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Just some random Sunday thoughts on a plane
We are not city. Arteta is not pep. I think some of the standards set by fans in this subreddit are expecting us to play as well as them. I say that tongue in cheek in a way since we are unbeaten and beat city. But I think we are a team in transition.
Rice is obviously phenomenal. One of the best midfield players individually I’ve seen. But I think it’s clear that he’s not quite gelled into the team make up yet. Rice is doing things that are individually brilliant and it’s literally picking up points for us, but the ceiling is higher for us with him I think. He still doesn’t have that incisive pass in him and we miss partey breaking the press on his own.
This leads to the odegaard thing. And why I think after January this team will be firing like crazy. That link up between our 6 and odegaard is crucial to springing saka or switching the point of attack to martinelli to catch them on their weak side. As of right now it’s a bit ponderous and easy to react to.
But the inclusion of havertz and Tomi as wild cards has allowed us to compensate for it.
It seems to me that arteta has prioritized a defense first, possession first mentality. Martinelli takes his man on less, saka takes his man on less, white overlaps less, odegaard plays through balls less, less crosses, more dead ball corner situations. This leads to more control of the game and then arteta makes late subs to try and pull a goal out.
However, is this because of our opposition? We have had one of the hardest schedules so far. So are we weathering a storm and ensuring we pick up as many points as possible without giving up much? We only seemed to try something different tactically against city. So it’s hard to say how tailored arteta is getting against each team.
Sevilla is going to be super interesting to me because not playing partey against Chelsea felt like a huge gamble to me. My personal hope was that arteta is using his depth across the board (no partey, limited havertz and Tomi, no Vieira on the bench) to really go after a win Tuesday. I could see him playing partey 90 there unless there’s an injury.
Anyway this was just to help get me through my flight.