott was a good athlete and a decent striker of the ball but he couldn’t even look up on the ball because he didn’t know what his own feet were doing.
I’m not saying this to be insulting, you’re either made that way or you’re not. And to exist in this league without being exposed….Xhaka isn’t built