A week ago this piece would have looked very different. A week ago, Arsenal had just beaten Cologne after switching to a back four at half-time and were widely expected to meekly lose to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Another defeat like the one at Anfield a few weeks ago would have almost certainly seen Arsene Wenger revert to type, banishing the back three formation he never really believed in anyway and returning to the tried and tested 4-2-3-1 on a more permanent basis. Contrary to all expectations, an Arsenal side bereft of Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil put in a brilliant performance, stifling Chelsea for the most part and threatening enough (at least in the first half) to deserve a point at the very least. Suddenly, from the brink, the 3-4-3 definitely has a place. That should probably be the root of some optimism but also concern; it feels a lot like Arsenal will continue to blindly stumble around in a particular constellation until that goes so badly so many times in a row there is little option but to change again. Repeat ad nauseam. While the 3-4-3 has its place, it should just be one way the team can play and it is – as we’ve seen – much better suited to games against big sides (like Chelsea in our last three meetings), and games against teams who line up in a similar fashion (like Bournemouth). This weekend’s fixture against West Brom is the perfect time to show Arsenal can adapt and be flexible according to the available squad and the needs of any given game. Barring two (if memory serves) drubbings right at the end of the season (2009 and 2015), home matches against Tony Pulis have always looked the same: Arsenal dominate but hardly create, Arsenal eventually score a half chance and the game ends 1-0 or 2-0 in relative comfort. It’s not usually pretty but this is a tricky fixture and one we’ve never failed to win. It’s actually true of Arsenal across the board in these ‘simpler’ matches that the team doesn’t disappoint: the rate at which we’ve picked up points in home games we ‘should’ win is on par with all our competitive rivals at the top of the table. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The squad situation also does a lot for the argument we should return to playing four defenders when it’s most suitable. Games are now coming thick and fast and there needs to be some rotation at left-back: as things stand, both Nacho Monreal and Sead Kolasinac will play almost every single game. Monreal is the first choice left centre-back as well as being the back-up left wing-back, the opposite applies to our lovable Bosnian brute. With the Europa League coming up in midweek, more League cup games on the horizon and two international breaks before December, the pair will each have to miss some matches. Then there’s Danny Welbeck. After pre-season I touched on how important he was for the front three in pressing. Since then, his performances have impressed and his influence has grown. Playing on the right of the front three, Welbeck ties up at least one defender by driving forward and becoming a second striker. Occupying defenders allows him to team up with Lacazette so the duo can either spark moves or create space for one another. See the opening two goals against Bournemouth as an example. It goes without saying that Alexis Sanchez is a fine player but, as we saw in recent fixtures, he can drop extremely deep for the ball. With Alex Iwobi or Mesut Ozil doing the same on the opposite side, Arsenal quickly lack enough players occupying the opposition high up the pitch (interestingly, this is why it is probably best for Theo Walcott to play on the opposite side from Alexis, a tactic which looked like Arsenal’s only viable route to goal against Doncaster in midweek). With Alexis and Ozil both expected to return to the side, Arsenal will need all the numbers they can get in dangerous areas against a stubborn West Brom defence. That could be the case in the 3-4-3 but not the way Arsenal play it with both Alexis and Ozil, who drop deep and leave an onus on Ramsey to drive at the opposition backline. Wenger has quickly changed during games where Arsenal are stifled and appears to be becoming increasingly impatient. Last season the boss switched back to 4-2-3-1 in minutes 68 (Leicester) and 69 (Sunderland). We saw the same pattern in the opening two games of this season, with the change taking place in the 67th (Leicester) and 66th (Stoke) minutes. Four games is no real sample size but the evidence to this point suggests the change in tactic is hit and miss; a roll of the dice rather than a piece of ingenuity. Thanks to @11tegen11, we can see the the changes made a difference against a tiring relegated Sunderland and to lesser degree against Leicester made a difference, with Arsenal creating chances more frequently. The same can’t be said of the games against Leicester (last season) and Stoke. The situation against Cologne, calling upon Kolasinac at half-time, was completely new. It was the right call but a strange one – Arsenal had the players for this system on the pitch throughout the first half, why wait until half-time? It immediately paid off with Kolasinac scoring but the biggest difference came from Alex Iwobi. Finally Arsenal had a player getting between the defence and midfield, looking to increase the pace of the game and move forward quickly every time he got on the ball. That’s what’s needed to break this sides down. Instead of wasting time with the 3-4-3 only to switch, Arsenal should start with a back four and go after West Brom with a little more verve and an extra player in dangerous areas, be that someone to make runs beyond Alexandre Lacazette or just to pick the ball up behind him. A week after the game at Stamford Bridge was likely to put a nail in the back three’s coffin, it’s probably likely to be the game against West Brom that has Wenger cursing his luck and wondering if it’s the way to move forward. The truth is, of course, that Arsenal should move forward with the ability to play both systems. Having two formations which suit the players is an incredible and long overdue string to Arsenal’s bow but it’s an obsolete one if we are only using it to become predictable in a different way. All the tools are there, now’s the time to use them. Be flexible and thrive.   The post Tactics column: A tale of two systems appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

Match report – Player ratings – Video

Sometimes the League Cup can be tremendous fun. Teams of fringe players and kids playing lower league opposition just give you something fresh and different. There have been some good nights at the Emirates down the years, but it would be safe to say last night’s 1-0 win over Doncaster wasn’t really one of them. It started well enough, with Arsenal dominating but unable to find a way through. Most of the first 20 minutes seemed to be played in their final third, and there was almost a spectacular opening goal when Olivier Giroud’s acrobatic scissor-kick came back off the bar. There were a series of dangerous low crosses which Arsenal players studiously managed to avoid. Giroud headed an Elneny cross over the bar when he should have scored, and then the one real moment of quality in the game provided what turned out to be the winner. Alexis picked the ball up in midfield, spotted Walcott’s run, and found him with a beautifully weighted ball over the top. The first touch wasn’t poor, and he lifted the ball over the keeper to make it 1-0 in the 25th minute. It should have been the goal that opened the game up a bit, a platform for us to go on and score more, but in reality it was a goal which we saw as some kind of cushion and a lead we didn’t have to worry too much about. The first half ended with Doncaster smashing a good chance into the side-netting, and the second was one of the most tedious 45 minutes of football I can remember for a long time. The visitors had the better chances, bar the absolute sitter that Walcott missed, and by the end I was literally dreading the idea of extra-time. They hit the bar close to the end, but we hung on valiantly to go through. I was, to be perfectly honest, glad it was over. Afterwards, Arsene Wenger said:

I believe that we started well and in the first 25 minutes had a good pace in our game and good flow and slowly lost a bit our cohesion and our speed in our passing and decreased our level. After that I think we did the job even if we had not anymore the style we want to play and the flair to kill the game off.

If there was anything positive to take from the game, beyond the functional victory, it was Jack Wilshere doing 90 minutes. He was the stand-out player in the first half for us, and you could see the extra bit of quality he had, although fitness is still clearly a bit of an issue. Playing the full game will have done him some good, and hopefully he won’t have any adverse effects afterwards. Looking at our squad, I think there’s a chance for him to make an impact in the Premier League, but of course it’s all fitness permitting. His touch looked good, even if his legs got a bit heavy towards the end, but that’s understandable considering how long it’s been since he played a full game. The other interesting thing was a debut for the exciting Reiss Nelson, and while I understand the manager playing him at right wing-back (mostly because we don’t have anyone else right now except Hector Bellerin), I think it’s fair to say it’s not his natural position. There is a need to learn the defensive side of the game, and I think we could see that there’s a bit to do in that regard from his point of view, but it also makes it hard to assess him as he is very much an attacking player. Like Ainsley Maitland-Niles being deployed on the left, we had two youngsters out of position in key areas. We saw how much using Bellerin and Kolasinac in their natural roles helped the fluency of the team against Chelsea, so those selections last night played their part in the overall display. It’s not to criticise either of the young men, but it didn’t help too much. There was also another start for Alexis Sanchez. It’s just me speculating, of course, but it just felt there was something more to this than getting him match fit. Not quite a punishment, but I didn’t expect him to play and especially not for 90 minutes. Maybe it is what he needs, to be revved up, and to have those minutes under his belt, but I guess we’ll see what kind of team we see on Monday against West Brom. We finished the game with two injuries. Calum Chambers went off at half-time and will miss another couple of weeks with a hip problem, while Theo Walcott got a kick on the back of the knee. The duration of his absence is, as yet, unknown. The draw for the 4th round was made afterwards, and it’s a home game against Norwich. Another chance to play some youngsters, at least. Now we head into a weekend with no Arsenal, we don’t play until Monday night, so let’s hope everyone else loses in the meantime. That’s that. Back tomorrow with some kind of Arsecast. Until then.   The post Arsenal 1-0 Doncaster: Gunners do the job on a low quality night appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

By any reasonable standards Arsenal’s start to the Premier League season has been relatively tricky. Away games at bogey team Stoke and at Liverpool, as well as a game at Stamford Bridge against the Champions. The two home fixtures were ones we were fully expected to win, and we did, but it was what we did on the road that was going to set the mood, so to speak. In that regard, despite the difficulty of the games, to come away with just one point is disappointing, and after five games we sit in 12th, with 7 points, 6 points behind the leaders, and with a goal difference of -1. It is too early to get a real measure of the table, five games is such a small sample size, but it’s fair to say that the next month or so gives us a chance to correct that somewhat. The next five Premier League fixtures are: 25.09.17 – West Brom (H) 01.10.17 – Brighton (H) 14.10.17 – Watford (A) 22.10.17 – Everton (A) 28.10.17 – Swansea (H) N0t easy games, you can’t allow yourself to think like that, but easier games, and a real chance to get some points on the board. After that there’s an away trip to a currently rampant Manchester City, at which stage we’ll have another chance to see how well learned the lessons of Anfield were in terms of how we prepare and set up for it, and then a North London derby at home. So it’s important to get some momentum going because we will need it. Don’t forget, there are other games sandwiched between those. Tomorrow we’ve got Chupacabra Cup action against Doncaster Rovers (more on that and the serious rotation we’ll see tomorrow), as well as three Europa League ties against Bate Borisov and Red Star Belgrade (twice). There’s plenty of football to get our teeth and feet into. One man who most likely won’t be around for the next few weeks is Danny Welbeck, who is set to miss at least 4 weeks with a groin injury that he picked up against Chelsea on Sunday. I would say that when it comes to those kind of injuries, that’s a conservative estimate, they can often take longer to heal than you’d like, but fingers crossed it’s not too serious. Arsene Wenger seemed a bit pessimistic about it in the immediate aftermath of the game, but the England striker is due another scan today, at which point we should get a better idea of how long he’ll be out. There will, of course, be some who’ll say that Welbeck’s finishing is such that we won’t miss him, but I think that underestimates how much work he does in that position to the left of the striker. I think his grounding at Manchester United under Alex Ferguson makes him a very conscientious player, someone who isn’t going to shirk his defensive duties, and if you’re looking to press the opposition high up the pitch his stamina and athleticism make him a great proponent of that. He also has three goals to his name this season, and an assist, so it’s not as if he hasn’t contributed. That said, the obvious replacement for Welbeck is Alexis Sanchez, so things could be a lot worse. The Chilean has been eased back into action by Arsene Wenger since his late return this summer, which is quite unusual actually. We’ve normally been less cautious about playing him, banking on his inherent fitness and physical conditioning to see him through, but this time around the manager has preferred to keep him on the bench for the Premier League. He gave him the full 90 against Cologne, to get those minutes under his belt, and he’ll have another full week of training too before we face West Brom next Monday. The door has been well and truly left open for his return due to the injury to Welbeck, and now we’ll see what he can do with a run in the team. I know there are people who have doubts, that he might be upset or unmotivated because of what happened in the summer, but I don’t really share those. He is who he is, he loves to play football and he loves to win. Also, let’s not pretend he’s been denied a lifelong dream to go to Man City or something. Yes, he might have wanted it, it might have suited him, but he didn’t grow up in Tocopilla hoping that one day he might be able to pull on the famous light blue shirt of the second team in Manchester who are owned by Abu Dhabi United Group for Development and Investment. Sure, it makes a good story in the media to play up every little thing that happens, as if each gesture, each reaction to something, is evidence that he is some kind of impoverished, beaten-down football hostage, but that’s really not the reality. Even during the Chelsea game he was accused of laughing when Lacazette missed, but if he was laughing at that it means he doesn’t care, and if he didn’t care he wouldn’t be on his feet in the first place. It’s laughable, but then that’s the modern media climate we’re dealing with. All the same, there’s an onus on him to produce, and need for him to produce. This is a team that needs in injection of something right now, and a player of the quality of Alexis Sanchez is the perfect candidate to do that. Righto, I will leave you this morning with yesterday’s Arsecast Extra, in which James and I discuss the Chelsea game and everything else around that, as well as lots of listener questions about Ozil and Sanchez, Mustafi, terrible crisps and lots more. Listen/subscribe below. Till tomorrow.

Download – iTunes – Acast – RSS

This Arsecast Extra was recorded with ipDTL   The post Friendlier fixtures upcoming as Welbeck’s injury opens the door for Alexis appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

It’s been 5 months since Arsenal adopted the en vogue 3-4-2-1 formation, switching to three central defenders for the first time since the manager’s maiden season. Wenger was adamant during pre-season that the team would adopt this shape again for the outset of the current campaign and he used it for the duration of pre-season. Still, it is difficult to be convinced that Arsene sees this as his long term formation. When he adopted it back in April, he pretty much admitted that it was a confidence trick for his players. The adoption of the 3421 was borne out of a period of crisis at the tail-end of a season threatening to derail, so the suspicion remains that this is something of an interim system. Indeed, many were surprised to see the back 3 survive August’s Anfield slaughter, during which Wenger switched to a back 4. Whilst the three centre halves were not the issue against Liverpool, the amount of cover they were afforded by the midfield certainly was. A trio of Ramsey, Xhaka and Özil is not going to bring you a great deal of off-ball rigour. Oxlade Chamberlain was hardly the most fastidious in this respect either. Wenger has described the back 3 as an almost exclusively defensive measure and initially, it gave the Gunners a little more security against teams that like to gallop into the spaces vacated by Arsenal’s full-backs. But as Michael Cox explained on last week’s Arsecast, eventually opponents familiarise themselves with your setup and begin to probe for weaknesses. Just two days before Arsenal’s midfield was stripped naked at Anfield, Jonathan Wilson wrote a very prescient piece about the Gunners’ disregard for ‘the red zone.’ That is, the area of the pitch between the centre circle and the 18 yard box. Lewis Ambrose dissected this last week and Andrew highlighted that, even in the accomplished performance against Bournemouth, there were times when Arsenal’s midfield cupboard was worryingly empty. It remains a mystery that Arsene Wenger did not regard the acquisition of a central midfield player as an urgent priority this summer. But in the absence of a quality connector, the question remains as to how Arsenal close this midfield gap. I think a 4321 shape- AKA ‘the Christmas tree’, might be worth a look. For a start, it maintains the shape of the attack, with Alexis and Özil taking up the half spaces behind the striker. Both players found a kind of happy medium in those roles at the end of last season. It allows Mesut to drift from central areas towards the touchline where he can find pockets of space. It also satisfies Sanchez’s puppyish desire to drift from wide to central areas and become involved with the build-up play. Arsenal have, by and large, attacked promisingly in recent months, with the exception of the capitulation at Anfield. Behind them, adopting the Christmas tree formation would simply involve moving one chess piece. At the moment, Shkodran Mustafi plays at the centre of the back 3. He operates a little like David Luiz does in the same role for Chelsea. Mustafi is preferred centrally because of his ability to play penetrative passes between the lines. Here Mustafi operates as a kind of hybrid between a centre half and a ball playing midfielder. The issue at the moment is that the three centre halves are overloaded by poor off ball play by those in front of them. Bringing Mohammed Elneny or Francis Coquelin into the midfield with Xhaka and Ramsey potentially helps to allay that problem. Xhaka and Coquelin or Elneny sitting in front of the defence could tighten up that ‘red zone’ a little and not expose Xhaka quite so much. The Swiss thrives on security and control, because once he starts chasing the ball, or senses that he has lost control of the situation, he tends to panic and make rash decisions. Effectively, sacrificing a centre half for a defensively minded midfielder is shifting the deck chairs a little, but it takes some of the pressure off of the defence. Even if you do have one fewer defender, potentially you have greater control and a reduction in chaos if the central zone is patrolled more tightly. The question as to who to drop into this midfield ‘firefighter’ position is an interesting one. In home games against lesser sides, Mohammed Elneny’s superior ball retention could be prioritised. Elneny was trialled in Mustafi’s hybrid central defender / first playmaker position in pre-season. Wenger prefers to have two ‘number 6s’ at the base of his midfield as opposed to a clear number 8 and number 4. Arteta and Song operated in this fashion for a few seasons to good effect. This means the two deeper midfield players swap constantly in order to avoid being marked by opposition attackers. One drops deep to collect the ball from the defence, while the other pushes on and takes a marker away. This did not work so well with Xhaka and Ramsey because their skillsets are so defined. With Xhaka and Elneny however, this pivoting of positions can work. One of the central tenets of Wenger’s philosophy is to push his midfield up and give his team the space to build from the back. This worked most notably in the 2017 FA Cup Final. Aaron Ramsey kept pushing beyond Kante and Matic, only to then drop back in front of them to collect the ball from Xhaka. The result was that both Chelsea men were confused about their positioning, allowing Mesut Özil plenty of space to exploit. For games against bigger opposition, Francis Coquelin would probably be a better bet than Elneny. This midfield role would require a lot of defensive diligence, especially to cover for whichever full-back has pushed on to attack. Elneny has the energy levels for the task, but he is often easy to dribble past and lacks the defensive diligence Coquelin has. I have often thought that if you could combine Elneny and Coquelin’s better qualities in one player, you’d have an excellent screening midfielder. The presence of either frees Ramsey up to push forward when the team are in possession. The Welshman has the lungs to drop back into midfield out of possession too. The addition of Coquelin or Elneny gives the Gunners an extra injection of energy and mobility. It also creates a connecting line between the three midfielders in the build-up phase. Mustafi can either look for Xhaka or Elneny a touch ahead of him, or else he is capable of going through the lines to Ramsey. That creates problems for the opposition in terms of their spacing. Of course, the fundamental drawback of the ‘Christmas tree’ formation is that it lacks width. This would need to be worked on at London Colney with careful interchanging of positions. There is a lot of pressure on the full-backs to cover ground to provide the wide areas. Arsenal need to ensure they only entirely commit one full-back at a time and Coquelin or Elneny need to be alert enough to cover the space they leave behind. Alexis and Özil are already accustomed to their roles and generally have a good handle on when to move wide and support the full-back and when to occupy more central spaces. Ideally, Arsenal should have bought more of a specialist ‘connecting’ midfielder, but they didn’t, so they will have to make do with what they have until January at least. I am not entirely convinced Wenger will adopt this 4321 formation, but I think a Christmas tree could bring Arsenal some early season cheer. Follow me on Twitter @Stillberto– Like my page on Facebook– or subscribe to my YouTube channel.   The post Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

Last week it was reported that Arsenal’s chief transfer negotiator, Dick Law, would be leaving the club at the end of the month when his contract expires. From what I understand, this isn’t a case of him being pushed or let go as part of some kind of power-play, but simply because of his desire to return home to America to spend more time with his family. It’s also been suggested that Ivan Gazidis has taken an office at Arsenal’s London Colney training ground so he can be closer to the action, and perhaps to have a more hands-on role when it comes to the club’s transfer business. This may be for other reasons too, but I would hope that departure of Dick Law is one that’s seen as an opportunity to really shake up an area that very seriously requires it. First of all, as chief executive, Gazidis has responsibilities that go beyond transfers, and while there’s nothing to say he couldn’t or shouldn’t be involved in that to some extent, you would hope that his focus will be fixed more firmly on the business side of the club. Commercial revenues, sponsorship deals, marketing, partnerships, ticketing, memberships, the club ‘brand’, and other areas – in which revenues are not what they should be – all fall under his remit. There’s work to do in that regard and that really ought to be his primary concern. It’s been clear for some time that our set-up as a club when it comes to recruitment and player attrition has been found wanting. We find it difficult to bring players in, we find it difficult to move players out, and that’s with the trio of Wenger, Gazidis and Law working on things in conjunction with a scouting department that needs a root and branch shake-up from top to bottom. Whatever you think of Law and how he’s operated down the years, there’s no doubt that he had a lot of work to do. He carried out negotiations with other clubs, and he was someone who spoke a number of languages making contact with clubs abroad easier. He was involved in player contracts at all levels, and did a lot of travelling throughout the season. Of course we did hire a legal expert during the summer. Huss Fahmy came from Team Sky to inject some legal expertise into the matter of player contracts, and that’s a good move. Bringing a specialist in to do specialist work, no arguments there, but as yet it’s unclear how much he’s had to do and how effective it has been. It might take some time before we see that, and given the contractual situations he’s having to deal with right, he’s been thrown in at the deep end. So, it seems very obvious to me that Arsenal need to bring in somebody to replace Dick Law. His departure leaves a gap that really needs to be filled by another person, not Ivan Gazidis taking on more responsibility. In some ways it’s the perfect opportunity to start building a platform for the future, a future when Arsene Wenger is no longer the manager, because the sooner we get those structures in place the better. When the day comes, in 2031 or whenever it might be, we are not going to find another man who will want to do all the things Wenger does. The new modern coach doesn’t want to deal with the nuts and bolts and the minutiae, he wants to concentrate on his team. He wants to be able to tell the people who deal with transfers ‘I want this player’ and for them to go get him. He wants to say ‘This player is not in my plans’ and for them to move him on. He wants to say ‘Give this player a new deal’ and for it to be sorted out. End of story. We know right now that Wenger is opposed to a Director of Football in the traditional sense. He will not work with someone who has authority of his decision making, whether that’s in terms of recruitment, team selection, which players come and go etc. However, this doesn’t have to be that … yet. This appointment would be someone to help and support him in the current system, and when the time comes to say goodbye and bring in a new manager, we have the ability to shift to a more modern set-up under which the new head coach would operate. The new Dick Law, whoever that might be, would have some time at the club under his belt, awareness of what works and what doesn’t, and then hopefully the authority to make the necessary changes. Arsenal are already stretched too thinly during transfer windows, and with next summer’s changes to contend with in a World Cup year, we have to ensure that we improve. That’s not going to happen without filling the gap Dick Law’s departure leaves, regardless of how much extra Ivan Gazidis does. And, as I said earlier, he has other very important areas of the business that he has responsibility for. It’s a chance to modernise and improve our behind the scenes set-up, and I hope that the people tasked with running this football view it as exactly that and not a way to increase their own authority. It’s a role that could, perhaps, be filled by an ex-player, or someone who could add some genuine football knowledge to a boardroom that, despite talk of a catalyst for change, remains very short of it in general. Am I confident? Not really, but I am hopeful that it will be seen as the opportunity it is to make Arsenal better. Which is, of course, the most important thing. — Let’s leave you today with yesterday’s Arsecast Extra. James and I chat about the Bournemouth win, Danny Welbeck and Alexis Sanchez, this Dick Law issue, the Europa League, and lots more. Links below, enjoy.

Download – iTunes – Acast – RSS

This Arsecast Extra was recorded with ipDTL   The post On Dick Law’s departure, why he must be replaced – and not by Ivan Gazidis appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

Over the course of the summer people have probably called Alexis Sanchez many things. There are some fans disgruntled at his desire to leave and I bet they called him names, like Alexis Gonechez, or Twatlexis Spamchez, or something equally creative. But I bet none of them ever called him fat. That most classic of football insults. Even if you’re playing against a bloke who is rail thin, like an anorexic Peter Crouch, chances are someone will have a go at him during the game. ‘Shut up you fat prick’, they’ll say because there’s nothing a footballer at any level hates more than being called fat. Some of them are able to compartmentalise it better than others. The Charlie Adams and Grant Holts of this world don’t like it but it doesn’t stop them from gorging themselves and growing large on Mr Kipling French Fancies, gelatinous pies and the like, and they continue to Pavarotti their way around a football pitch. The evidence of their corpulence is obvious though, whereas it’s very difficult to understand why anyone would call Alexis Sanchez fat. At every possible opportunity he’s got his shirt off, displaying his rippling torso, his six pack, his glistening abs, engorged … well, you get the idea. He’s not fat, but his former U20 Chile coach called him that the other week when Chile were doing very badly in their World Cup qualifiers. It’s patently not the case, yet Arsene Wenger appears to have been asked about it following the 3-0 win over Bournemouth on Saturday, and as you’d expect the manager has dismissed it as nonsense, saying:

He is not fat. His fat percentage is under ten, so that’s not fat, but you know how it is when you don’t win, people find every problem for you. He was not completely physically ready to start three games in a week and certainly for Chile he was not completely ready as well.

It’s good that we’ve got that clarified, otherwise people might have thought a not fat man was fat. It will be interesting to see how Wenger manages his situation though. From what he’s saying he needs him to have a bit more training, a few more match minutes under his belt, before he’ll put him back into the starting XI, so I wonder if he’s got Thursday in mind for that. Under normal circumstances, with everybody fit and sharp, a Europa League game three days before a trip to Stamford Bridge is one in which the manager would try and rest key players if possible. Yet giving Alexis an hour, perhaps, against Cologne is what he needs to get up to speed and back to something approaching his best. I thought he looked sharp and lively when he came on against Bournemouth, so he doesn’t seem to be too far away, but obviously the manager sees him on the training ground better and has more information on his fitness than I do. Certainly the week ahead will give the manager plenty to think about. Despite it just being another match on a different day, there’s something different about Europa League versus Champions League, especially when you’ve been so used to the latter for so many years. Firstly, there’s getting over the weird psychological thing of playing Thursday and then Sunday. It somehow feels shorter than Wednesday – Saturday, even though it’s exactly the same. Of course there were Champions League games on Tuesdays too, so that’s one thing, but it’s about being used to one format and then having to deal with another, and this time thing which maybe isn’t a thing but feels like one all the same. We also have to do that and worry about a Premier League game next weekend which is really going to require something big from this group of players. If we as fans are concerned about an away game at one of the big sides, you can be sure they’re aware of the record too. There are countless examples of psychological barriers in sport, and right now this feels like one for Arsenal. We know we can beat Chelsea, as the FA Cup final demonstrated (Community Shield too, but there’s no chance of a penalty shoot-out if it ends 1-1 on Sunday), but we also know our record away from home against the top team is very poor. The last time we won at Stamford Bridge was 2011, that glorious day when Andre Santos cracked one home, Theo Walcott did his Oooops I fell over trick, and John Terry slipped landing face first in the dirt, eating mud-pie as some bloke went through on goal to score. It is still so early in the season, but this feels like a defining week in some ways. Firstly how we approach these new European adventures, and secondly can we get over what happened at Anfield and produce away from home against a team who have enjoyed too much success over us at their place for too long? We will see. Ok, that’s about that for this morning. James is back from his honeymooning and we’ll have an Arsecast Extra for you later this morning. If you have any questions or topics for discussion, please send us to both on Twitter @gunnerblog and @arseblog and we’ll get that up for you before lunchtime all going well. Until then.   The post Wenger: My Chilean is not Falstaffian + Europa League time madness appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

Morning all. That’s it, the Interlull is done and dusted, and we can get back to what’s important: figuring out how the hell to beat Bournemouth. More on that anon. It looks as if everyone who was away on international duty will be coming back unscathed, there are no reports of any injuries at this point anyway, so that’s the first thing. Alexis Sanchez played for Chile as they lost 1-0 to Bolivia, putting their World Cup chances in real peril. How ironic/annoying would it be that the one time he gets a summer off is the summer when he’s going to leave? He joined us off the back of the World Cup in 2014, did consecutive Copa America tournaments in 2015 and 2016, and this summer was away playing at the Confederations Crap. Ah well, that’s the way it goes, I guess. By all accounts he played poorly, perhaps he’s not in the best frame of mind or still just finding his way back to match fitness, but you can be quite sure every bad pass, every grimace, every gesture will be analysed to the Nth degree this season, so that’s something we better get used to. He also hit out at criticism leveled at him (by the Chilean press I assume), in a post which said:

You get tired of being criticized with reason and without reason, you get tired of those who want you beaten, you get tired of saying to yourself “once more I’ll get up” after crying after a defeat, and you get tired of telling the world and people who are with you that everything is going well. And the worst thing, that no one ever realizes how that makes you feel … I wear the number 7 of Chile and it’s a huge responsibility, that’s why I’m sorry that journalists and bad people criticize without knowing …

Yikes. When he returns to England, Arsene Wenger has got to get him focused, because he sounds like – and appears to be playing like – a man weighed down in many ways. He’s a strong character, but only human and I suspect the shenanigans this summer have had an effect. The who, what, and why of all that is basically irrelevant at this point, he’s going to play for this club until next summer, and we need to get the best out of him for obvious reasons. A goal on Saturday would be a good start, hearing his name sung by fans would be a help, but beyond that the people behind the scenes, the managers and coaches etc, have got some work to do. There’s are many layers to his situation and how it went down, but he’s ultimately hugely important to us if we want to get ourselves back on track, so let’s hope he’s not too bogged down by it all. The question of how exactly we get ourselves back on track is a good one. My gut feeling, based on the squad that we have, is that the back three experiment will come to an end sooner rather than later, and the extra body there will be shifted into midfield. That body may well be Francis Coquelin, with Granit Xhaka and Aaron Ramsey ahead of him (it’s not as if we’re replete with midfield options really), but we’ll obviously have to wait and see what Arsene Wenger decides. He is a fan of the Frenchman though. I think the manager is naturally more comfortable with a back four, and if we have a midfielder who sits deep and screens the defence then it might go some way to offsetting the issues we have in that area right now (this week’s tactics column on Granit Xhaka is a good look at that by the way). We need to get rid of those vast open spaces somehow. When he first broke into the team after being recalled from Charlton, people were impressed by the defensive side of Coquelin’s game. Subsequently, Arsene Wenger deployed him further forward, asking him to play as a kind of decoy to allow others time on the ball, and that exposed his limitations, but maybe the solution is to ask him to do what he’s best at. Sit deep, screen, chase, make some tackles, and feed the ball to those who can be a more expansive with it. The other option in that position is Mohamed Elneny, who is less defensive but more metronomic. He’s more about keeping things moving than rugged defensive work, but if we don’t address the issues we have in midfield, I fear we’re going to continue to struggle. The other component of that is the back four, and I would hope to see Hector Bellerin and Sead Kolasinac now establish their places in it in the right positions, while the central defensive duo will be interesting. It’s clear the manager has trust issues with a number of his centre-halves, but he really has no other option than to allow them to change his mind. I suspect his first choice duo will be Laurent Koscielny and Shkodran Mustafi, but with Europa League this season there will be chances for others to convince him. We’ll see. Speaking of Europa League, the squad for this season was announced and given that our first game of the tournament is next Thursday, I think we’ll see a very interesting team selection because we play Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on the Sunday. Could we see something like: Ospina, Debuchy, Mertesacker, Chambers, Monreal, Elneny, Wilshere, Willock, Nelson, Walcott, Giroud? Not exactly box office but with Premier League points at an absolute premium because of the way we’ve started this season, it’s hard to see him risk too many ‘first choice’ players for this one. Anyway, that’s all to come next week, and I suspect if you’re in town and looking for a ticket to the game, they won’t be that hard to come by. Finally for this morning, a midweek bonus podcast for you. I chat to David Ornstein about Arsenal’s summer, what went down and what didn’t, transfers, the manager, the board, the club’s overall philosophy and loads more. Check it out below, and if you listen on iTunes and want to give us a review that’d be swell. Have a good one, and enjoy the podcast.

Download – Acast – iTunes – RSS

  The post Arsene Wenger’s Alexis Sanchez job, and why we might see the end of the back three appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

I’m sure by now you’ve seen the contents of David Ornstein’s Tweet about Arsenal’s summer, what happened, and how it all went down. If not, you can read it in full here. It’s a perfect illustration of how context is so important. It’s not just what happens, but how it happens. The club’s insistence that it has ‘improved the quality and depth of our squad’, as per the leaked Gazidis email, might have held some water if you viewed things in perfect isolation. Breaking the club’s transfer record? Good. Bringing in an excellent looking left sided defender for free? Good. Keeping Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil? Good. Shifting some, if not all, of the players we wanted to get rid of? Good. Except we know there’s more to it. Throughout there’s example after example of muddled thinking, and the absolute mess of the final days showed that once more there’s nothing that will spark the people who run this club into life more than panic. Forget strategy, a couple of things going wrong makes them run around like headless chickens. The Alexis thing I’ve covered in more detail on this blog and in a piece for the Independent, but then the inability to get the Lemar deal over the line compounded that flip-flop and the central midfield revelation made my head hurt. It’s the area of the pitch I wanted us to make a signing this summer. I think it was obvious to most people that we needed to add both quality and attributes this team does not possess, but not the manager unfortunately. From the piece: There is certainly internal concern that central midfield went unaddressed – and I understand that in the days leading up to the deadline Wenger did look at rectifying this, though it was too late – but generally the hierarchy claim they were happy with the window and optimistic for the campaign. It’s almost as if a key area of the pitch and the spine of the team was little more than an afterthought. So the positive things happened during the window get obliterated by the other stuff. The signings because they happened so early in the summer the goodwill didn’t last, and keeping Sanchez and Ozil was not the triumph it’s made out to be because we tried to sell the former and seemed open to offers for the latter. The way we dealt with the Oxlade-Chamberlain thing as well put a dent in the manager’s reputation too, having said in July, “100% I expect him to stay. There is no speculation. No matter what happens he will stay.” He did not stay.  Now, I’m not overly fussed about him going, and I understand the football world is one in which things can change very quickly, it’s little wonder people get cheesed off when we say one thing so often and then do another just weeks later. The other thing that wound me up a bit was the line about how they align themselves more with the success of Leicester City than our supposed title rivals: They know they cannot compete financially with the Manchester clubs and Chelsea, but point to Leicester as an example of success being achieved without exorbitant spending. It is an example, but it’s also a fluke the likes of which the Premier League will never see again. The stars aligned for Leicester that season and they brilliantly took advantage of it, but the idea that this should be used as some kind of model for success is ludicrous beyond belief. And it’s not the first time they, and in particular Gazidis, have trotted out this line. Remember in 2013 when the chief executive of the biggest football club in London, said this?

We should be able to compete at a level like a club such as Bayern Munich. I’m not saying we are there by any means, we have a way to go before we can put ourselves on that level. But this whole journey over the past ten years really has been with that goal in mind which is why I say that this is an extraordinarily ambitious club.

By summer 2017, his tune had changed considerably:

I think a lot of the inspiration successful stories in football over the last few years have actually been clubs who aren’t the big money spenders. Leicester City, how they did what they did. Monaco, moving away from a big spending policy towards youth and producing one of the most exciting teams in Europe last year. Other stories, Sevilla, Atletico Madrid, Dortmund, Red Bull Leipzig – these clubs have been fantastic inspirations.

If you want you can see the logic in the comparisons with a couple of those teams, but Leicester again. This is their mantra now, so it’s worth remembering what the reason for the move to the Emirates Stadium was supposed to be about. Here’s the then Chief Executive Keith Edelman talking about why we left our old home for our new one:

Our aim is to be a leading European club and, once we get into the new stadium, we will be in that position. It is very income-generous to us.

Of course, the football world has changed. The decision to move came at a time before oligarchs and nation states and investment funds owning football clubs, so it’s fair to say that the landscape is quite different. I don’t understand why that should change our ambition though, and we seem to have just settled for the fact that we can’t compete financially therefore we can’t compete on the pitch and have thrown in our lot with clubs below the top tier. I genuinely believe that the fact people like Gazidis and Kroenke came along after all the hard work had been done has had an impact on the direction of Arsenal. The only person of any real influence left at the club since then is Arsene Wenger. The directors, bar Ken Friar, who worked to make it happen and understood the magnitude of the project are all gone. The current chief executive has known nothing but this huge luxury stadium full of people, and it was that which tempted the majority shareholder to get involved in the first place. It has always been like this for them so they don’t know any different and don’t realise what it meant to leave Highbury. Because it was a wrench, and it hurt, but you could see the ambition behind the decision and that’s something fans could get behind. And here we are 11 years pointing at a club like Leicester City as an example of how we might be successful at some point. How sad is that? For me it’s made even more hard to take by the obvious potential we have, or have had. The biggest club in the biggest city in Europe; a great stadium; incredible infrastructure and resources; a huge fanbase domestically and abroad; a great reputation (sadly now dwindling); and one of the top clubs in the richest league in the world. All the ingredients are there for Arsenal to be competitive at the top of the game. Instead we’re watching a club diminish before our eyes, on the pitch and off it. The team has its flaws as we know, but there are good players around whom we should have built a much more robust side but failed to invest properly. Gazidis, as chief executive, is presiding over stagnant commercial revenue and slow business growth, and the owner is the far side of the Atlantic trying to figure out which of his sports franchises he gives the least shit about. It’s Arsenal, by the way. An inferiority complex has taken hold, and unless something changes soon – and I don’t mean simply the manager – it will become very difficult to ever shake off. — Finally for today, if you want to know what’s going on at youth level, check out yesterday’s podcast with the man who knows what’s what at that level, @jeorgebird. News throughout the day on Arseblog News, more from me tomorrow.

Download – Acast – iTunes – RSS

  The post Summer business and email leaks highlight Arsenal’s inferiority complex appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

We have a week of distance from that debacle at Anfield, the melee of the transfer window is slowly beginning to fade into the distance and the end of the first intrusive international break of the season is almost upon us. With all that in mind, it seems to be a good time to look over the start to the season and assess what the hell was up with Arsenal. Ah yes, Arsenal. You’d allowed yourself to forget for a second, hadn’t you? Sorry but Arsenal are not finished yet, the season is only just underway and a trip to Stamford Bridge is just around the corner. Triggered yet? Good. Now you have something in common with Granit Xhaka. There has not been much to enjoy from Arsenal’s first few performances of the new season. There’s been plenty wrong with each of those performances and Xhaka has, unfortunately, stuck out badly. That, along with the stat below, is what I decided to have a look at.

Ok, so had a quick look at the 8 goals conceded by Arsenal this season:

6 within 10 secs of giving the ball away 5 from crosses — David Wall (@1DavidWall) August 27, 2017

Arsenal seem to have found a new way to frustrate us: conceding immediately after giving the ball away. It’s no news that counter-attacks are dangerous and Arsenal being susceptible to them is certainly not something alien to us. It is, however, something the back three (or five) was supposed to help us manage a bit better. “They leave [Shkodran] Mustafi and Gabriel really exposed. Monreal and Bellerin play like right and left wingers. The wingers come inside with the centre forward, and [the centre backs] are just left on their own. So if you can get at them you can get into the box and make chances,” said Sam Allardyce after Crystal Palace humiliated us in March. That was the last time Arsenal started a game with four at the back. With the new formation, Arsenal have three defenders back at all times but it isn’t enough of a solution. It isn’t about numbers, rather about space and how Arsenal are playing with possession of the ball. Over and over again Aaron Ramsey’s positioning is highlighted but it’s a (seemingly outdated) ploy from Arsene Wenger, an attempt to draw opposition sides out before sucker-punching them.

Why don't we pass through the middle? Why does Ramsey play so high up the pitch? Goes back to this: pic.twitter.com/j0MLLoDRx5

— Arsenal Column (@ArsenalColumn) August 27, 2017

The problem here is teams have become much more savvy in recent years. Sides are better at pressing, they’re better at pouncing on mistakes, and they’re better at exploiting spaces. I say exploiting because you don’t even have to worry about creating the space, Arsenal’s unorthodox approach in possession does that for you. Just to prove Ramsey’s positioning doesn’t have to be so destined to fail, here’s an example from the Stoke game where Arsenal actually created a great chance after initially losing the ball. Ramsey (circled) has made a ‘risky’ run but Danny Welbeck and Alexandre Lacazette are deeper than one would expect. The pair, along with Hector Bellerin, instantly press a lose ball and recover possession before releasing the dangerously-positioned Ramsey. We almost scored. Now look at the difference when Arsenal played a long ball from deeper at Anfield. Arsenal are playing from left to right and there’s a decent chance Alberto Moreno will win the header. For some reason, though, nobody is standing where that ball would land. Look how close Liverpool’s midfield and back-line are to each other, just in case the ball lands between them. Then contrast it to the gaping chasm between Arsenal’s defence and midfield, if you can call it that. Of course, the ball landed exactly where you think. From a goal kick Arsenal are instantly defending a dangerous attack because the gap between the defence and midfield is absolutely monstrous. Seriously, you could park 2010 Sol Campbell’s backside in there. Twice. If the Arsenal midfield is going to be so spread out, the very least the back-line has to do is get as high up the field as possible and squeeze the space. If they don’t trust themselves to deal with the pace and movement of Liverpool that way, abandon all plans to press the opposition. The issues with the pressing (and there are oh so many) are for another day and I don’t want to waste too much time here when I think Arsenal will almost certainly abandon the back three in the near future anyway. Instead, it seems like a good time to around this off by turning attention to Granit Xhaka and an obvious weakness in his game. I should say this firstly: I think Xhaka is a very accomplished footballer. An excellent passer and a much better defender than he given credit for. It’s generally enjoyable watching him play football for my club. He’s very good at the base of midfield … until he loses the ball. When Arsenal give the ball away and have to transition, Granit Xhaka is terrible and his flaws are exacerbated by the way the team plays. For anyone who doesn’t know what I mean by transition, here’s a handy outline showing the four phases of a football match. ⁃ You don’t have possession of the ball ⁃ You win the ball (and transition from defence to attack) ⁃ You have possession of the ball ⁃ You lose the ball (and transition from attack to defence) It’s that last one, transitioning from attack to defence, where Arsenal are really bad. Grant Xhaka is particularly bad, especially when he’s the player who loses the ball. So, Arsenal have conceded three times immediately after Xhaka has given the ball away this season. Let’s look at the incident against Stoke City. Xhaka lost the ball with an overhit pass from the halfway line. This should not be a big deal at all. Arsenal are pretty comfortable, actually. The entire back five is behind the ball, so is Xhaka. Mesut Ozil is too but the ball will come past him as he’s off balance, that’s no big deal. Xhaka is right in front of that defence and as long as he stays right there we can’t really be exploi…..WHERE ARE YOU GOING GRANIT?! One simple pass beyond the onrushing Swiss and Stoke are bearing down on our entire defence with half a pitch to make clever runs into and pull a makeshift back three every which way they like. That is, of course, exactly what happened. Two Stoke midfielders were suddenly in behind Xhaka and running at the back-line because he had an inexplicable rush of blood to the head. This gap between defence and midfield, this is where Arsenal are so weak, and it’s so easy to get there because it’s bloody massive. The very same gap was seen in pre-season too, and not only when Ramsey was on the pitch. A completely flat pairing is just as bad, drawing individual defenders into uncomfortable compromised positions between the lines. It’s something Laurent Koscielny and Nacho Monreal are (fortunately) excellent at but even in moments we thankfully forget, moments of improvisation serve to excuse Arsenal’s shoddy defensive organisation. For some reason, Xhaka is constantly involved in these situations. He can’t help himself. Instead of pushing a player wide, defending by backing off and slowing up the play while team-mates chase back, he dives in. It works sometimes – sure it does – but others it is completely costly and his position is not one where high risk/high reward is the order of the day. Not only do these moments of madness expose the defence, but they can go horribly wrong and see Xhaka punished by the referee. We’ve certainly seen that. I am genuinely unsure whether it’s panic or a lack of understanding, but the midfielder’s tendency to bust a gut every time he loses the ball sees him either easily passed or sent off pretty much every week. Chris Foy doesn’t need an invitation to send you off, stop giving him one. The worst part of all this is I really like Granit Xhaka. I think he’s excellent, certainly as a passer of the ball. He’s also a very good defender when Arsenal are sitting deep. With more time to think he fills up spaces excellently, blocks passing lanes and sniffs out danger. Unfortunately, Arsenal keep trying to defend on the front foot. It’s something the team struggles with and Xhaka is the most guilty, as well as being the player asked to do the most as he is the one exposed by those around him on the ball. Due to the nature of Xhaka’s position and the way Arsene Wenger has everyone else abandoning him on the ball, this doesn’t look like a problem that will go away any time soon. Maybe a return to the back four will see a more restrained midfield partnership with Aaron Ramsey (or whoever else Xhaka is paired with) in future. For the time being, though, we’ll just have to hope the team spots the issues among themselves and plays in a tighter shape. Brilliant improvisation and the reliance on it will remain the saviour and downfall of Arsenal for a little while yet.   The post Tactics Column: Xhaka and Arsenal’s separate flaws a recipe for disaster appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.

Morning, welcome to a new week, the Interlull is still upon us, but over the weekend Arsene Wenger provided some titbits in an interview with Telefoot. He spoke about the bid for Thomas Lemar, confirmed we’d offered €100m and said we’d try again for him at some point in the future. Most interestingly though, he spoke about his decision to stay with the club, and revealed he’d had doubts. He said:

Yes, I hesitated to extend for personal reasons. I’ve been at Arsenal for 20 years, and I’m always wondering if I should continue to lead the club. We were doing quite badly last season.

People will have their own views on why he decided to extend his contract. For some it’s because he can’t walk away from Arsenal, because his whole life is consumed by the club and football. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable position, we know what a workaholic he is, and how much of his life revolves around his job. Some will say it’s money, the big salary is a lure, and maybe there’s something in that, but Wenger has never particularly struck me as a man motivated by money or the trappings of it. There’s a story – perhaps apocryphal – that many years after he’d first joined the club and been given a then top of the range car, people at the club suggested to him that it wasn’t a good look for the manager of Arsenal to be driving around in a now fairly worn 17 year old Mercedes. Either way, while I’m sure the money is nice, I don’t think that’s his be all and end all, especially as he could have found another job pretty easily. My own theory, such as it is, is that he’s a stubborn man who wants for his team to be successful. He’s desperately trying as hard as he can to recapture the real glory days, when he was an inspiring, revolutionary coach and manager who transformed this club and English football to an extent. He still believes he can lead this team to the title, or wants to prove that he can – even if there’s part of him that must have doubts. He is battling the march of time though, and although he works harder and harder, things continue to get more difficult. The obstinate streak in Wenger is such that he can’t, or won’t, accept the reality. That he’s a man who was once a truly great coach and whose powers have diminished. There’s also nobody around him who will tell him that, or nobody at Arsenal willing to tell him that. The perfect moment to do it was after the FA Cup final, but once more the culture the club as set out by Stan Kroenke won out. The easy option was to renew Wenger, so that’s what we did. Rather than face that difficult moment where you have to tell a man his time is up after so many years, that the quality of his work is in marked decline, we took the path of least resistance. And here we are. I also wonder if there’s a bit of Wenger that looks at the club, and looks at the people at board level, and he feels like is, in some ways, the last real football man at the club. The owner is an absentee landlord who, by his own admission, has no real knowledge or insight of the game. There’s his son who has no background in football, and the fact that the relationship between the manager and Chief Executive is basically dysfunctional is no secret. When you look at what Ivan Gazidis said in an email to staff that was subsequently leaked, you can understand if he feels a sense of responsibility to be a guardian of sorts. Even if the message was meant to be inspirational or positive, all it did was highlight how disconnected from reality he is. The flip-side of that, however, is that Wenger is also complicit in many ways. He has full responsibility over the footballing decisions at the club, yet has done little to make changes and improvements in key areas. For many years there have been serious questions about the scouting department, yet no significant change has taken place there. Doubts over the quality of some of the coaching staff have been spoken about on countless occasions, and their contracts are tied to his. When his was renewed, it would have been the perfect moment to say thanks for your service, but we need some fresh blood. But, like the club’s decision to keep the manager, he decided to keep all of them. Change came in the addition of Jens Lehmann who, I’m hoping, will at least try and shake things up. How much influence he can have, or is allowed to have, is the big question, but if he can add some edge to things I don’t believe it would be a bad thing overall. It’s asking a lot of one man though, and it’s obvious the issues at Arsenal go way beyond what a single coach can do. Overall, it just feels like a very unhealthy place right now, on many levels, and ultimately Wenger is the only doctor that can provide the medicine for the time being. Let’s hope he can administer some of the good stuff, because the sugar pills aren’t working any more. — There’s not going to be an Arsecast Extra today because James got married on Saturday, so congratulations to him, but he’s off doing ‘just married’ stuff and I think he and his new wife deserve a few days away from Arsenal and all the associated guff. I am hoping to have some kind of podcast for you though, but still working on a few details. Finger crossed on that though, and if there is one it’ll probably be after lunch at some point. There’s a tactics column up later too, and I’ll be back tomorrow with more.   The post Wenger says he hesitated over new contract, so why did he stay? appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.