A VPN may be the answer if that happens..I use one in USA/Mexico so the missus can watch Corrie & 'Stenders...works like a charm!

Rashford did a great public service for the nations kids. I don't know how the system works or the standard but does it rise to the standard deserving on an MBE? I don't know. I have a Brit friend here (for the record hates Man Utd) who said while worthy of praise, is not worthy of an MBE.

Ah, that explains it. VPN is the answer.

But the thing is, for someone with obvious footballing intelligence I don't see why Özil can't do what's required? Surely closing down and pressing is merely an awareness thing that may require a higher level of fitness but isn't anything too drastic that couldn't be learnt quickly if Özil was willing to apply himself. I see Pépé being pretty lazy without the ball and gives up easily but somehow he's still getting in the squad.

I think he could do what Arteta wants but can't be bothered.

van Persie is on one of the biggest 'what ifs' for Arsenal. What if he had stayed healthy? What if he didn't leave? He's turned out to be one of the biggest Judas we have. I recall at the time of his move even a voice on here was saying he wasn't. Not sure how you call yourself a gooner and come to that conclusion. Anyway, he was one of my favorite players, second after Fabregas in the post invincible era. I was an early fan of his when America had eredivisie matches on. He played in the wing but looked good doing so.

A shame.

https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/06/glad-to- ... -13378614/

I don't believe for one second the LA Rams stadium was built totally with private funds. BS. No structure in LA of that size and cost goes up without the city, county and state involved financially. It's what they tell the public.

The likely truth is public funds were used in such a way to give them cover. The usual ways, tax abatements, tax credits, utility costs at deep discounts, money hidden in bond financing for another purpose but diverted ultimately to the project, the city guaranteeing the bank loans behind the scenes, etc. LA has a myriad of ways to fleece the public. Experts at it, like most major, global cities.

Its football madness to expect Özil to close down and press - it is not what anybody expects him to bring to the team - he never did in his career before at other clubs. If defending is what Arteta wants most from Özil, then it is no surprise he leaves him out in the cold!

You may think it's madness, but the whole team have defensive responsibilities when the opposition have the ball. This is modern football. Özil is either unwilling or incapable of doing his bit in this regard. When you see Aubameyang busting a gut to get back and support the left back you wonder why Özil can't show a similar level of commitment to his team mates.

When we bought him people were complaining he rarely tracks back. As you say, it was never part of his game. When he first came in the league he would get fouled and pout while the run of play went on and he'd sit there. Later, he toughened up and rode tackles better, accepted hard fouls, even cynical fouls were part of the British game. He changed, but there are some things he just is not going to do willingly or be committed to and that is defensive duties.

We are playing a style similar to City and Liverpool, pressing from the front and you need all the outfield players to do it. It won't work with one person who isn't going to. So, it makes sense he's being left out. Not hard to see that. But then again, these are some of the same fans who complained about Giroud's lack of pace as if he had some control over that.

I can't believe that any footballer is incapable of being able to learn a press, it is a bit of intelligence and a good level of fitness - you could teach it to a bunch of U14s. No player can come in with a certain skill set and just get a free pass not to do certain things. The important thing about the high press is it is only as strong as its weakest link. If one player if off then the press is easily passed and the team are hugely vulnerable. If Özil is unwilling (I won't say unable because of the point made above) then his position in the team would ultimately either harm the team and leave us too open or mean the manager cannot play his choice of tactics. We can't have that.
Far more talented players than Özil have managed to execute a high work rate and high press and carry out the manager's defensive plan whilst still delivering on their main creative or goal-scoring skills. Just look at any City or Liverpool forward player over the past 3 seasons

Nobody expected Giroud to get quicker - what is detractors wanted was for us to replace him with a more speedy striker. Anyway, it's completely different to the Özil scenario, because Özil can control his pressing. Being able to press your opponent is a tactical thing you can learn, not some innate quiality you either have or don't have. Özil has decent pace. He reads the game better than most - if not all - players in our squad. If he's not pressing as well as Arteta wants, it's simply because he's not putting the effort in.

Arsene, having heard of the growing discontentment on the Steve Gleiber forum, with American Gooner's comments apparantly being the last straw, bows to public pressure to weigh in on the growing/neverending debate:



https://www.football365.com/news/arsene ... mesut-ozil

I saw a stat this morning that Arsenal run more kilometres per match than any other Premiership side. From memory Liverpool were second. I strongly suspect Arsenal’s kilometres run would be significantly less had Özil been in the team this season.

There’s nothing to stop skilful or creative players working hard. Ceballos, Saka and Willian all do. That’s one of the important reasons why, in my view, Özil clearly isn’t part of Arteta’s plans this season.

I saw Wenger’s quotes about the technical skill diminishing in footballers with more of a focus on physical attributes. I think he’s right and the evidence can be seen in the Premier League with the number of teams whose biggest threat is the counter attack or their biggest weakness is the counter attack.
City and Liverpool are both vulnerable to the counter
Arsenal under Arteta have used it as a great tactic, Spurs with quick forwards do it well and Man U’s good results at the back end of last year came from quick counters.
Even further down the league, Leicester have done it for years, wolves have had success with it and more and more teams are working towards this tactic, especially coupled with a high press. Southampton, Brighton, Leeds, villa all go for this tactic.
I wonder where this goes because we could get to a point where neither team actually wants the ball

That’s strange you say that because if I recall the stats are he covers a lot of klms per game. In fact in January I think there was a report that he covered more ground in the game against United than any other Arsenal player and I think this is not a one off.

Özil is fully capable of it. But if you are building a team that plays that kind of football, Özil is the last person you think of to buy to adapt to it. He just doesn't want to do it and won't be committed to it. If you are 'stuck' with him already, you can try but will be better off selling him.

He did more defensive work with us than he's probably ever done prior and that wasn't enough.

I know it seems strange to discuss our new signing on this Özil forum, but I have been thinking about how he will fit in.

At the onset I must say I am surprised as he does not seem to be the creative midfielder we were requiring. Partey appears to perfect for Xhaka position. He is more mobile and can break forward if required with an ability to beat players. All the things Xhaka lacks. Mind you Partey will need to hit the ground running. His age means that it will be difficult to make money on him which was supposed to be our objective as a club.

I would have thought we should go back to 4 at the back, getting rid of Luiz and use a combination of Elneny, Saka, Cellabos, M-N and Pépé to make up the midfield. Personally I would like us to try 442 or 451 as tactics but that doesn’t appear to be the modern way.

I have long been of the opinion that What Xhaka lacks requires other players to try and cover him. If Arteta intends to slide Partey in beside Xhaka I don’t understand how this would work and increase our creativity. Looking with interest at our next games.

Quote:

Wenger did sound a note of caution though, he added: “Players have lost their technical quality over the past 10 years.

And during most of that 'past 10 years', he was in charge.

In 2017 the top two Arsenal players for average kilometres per game were Monreal and Xhaka. But don’t you criticise Xhaka’s lack of mobility?

I think there is a difference between the ability to cover large distances in a match and mobility. If a player just jogged non stop all game he'd likely cover the most distance of any player on the pitch, I see mobility as a more short distance thing, being able to get to the right position quick enough, it isn't necessarily to do with pace for me it is about being almost light on your feet and quickly covering space and danger. Xhaka doesn't have that mobility in a way that someone like Kante has

Congrats to the LA Lakers and LeBron 'King' James on winning a title with 3 different sides. The man is a consummate pro. I've read he spends 2 million dollars a year on his fitness. Fitness coaches, equipment, food and supplements, etc. Family man who married his HS sweetheart, one and only love.

The real ineptitude in all of this is the abject failure of implementing a functioning track and trace system as per the rest of europe until two weeks ago. And even then it's still deeply flawed. the countries who are emerging quickest from this phase of the virus are those who imposed stricter lockdowns at the start and then had a fully functioning track and trace. And once the advisor-in-chieft to Boris goes on a 60 mile round trip jolly whilst infectious, without consequence or retribution, you can't then blame the public for putting two fingers up to those in power. We're told to get back to work, to eat out to help out, then told we're to blame for the virus spreading. It's a clown car of policies at the moment.

The ineptitude shown throught this entire crisis should result in criminal charges, especially when it comes to handing out the contracts to newly formed companies with no track record in PPE who suddenly are awarded multi million pound deals for such equipment. Oh, look they're also mates of the cabinet and Tory donors too. Funny that.

And don't get me started on the irony of those worrying about the economy crashing when they voted for Brexit.

Well I’ve never noticed Xhaka jog around the pitch aimlessly. I accept what you say about getting in the right position quick enough, and that may not be down to having great pace. But I think Xhaka does play the game with a degree of intelligence, getting himself generally into the right position even though he has made silly tackles when in the right position.

But I do feel Xhaka is more mobile than some give him credit for. If he plays with a decent level of intelligence, and I believe he does, and he’s near the top for ground covered, there surely has to be some sort of link between mobility and distance ran?

It’ll be interesting to see what becomes Arteta’s first choice midfield with Partey here. I can see all of Partey, Xhaka and Ceballos getting plenty of game time in the same team.

Congrats to England on a huge win. I used to have a soft spot for the England side. I definitely think the English players have benefited from so many highly skilled, top level non British players in the league over the last decade or two. It has not only increased the skill level of the players playing against and training with these top players but also has removed any fear factor. The increase of skillful, not UK players in the lower divisions has helped immensely as well.

I also hear that Liverpool and Man Utd are leading a 'palace revolt' of sorts with regards to the PL. I am not sure I fully understand it but I hear the gist of it is so that the top sides have more of a say than previously. Not sure how I feel about that if that's the intention. Maybe I understand it incorrectly.

Under Arteta, it does strongly look as we're a better side with Xhaka in the line up. We look better organised.

Don’t know if it’s true but I read the Irish trace system cost 800k euros and works well and ours cost something like 12 billion and is all over the place.

The people in power on our side are just compromised aren’t they ? Handing out money to people they owe favours to or political capital. There’s a certain amount of this with politics and even Blair handed out big contracts to serco etc but this is next level corruption

Meanwhile the Daily Mailers have their heads populated with nonsense to divert from the obvious. BBC panaorma does an expose showing that the largest political donor in British history is now Putin yet the next day press continue harping on about people in dinghys.

Exactly. We are 100% played when it comes to the news we are fed.

I kind of agree but I’ll say I thought it was telling Arteta hooked him in the Liverpool match shortly after half time as they were running rings around our midfield and I thought it was a penny drop moment for Arteta realising Xhakas lack of mobility isn’t great.

Sacrilege! Sell all your worldly possessions and give them to the poor (PM me if you have any 55 inch tvs) and make the long journey to Islington on foot to burn incense, fast and pay homage at the foot of the statue of Arsene Wenger.

You, apostate, you!

Good on your for cherry picking a season. Take much research. I have never suggested Xhaka may not cover some distance. The problem is he does it slowly. Not good enough if you want to dine at the top table.

Sorry Goonie - care factor is very low.

Same

Well you were cherry picking too. You even mentioned a single game.

I think the criticism of mobility is more the type of holding midfielder Xhaka is. He isn't the terrier type scampering round covering short distances and putting out fires. I do agree that he has decent enough tactical and positional intelligence and has shown himself quite adept at fitting in very well with a variety or tactical tweaks from the manager. Where he has always let himself down is his urge to pull someone back or dive in, he doesn't seem to be the best tackler and gets dribbled past too much, leading to those silly fouls. Currently he's still in Arsenal's best 11.

Not sure if anyone has noticed Partey's stats for Ghana. He has a 1 in 3 goals to games ratio and generally plays a bit further forward, sometimes in a behind the striker position.
Partey made his name playing as a more defensively minded midfielder in a very strict and defensive system employed by Simeone at Atletico. I've read a few people say that perhaps he may be released a bit more at Arsenal and are confident of his abilities going forward.
On the face of things a very, very good signing as a CM who can play on his own as a def-mid, as a pair in a double pivot, or as a box-to-box. I'm really looking forward to seeing him play for us.

America has made a bit of a mess of its professional leagues and are exporting the 'money over sport' mindset to football.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/54505270

One of my favorite all time sketches from Saturday Night Live. Alec Baldwin does an eerily good Robert De Niro. The Joe Pesci impression is spot on as well.

These days I have a bit of trouble doing up my shoe laces and running for a bus. A potentially calamitous combination. To quote the incomparable Shania, the way some folk go on about certain footballers' lack of mobility, don't impress me much.

Xhaka: Mikel I’m worried, if people use their legs fast, I can’t catch them, am I... slow??

Arteta: Come here, don’t worry, the measure is, always has been and always will be, so long as you can outpace OMOH, who as far as we can ascertain went to school with Moses when schoolboy entry was but a few shekels, you’re fine.

Xhaka: Ah good I thought so.