Revealed: Arteta's tactical tweak that helped Man City kill off Arsenal

http://www.goal.com/en-au/news/revealed-artetas-tactical-tweak-that-helped-man-city-kill/ws0dwhatz3c91k4emteorzfip

Without reading the article I wonder what our weakness was? Maybe he identified that we hadn’t spent over a billion on players over the last decade like they have

But I’m not saying he shouldn’t give them a chance. What I’m saying is that if it doesn’t work out it can’t all be blamed on Wenger. Wenger is fully responsible for bringing these players to the club to begin with and in that sense it was largely his team against City. But Emery and the new regime are responsible for these players still being here for the 18/19 season. They could’ve easily gotten rid of Mustafi, Xhaka, Welbeck etc if they chose to.

So.............does Guendouzi start against Chelsea?

It's a big ask, away from home, but Xhaka is not exactly pulling up any trees either.

I know Haz thinks we have to protect Guendouzi and I understand that viewpoint. On the other hand, a bit like with Fabregas, if he actually makes the team better then you have to think hard about playing him. The question is, in a game of this magnitude, does his more dynamic and athletic game compensate for the inevitable errors he makes.

It's a difficult one.

3 months ? Mate he needs a full season without any judgement given the mess he inherited.

I’ll give you an example. Let’s look at 4 players Ramsey, Xhaka, Mustafi and Özil. Whilst there is talent in those 4 I don’t think it’s arguable that they are the core of our team and extremely inconsistent. Ramsey and Özil put in preferable performances 50% of the time and Mustafi and Xhaka way less.

Mustafi, Ramsey and Xhaka make around 100k a week and Özil gets 350k a week which fag packet maths equates to around 34 million of our 200 per annum budget. That’s a lot right? Especially for 4 such inconsistent performers.

I’m a fan of Özil but I don’t see him comfortably playing wide and how he will fit in this new pressing strategy and Ramsey whilst putting in decent performances at the end of last year when all was lost never has really long term looked comfortable in playing part of a midfield 2 that needs to track back or good enough to play as a no10 type. Basically there’s question marks over 4 first team players occupying a huge chunk of our wage bill and how long will it take to move these players on or resolve their situations. Even accounting for Emery improving these players I don’t think you can suggest that expecting an overnight transformation in 3 months will occur to a bunch of players past 25 years old.

I think our squad isn’t as good as some think and it’s very hard to judge Emery until half the first team and about half our subs bench are his players.

Patience is required and after the reaction to the first games defeat I’m concerned it won’t be provided. Suggesting Emery should be questioned after 3 months if there’s no massive improvement when we gave Wenger 10 years to screw up as much as he wanted seems frankly ridiculous

all these expert ex players Ian White, Tony Adams doing nothing positive only criticising we all know the problems we are just not good enough.Some of the signings we made in my opinion was very bad like Xhaka, mustafi, Perez,Mkhitaryan and this new keeper Leno. We we!ve.

Hi, what evidence is there to write off Leno as not good enough? He has only played a small number of pre-season friendlies and I didn't notice anything that deserved being written off so soon.

Chelsea is a very different team to city. We’ve got a good recent record against Chelsea, not lost in 6 I think.
I think Torreira has to start, I also think Lacazette has to start. For me that means Mkhitaryan drops out, and one of guendouzi and Xhaka drops out. Tough to call

Chelsea is a very different team to city. We’ve got a good recent record against Chelsea, not lost in 6 I think.
I think Torreira has to start, I also think Lacazette has to start. For me that means Mkhitaryan drops out, and one of guendouzi and Xhaka drops out. Tough to call

How much of a turnaround in squad was realistically possible? We signed 5 players in the summer and got rid of Wilshere, Perez, cazorla, per and quite possible Ospina, Campbell and elneny soon. If we also sold mustafi, Xhaka and Welbeck each of those would need replacing - could we have signed 8 players this summer with potentially at least 5 of them forming starting 11 players?

I don’t see why not, and why it wouldn’t be better than persisting with two players we do not want. Chances are we’re starting with Torreira and Guendouzi against Chelsea – that’s two new midfielders, so no reason why it couldn’t have been Torreira and another new guy who replaced Xhaka. We’ve had a whole pre-season to get a new central defense pairing settled. This season is pretty much a write-off in terms of titles anyway, there’s no need to make the rebuild process longer than it has to be.

I think the explanation is much simpler and more sensible. Emery sees potential in both of them and is willing to give them this season to prove they belong at the club.

I am curious as to how much money Emery will be provided in January and more importantly, next summer? Will 50 million be the amount he is going to have to work with until we get back in the CL proper? And how do we get back into without spending?

Let me tell you why I have real doubts about Leno. James from Arseblog said in the latest podcast that he had a whisper from within the club that Leno was not impressive in training (some comments like that) and that is why Čech was selected ahead of him. Remember that Leno can play the role Emery wants him for of distribution from the back and passing etc. and should have been first choice. Leno was not even in the top 3 keepers for Germany and how far down the list he is no one knows.

But that is not all, last year he made a number of bad errors for his club and apparently he used to do this particularly when he was younger and yet it persists. Personally, I remember him from a confederations cup match for Germany against Australia 2017 when he was appalling and gifted us 2 goals. The types of goal that if Almunia had conceded he would be slaughtered on this forum. I have little confidence in him and why we paid that amount of money for him is a mystery to me. We seemed to pay a lot for a player who needed to improve and was not ready to go and despite getting him in quickly he apparently is not showing decent form. This was a gamble in a position where Ospina is soon off contract, Čech was not impressive last year and looks clumsy with the ball at his feet as is currently our plan. We needed a quality buy in an essential position.

A few elections going on in the states. I'm not optimistic. The country is in a moral morass. The so called mainstream media goes in on Trump but fails to blame the reason why Trump is there and why its not only possible but probable he will get re-elected. The hard truths is that Trump has unearthed long held, dark feelings of at least 40 percent or more of the country (a conservative number). To admit it is to admit that our so called 'exceptionalism' was a good self indulgent slogan. The hard, rarely discussed truths is that this 'land of immigrants' have never liked the newer ones. And we have always had a racial issue that has never been resolved. Those two things are fueling his popularity and a sharp rise in face to face incidents against the 'others'. Those same people came from stock that faced the same attacks. It seems that once you are 3, 4 or more generations removed from such things, it causes a cognitive dissonance in a large number of us.

I contend that for the first time since WW2 the American president is no longer the most powerful world leader. I would contend that designation goes to Xi of China. I had a discussion with other Americans about it and I've argued, how can you be the most powerful when you have alienated close friends and allies and embraced others who are regarded as rivals if not enemies.

Scholars and historians have studied empires. America is showing the same signs of being in the last throes of decline (debased currency, wars it can no longer win, unqualified, corrupted leaders, etc.).

Gaz, it will take a bit more than someone from Arseblog trying to spread rumours that may have no validity whatsoever to convince me he's no good. You say we paid a lot for him, but with the transfer market as it now is, did we? After all, this summer Liverpool paid £67m for a keeper and Chelsea paid £71m.

I've no idea how good or bad he really is because I've not seen enough of him. But from what I have seen of him in pre-season friendlies, I don't recall anything that concerned me. You also mention his standing in Germany. Didn't lomekian say he was the Bundesliga keeper of the season one year? Moreover, that's a league that Neuer plays in.

Of the two, Mustafi is the most error prone of the two. He's got to go, Hoy. I'll fly to England and drive him to the airport personally.

.... and that's aimed at that dumb arsed braindead Gary Glitter shoed, simpering cross dressing Spanish speaking fairy from Burnley

who the f ***** cares you dopey arsed *%^@ ..... Warrior , Old Man , one of the Singaporeans G7 or Goonie and that slippery son of mine Granty Boy are the only ones who aren't on your Ignore List

... if only you Philly Boys had real nuts I'd love to tell you where America is going wrong .... a day after 9/11

.... and that's aimed at that dumb arsed braindead Gary Glitter shoed, simpering cross dressing Spanish speaking fairy from Burnley

There are alot of people in Burnley who fit that description, though not Sean Dych. Anyway get this beautiful song inside you.

Well time will tell but I have my doubts. Mind you I thought Čech looked a little slow on the weekend so will be interesting to see who Emery sees as the best at the moment. Maybe 70mil is what u need to pay for a quality keeper.

RIP Aretha Franklin. The Queen of Soul.

An unforgettable voice of my youth.
https://youtu.be/CgzH5Rg-jJY

Interesting that Emery said today Čech starts at Chelsea which has you questioning why we signed Leno. I’m assuming Leno and Sokratis have both been lined up by us for quite some time and pre Emerys arrival

Can't play it both ways though. Everytime a player comes good and their contract runs down the manager gets castigated despite not being able to force anyone to sign. But everytime a player signs a long contract and doesn't pan out, the manager takes pelters, even when, as is the case with Jenkinson, some early promise (and an England cap) collapses after a succession of serious injuries. Not saying that I would have given Jenkinson that long a contract in 2015, but there has to be a balanced view, particularly with homegrown players whose value tends to stay stable unless like, in this case, and with Gibbs and Wilshere, their value plummets due to major injuries de-railing their career. There was a time when Jenkinson looked like a likely very decent back-up right back, and we were a better team then than we are now

Thats why I said he'd be a decent back-up. Despite his being injured for at least 1/3 of 4 of the last 5 seasons, he's got 90 EPL starts under his belt and an England cap (as well as 2 years being first choice for u21s).

You're the king of post event wisdom.

I've no idea what's going on. Spend £20m+ on a reserve keeper. That's just nuts.

An unforgettable voice for any era. An absolute wonder.

...Its like saying the bloke saying the end of the world is nigh will be vindicated when we finally crash into the sun in millions of years.

To be fair, AG makes a few good points. I think he wrong about Chump's chances. AG has always had a tendency to extrapolate and is severely limited in his prophetic powers. But it is a scary possibility. There may just be enough Americans who are sufficiently dissaffected/thick/bigotted/inert for that to come to pass

And presumably that will be Arsene Wenger's fault too.

As it happens, Elvis died 41 years ago today. Kind of fitting that they would share this day. Doesn't matter what generation you're from, there's just no denying that level of greatness.