Bukayo Saka to be tempted away from Arsenal by attacking football? | OneFootball

Will Bukayo Saka get fed up with Arsenal tactics that give him ‘appalling’ numbers and look for a sexier club?

Will Saka begin an Arsenal exodus?

Read Jonny Nic’s piece on ire pointed at Arteta and Arsenal’s eye bleed football being misdirected. He has a point to be fair.

What was more interesting, to me at least, was the reaction BTL, including from the handful of sane and articulate gooners who frequent F365, more for what they didn’t say than what they did. There has been a continuous drumbeat of ‘we used to get pushed around and battered by the big teams, I love that we stand up for ourselves now…’ (‘…so I don’t care if my team’s performances are regularly a crime against football coz we’re gonna win the league’ being the obvious subtext. And they ARE going to win the league after Sunday’s results).

What is conspicuous by its absence is any of them demanding, not unreasonably, both steel AND silk. Y’know, like early Wenger. Beautiful attacking, ruthless football, underpinned by real steel in mf and defence. Okay, Henry is probably the best PL player of all time and not easy to create/buy a latter day version of, but it’s not like he was a one man team, and gid knows Arteta has spent enough wedge to try.

As eagle eyed readers will have spotted, only Liverpool are higher on my shit list than Arsenal, but here’s the key difference: I turned off Leeds v Arsenal at half time because only Arteta can make a 4 nil that hard to watch. Had to be torn away from Liverpool v Newcastle for a prior engagement because it was football not hateball. And speaking of players reminiscent of Henry, Ekitike’s ceiling looks pretty high and he is a joy to watch (when he’s not rolling around on the floor, get up and play Hugo).

So you’ll get your title, but if you’re all honest with yourselves it’ll be the most pyrrhic of victories. Poor wee Bukayo looks like he has just been left to repeat his one trick with zero development from the coaches since Arteta arrived – his numbers are appalling right now. If I were him, particularly if he gets his medal, I’d probably be susceptible to approaches from teams/managers with some love for the game who might develop me. That probably goes for a few others too, only more so, given Saka is academy product. The first cracks are already showing if the Odegaard/Arteta rift stories are to be believed. RHT/TS x

Spurs not actually in relegation battle

Spurs have been mentioned in recent days as ‘in a relegation battle’.

Of all the many worries I have about Spurs, that is not one of them. Here’s why; Barring turnarounds that neither show any evidence of producing, Wolves and Burnley are already adrift and nailed on for the drop. So there’s only one place to worry about, and we are nine points and three ‘even worse’ teams ahead of the Hammers.

Don’t get me wrong, even allowing for injuries, we haven’t been.good enough. But we also have been amassing enough points to comfortably clear the famed 40 point safety threshold by May. Don’t panic, Mr. Mainwaring! Sam

On Villa, VAR and more

Some more Villa thoughts – re VAR, yes it’s pretty annoying. If Leon Bailey sitting on the floor by the corner flag facing backwards in his own half, is part of the same ‘attack’ as Tammy Abraham putting away a rebound 20 seconds later and 100 yards away, well…

As for adidasmufc, yes everyone can remember the 4 incidents you name, but that’s just it isn’t it? If there were too many to think of then the ‘analogue’ refereeing would be clearly unfit for purpose; but 4 incidents in 60 years – 3 of which would have been cleared up by non-VAR technology that we now have (yes I remember Villa v Sheffield United as well…) – this would hardly meet the threshold to get the IFAB version of Ted Line of Duty bringing out the one-liners.

Just on the subject of Pedro Mendes at Old Trafford: it’s really interesting to dig out the Match of the Day analysis from that night: Lynam, Hansen and Schmeichel on the panel are roasting the officials for not giving the goal in real time. Des suggests video replays as an idea to fix this problem in the future – in his relaxed way obviously, not Merson and Arry screeching We Av The Technologee Ow’s E Not Giv It! like a Soccer Saturday version of the Six Million Dollar Man. In response, Schmeichel and particularly Hansen are very sceptical, suggesting video refereeing would bring havoc. Kids, that’s what an ex-Liverpool centre back looks like when the punditry hasn’t left him.

Anyway, to Villa – this is just moaning to make me feel better really; had that goal been given there is no doubt in my mind Brentford would have calmly just gone and scored a second from the kick off. As in the other 2 games against them this season, they just had our number.

A point I’d tried to make whenever F365 was going big on Villa’s slow start to the season being due to grumpiness at not being in the Champions League, or despair at losing Ramsey, or Martinez/Watkins having their heads turned, or whatever; was that Villa’s main problems were really injuries in centre mid – Kamara, Tielemans, Onana (obviously) – and playing against opposition who know there are certain types of football we won’t engage with.

Kamara, Tielemans, Onana (obviously) were missing yesterday, as they were at the start of the season, and now McGinn as well (btw, contrary to F365’s view the other night, nobody cares about Watkins being unavailable; Rogers picking him up and throwing him at crosses is more likely to result in a goal most of the time). Palace, Brentford, Sunderland and Everton are all in the category of teams who have unlocked the Villa tactical kryptonite: deep defence, take every chance to allow us – Pau especially – to fanny about with the ball doing nothing, attack on the break *very* quickly, and shoot at Martinez hard. Not a coincidence that Brentford, as with Sunderland, had no issues at all playing against us with 10 instead of 11.

And lo, from the 21 points available from these opponents so far, we’ve picked up 3; having won none of the games, played against 10 men twice, and scored 1 goal in 11 hours of trying. Same story as last year really, we dropped too many points against Wolves, Ipswich, Spurs, Palace to end up where we wanted. I don’t know what the Basque term for Kitchen Sink is, but bringing on Onana, Mings and Lindelof yesterday and throwing it in El Mixer would have been worth a go.

I don’t mean this to sound like I think we’re entitled to beat these teams – or that they aren’t playing football ‘the right way’. It’s more that these are the sides who show us up when we don’t play the right way – ie the way that works – when it doesn’t suit us. Sometimes we have to get over ourselves and engage on the other team’s terms instead. Neil Raines

What’s the xG on straw men?

Badwolf’s match thoughts were perfectly normal, which is why the sudden detour into “people obsess over xG” felt like it wandered in from another universe. I still don’t know who these supposed xG absolutists are, but they seem to exist only in theory.

Also, apropos of nothing, Liverpool fans have been saying “Mo Salah out” since before Covid. Jess from Tampa

Get yer coat XI

With the signing of Jacquet and recent mailbox trend for various XIs, here’s my stab at an Outerwear team (4-1-4-1):

GK: Pepe Raincoat CB: Jeremy Jacket CB: Sebastian Coats LB: Kalidou Cagoulibaly RB: Vincent CP Company DM: Claude Macélélé CM: Steve Stone Island CM: Scott Parka LW: Damien Duffle Coat RW: Alexis Mac Allister ST: Alan Shearling