GWT: EPL - Matchweek 20
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robertmac43
Forever 43!
- Mar 31, 2015
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spintheblackcircle
incoming!!!
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Ton of pressure on Newcastle as well. If they lose, they are 10 points out of Europe.
robertmac43
Forever 43!
- Mar 31, 2015
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Jussi
Registered User
If you only include the London teams and games they play against each other, who'd top the All London table this season?
spintheblackcircle
incoming!!!
- Mar 1, 2002
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Just found this website this week.....lots of interesting stuff
Premier League London Derbies 2023-24 - Myfootballfacts
Explore our Premier League London Derby results, fixtures & table of all the matches played between the seven London Premier League Teams 2023-24.
www.myfootballfacts.com
...anyone else have Brentford?
Wee Baby Seamus
Yo, Goober, where's the meat?
So off topic story, but for all the sporting apps I have, I always turn off notifications for scores or penalties or anything important that happens in games for the sports I follow. I just have notifications enabled for important breaking news stories, which tend to be trades, signings, crazy goals, or whatever. So I very much dislike it when a notification story comes up as a breaking news story and it directly spoils the score about a game like "United lose again" or "Arsenal slump continues." That's how I found out that we stunk up again today against a very out-of-form Fulham squad, but Arsenal is a gift so I am not surprised. Blessing in disguise though because I don't need to watch that travesty of a result.
I am not sure where we go from here. These last two performances were masked by timely goals earlier on in the season by either saving a point or getting all three. When that magic dries up, you're just left with barebones awfulness.
One of the biggest problems I see is that we are playing so damn wide when most of our goals came from Martinelli and Saka last season. We played almost like a Liverpool clone last year where Mane (Martinelli) and Salah (Saka) would go beastly and be helped by link-up play from a solid false 9 in Firmino (Jesus). Nowadays though, everyone is aiming for crosses and there simply isn't anybody else in the box. We have a better target man in Havertz compared to Xhaka, but his lackadaisical play really prevents him from ever being in the box in the first place when the crosses are whipped in. Quick point here, Arsenal could've bought both Diaby and Kudus for the same price as the Havertz fee (more expensive wages though with two players vs one, but still a legit lol to that). There is legitimately zero overlapping either which causes havoc for opposing defenders to defend against.
There are some other additional problems as well, one, Saka isn't nearly as good as Salah is when running at defenders. Saka is looking like he's developing as an inside forward and as we saw in the Liverpool match a couple of weeks ago, if you double-team him and prevent him from cutting inside, he's practically useless. Likewise with Martinelli, he wants to cut inside and take on the goalkeeper with his curve, but if you prevent that inside cut he's useless as his finishing skills leave much to be desired. Jesus always struggled to be a consistent finisher at Man City, so his stats aren't anything new. He would be a lot better if he decided to stop shooting for the perfect shot and just shoot (get rebounds, get trash goals, etc).
Then, there is the major problem with the inverted wingers and how that is hill Arteta will die on in terms of tactics. Out of the four losses this season, half of them have been due to Zinchenko's mistakes alone. Tierney is a brilliant albeit physio room of a football player, but to exile him out of the squad like he's Napoleon was a super strange decision and is still strange even though he's currently injured. He was by far one of the best defensive fullbacks I've ever had the pleasure of watching and a big upgrade on Zinchenko during those tough matchups like Villa Park, St. James' Park, and Anfield away. It's no coincidence that Arsenal's entire form dropped when Tomiyasu went out injured, he was by far the best player at the time and covered a lot of the holes with his work ethic and tracking back ability that White and Zinchenko really struggle on. Ben White also struggles a lot against pace and why he tends to be far away from players, allowing said players to have all the time in the world to line up crosses or dribble towards the net.
Probably the biggest problem is that teams just have video-scouted us and are adjusting to our tactics. Arsenal was so successful last season because they took a ton of teams off guard and teams that would normally have not parked the bus against us, played more open than they would normally have. Teams now know the mannerisms and playing styles of Arteta, Saka, Martinelli, Jesus, Odegaard, and others. They know that Arteta wants inverted fullbacks for full control and passing options in the middle of the park. They know that Saka wants to challenge the fullback and cut inside and curve it on his left foot. Teams know that most of our goals have come from set pieces and that's honestly the only area they need to defend when establishing two low blocks of fours. Do these things and they can squeeze out with either one or three points. It's even more naive for Gooners on AFTV to think that all these problems will go away with spending more money in January and ignorantly not knowing that we are in FFP problems and will do little business. I am very sure we wanted Kudus, but couldn't make it happen and why would Ajax give Moh to us on a loan with a buy option compared to West Ham paying straight up for him? I just wanted to see one damn game of a Partey and Rice partnership where Rice plays Xhaka's role from last season, but the games that Thomas was healthy, he was stapled to the bench.
Another aspect is Arteta's lack of trust with the bench. In this part, I think he's failed by far the most because he mentions all the time in the media how we spent money to build the squad to have two amazing players in every position. The problem with that philosophy though is that when he does subs, they're normally in the 67th or 89th minutes. There were a ton of rumours about how Jorginho was about to leave in summer and a lot of that could be due to lack of playing time. He gets played for many of the games in the beginning third of the season, but it's like he's disappeared since November. ESR has gotten practically zero minutes, yet we re-signed him. We re-signed Nelson, who comes on as a sub in the 85th minute. Veiria I know got injured and needed surgery, but I forgot we even had him on the squad for the past three months. Partey didn't even start under Havertz and Rice and looks like he's going to GTFO in one of the next two windows.
What is going on with our transfers? We buy White for 45 million and then spend another 45 million for Timber who's going to replace White when he gets healthy? We buy Ramsdale, which has a ridiculously amazing season, and then buy Raya? I consider Raya an upgrade, but still. I don't think spending more money will even solve these issues except in the striker department which we seriously need and always have needed. You waste money on Tierney, Lokonga, and Tavares and have the biggest problem getting rid of them. You wasted (granted with other people in the front office) 70 million on Pepe and cancelled his contract to get rid of him. Honestly, the best Arsenal buys have been the lower ones like Martinelli, Trossard, Odingaard, Saliba, and Ramsdale. The highest one out of those was Odegaard being 30 million pounds from Madrid. Arsenal's downfall could realistically be from Arteta's controlling and overthinking attitudes, which is very Pep-like. I probably could have written more, but gave up by this time.
TL;DR: We have been found out tactically and Arteta keeps making the wrong decision for the most part in how to fix it.
I am not sure where we go from here. These last two performances were masked by timely goals earlier on in the season by either saving a point or getting all three. When that magic dries up, you're just left with barebones awfulness.
One of the biggest problems I see is that we are playing so damn wide when most of our goals came from Martinelli and Saka last season. We played almost like a Liverpool clone last year where Mane (Martinelli) and Salah (Saka) would go beastly and be helped by link-up play from a solid false 9 in Firmino (Jesus). Nowadays though, everyone is aiming for crosses and there simply isn't anybody else in the box. We have a better target man in Havertz compared to Xhaka, but his lackadaisical play really prevents him from ever being in the box in the first place when the crosses are whipped in. Quick point here, Arsenal could've bought both Diaby and Kudus for the same price as the Havertz fee (more expensive wages though with two players vs one, but still a legit lol to that). There is legitimately zero overlapping either which causes havoc for opposing defenders to defend against.
There are some other additional problems as well, one, Saka isn't nearly as good as Salah is when running at defenders. Saka is looking like he's developing as an inside forward and as we saw in the Liverpool match a couple of weeks ago, if you double-team him and prevent him from cutting inside, he's practically useless. Likewise with Martinelli, he wants to cut inside and take on the goalkeeper with his curve, but if you prevent that inside cut he's useless as his finishing skills leave much to be desired. Jesus always struggled to be a consistent finisher at Man City, so his stats aren't anything new. He would be a lot better if he decided to stop shooting for the perfect shot and just shoot (get rebounds, get trash goals, etc).
Then, there is the major problem with the inverted wingers and how that is hill Arteta will die on in terms of tactics. Out of the four losses this season, half of them have been due to Zinchenko's mistakes alone. Tierney is a brilliant albeit physio room of a football player, but to exile him out of the squad like he's Napoleon was a super strange decision and is still strange even though he's currently injured. He was by far one of the best defensive fullbacks I've ever had the pleasure of watching and a big upgrade on Zinchenko during those tough matchups like Villa Park, St. James' Park, and Anfield away. It's no coincidence that Arsenal's entire form dropped when Tomiyasu went out injured, he was by far the best player at the time and covered a lot of the holes with his work ethic and tracking back ability that White and Zinchenko really struggle on. Ben White also struggles a lot against pace and why he tends to be far away from players, allowing said players to have all the time in the world to line up crosses or dribble towards the net.
Probably the biggest problem is that teams just have video-scouted us and are adjusting to our tactics. Arsenal was so successful last season because they took a ton of teams off guard and teams that would normally have not parked the bus against us, played more open than they would normally have. Teams now know the mannerisms and playing styles of Arteta, Saka, Martinelli, Jesus, Odegaard, and others. They know that Arteta wants inverted fullbacks for full control and passing options in the middle of the park. They know that Saka wants to challenge the fullback and cut inside and curve it on his left foot. Teams know that most of our goals have come from set pieces and that's honestly the only area they need to defend when establishing two low blocks of fours. Do these things and they can squeeze out with either one or three points. It's even more naive for Gooners on AFTV to think that all these problems will go away with spending more money in January and ignorantly not knowing that we are in FFP problems and will do little business. I am very sure we wanted Kudus, but couldn't make it happen and why would Ajax give Moh to us on a loan with a buy option compared to West Ham paying straight up for him? I just wanted to see one damn game of a Partey and Rice partnership where Rice plays Xhaka's role from last season, but the games that Thomas was healthy, he was stapled to the bench.
Another aspect is Arteta's lack of trust with the bench. In this part, I think he's failed by far the most because he mentions all the time in the media how we spent money to build the squad to have two amazing players in every position. The problem with that philosophy though is that when he does subs, they're normally in the 67th or 89th minutes. There were a ton of rumours about how Jorginho was about to leave in summer and a lot of that could be due to lack of playing time. He gets played for many of the games in the beginning third of the season, but it's like he's disappeared since November. ESR has gotten practically zero minutes, yet we re-signed him. We re-signed Nelson, who comes on as a sub in the 85th minute. Veiria I know got injured and needed surgery, but I forgot we even had him on the squad for the past three months. Partey didn't even start under Havertz and Rice and looks like he's going to GTFO in one of the next two windows.
What is going on with our transfers? We buy White for 45 million and then spend another 45 million for Timber who's going to replace White when he gets healthy? We buy Ramsdale, which has a ridiculously amazing season, and then buy Raya? I consider Raya an upgrade, but still. I don't think spending more money will even solve these issues except in the striker department which we seriously need and always have needed. You waste money on Tierney, Lokonga, and Tavares and have the biggest problem getting rid of them. You wasted (granted with other people in the front office) 70 million on Pepe and cancelled his contract to get rid of him. Honestly, the best Arsenal buys have been the lower ones like Martinelli, Trossard, Odingaard, Saliba, and Ramsdale. The highest one out of those was Odegaard being 30 million pounds from Madrid. Arsenal's downfall could realistically be from Arteta's controlling and overthinking attitudes, which is very Pep-like. I probably could have written more, but gave up by this time.
TL;DR: We have been found out tactically and Arteta keeps making the wrong decision for the most part in how to fix it.
Oh, they're a huge club nowadays and by far the biggest in EPL and internationally concerning English clubs. But it was because of savvy business along with the SAF era and not them being historic.I would just like to go on record as not agreeing with Seph's narrative. United is definitely the bigger team. In *my* view, we are actually underdogs
Last edited:
Paulie Gualtieri
R.I.P. Tony Sirico
- May 18, 2016
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Savant
Registered User
- Oct 3, 2013
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Glad it’s a home game but Newcastle are going to go there with a 0-0 being a Super Bowl win like Utd did.
It’s going to be cagey
Jussi
Registered User
Jussi
Registered User
That's really interesting. I didn't have Brentford at the top.Just found this website this week.....lots of interesting stuff
Premier League London Derbies 2023-24 - Myfootballfacts
Explore our Premier League London Derby results, fixtures & table of all the matches played between the seven London Premier League Teams 2023-24.
...anyone else have Brentford?
Free world, if you don't want to read it, that's fine. This loss ignited my inner @cgf and wanted to rant about tactics.
Jussi
Registered User
Bringer of Jollity
Registered User
Sorry, not enough Kai Havertz stroking to qualify. Please try again.
Wee Baby Seamus
Yo, Goober, where's the meat?
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Carlsen and Gunina are the 2023 world blitz champions
Magnus Carlsen grabbed his 17th World Championship title — the 7th in blitz — by scoring 16/21 points at the World Blitz event in Samarkand. After losing his first game of the day, against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Carlsen grabbed six wins in a row to retake the sole lead. Two draws in the final...
This post makes no sense. He was the WC for years and is still the #1 chess player in the world at all 3 speeds professionally, travels a lot internationally, is an amateur futbol fan like you guys, and spends less time following futbol than you guys who live in this forum. See my user title.
Last edited:
Blender
Registered User
- Dec 2, 2009
- 53,115
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He's not an amateur fan as he uses Opta, which costs money. Opta doesn't release their statistics for free, you need to actually pay for that and he's said he uses Opta to evaluate his choices. He's applying the kind of strategies professional gamblers do to fantasy football, because you know he's a professional chess player and well versed in that kind of thing.
I highly doubt he spends less time following this than I do, I only really watch games on the weekend and don't spend any time on it the rest of the week. I'm presuming most people on this forum are the same. I certainly don't pay for professional statistics to evaluate players or play fantasy football at all.
I still don't know what prompted you to make this post and you failed to respond to that part of my response to you. Has he even been ranked high the last few years anyways? His rank 1 thing was years ago.
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