Arsenal Vs West Ham

I am sorry to say but it's moyseh again

Say what you will, I like this Arsenal team

Is that the new CB from Brazil?

Yea

so far i am glad he is on loan lol

Ceballos playing well so far

why Nketiah over Lacazette?

Horribly off form

Rubbish football ffs.

All starts with Luiz, Sokratis and Mari playing sideways all the time. Xhaka is moving up to create space for Mari to take it into midfield but his only progressive pass is the big switch to Pepe. Ceballos either getting marked out of a pass or receiving it and taking too many touches.

Then when it does get forward, it's too predictable. Pepe comes inside but has no space because there's no one overlapping on his side. Ozil sticks close to overload that side but the ball isn't being switched to the left quick enough. On the other side, it's the same pass to Saka, every time. Auba's not in the game and Nketiah is getting bullied by Diop and Ogbonna.

It's the same two patterns, every time. The front four is too rigid and doesn't play like a unit at all.

Meanwhile, West Ham should be two or three goals ahead because they've made much better chances from very little possession. All because Arsenal's build-up is so slow and easy to disrupt.

This is so bad

Lacazette 1-0

Finally

Good thing West Ham messed up those chances.

Arsenal really need to give up this idea they can play without a midfield.

Jay29 wrote:Good thing West Ham messed up those chances.

Arsenal really need to give up this idea they can play without a midfield.

I don't really get why Arteta insists on emptying out the midfield in the first place. Xhaka falls back into left back, as Saka runs far away forward to be marginalized, Özil runs to the far right forward to be marginalized, only Ceballos alone in the middle with the ball at his feet for an average of like 8 seconds

Weird tactics.

Especailly since Aubameyang is marginalized too, somewhere left up next to Saka. Nketiah isn't up to whatever Arteta is asking of him, and Pepe then routinely dribbles against 5 people, with decent success tbf, but still

It's lopsided positional play.

Xhaka drops to the left because Saka pushes very high, the other CM stays central as a pivot and the right back is supposed to tuck in to become a third midfielder.

Then, because Aubameyang is playing in-field, Ozil goes to the right half-space to be closer to Pepe.

So it's supposed to be Pepe and Saka in the wide spaces, Auba and Ozil in the half-spaces and Nketiah in the centre space.

But there have been tweaks to it recently. Xhaka was playing deeper, almost as an left sided CB at times, but now he plays higher up. Torreira or Guendouzi was the pivot, but now its Ceballos. Ceballos cannot defend. He can run and put a foot in, but his positioning is shoddy. He plays because he's good when pressed.

What you saw today was Xhaka and Ceballos playing high with neither protecting the middle and West Ham just ran through that space all game. And Arsenal weren't pressing at all up front either so the backline had to deal with everything.

Offensively they're struggling because Pepe, Auba and Laca/Eddie all want the ball in behind or on the run and only one of them can hurt teams on the dribble. Pepe gets the ball out wide and has to beat two or three players just to work the space for a cross/pass when ideally he needs to be 1v1. But he's playing that role because Bellerin has sucked and Sokratis is out of position.

Doesn't help that Ozil and Pepe have zero chemistry.

Well I stopped watching after like 30 minutes, but what I saw wasn't Özil in the half space, but Özil out wide, he then moves a bit infield after he gets the ball, Pepe isn't staying wide though but also running infield so there's not really a good pass on for Özil to Pepe, Sokratis isn't coming for an overlap, and as Özil insists on using exclusively his left foot to pass all that's left to do is pass it back to Ceballos lol

If it were proper positional play shifting, the movement and positioning would serve to make a variety of passes possible
whereas to me it looks like the positioning made most passes impossible, and some repetitive

It's very rigid positional play brought about by the wonky nature of Arsenal's squad. The main idea seems to overload right > penetrate left which makes sense on paper because all of Arsenal's left sided options are attacking wing-backs or wide forwards. But the overload flank just isn't working very well.

It's kinda similar to how Wenger played, but back then he had Ozil in better form and Sanchez on his overload side. Pepe is no prime Sanchez, that's for sure.

Arteta changed it against Newcastle when he allowed Pepe to play narrower and got Bellerin on the overlap. So it was a more attacking set-up with both full backs playing high and three forwards basically but it worked. But I understand he's reluctant to play that way because it leaves his team vulnerable in defence. Also Bellerin's form has suffered a lot lately too.

As I see it, to get the best out of Auba/Laca/Pepe as a trio they need to play as a narrow front three, which requires great wing backs for width and a disciplined midfield capable of covering the flanks (so no 10). But Arsenal don't have that.

I do think Arteta could stand to let Ozil wonder more though because he hasn't been getting on the ball nearly enough recently.

Jay29 wrote:Good thing West Ham messed up those chances.

Arsenal really need to give up this idea they can play without a midfield.

I started reading this and thought it was from the recent game before noticing the date on the post. New year new players same tactics.

Remember the good old days when our midfield would run through the center of the pitch exploiting spaces and using exceptional passes in the build up through the center of the pitch forcing a double team before that one additional pass forward for the score.

Now we sit back trying a long ball over the top. Hoping Auba or ? can run under and pick the ball up with an open lane towards goal. Or we have to try very slow build up down the wings trying to get to a position the we can cross to an overloaded box. IF that does not work we send it back and try the other side. With what seems like limited urgency.

Oh man, I didnt know you guys were still here and this board was still alive... wtf

this match shown how important KT is for us, he basically plays two positions at once while Sead struggling to do one. The amount of running the dude does is crazy, a hybrid LCB and yet sometimes he's overlapping with AMN all the way in final third.

juberish wrote:Oh man, I didnt know you guys were still here and this board was still alive... wtf

Juber

Why have you revived a 6.5 month old thread

because Im a dumbass and dont recognize the format here - looked like the most recent game thread at a glance, apologies