Arsenal Pre-season

Chumlum wrote:I don't think that's right REWB, he's only just turned 16 this year I think.

no i think he is going 17 soon, i heard the commentator say. 18-19 is the age that you should be breaking into the first to squad of your club, if you are not good enough by then you most likley wont make it. cesc and wilshere were starters at arsenal at around age 19.

EL Patron wrote:

Diego Armando Maradona wrote:Age-wise he is exactly the same point wilshere was during his first pre season. 16 and a half I think, will turn 17 sometime around new year

Yeah but Jack had the experience of professional youth football, Zelalem has just come out of school. The kid still has a lot to learn.

lool what are you talking about? you do know that zelalem is an u17 german youth international right? this is before he came to arsenal. he is not just some random kid we scouted from the park, he has had a proper football upbringing. moreover, wilshere went to school as well you know...

REWB wrote:

Chumlum wrote:I don't think that's right REWB, he's only just turned 16 this year I think.

no i think he is going 17 soon, i heard the commentator say. 18-19 is the age that you should be breaking into the first to squad of your club, if you are not good enough by then you most likley wont make it. cesc and wilshere were starters at arsenal at around age 19.

"Teenage midfielder Gedion Zelalem, who turned 16 in January..." http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/arsenal-transfer-news-gunners-new-1817479

[EDIT: Jeorge Bird lists his birthdate as Jan 26, 1997, too. http://arsenalyouth.wordpress.com/first-years/gedion-zelalem/]

Depends what you mean by "soon," I guess.

Also Fabregas & Wilshere are both more on the exceptional end of things. I'm generally of the mindset that if you're good enough, you're old enough, but I also think that hype over youthful talent is getting to be a problem. Not all players are quite themselves at 18-19, so I disagree with you there. Some are great, but Cesc was a freak of nature - not the norm. And if you're starting 30+ matches a year as a teenager, it typically takes a toll on your body.

For some players, breaking into the first team before they're 20 is appropriate given their talent, physique, mentality, etc. Others might just take a little longer still. Case by case basis IMO.

REWB wrote:

EL Patron wrote:

Diego Armando Maradona wrote:Age-wise he is exactly the same point wilshere was during his first pre season. 16 and a half I think, will turn 17 sometime around new year

Yeah but Jack had the experience of professional youth football, Zelalem has just come out of school. The kid still has a lot to learn.

lool what are you talking about? you do know that zelalem is an u17 german youth international right? this is before he came to arsenal. he is not just some random kid we scouted from the park, he has had a proper football upbringing. moreover, wilshere went to school as well you know...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/high-school-freshman-gedion-zelalem-may-join-arsenal-in-two-years/2011/09/17/gIQAUJyDgK_story.html

lol the guy spent most of his time playing school football. I think we should go slowly with him and not push him too hard. Lets him grow and learn, don't put him under too much pressure.

Was out all morning so missed the match live. Just saw the 11 mins highlights and i liked what i saw offensively. Maybe not so much defensively.

- Wilshere made some gorgeous passes. Coming back to his flow
- Theo's touch and runs were excellent, but his finishing was atrocious.
- Gnabry
- Podolski can't play upfront
- Giroud's dive was awful. but that 1st header was nice


Zelalem. What a gem. I really want to see him play 90 minutes. However i don't think he is Cesc. He is more Xavi/Laudrup than Cesc. But still too early to say what will be his final position. The way he makes the final pass. It's beautiful to watch.

Why is there a need to rush Zelalem, anyway? Wilshere and Ramsey are only 21 and 22 respectively and will hold down positions in our midfield for a number of years. It's a completely different case from Cesc, who happened to emerge at the time when Vieira was leaving the club so he just slotted straight in the vacated spot in the midfield and the only reason Wilshere got in as soon as he did was due to injuries; had Diaby, Ramsey and Rosicky been fit at the time Wilshere would have gone on loan again.

I've never seen a 16 year old go on loan no matter how good they are. What's important for Zelalem now isn't how many games he plays but actually getting settled in the Arsenal set-up and the country itself. Let him play U21 football for a while and the odd cup game here and there so we can see if he can control games as well as play the final pass, then you can think about loaning him out.

Jay talking sense, what, clearly you lack ambition and want to protect over-the-hill has-beens like Wilshere and Ramsey instead of true ballers like Gnabry and Zelalem.

#GoonerJay29Out!!!

 

Agreed ( not with you chum )

Arsene won't send him on loan yet. Not even Wilshere was sent out at 16 or 17.

Mole

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

RealGunner wrote:
Zelalem, He is more Maradona/Zico than Cesc. The way he makes the final pass, i can tell he's the best player in Arsenal's history and will surpass Messi within the next 60 mins.

But I heard Zelalem has Monaco DNA.

I've taken a look at the highlights, so I can give some thoughts now. I'm going to try and breakdown some of the key moments using the revolutionary technology known as screenshots, so let's see how this goes...

Let's start with Giroud's goal. Arsenal work the ball wide to Jenkinson, who plays in Rosicky. Rosicky's cross into the box is outstanding, but the goal is made by the poor marking from Tulio Tanaka.  



You can see in the screenshot that Giroud has moved in behind the Nagoya defender undetected. The defender here is too busy watching the ball and doesn't know where Giroud is, while their right back can't come across in time as he was previously occupied with Ryo Miyiachi at the back post. Giroud has a fairly simple header to make and scores with ease. Had he missed the cross, then there was a decent chance Miyaichi may have latched onto the cross at the back post, as the cross had enough shape on it.

Next, in the build-up to the penalty and, eventually, our second goal, I have to raise question marks about Walcott's decision making.



Walcott has three options here: Giroud, who's coming in front the right; Miyiachi, who's making a move between the Nagoya defenders and Ramsey, who's joining in the attack from deep. Walcott opts to play in Giroud, who eventually wins a soft penalty for Arsenal, but looking at it again, the better option perhaps would have been Ramsey, who has acres of space on the left. Had Walcott waited an extra second, Ryo's run would have taken away the attention of the Nagoya defence, therefore leaving Ramsey completely free at the back post (assuming Tanaka keeps his attention on Giroud).

This isn't the only instance in this game of Walcott perhaps making the wrong decision. After he had played in by a wonderful Rosicky pass, Walcott beats his man by shifting the ball onto his left. From there...



As a goalscorer, Walcott of course opts for to go for goal with his weaker. We can see, though, that he could have easily rolled the ball left for Giroud, who may be in a better position to score. I'm actually being hyper-critical of Walcott here, since it would have been a very well taken goal had he scored, but it's an interesting thing to highlight since it shows his desire to score goals.

Moving on, let's take a look at some defending.

Approaching the end of the half, Nagoya manage to work a great opportunity that, fortunately, Tamada fluffs pretty badly. Arsenal have rightly received a lot of praise for their defending recently, but there's some signs of rust.



In the first screenshot, you can see that Sagna is just starting to make a move towards the player in front of him. In doing so, he has left the playing coming in from the left to Jenkinson. Why did he do that? The second screenshot shows that Sagna anticipated that the pass would be going to the player in front of him and stepped out the line to cut out that pass. Unfortunately, he anticipated wrongly, as the pass is cleverly played to the Nagoya player coming in from the left.

Jenkinson reacts too late to the run and the player gets in behind. Sagna has a bit of a moan at Jenkinson for not going with the runner, which, true enough, Jenkinson failed to do, but equally, that could have been avoided had Sagna kept his position instead of trying to cut out a pass he had little chance of cutting out had it been made (something, incidentally, Vermaelen tried to do against Spurs).

The defending for Nagoya's goal wasn't the greatest, either.



In this first screenshot, we can see how the play developed. The Nagoya forward makes a run across Sagna and in Mertesacker's blind-side. This is actually an excellent run, as it takes the defender's attention away from the other Nagoya forward.



As the cross come in, we can see that Mertesacker suddenly has to deal with the player that has made a run in front of him. Meanwhile, Sagna is caught in two minds between going with that run or stepping out to meet the other Nagoya forward. As a result, the forward is able to get on the end of the cross unchallenged and he scores a good header.

This is where good communication is vital. Sagna should be making Mertesacker aware of the run coming in from behind him so that he can then focus on the other forward making a run. Had Mertesacker focused on the goalscorer, he would have left the other runner in open space.

Nagoya was also guilty of some dodgy defending with a textbook example of what happens when you play a high-line and don't press the player on the ball.



Wilshere has all the time in the world to pick out Walcott's run and it's in situations like that that Walcott is at his most dangerous and the Nagoya left back had all sorts of problems against him. For the third goal, he makes a trademark out-to-in run that to get on the end of Zelalem's pass:



Nagoya are actually set-up well here, but the left back reacts far too late to Walcott's run. By the time he actually reacts, the ball has already been played inside of him and Walcott is through on goal.

Credit to Zelalem, of course, as the pass was exceptional; first the vision to spot Walcott's movement, then the technique to thread the pass through to him.

Walcott makes a similar run again later on:



Again, it's the Nagoya left back that doesn't go with him and again, Wilshere has all the time he needs to play the pass. Walcott should have went and scored and claimed his 4th of the evening, but unfortunately his finishing was a bit off.

To end this lengthy piece, let's look at "the pass" from Zelalem.



It's great vision from him again, but I think it's Akpom's excellent movement that makes this possible. While the Nagoya defence is stepping out, Akpom is alert to the possibility of Zelalem finding him and makes a great run in behind. Zelalem just had to play the ball into space for Akpom to have a chance on goal.

Since Arsenal Player is now free and I'll have access to higher quality highlights, I'm thinking of doing this sort of thing more often (only with more labels and arrows). What do you think?

he is in important phase of development growing his tactical understanding and awareness of his game
physically not ready yet for senior level
looking forward to see him and Crowley in youth team,just if our midfield and attacking options there was already exciting

Jay

Jay ffs

better than watching the match

Jay is inspirational

What a report, better than most Journalist

Jay  

Thanks guys.  

I'll aim to do this sort of thing for next season, then; less text, more screenshots and annotations. They may take longer to come out since I'll be waiting on the highlights, though.

Going to take a look through the Indonesia and Vietnam highlights to see if there's anything interesting.

Danny Karbassiyoon? Is that you?

Blatant bias against New Zico is not approved.

Also your arrow is not as good as Gary Neville's.

I've got nothing on Karbassiyoon. He's a top scout.

I took a look through the highlights of the Indonesia and Vietnam games and didn't find much to comment on. A lot of the goals are down to our players just plain being better than the opposition or from some shockingly bad defending which is understandable considering the level of these players.

I think Vietnam's goal against is worth looking at, though, if only because it involves one of the players in the spotlight right now: Ignasi Miquel.

To begin with, the Vietnam player on the ball (1) has fended off one challenge and is running into the vast amounts of space ahead. Wilshere, the closest player tracking back, appeared too tired to catch up, so 1 had a free run at our backline. In support is player 2, while players 3 and 4 are making runs to occupy the defenders.



The first problem you'll notice is that Ignasi Miquel isn't aware of 2. His focus is, instead, on 1, the ball carrier. Note how his body shape was different to the other Arsenal defenders. In that position, there's no way he can see 2.



As the play developed, Mertesacker decides to stop dropping back to confront 1. He did this safe in the knowledge that run being made by 3 will be tracked by Sagna, who, in turn, knew that the run from player 4 is being covered by Jenkinson. The problem was that Miquel was also focused on 1 while 2 made a run in space he should be covering.



1 made the correct pass to 2 and Miquel didn't have the pace to get across in time to block the cross. Most likely tired at that point, Mertesacker did not follow the run of 1, who ended up unmarked in the box and the lucky bloke who scores a famous goal.

Unfortunately, Miquel did not have the same excuse of being too tired.

Also your arrow is not as good as Gary Neville's.

I'd kick Neville's arse at arrow drawing if I had a fancy table-thingy like he does.

Jack Wilshere has given himself the ultimate fitness test - and insists he has passed with flying colours, writes John Cross in Nagoya.

Wilshere played 45 minutes in his second outing of Arsenal's pre-season tour of Asia as they came through their toughest test by beating Nagoya Grampus 3-1 .

Arsenal midfielder Wilshere, coming back after ankle surgery at the end of last season , did not hold back in the friendly and has been doing tough double training sessions most days to dispel any lingering fears about his fitness.

Wilshere said: "It was tough. I went into a few tackles. But if you don't go in properly that's when you can't get yourself hurt. If you go in half and half you can hurt yourself. So I had to go into a couple of challenges.

"That's my game. I can't ever lose that or I wouldn't be the player I am. Obviously a game is different to training so I had a few aches and pains in other places but the ankle was fine.

[b]"I've been doing a lot of power work when I wasn't able to do the fitness work. So power-wise I'm at the same level as the other players. But fitness wise I'm a bit behind. But it's coming.

"I played 45, I felt good and in the next game I'll hopefully get an hour and then we've got the Emirates Cup and I'm looking to get a full game there.

"Conditions here will help us when we get back to England. There's no air. You're struggling to breathe at times. This will really help us.

"We had a three-day training camp and we needed that because before that it was more about travelling and going to functions. We've come through it and come through the game."

Olivier Giroud, Japanese winger Ryo Miyaichi - who got a hero's reception from the 42,919 screaming fans at the Toyota Stadium - and Theo Walcott were on target as they ran out comfortable winners against Arsene Wenger's former club .

But two of the stars of the trip have been youngsters Gedion Zelalem, 16, and Serge Gnabry, 18, as both came on and impressed. Zelalem's stunning pass set up Walcott's goal and he is already being compared to Cesc Fabregas at the same age.

Wilshere added: "I've spoken about them before, especially Zelalem. He sees passes that not a lot of players can. You think: 'what's he doing?' and suddenly someone is in. He's only 16 and he's an exciting player.

"It won't be long before he's ready. He's so comfortable on the ball. Even in training he's a nightmare to play against. He keeps the ball away from you and shields it. He's not very big but he's strong.

"He drifts in and out of players. He's quite a strong lad and technically he's right up there. He can use his left and right and sees so many passes. He's a good one for the future."

Arsenal boss Wenger was also happy with his younger players but concerned about growing defensive worries. Spanish left back Nacho Monreal could be out for months after damaging a disc in his back during the Confederations Cup.

Thomas Vermaelen, who can double up at left back and centre half, is out for at least three months while Laurent Koscielny also sat out the game in Nagoya with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Wojciech Szczesny carrying niggles.

That leaves Kieran Gibbs as Arsenal's only left back and Wenger admits it is a cause for concern and it may prompt him to go back for Swansea's Ashley Williams to bolster his back four.

Wenger added: "Monreal has had an injection and it looks like he will miss the start of the season and of course we have lost one left back and that's a position where we are a bit exposed.

"Vermaelen can play there, he is injured. Monreal can play there, he is injured. At the moment we only have Kieran Gibbs who can play ay left back."

Mirror