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I want Kobel at Arsenal. From the games I’ve watched hes a pretty damn good goalkeeper. Can use his feet pretty well. Just a dream of mine though
Jamal Musiala absolutely loved 20-year-old Arsenal loanee’s performance yesterday (tbrfootball.com)
Per the above, anyone know how Musiala and Biereth know each other?
The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced Arteta’s problem is with KT’s mentality. His ability could possibly make him at least a part of the squad until it was time to sell. There are those who like to do mental gymnastics to make sense of Arteta’s decisions, this will probably fall into deaf ears to them but I’ve been wondering since Saka’s fitness article came out. How he takes care of himself. Based on what we know of that injury KT aggravated playing for his NT when he probably shouldn’t have, consequently partially being responsible for how the season ended- it makes me think if Arteta has a problem with that. This is specifically what I meant by mentality because in every other way he has a commendable one
No. If he was always fit, the club would have adjusted to him. We did for Granit Xhaka, we’d have adjusted to Tierney. Tierney is what Trippier is. Or close. His deliveries are still better than whatever we have at the club.
He just doesn’t fit the system. More of a “classic” fullback who makes an overlapping run and crosses it, which we don’t really play with.
Don’t think there’s more to it than that tbh
Yeah I think this is obviously a big part of it. The coaching staff wouldve been livid after the injury two seasons ago. The one where he felt something, didn’t say anything, played for 2 months and then his knee went coming out of the shower.
Nketiah meanders around the threshold of being good enough for our rapidly increasing ambitions, so I can understand both sides of the argument. But what is not debatable is that he’s consistently improved year on year. He’s never really had that unquestionable explosion into the team like Saka, ESR or Martinelli did. More like a slow, gradual development, maybe just lagging a year behind where we’d want him each season.
The question then becomes if this will continue. CFs typically age well and peak later, and if he continues this trend, he could be very good. I don’t see any obvious limitations in his profile to suggest he can’t have a very high ceiling
I agree with this assessment and wish the sub could look at him in this light rather than the very boring “he’s shit / he’s amazing” debate. The questions for me are:
- Can he make it to the next level of growth (PL elite difference maker)
- If so how quickly?
Is Robert Sanchez even a top 10 goalkeeper in the league?
15 y/o Chido Obi has joined the U21 squad 😮
As a big time Eddie hater I’m glad he shut me up. Now he needs to keep on doing it
emery is going to have his squad so g’d up to beat us when we got to villa park in december. that is a massive banana peel game for me, really hope we go into it with the sharpest mentality possible.
Jurrien Timber vs Manchester City…
I don’t understand how anyone can simultaneously acknowledge the grievous refereeing error that resulted in Spurs’ victory over Liverpool while believing that they deserve to be on top of the league.
If that hadn’t happened, we would be on top. Not them.
If that game had been even slightly decently refereed, Liverpool would be on top. Not us.
People for some reason are trying to be humble instead of calling a spade a spade.
They have been extremely fortunate, like one of the luckiest starts to a season I have ever seen kind of luck.
I don’t have any stats to support this but it seems like Eddie plays awful when Jesus is fit and in the squad and plays well when Jesus is injured and unavailable
What lineup do we wanna see vs West Ham? Looking at the teams that are left in the competition I think we can win it this year so I dont want to see too weak of a team, but with Newcastle coming after Carabao game some roation will happen.
I want to see a tall boi backline
Worth considering the “diminished” role of the attacking midfielders so far this season. Comparisons to last year aren’t absolute, but they can be helpful in trying to understand changes in the team. While imperfect, I took a look at the performance of Xhaka and Odegaard last season to the current “attacking midfielder group” of Ode, Havertz, ESR, and Vieira.
As a team, Arsenal has averaged 717.4 touches per 90 so far this season. This is an increase over last season’s average of 681. Despite this, our attacking midfielders are averaging less touches - 45.6 v. 58.7. Saka and Martinelli stand out as attacking players to touch the ball more than last season’s average. Creative production, measured as key passes, passes into the final third, xA and XAG from the attacking midfielders has dropped when compared to last season’s averages. Odegaard in particular stands out, he average 2.2 KP/90 last year, but now averages 1.3, a drop of about ~41%. Our current “average” attacking midfielder makes 1.19 KP/90 compared to last years 1.81.
What’s interesting is that “Shot Creating Actions” have not seen a similar drop. Odegaard’s SCA/90 last year was 4.69, this year it is 4.29. That is only a 9% decrease and it doesn’t quite match his drop in XAG, KP, or other attacking metrics. Looking at the “average attacking midfielder” the drop in SCA/90 is barely perceptible, 3.98 this year v. 4.0 last year (this comparison is juiced by Vieira and ESR’s inflated /90 numbers though, Havertz firmly trails behind Xhaka’s production here). Odegaard’s GCA/90 is another example of this trend. Odegaard has one assist in the league this year, a serious drop in his /90 performance from last year on the order of 60%, but his GCA/90 has only dropped by 10% - .44 v .49.
SCA & GCA measures the two offensive actions before a shot/goal. This would suggest that our AMs are doing more to facilitate play rather than being the direct instigator of goals and shots. The eye test matches this - I’ve noticed Odegaard being more involved in wide rotations as a facilitator more often in recent games.
Alternatively, this could all just be explained by Odegaard dropping some form and the other AMs being collectively unable to match Xhaka’s direct contributions last year. However, the divisiveness around these positions, the stats, and what we are seeing would suggest there is a strategic/tactical change. We are less direct than we were last year, are forced wide, and play against lower lines. In this set up, the attacking midfielder - regardless of who it is - gets less opportunity to be a direct influence on things.
Champions league match rolls into penalties and Arteta subs in Hein- when