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AB13 said:
Playing offensively the way Arteta is has never been effective. We absolutely have players to play through the middle, being able to create is as much about management than personell. Ceballos, Pepe and Willian all had great creative numbers before Arteta got his hands on them. Still, even if we want to cross we need to move the ball through the middle to create gaps in the defence, otherwise it is not possible to score. It is as simple as that.
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Did they though? Havn'e Pepe and Willian done most of their work on the wing/more forward positions?

Willian - solid numbers playing out wide
Pepe - Had great numbers playing on a counter attacking side. Again, mainly on the wing
Ceballos - I don't know his numbers off the top of my head but I'm pretty sure he has never had more than 2 assists in a season. Obviously that's not the whole story when it comes to creativity; nonetheless, Ceballos strikes me more as a complimentary player than one that is going to open up oppositions.
 
robertmac43 said:
Did they though? Havn'e Pepe and Willian done most of their work on the wing/more forward positions?

Willian - solid numbers playing out wide
Pepe - Had great numbers playing on a counter attacking side. Again, mainly on the wing
Ceballos - I don't know his numbers off the top of my head but I'm pretty sure he has never had more than 2 assists in a season. Obviously that's not the whole story when it comes to creativity; nonetheless, Ceballos strikes me more as a complimentary player than one that is going to open up oppositions.
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Their numbers being from the wing doesn’t change my point at all. You can’t create from the ”wing” ( they were more inside forwards than wingers) without playing through the centre. Even if you want to only score from crosses you still have to do this because it's only way of creating gaps in a set defence. Not about playing silly passes, just not avoiding centre. We don’t have less central creativity than Tottenham, Brighton, Leeds, Southampton yet they all have much better chance creation numbers. That is on the manager who as I have explained before, doesn’t understand plenty of basic offensive football principles.

Ceballos had good key passes and decent xA numbers at Madrid. Not anything exceptional but still okay and good enough to be doing better than he is now.
 
Sometimes I wonder if the club actually trains or if they just come together for photo shoots to help PR :laugh:

 
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Haha. God I feel old when I see Instagram posts like that. Cringeworthy.
 
Well Saliba didn't really wow anyone in previous U23 matches up until the very recent one apparently.
 
"Massive improvements". 2 training sessions that dang, he turns from "not even league cup level" to "fully ready for EPL in a crucial game".
 
The more Arsenal have moved away from Wenger's philosophy and players, the worse we have got.

 
Should have kept Ljungberg. The only manager able to somewhat stem the flood.
 
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I don't think the problem under Wenger was ever him persay in terms of his approach (though he could have been more pragmatic at times) I think it was the player identification. The team (talent wise) was slipping into average status at the end of his tenure and has been there ever since; I think people assume that Wenger had a lot of control over that and was why he needed to go. I think he definitely had earned more respect from is fanbase than he was given though, at the time.

That's not to say that they didn't need a change from Wenger overall anyway, since just because things were better then than they are as they turn into a mid-table team doesn't mean that they were going to be challenging for anything under him even if their players were better. It depends on what you think Arsenal should be doing or are capable of doing.
 
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AB13 said:
The more Arsenal have moved away from Wenger's philosophy and players, the worse we have got.

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Looking back, I admit the Wenger hate got a bit too much but he was absolutely part of the problem the last seven or so seasons. What helped our mediocrity was that he was a generational manager. As @YNWA14 said, his trust in average players is what let him down big time and some of the buys that him and Gazidis made were puzzling which includes Giroud (as main #9), Chamakh, Park Chu-young, Xhaka, Mustafi, Andre Santos, Squillaci, Kallstrom, Gervinho, and some others I am forgetting to mention.

Havre said:
Should have kept Ljungberg. The only manager able to somewhat stem the flood.
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You cannot be serious? He was like a worse version of Arteta when he was under us.
 
I know they have faced some weak clubs in the Euro but watching the young players like Nketiah and Balogun have given me hope for the future.
 
Granit is a significantly flawed player, but with the way that BMG was able to cover for his limitations, he was looking like he could grow into a physical-Toni-Kroos / modern-Stefan-Effenberg.

Obviously, his skill growth stopped well before he hit Toni or Effe level; he's still the same hotheaded idiot that he was when they bought him; and Arsenal has done a great job of highlighting his flaws...but claiming that he was a puzzling signing is pure hindsight.
 
Yeah, Xhaka at the time made sense. I also think there's plenty of room for success if you set up the team properly. I would love to see something like this:


Auba - Saka
Laca
Partey - Ceballos/etc.
Tierney - Luiz - Bellerin
Gabriel - Saliba
Leno
​

Have Saka and Auba operating essentially at the corners of the box. Laca holds up and distributes and Saka/Auba run off him. Luiz is able to ping balls to the corners where Bellerin and Tierney bomb up. Laca acts as a late runner for cutbacks. In transition defense, Luiz drops in as more of CB and Partey/the other CM help cover the half spaces while Tierney and Bellerin recover.
 
I'd be curious to see if a Partey-Saka midfield duo could work with Luiz in the middle of a back three...the two kids on either side of him to do all of the defending...and Laca playing in the hole behind Auba & Pepe. But maybe that's an over-correction and just an example of my biases showing.
 
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cgf said:
but claiming that he was a puzzling signing is pure hindsight.
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Disagree, we needed IQ at the time and still need it because we bought him instead. As you mentioned he was an idiot player whom his club was able to cover those mistakes, thinking we were getting a physical version of Cazorla or something was terrible insight from our front office.
 
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