Arsenal did not learn from Liverpool; they added depth and not difference | OneFootball

Arsenal bought more forwards but they didn’t buy either upgrades or variety. And that’s why Mikel Arteta gets another kicking.

Arsenal have added depth instead of difference

Watching Arsenal fart their way to a 1-0 win, I noticed that their problem isn’t quality. It’s sameness.

Havertz, Saka, Martinelli, Odegaard, Trossard. All there three years ago. All there when Arsenal weren’t good enough for the title. None have been replaced or improved on. None are seriously threatened by anyone coming through the door stealing massive amounts of game-time from them.

Then along comes Eze, Madueke and Gyokeres, players which on inspection, are not improvements, but a weird kind of Arteta insurance. Madueke isn’t making Saka uncomfortable. An in-form Eze isn’t an upgrade on an in-form Odegaard. Gyokeres, operating within Arteta’s system, hasn’t been the step-up he was supposed to be. In each case none are really better, none offer something incredibly different, and in some cases it’s both.

Compare that to what Liverpool built. Klopp bought better until Salah, Mané and Firmino were genuinely elite. Then he established a support cast of Jota, Origi, Gakpo, Diaz, Shaqiri, Nunez that offered something different when called upon. Different profiles, different threats, different weapons. He could change the point, style and mode of attack in several ways. City have done the same across a decade, in spades. The best squads don’t just get deeper and more injury proof. They get more varied, more dangerous, and more unpredictable. Look at what Pep is doing with Cherki right now.

Arsenal have done none of that. Their forward line was never Liverpool or City level elite, but the additions have still not improved it. When Arteta makes an attacking substitution, nothing changes. Same movement, same shape, same tempo. He relies on moments and set-pieces because his squad gives him no other lever and because even if it did, his instinct is to control rather than adapt. The Arsenal attack has no variation built into it, and that is on Arteta.

Despite falling short for three years, Arsenal have not improved their attack. They’ve made it more injury resistant, but it’s the same weapon, used in a more conservative way. Arteta has added volume without adding difference. It’s all the same. JB (it’s going to be an exciting run in, but can’t see anything but a City win)

…Wow, just read a statistic that Arteta has had to use 21 different front 4 combinations across Arsenal’s 34 league games this season.

For anyone complaining about the fluidity of the attacking football or the reliance on a formulaic approach to attacks and set pieces it ought to illustrate the rationale…

It also explains why at this stage of the season, I still can’t work out what Arteta’s preferred team would be. There’s just never been enough games with the players available to have it emerge.

Just to be clear, Arsenal aren’t unique in having to manage injuries and I guess that’s the main point here. Arteta has found a way to do that pretty well (sitting top and as things stand, if they miss out on the league it’s probably going to be on tight margins).

Obviously there’s the bottle thing. I think it’s clear to see his squad just haven’t got that experience of having come through this (and neither has he as a manager) to draw upon and it must be pretty tough on you psychologically when you see your team mate go down injured just as he seems to have found some rhythm… AGAIN. You must have to start to wonder if fate is against you a bit. Hopefully, they can get over the line as I think it’d make a huge difference as they seem to have grown substantially with each of the previous hurdles they’ve cleared or hoodoos they’ve banished.

But that statistic coupled with the way the league has been played out as a whole this year shows why this hasn’t been the football we would have enjoyed to watch more. It’s football by attrition. But a sad necessity. At some point though I think we have to start considering the physical load on professional footballers from the context of whether we want to actually get to see the good ones play together ever and think about having a few less pointless mid-season international breaks etc. Tickets prices can’t keep increasing everywhere with less and less chance of getting to see what you actually paid for! Northeast Gooner

Mikel Arteta is so small-time

“It’s a clear red card,” Arteta said. “I’ve watched it 10 times. If you have ever played football, it is a red card. It’s the second time in two games because I guess Manchester City, when Kai Havertz goes through, Khusanov fouls him, 1-1, the title is there … it is a red card, guys. So these are the margins as well and hopefully that’s going to change.”

“I’m saying the reality of the last two games, in crucial moments when everything is at stake, we need everything to go our way and it hasn’t. I’m not putting any excuses, I’m the first one to understand. I didn’t talk about it when we lost the game [at City]. I’m doing it [now] when we won. It’s a red card today. It’s a red card in Manchester and the world is different. That’s it.”

No Mikel, the margin was 9 points, and your cynical, risk-averse, retina-wrecking take on the beautiful game is why your world is the way it is. Waiting til you win a game to start whining is still just whining. Christ he’s full of sh*t, the high priest of the manager new wave, joyless administrators, devoid of charisma, inflicting management consultant bullsh*t bingo on us with relish, crawling towards the narrowest of wins after the thick end of a decade and countless billions.

Who does their YTS with one of the best managers who has ever lived and emerges with this beige insult to joga bonito? What does he do for fun, colour code his pivot tables? Football needs Arteta not to win anything big, otherwise we’ll see more and more mind crushingly boring imitators and the game will finally eat itself. RHT/TS x

(Sack him and hire the Southampton manager, let someone with the ability and imagination to use Arteta’s squad properly have a go. I’d even endure the crowing here resulting from the inevitable multiple Arsenal PL titles if it meant never having to listen to him again)

Howe is he still in a job?

Eddie Howe should be gone from Newcastle tomorrow. Lack of ambition is unreal. Anthony Fox

Spurs will still be funnier

I’m sure you’ll receive far more eloquent responses to Will’s article suggesting that a Newcastle relegation would be funnier than Spurs…

However, as a neutral with no real skin in the game, it will not. We’ve all been invested in this for far too long now.

A little skin in the game actually: now it’s been confirmed my team aren’t going to be relegated to League 1, I’m looking forward to a trip to the Cheese Room stadium (being a fan of one of only 4 teams not to have played at new Wembley) if/when they come down. Brian (been to new Wembley to watch England TBF) BRFC

Relegation is not funny, actually

Hi, please can you stop making half your articles about how ‘hilarious’ it would be if some team suffers defeat/relegation/not winning something. It’s not funny, most of us don’t care.

Many thanks, Gav

Who are Liverpool’s leaders?

Business end of the season, that win mattered more than the result so thank goodness for that. 8 points clear with 12 left to play for feels ok because surely we win one of our remaining games.

Good for Isak to score and not fracture his leg. This has truly been a debut season to forget but he was more involved today and I don’t think many score the goal he did; the reaction speed is actually great. Wirtz looked pretty good value too. Woodman was pretty great for a third choice keeper.

Salah going off was sad; let’s hope it’s a precaution because he needs a proper send off.

I can’t help but worry that our team lacks leaders. Before we had Robertson, Van Dijk, Hendo and Milner…now I’m not sure but nobody seems to have that personality of being vocal and dominant except, maybe, Szoboslai. The players now all seem like the quiet types but I feel you need leaders on the pitch to really compete. Minty, LFC

Saturday 3pm Blackout is ludicrous

Been in London a few weeks and went to see Matt Rife at the O2 two nights ago (missus a fan, not me per se). The irony of seeing an American comedian perform to huge crowds here isn’t beyond me at all, but Rife did spend half his time buttering up the (mostly Briton) crowd, saying how much he loves this country while comparing it to his own with too cute comedy vignettes and the like.

I’ll tell you the biggest bit of comedy he didn’t touch on, and that’s the 3pm blackout in this country. Not treading new ground here by any means but having to VPN back to the states to pull up my fixture on a wee device (that also wouldn’t then cast to a larger screen here due to the app being outside confines of America) is utterly daft and asinine; viewing footie on a tiny screen equally daft, equally asinine. This is what Americans would call back-ass-wards, just utterly infuriating and to what end I wonder.

Anyway having said this we’ve leapfrogged Villa into fourth with a Wirtz thunderbastard settling the nerves late… so comedy does come in all forms doesn’t it. Eric, Los Angeles CA (Taxi back to Mayfair from the O2 = £85, half the amount spent idling just outside the rank because of other idling taxis not to mention literal parking of buses upon idling buses. Always nice to be reminded whenever back this side of the pond that both sides of pond are well constipated, better just to laugh really.)

Jingoistic to support your local club

This guy says, “I am not a follower of a top flight club, mainly because I believe you put up with the team from where you’re born (or have a genuine geographical connection with; not just that they won everything when you we’re a child).” *Sic*

This other one says, “The critical difference between you and me though, as well as most other Arsenal/Liverpool fans here is twofold: 1) I’m actually from the town whose football team I support. 2) When my team are shite, lose lots, and get relegated, I shake my head, tut, and then shrug, because I’m not a child.”

Such narrow-minded people make it difficult to want Englishmen to have nice things in their life. It’s why some of them ask fervent supporters of English football from other parts of the world if they’ve ever been to a premier league stadium. Stop promoting jingoism on f365….