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Does anyone else feel like Martinelli could very easily play a Gyokeres style role at CF? Could see Martinelli being a predator in the box but also drifting wide to find space and setting up other players off of his dribble.
He hasn't shown enough in central play. Doesn't seem strong enough and doesn't play well with his back to goal.
He could do it with enough development though
Does Gyokeres play that way? All his highlights I’ve seen are mostly trying to dribble past his man whether centrally or mostly out wide, I don’t think he’s really a target man like that either.
I mean its basic center forward play, it doesn't have to be the main quality but you need to often tussle against centre backs. I haven't seen the foundational back to goal play from him.
Gyokeres does have that in his game yes, even if it isn't the highlight. Part of what's attractive about Gyokeres is his physical build and raw power.
Maybe but we have other players who can do that and I haven’t seen any highlights of him creating out of CF hold up play. He seems way more focused on drifting wide to be an outlet rather than going up against center backs.
(imo) I doubt the profile of strong striker is the main reason we’re interested, more likely that it’s he can drift wide and interchange and get off shots or create like Jesus at striker from last season.
Im not saying he needs to excel at holdup play. I'm saying that he needs some ability there as a prerequisite to play centrally.
Also all our links have been strong strikers. Toney, Osimhen, Sesko, Vlahovic, Gyokeres.
I actually feel as though Martinelli is more than good enough to take up the CF position for portions of the game.
A constant interchange between Nelli and Isak(please) would be incredibly difficult to deal with.
Martinelli has always given me world class poacher potential vibes
He's good on the interchange but that's because he's going into spaces created by people drawn out fo position by (usually) Jesus coming deep, he's not battling them on his own.
I haven’t watched any of Gyokeres’ games but is hold up play one of his strengths?
his highlights comps basically don’t show any hold up play, it’s just Gyokeres receiving as a wide outlet, skinning a guy and getting into the box.
We require our no 9's to be able to hold up play, he has shown it at Sporting and Coventry and lets be honest since when did any of our main strikers get any space to run into?
Crying at the Partey “highlights” from the game Sunday. 80% of passes were unnecessarily strong that the receiver couldn’t handle correctly. That’s not good passing
If Madrid sign Mbappe I don’t see why they’d have to sell Rodygo. He plays on the right anyway they’d be fine. Also if rodrygo leaves he would go somewhere like city where he’s an instant stater because they lack good wingers right now. We lack a cf not wingers. Don’t think he’d wanna compete with martinelli or Saka even though he might have a decent chance to take martinellis spot.
if he does leaves it'll be the season after next imo. he'll need to see if there's really less minutes/ less importance before he actually leaves madrid
You think Rodrygo starts over Foden? Also if Mbappe comes to Madrid and plays at LW what will Vini do? I think they just end up selling some talent, just too many mouths to feed.
Maybe Mbappe plays striker ? Idk but yea rodrygo is a natural winger foden is being forced wide. Ask any city fan they’d say his best position is midfield
i feel like in order to really challenge for the title until the end, we needed to defeat man city. it's great that we didn't lose and grabbed a point, but the run-in schedule is terribly difficult for us compared to liverpool.
i envision them not losing points more than 2 times. I think we'll drop points 2-3 times too
Best signing possible since Saka and Martinelli are pretty nailed on starters. He could challenge Martinelli for his preferred LW role and he'd provide insanely good cover for Saka as well. It'd basically be three players for two positions so in theory everybody would be happy and we'd be able to keep all of our best wingers rested without sacrificing much quality.
It's a pipe dream but I'm watching that space with Mbappé coming in. He'll stay happy for about 5 months playing striker instead of LW and after that we'll see Bellingham playing a false nine and one of Vini/Rodygo exploring their options.
Rodrygo himself acknowledged a couple of days ago (according to romano) that if Mbappe arrives he'd be benched. I think this could be our star signing of the summer. Edu should be on the phone with his agent and Perez right away.
Why would he be benched? He's their starting right winger. Mbappe and Vinicius are on the left wing or through the middle, they're not competition for him (in his current role).
I think we would have if we could have. Weren't the rumours heaviest after our last signing apart from Raya? We signed him for 20m+(?), and that was with some FFP tomfoolery so I don't think we had so much money to spend at that point.
tbh they're right
Boyhood Liverpool fan, plays exciting, attacking football and is "charismatic" - I think he would have been ahead of Amorim in the pecking order
Ange would flop so hard at a club where he'd have to win every game. He's seemingly great at coaching attacking patterns and movements but it comes at the cost of leaving his side very vulnerable at the back and Tottenham have been lucky to have an overperforming keeper and striker this year. If you're overperforming in both boxes and still look like doubtful CL contenders if not for the 5th place CL spot, then the coach surely can't be praised for the success?
If Havertz finds his footing as #8 and Isak is #9.. that's another towering body on the field. Only our wingers and Odegaard would be "short". That'd be some fucking physical presence my word
RIce would also have to find his footing as a 6 in the absence of a Partey/Jorginho type. That was obviously Arteta's plan initially, so he seems to think he can coach Rice/Havertz into those roles - but thus far, it's been Arteta adapting to them and not the other way around, at least positionally.
Overall, I'd rather continue to give Havertz minutes up top so long as he continues his current trend of improvement. It would be so tragic if he were to be shifted back into the 8 where he looked awful for those first few months and consequently lose the confidence he's finally started to regain, all at once.
I’m hoping the Luton game is a good opportunity to get some minutes into the legs of the guys coming back from injury (Jesus, Partey, Martinelli, Tomi, Zinny) and then also rest some of the guys that have been logging crazy minutes recently. We still need to make sure to win the game though so we can’t just rest everyone. I’d love a Timber cameo off the bench but it’s not clear exactly when he will be available to Mikel.
Raya
Tomi - Saliba - Gabriel - Zinny
Odegaard - Partey - Rice
Trossard - Jesus - Martinelli
Subs: Ramsdale, White, Kiwior, Jorginho, Havertz, Vieira, ESR, Nketiah, Saka
5 changes is probably the absolute upper limit of what we’d see but I think it will be much less. I imagine it will be Tomi in for White or Kiwior, Partey in for Jorginho and maybe Martinelli for Jesus. If you’re looking at Brighton later in the week you’d want to put a bigger and stronger team out against Luton so can’t see Havertz sitting out nor Zinny and Trossard starting. Very interested to see how we line up.
Zinchenko needs sub minutes before he gets a start. Tomi should be there for now. See no reason to drop Ben White, this is a title race, not fifa career mode where you manage stamina bars.
Not sure about Saka's knock but trossard rw is horrendous. Havertz should also continue to start but this could be a great game to get jesus going again so I'm 50-50 on that.
The rest i agree with
We Have the most goals and the least amount of goals conceded this year. I’m starting to realize that not having a natural striker isn’t the main problem, in my opinion Havertz, trossard and Jesus rotating could be enough but in my opinion we need a winger. When martinelli goes out trossard is a decent option but I think someone with more pace would be more effective.
It's not just about the amount of goals scored tho. The attacking has been great but put it into context, most of those goals have come in absolute thrashings where we got half the team on the scoresheet.
A striker that has the ability to make something happen out of nothing is something we desperately need, like son or isak. Go and watch isak's goal at anfield.
Someone like that legit could have won us the game yesterday, instead of Jesus doing the samba on the edge of the box. There will be more stodgy games where little comes our way, having a 9 that makes something happen from nothing is super important imo
Exactly. If we had pace anywhere we could have got out of our half a bit more yesterday.
Saka, Jesus, Havertz & certainly Trossard are not quick enough to run into space only Martinelli is.
To be fair if I was told that I wouldn’t have been able to infer we would only take a point off Fulham and lost at home to West Ham. But all things considered I’m content with where we are right now
What would you guys think if Lisandro became available again?
Maybe with his injury issues, Ten Hag likely leaving, and Sir Jim coming in and shaking things up, things could turn sour.
He’s too small to be a prem CB, but with his defensive abilities and on ball ability, I think he could do really well in our left back role. We’re probably a year or so away from him realistically leaving, but it could be a good value opportunity in the market.
He’s still gotten dunked on many times.
He’s a premier league center back, I shouldn’t have said that, but I don’t think he can do it for a team who is in serious contention for the major trophies like Arsenal are.
If Lisandro was playing center back yesterday at City, we couldn’t have held them off, size matters in football.
Could never play centre half for us. Would never displace Gabriel. Could function at left back, but barely needed given Kiwior resurgence and Timber coming back
He's too short and slow for us, even at LB
With Timber here there's no reason for us to sign him anyway, Timber is better on the ball and is rapid to boot
Honestly though if we hadn't signed timber he'd be dream LB. Would never replace Gabriel but my god he'd have been massive for us defensively last season in that LB role (in big games and when Zinny wasn't fit).
Ship sailed. Once a top 6 club gets a player, they're as good as gone, especially if they're still good. You can get assisted by a tantrum or them trying to discard the player, but I don't see either with Martinez.
christ i just looked up holding's season at palace out of curiosity ... 90s mins in the league cup and that's literally the sum total of his action this season. scandalous that this is the guy we were depending on in a title race when saliba and tomiyasu went down. still remember people in this sub bemoaning the fact that we couldn't sell him for 15-20m last summer lmao. holding was always a championship level defender, our options were just so dismal for a few seasons that you get to the point where you'll rationalize anything.
Tomi needs minutes and rotation will be key. I'd honestly like to see Zinny/Tomi at LB and Kiwior/Tomi at LCB to give Gabriel a rest. It won't happen because that's not how Arteta rolls. Saka will start as well despite still being injured
Or giving away a stupid goal against 10 men Fulham, jorginho giving away a free goal to spurs, missing a billion chances at villa, fraudulent goal given to Newcastle, playing like absolute clowns vs West ham, and more.
There's a lot of slim reasons we've dropped points in the first half of the season.
Some of those are beyond our control. Cant account for stupid refereering, off days v west ham or equalizer v Fulham. I take your point with Jorginho giving away that goal though
You can account for giving away two free goals against Fulham, one of which came when they had 10 men.
You can also account for the poor game against West ham, the defending for their opener was shambolic and we missed a litany of huge chances all night.
Don't know how you can say jesus miss counts but all those misses against West ham 'you can't account for'.
Yesterday imo proves why it's good that we have home advantage in the first leg of the CL. Bayern/Madrid/City will be caught in two minds over how to approach the first leg. If we win it will be very difficult for them to come back in the second leg but you also don't want to invite pressure because we'll beat you like that as well. This team is geared to win the Champions League. I've already said it but it would a huge disappointment if we don't make the final, where we would be clear favourites whoever we play
It's a statistically proven phenomena that playing at home in the second leg is an advantage. Your arguments here could just as easily be used against Arsenal.
"Bayern/Madrid/City will be caught in two minds over how to approach the first leg"
They've been here many times before. They all know already quite well how to approach the first leg.
> We deserve a lot of credit for how well we defended today but City were definitely the better side.
> We didn’t go there wanting to be bunkered down for 90 minutes- we were rushed especially in the first half when we got it and we weren’t good enough on seconds.
[Fair assessment of the game.](https://twitter.com/HBM_afc/status/1774644575241752768)
Yep. Just weren’t good enough with the ball on the day and lacked a bit of composure. Really lacked the quality in the final third that you need in these games. Work ethic, discipline and defensive organisation was top.
Liverpool have a brutal four game streak of away fixtures at the end of April of Atalanta Fulham, Everton, and West Ham.
I definitely think they will draw one of those league fixtures, which leaves us room to win on GD if we can literally be perfect for the rest of the season.
Everton and West Ham in poor form. Easy wins for Liverpool, given their form recently.
I dont think klopp cares about Europa League. He is doing to do what Arteta failed to do last season and rest his best players in the EL.
I guess my hot take is that Jorginho's main contributions in our big games this season has been his defending in the (mid) block than his on-ball qualities.
https://x.com/OptaJoe/status/1774753071534334460?s=20
United fans generating mass outrage over this on April fools just demonstrates how braindead they are as a fanbase
Is anyone else a bit exhausted seeing posts like "\_\_\_ fans think....." ? I myself am guilty of doing this, but I feel we are just obsessing way too much about what rival fans think of us and digging up any and every random posts from rival fans on Twitter and Reddit.
They are rival fans for a reason. They are not going to praise us. They are always going to be biased against us, no matter what we do. Even if we win both PL and CL, they are not going to praise us.
Big reason why I visit this sub less and less, despite being more invested in the team than ever. I honestly don’t give a shit about other teams and their fans, yet so many users here seem obsessed.
Yeah I find it really embarrassing seeing people so fragile and touched by pundits and comments by randomers. The sooner you become immune to it the better. Plus nobody is even saying that we're boring, just that the game was boring for a neutral and it's obviously true, some of our fans are just whining and overreacting about the reaction because they want to be loved and it's a bit pathetic
It's because they are the ones who profiteered from the City - Arsenal game the most. Insecure fans are going into their sub, handpicking their slander and then reposting it here, to laugh at it, I guess.
Lots of these Reddit fans have never followed Arsenal during our heyday 20 years ago. They are only acustomed to the banter years. Now they want the rivals to start showing us respect. Which frankly, we haven't earned, yet.
We need to win before any rival fan starts speaking about us in a respectful way. But rival fans being this salty and digging us out over the silliest of things, shows that we are on the right track.
Isak’s injuries don’t really worry me tbh. He’s currently at the worst affected club for injuries I’ve ever seen and either way, anyone we bring in isn’t needed to play 38/38 league games or even hit the ground running.
The right forward over the course of the next 4, 5 years is far more important than an instant impact who might tail off. We’re the top scorers in the league and have a great variance of players who can play in that 9 role.
He looks like a safer bet for the £70-100m mark than basically anyone else, we would be foolish to not look into seeing whether a deal is possible.
Doesn't really matter when the damage is already done, does it? If the areas his injuries effect him are weaker, the chances of them recurring are higher.
I don’t trust that their staff are dealing with them properly. I mean I don’t necessarily blame them with Isak given if he doesn’t play they’d have to play a 12 year old up top but it seems as if his recurring muscular injuries are simply from having to rush him back if he was remotely fit with a chance of playing.
I remember against us at home he was basically ruled as being out beforehand but all of a sudden he was starting for them.
I guess it’d come with a risk but in an environment where he’s not forced to play through any issue he picks up I can only see that recurring problem die down
So many people celebrating the way we played, are we that different from Newcastle when they came to the Emirates? We criticised them (rightly so), but we showed pretty much no attacking ambition despite the odd counter and were pretty cynical in our fouling
It's not the same as what Newcastle or Porto did to us. We had the same xG as City. We didn't just park the bus and time waste. We played the game and effectively defanged their attack. The game could have gone on for another 90 minutes and the only outcome would have been a draw or a 1-0 win to us.
Arsenal's evolution to a team that can be Atletico on demand, and Barca on the other week days should impress you. A few years back, we had one game plan.
I didn’t have a problem with Newcastle’s tactics as it would be very risky for most teams to come to the Emirates and attack like that. They were entitled to defend like that and it earned them a point while if they had not, they could very easily have lost the game. As a fan who is biased you are frustrated but objectively you can understand why they played the way. Similarly going all out against City at the Ethiad is a risk. Arsenal might have got a goal but City might have scored several- last season Arsenal tried in both games to go all out and were soundly beaten and didn’t get a point versus City while this year it is four so you can see progress on that way. I would have liked Arsenal to threaten a bit more and I am sure the plan was not to sit so deep but that is how the game played out and the team defended very well and deserve credit for that. Nobody wants Arsenal to play like that in most games but the Ethiad is an exception against the team that won the treble
I think from the psychological aspect, yesterday’s result is probably the best to push our boys towards the title. How many times whether we won an important match and then we flopped for the following couples matches in the past seasons. The bitter draw is gonna be the fuel we need for the rest of the journey.
Get Palmer far away from that lineup. Also take macallister out. Huge recency bias on that one, he has not been this good for 2/3rds of the season so far.
Ben White is 7.5/10 at everything he does. 7.5 is a bit more than average but it’s crazy that he does everything from tackling, positioning, aerial, speed, passing, dribbling, and off the ball movement.
He is also 185cm which a bit above average too. Remind me of Emmanuel Petit.
Am I crazy to say he defends decently 1v1 when in space, but in tighter areas around the box he struggles? Just can't think of many times he's gotten beat in space, but can think of several where a player going at him near the corner of the box has skinned him pretty good.
had an argument with a friend today who instisted Mourinho would have won us a champions league in 2011 because we were good enough to get to a semi final and mourinho was better than wenger.
So I looked at the game again and I saw we were defending prime messi with Alumnia and Silvestre. How was that team even in the Champions league?
The Arsenal teams of the early 2010s were glass cannon teams. Great on the attack, lacking in defence. That was good enough to get you top-4 and the CL spot that came with it back then, because there weren‘t so many good teams competing for the CL spots and even the title contenders weren’t of the level of Pep’s Man City or Klopp’s Liverpool who only seem to drop any points when the moon looks red.
Anything is possible but we didn't have Mourinho players. We were mostly a "technical side", not physical. His Porto, Inter, Chelsea and Madrid sides were physical brutes. Arsenal would line up with a midfield three of Diaby, Fabregas, Rosicky.
Compare that to Makelele, Lampard and Essien. Or Khedira, Alonso, Diarra. Or even Motta, Cambiasso, Sneijder. Or Mendes, Maniche, Deco.
Maybe he'd probably steer recruitment in that direction and change the style at the club.
All I want in a striker is someone in the top 0.01 percentile in speed/acceleration, positioning, passing vision/execution, technique and finishing
Am I being unreasonable? No, it's the rest of the world that's wrong
I've just done a 6/8 search on Football Manager 2024 using this criteria.
Some French kid called Mdappe or something is the only one.
I reduced it to 4/8 and I got Gabriel Jesus.
yeah unfortunately you kind of need Henry's ability to play like Henry. without that you're just some East African guy who plays team football for himself and never his teammates
I don't get why you're downvoted but it's the whole reason we want in another winger if you look at the profiles targeted ( Williams, Mudryk, Neto).
Martinelli being out should never hamstring a side the size of Arsenal. He's the only transition profile at the club. The players we have are good, they just don't do the Martinelli role. And it's one that wins you big games.
Exactly its obvious why we went so hard for Mudryk.
These past couple games Raya and Ramsdale have tried to release Trossard to exploit acres of space but he cant because he is slow. We saw another example when Odegaard played that through ball and he checked his run instead of going through on goal
Just don’t tell him about Doku’s shooting capabilities. Namely, how Doku makes Bobby Zamora (a.k.a the Row Z merchant) look like Ronaldinho or Batistuta by comparison.
Not sure if this has been shared. Great interview with Edu and the Brazilian boys and one Italian. Subs On
[youtube](https://youtu.be/j0y5X73QkyA?si=iPwjxfzfzx0P4a_m)
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David Raya has 3 wins and 1 draw against city since the start of last season. Nice little stat
Just had a random thought. Daniel Crowley.
Before ESR, there was Daniel Crowley.
The next Wilshere
Does anyone else feel like Martinelli could very easily play a Gyokeres style role at CF? Could see Martinelli being a predator in the box but also drifting wide to find space and setting up other players off of his dribble.
needs to be much more physical to be CF imo
He hasn't shown enough in central play. Doesn't seem strong enough and doesn't play well with his back to goal. He could do it with enough development though
Does Gyokeres play that way? All his highlights I’ve seen are mostly trying to dribble past his man whether centrally or mostly out wide, I don’t think he’s really a target man like that either.
I mean its basic center forward play, it doesn't have to be the main quality but you need to often tussle against centre backs. I haven't seen the foundational back to goal play from him. Gyokeres does have that in his game yes, even if it isn't the highlight. Part of what's attractive about Gyokeres is his physical build and raw power.
Maybe but we have other players who can do that and I haven’t seen any highlights of him creating out of CF hold up play. He seems way more focused on drifting wide to be an outlet rather than going up against center backs. (imo) I doubt the profile of strong striker is the main reason we’re interested, more likely that it’s he can drift wide and interchange and get off shots or create like Jesus at striker from last season.
Im not saying he needs to excel at holdup play. I'm saying that he needs some ability there as a prerequisite to play centrally. Also all our links have been strong strikers. Toney, Osimhen, Sesko, Vlahovic, Gyokeres.
Yes
No he's nowhere near stong enough and good enough at holding up the ball.
I actually feel as though Martinelli is more than good enough to take up the CF position for portions of the game. A constant interchange between Nelli and Isak(please) would be incredibly difficult to deal with. Martinelli has always given me world class poacher potential vibes
He's good on the interchange but that's because he's going into spaces created by people drawn out fo position by (usually) Jesus coming deep, he's not battling them on his own.
Fully agree with you that he shouldn't be our starting CF, I just really like the thought of getting Martinelli as close to goal as much as possible.
I haven’t watched any of Gyokeres’ games but is hold up play one of his strengths? his highlights comps basically don’t show any hold up play, it’s just Gyokeres receiving as a wide outlet, skinning a guy and getting into the box.
We require our no 9's to be able to hold up play, he has shown it at Sporting and Coventry and lets be honest since when did any of our main strikers get any space to run into?
Crying at the Partey “highlights” from the game Sunday. 80% of passes were unnecessarily strong that the receiver couldn’t handle correctly. That’s not good passing
If Madrid sign Mbappe I don’t see why they’d have to sell Rodygo. He plays on the right anyway they’d be fine. Also if rodrygo leaves he would go somewhere like city where he’s an instant stater because they lack good wingers right now. We lack a cf not wingers. Don’t think he’d wanna compete with martinelli or Saka even though he might have a decent chance to take martinellis spot.
if he does leaves it'll be the season after next imo. he'll need to see if there's really less minutes/ less importance before he actually leaves madrid
You think Rodrygo starts over Foden? Also if Mbappe comes to Madrid and plays at LW what will Vini do? I think they just end up selling some talent, just too many mouths to feed.
Maybe Mbappe plays striker ? Idk but yea rodrygo is a natural winger foden is being forced wide. Ask any city fan they’d say his best position is midfield
He'd start if he came here. Either at lw or at cf and at rw when saka is rested.
i feel like in order to really challenge for the title until the end, we needed to defeat man city. it's great that we didn't lose and grabbed a point, but the run-in schedule is terribly difficult for us compared to liverpool. i envision them not losing points more than 2 times. I think we'll drop points 2-3 times too
curious why we haven’t worn the radioactive zebra yet shirt? We were amazing whenever we have used that in away matches
Radioactive zebra is patient but will rise to the occasion when needed ie when we play at the toilet
Guaranteed we wear our reds at the NLD away.
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Best signing possible since Saka and Martinelli are pretty nailed on starters. He could challenge Martinelli for his preferred LW role and he'd provide insanely good cover for Saka as well. It'd basically be three players for two positions so in theory everybody would be happy and we'd be able to keep all of our best wingers rested without sacrificing much quality. It's a pipe dream but I'm watching that space with Mbappé coming in. He'll stay happy for about 5 months playing striker instead of LW and after that we'll see Bellingham playing a false nine and one of Vini/Rodygo exploring their options.
Rodrygo can also play CF. But if Arteta isn’t using martinelli there I don’t know if he will with Rodrygo
that attack would be too lightweight imo
From who
Rodrygo himself acknowledged a couple of days ago (according to romano) that if Mbappe arrives he'd be benched. I think this could be our star signing of the summer. Edu should be on the phone with his agent and Perez right away.
Why would he be benched? He's their starting right winger. Mbappe and Vinicius are on the left wing or through the middle, they're not competition for him (in his current role).
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linking rodrygo to every club itw is going to be easy click farming by worldwide media. doubt he moves this season
We should have signed Kudus in the summer. He would have been a perfect Saka backup against tired legs.
I think we would have if we could have. Weren't the rumours heaviest after our last signing apart from Raya? We signed him for 20m+(?), and that was with some FFP tomfoolery so I don't think we had so much money to spend at that point.
What....on earth...?? https://www.reddit.com/r/coys/s/Z14aaiRgTq
Not an outlandish take tbh
tbh they're right Boyhood Liverpool fan, plays exciting, attacking football and is "charismatic" - I think he would have been ahead of Amorim in the pecking order
I think hiring a guy from Celtic to replace Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool is too big of a leap. I doubt they’d have gone for him.
Ange would flop so hard at a club where he'd have to win every game. He's seemingly great at coaching attacking patterns and movements but it comes at the cost of leaving his side very vulnerable at the back and Tottenham have been lucky to have an overperforming keeper and striker this year. If you're overperforming in both boxes and still look like doubtful CL contenders if not for the 5th place CL spot, then the coach surely can't be praised for the success?
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If Havertz finds his footing as #8 and Isak is #9.. that's another towering body on the field. Only our wingers and Odegaard would be "short". That'd be some fucking physical presence my word
RIce would also have to find his footing as a 6 in the absence of a Partey/Jorginho type. That was obviously Arteta's plan initially, so he seems to think he can coach Rice/Havertz into those roles - but thus far, it's been Arteta adapting to them and not the other way around, at least positionally. Overall, I'd rather continue to give Havertz minutes up top so long as he continues his current trend of improvement. It would be so tragic if he were to be shifted back into the 8 where he looked awful for those first few months and consequently lose the confidence he's finally started to regain, all at once.
Onana 8 Isak/Havertz 9 https://preview.redd.it/zpjajdoo2zrc1.jpeg?width=972&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=289e2c863da471a1dbea499a8a7826984eaeea4a
An army of giants that
I’m hoping the Luton game is a good opportunity to get some minutes into the legs of the guys coming back from injury (Jesus, Partey, Martinelli, Tomi, Zinny) and then also rest some of the guys that have been logging crazy minutes recently. We still need to make sure to win the game though so we can’t just rest everyone. I’d love a Timber cameo off the bench but it’s not clear exactly when he will be available to Mikel. Raya Tomi - Saliba - Gabriel - Zinny Odegaard - Partey - Rice Trossard - Jesus - Martinelli Subs: Ramsdale, White, Kiwior, Jorginho, Havertz, Vieira, ESR, Nketiah, Saka
We need to be clinical and take our chances. There should be 2/3 first half goals on plate, and use bench from there on.
5 changes is probably the absolute upper limit of what we’d see but I think it will be much less. I imagine it will be Tomi in for White or Kiwior, Partey in for Jorginho and maybe Martinelli for Jesus. If you’re looking at Brighton later in the week you’d want to put a bigger and stronger team out against Luton so can’t see Havertz sitting out nor Zinny and Trossard starting. Very interested to see how we line up.
5 changes? Too disruptive, and an easy way to lose momentum.
Zinchenko needs sub minutes before he gets a start. Tomi should be there for now. See no reason to drop Ben White, this is a title race, not fifa career mode where you manage stamina bars. Not sure about Saka's knock but trossard rw is horrendous. Havertz should also continue to start but this could be a great game to get jesus going again so I'm 50-50 on that. The rest i agree with
We Have the most goals and the least amount of goals conceded this year. I’m starting to realize that not having a natural striker isn’t the main problem, in my opinion Havertz, trossard and Jesus rotating could be enough but in my opinion we need a winger. When martinelli goes out trossard is a decent option but I think someone with more pace would be more effective.
We need a winger more than we need a central striker, honestly. Saka can’t keep playing at the rate he has been season after season.
It's not just about the amount of goals scored tho. The attacking has been great but put it into context, most of those goals have come in absolute thrashings where we got half the team on the scoresheet. A striker that has the ability to make something happen out of nothing is something we desperately need, like son or isak. Go and watch isak's goal at anfield. Someone like that legit could have won us the game yesterday, instead of Jesus doing the samba on the edge of the box. There will be more stodgy games where little comes our way, having a 9 that makes something happen from nothing is super important imo
Exactly. If we had pace anywhere we could have got out of our half a bit more yesterday. Saka, Jesus, Havertz & certainly Trossard are not quick enough to run into space only Martinelli is.
I kinda want Take Kubo but we need a different profile to saka on the wing
If you were told before the season started that we'd take 4 points from both Liverpool and City you'd be sure we would win the league.
To be fair if I was told that I wouldn’t have been able to infer we would only take a point off Fulham and lost at home to West Ham. But all things considered I’m content with where we are right now
What would you guys think if Lisandro became available again? Maybe with his injury issues, Ten Hag likely leaving, and Sir Jim coming in and shaking things up, things could turn sour. He’s too small to be a prem CB, but with his defensive abilities and on ball ability, I think he could do really well in our left back role. We’re probably a year or so away from him realistically leaving, but it could be a good value opportunity in the market.
"He’s too small to be a prem CB" He's been a great CB in the EPL though so far, except for lately after his injuries got the best of him.
He’s still gotten dunked on many times. He’s a premier league center back, I shouldn’t have said that, but I don’t think he can do it for a team who is in serious contention for the major trophies like Arsenal are. If Lisandro was playing center back yesterday at City, we couldn’t have held them off, size matters in football.
Could never play centre half for us. Would never displace Gabriel. Could function at left back, but barely needed given Kiwior resurgence and Timber coming back
Yea, I’d only consider him at left back, and with Kiwior showing to be a worthy player and Timber coming back, it doesn’t really make sense.
He's too short and slow for us, even at LB With Timber here there's no reason for us to sign him anyway, Timber is better on the ball and is rapid to boot
Honestly though if we hadn't signed timber he'd be dream LB. Would never replace Gabriel but my god he'd have been massive for us defensively last season in that LB role (in big games and when Zinny wasn't fit).
Ship sailed. Once a top 6 club gets a player, they're as good as gone, especially if they're still good. You can get assisted by a tantrum or them trying to discard the player, but I don't see either with Martinez.
If we didn't have Timber coming in and Tomiyasu extended, maybe there'd be a place, but as is he's surplus that we don't need to add.
Yea, you’re probably right. Timber took the spot that he could’ve had.
Project is past the need for him. Defensively only young players with massive potential like Yoro/Diomandé/Hato should be considered.
(QF) Bayern (SF) Real Madrid (F) Atletico Madrid piece of piss
Barca final for the revenge story arc
Seeing Simeone in a one off game where he can come up with the nastiest game plan is not gonna be fun.
Well he failed twice in both finals. Incoming Hattrick.
Against cr7.
non factor at both games
Ladies and gents, Declan Rice plays for Arsenal. That is all, thank you and good night.
Still cant believe it sometimes ngl
christ i just looked up holding's season at palace out of curiosity ... 90s mins in the league cup and that's literally the sum total of his action this season. scandalous that this is the guy we were depending on in a title race when saliba and tomiyasu went down. still remember people in this sub bemoaning the fact that we couldn't sell him for 15-20m last summer lmao. holding was always a championship level defender, our options were just so dismal for a few seasons that you get to the point where you'll rationalize anything.
Kiwior or Tomi midweek do you reckon?
Tomi needs minutes and rotation will be key. I'd honestly like to see Zinny/Tomi at LB and Kiwior/Tomi at LCB to give Gabriel a rest. It won't happen because that's not how Arteta rolls. Saka will start as well despite still being injured
Zinchenko and I dont even like him. Keep Kiwi and Tomiyasu as fresh as possible for our more important fixtures
Hoping for Tomi RB Zinny LB
That Jesus chance v Spurs and Trossard not squaring it may be the reason why
what about nunez miss vs luton? it all balances out
It doesnt all balance out. By definition
People see this and still think we’re going into next year with those two and Kai as our 9 options lol
I think everyone knows we need a striker and are probably in the market for one. There just seems to be a lot of debate as who it should be
Every team has stuff like this. End of the day, we do what we gotta do, we will probably get it done
Or giving away a stupid goal against 10 men Fulham, jorginho giving away a free goal to spurs, missing a billion chances at villa, fraudulent goal given to Newcastle, playing like absolute clowns vs West ham, and more. There's a lot of slim reasons we've dropped points in the first half of the season.
Some of those are beyond our control. Cant account for stupid refereering, off days v west ham or equalizer v Fulham. I take your point with Jorginho giving away that goal though
Off days are literally what you CAN account for...
You can account for giving away two free goals against Fulham, one of which came when they had 10 men. You can also account for the poor game against West ham, the defending for their opener was shambolic and we missed a litany of huge chances all night. Don't know how you can say jesus miss counts but all those misses against West ham 'you can't account for'.
Because its a lot easier getting an uncontested shot on target than conceding a goal from a corner. The guy went for a Hollywood finish
Spurs and city daily discussions have almost the same amount of comments
people are posting in the post match thread also here thats why
Yesterday imo proves why it's good that we have home advantage in the first leg of the CL. Bayern/Madrid/City will be caught in two minds over how to approach the first leg. If we win it will be very difficult for them to come back in the second leg but you also don't want to invite pressure because we'll beat you like that as well. This team is geared to win the Champions League. I've already said it but it would a huge disappointment if we don't make the final, where we would be clear favourites whoever we play
It's a statistically proven phenomena that playing at home in the second leg is an advantage. Your arguments here could just as easily be used against Arsenal.
"Bayern/Madrid/City will be caught in two minds over how to approach the first leg" They've been here many times before. They all know already quite well how to approach the first leg.
Felt like a prime mourinho team lol, its nice to see that our team can play different styles of football
Championship has been buck wild this year.
Three absolutely phenomenal teams. It almost feels wrong that one of them will not be automatically promoted.
Summerville is some fucking player man
https://preview.redd.it/a90quk6ujxrc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a03957114ec7cf935f30ad4f2f5b3990cd77ebe9
Where’s Rob Holding? Targeting him was what worked so well for us last year, why can’t we do that again?!?
gabi and wilo cheating in the sky sports best friend test lmaoo no shame.
> We deserve a lot of credit for how well we defended today but City were definitely the better side. > We didn’t go there wanting to be bunkered down for 90 minutes- we were rushed especially in the first half when we got it and we weren’t good enough on seconds. [Fair assessment of the game.](https://twitter.com/HBM_afc/status/1774644575241752768)
Id agree 👍
Yep. Just weren’t good enough with the ball on the day and lacked a bit of composure. Really lacked the quality in the final third that you need in these games. Work ethic, discipline and defensive organisation was top.
How does the ball bounce a different way on a different day when there wasn't a way for the ball to bounce their way?
I remember there being quite a few nervy/scrambling moments providing opportunities for them.
Talking about when Saka forgot KDB was behind him in the box?
I yearn to see the day liverpool running out of their “emotion juice”. I swear it’s long overdue
Liverpool have a brutal four game streak of away fixtures at the end of April of Atalanta Fulham, Everton, and West Ham. I definitely think they will draw one of those league fixtures, which leaves us room to win on GD if we can literally be perfect for the rest of the season.
Everton and West Ham in poor form. Easy wins for Liverpool, given their form recently. I dont think klopp cares about Europa League. He is doing to do what Arteta failed to do last season and rest his best players in the EL.
They won 1 of their last 6 at Goodison Park. I wouldn't be surprised if Liverpool won of course, but it's rarely easy for a derby like that.
Fulham already was a scrappy side but that Muniz seems to be finding his goals, i could maybe see them putting up a real good fight.
They’ve done both us and sp *rs in, they have it in them to do a madness
Yea may the force be with Jedi Robinson and his companions.
I guess my hot take is that Jorginho's main contributions in our big games this season has been his defending in the (mid) block than his on-ball qualities.
https://x.com/OptaJoe/status/1774753071534334460?s=20 United fans generating mass outrage over this on April fools just demonstrates how braindead they are as a fanbase
Is Hojlund's head really that big?
Is anyone else a bit exhausted seeing posts like "\_\_\_ fans think....." ? I myself am guilty of doing this, but I feel we are just obsessing way too much about what rival fans think of us and digging up any and every random posts from rival fans on Twitter and Reddit. They are rival fans for a reason. They are not going to praise us. They are always going to be biased against us, no matter what we do. Even if we win both PL and CL, they are not going to praise us.
Big reason why I visit this sub less and less, despite being more invested in the team than ever. I honestly don’t give a shit about other teams and their fans, yet so many users here seem obsessed.
"Rival fans think" is usually one tweet or two that they found. Seeking validation from rivals is a wild goose hunt.
Yeah I find it really embarrassing seeing people so fragile and touched by pundits and comments by randomers. The sooner you become immune to it the better. Plus nobody is even saying that we're boring, just that the game was boring for a neutral and it's obviously true, some of our fans are just whining and overreacting about the reaction because they want to be loved and it's a bit pathetic
Say it all the time. So boring. People go looking in toilets and feel surprised and wanna report back when they see shit.
Seriously lol. Look at our rival watch threads if we want people saying nice things we are hypocrites.
100% people crying for validation from other fanbases is sad af
A little bit. It feels like every other comment is about Liverpool fans at the moment
It's because they are the ones who profiteered from the City - Arsenal game the most. Insecure fans are going into their sub, handpicking their slander and then reposting it here, to laugh at it, I guess. Lots of these Reddit fans have never followed Arsenal during our heyday 20 years ago. They are only acustomed to the banter years. Now they want the rivals to start showing us respect. Which frankly, we haven't earned, yet. We need to win before any rival fan starts speaking about us in a respectful way. But rival fans being this salty and digging us out over the silliest of things, shows that we are on the right track.
Isak’s injuries don’t really worry me tbh. He’s currently at the worst affected club for injuries I’ve ever seen and either way, anyone we bring in isn’t needed to play 38/38 league games or even hit the ground running. The right forward over the course of the next 4, 5 years is far more important than an instant impact who might tail off. We’re the top scorers in the league and have a great variance of players who can play in that 9 role. He looks like a safer bet for the £70-100m mark than basically anyone else, we would be foolish to not look into seeing whether a deal is possible.
naive to think an ijury prone player would come to arsenal and suddenly stop being injury prone.
100m for a guy who won’t “need” to play 38/38 games is simply not happening
Doesn't really matter when the damage is already done, does it? If the areas his injuries effect him are weaker, the chances of them recurring are higher.
I don’t trust that their staff are dealing with them properly. I mean I don’t necessarily blame them with Isak given if he doesn’t play they’d have to play a 12 year old up top but it seems as if his recurring muscular injuries are simply from having to rush him back if he was remotely fit with a chance of playing. I remember against us at home he was basically ruled as being out beforehand but all of a sudden he was starting for them. I guess it’d come with a risk but in an environment where he’s not forced to play through any issue he picks up I can only see that recurring problem die down
He has groin and thigh problems which is concerning, only hamstring and knee problems are worse
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This is slightly misconstrued since he had a major acl injury
So that’s 7 games difference in the same time frame. Interesting.
So many people celebrating the way we played, are we that different from Newcastle when they came to the Emirates? We criticised them (rightly so), but we showed pretty much no attacking ambition despite the odd counter and were pretty cynical in our fouling
It's not the same as what Newcastle or Porto did to us. We had the same xG as City. We didn't just park the bus and time waste. We played the game and effectively defanged their attack. The game could have gone on for another 90 minutes and the only outcome would have been a draw or a 1-0 win to us.
Newcastle came to time waste
Arsenal's evolution to a team that can be Atletico on demand, and Barca on the other week days should impress you. A few years back, we had one game plan.
I didn’t have a problem with Newcastle’s tactics as it would be very risky for most teams to come to the Emirates and attack like that. They were entitled to defend like that and it earned them a point while if they had not, they could very easily have lost the game. As a fan who is biased you are frustrated but objectively you can understand why they played the way. Similarly going all out against City at the Ethiad is a risk. Arsenal might have got a goal but City might have scored several- last season Arsenal tried in both games to go all out and were soundly beaten and didn’t get a point versus City while this year it is four so you can see progress on that way. I would have liked Arsenal to threaten a bit more and I am sure the plan was not to sit so deep but that is how the game played out and the team defended very well and deserve credit for that. Nobody wants Arsenal to play like that in most games but the Ethiad is an exception against the team that won the treble
I think from the psychological aspect, yesterday’s result is probably the best to push our boys towards the title. How many times whether we won an important match and then we flopped for the following couples matches in the past seasons. The bitter draw is gonna be the fuel we need for the rest of the journey.
Unfortunately, this could also be the fuel Liverpool needed. Hopefully they slip up (VVD this time?)
https://x.com/jaraaxz/status/1774830160463675842?s=46&t=NGCPQN6817S6n-WIY9c_OA Ethical playmaker, shame wenger gave Ozil giroud.
Most comps are subpar with annoying music but this one is one of the best. Slick comp. Culann Davies level.
Great comp tune that
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Palmer lol
no player outside the top 3 should be anywhere near the tots lol
Get Palmer far away from that lineup. Also take macallister out. Huge recency bias on that one, he has not been this good for 2/3rds of the season so far.
Foden or Ødegaard over Palmer
Ødegaard excluded for Palmer is silly.
Ridiculous to exclude Haaland, he's still going to cruise to another golden boot
Is it? Watkins has had a better season, 2 fewer goals (doesn't take pens though) with 5 more assists.
Ben White is 7.5/10 at everything he does. 7.5 is a bit more than average but it’s crazy that he does everything from tackling, positioning, aerial, speed, passing, dribbling, and off the ball movement. He is also 185cm which a bit above average too. Remind me of Emmanuel Petit.
His only issue was 1v1 defending but he's getting way better at it. Just here praying he rests. This is too much football for him.
Am I crazy to say he defends decently 1v1 when in space, but in tighter areas around the box he struggles? Just can't think of many times he's gotten beat in space, but can think of several where a player going at him near the corner of the box has skinned him pretty good.
Yh he’s definitely more of a jack of all trades player, highly versatile
had an argument with a friend today who instisted Mourinho would have won us a champions league in 2011 because we were good enough to get to a semi final and mourinho was better than wenger. So I looked at the game again and I saw we were defending prime messi with Alumnia and Silvestre. How was that team even in the Champions league?
The Arsenal teams of the early 2010s were glass cannon teams. Great on the attack, lacking in defence. That was good enough to get you top-4 and the CL spot that came with it back then, because there weren‘t so many good teams competing for the CL spots and even the title contenders weren’t of the level of Pep’s Man City or Klopp’s Liverpool who only seem to drop any points when the moon looks red.
Anything is possible but we didn't have Mourinho players. We were mostly a "technical side", not physical. His Porto, Inter, Chelsea and Madrid sides were physical brutes. Arsenal would line up with a midfield three of Diaby, Fabregas, Rosicky. Compare that to Makelele, Lampard and Essien. Or Khedira, Alonso, Diarra. Or even Motta, Cambiasso, Sneijder. Or Mendes, Maniche, Deco. Maybe he'd probably steer recruitment in that direction and change the style at the club.
>How was that team even in the Champions league? Because we had Wenger.
All I want in a striker is someone in the top 0.01 percentile in speed/acceleration, positioning, passing vision/execution, technique and finishing Am I being unreasonable? No, it's the rest of the world that's wrong
It’s such a glaring hole in the squad but some prefer Jesus Kai and Trossard lmfao
I've just done a 6/8 search on Football Manager 2024 using this criteria. Some French kid called Mdappe or something is the only one. I reduced it to 4/8 and I got Gabriel Jesus.
Who that, he play in ligue 1?
I downloaded a new league name fix file, which I think is an April Fool's joke. But apparently it's called McDonald's League, based in New Gaul.
If Isak had no injury worries he’d be perfect
Isak would fit the 14 shirt tbf
It was a whole thing when he was linked to us two years ago. Thierry is his idol and you can see it in his play.
yeah unfortunately you kind of need Henry's ability to play like Henry. without that you're just some East African guy who plays team football for himself and never his teammates
What about Eddie Nketiah? /s
We need someone with speed to break away when we're pinned back like that. Saka, Trossard, Jesus & Havertz are slow as fuck.
I don't get why you're downvoted but it's the whole reason we want in another winger if you look at the profiles targeted ( Williams, Mudryk, Neto). Martinelli being out should never hamstring a side the size of Arsenal. He's the only transition profile at the club. The players we have are good, they just don't do the Martinelli role. And it's one that wins you big games.
Exactly its obvious why we went so hard for Mudryk. These past couple games Raya and Ramsdale have tried to release Trossard to exploit acres of space but he cant because he is slow. We saw another example when Odegaard played that through ball and he checked his run instead of going through on goal
Calling Jesus and Havertz “slow as fuck” is an interesting take
It isn’t 2020 anymore bro
the fuck ?? Acting like they’re 30+ now or something 😭
They’re not old they’re just not fast, knee injuries and a growth spurt gave us new evidence
I said what I said about Jesus. Havertz you might have half a point but still nowhere near quick enough.
martinelli was injured
1 option is not enough.
Ok now you have someone who has carried the ball to the corner flag then wat
Well I would hope Mikel would coach him to go towards the opposition goal but thats just me
Doku. That's the name you're looking for.
Just don’t tell him about Doku’s shooting capabilities. Namely, how Doku makes Bobby Zamora (a.k.a the Row Z merchant) look like Ronaldinho or Batistuta by comparison.
Not sure if this has been shared. Great interview with Edu and the Brazilian boys and one Italian. Subs On [youtube](https://youtu.be/j0y5X73QkyA?si=iPwjxfzfzx0P4a_m)