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skipperj

By skipperj
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CooterBrown
CooterBrown

Went to the match today. Attending a game is so much better in person. Sight lines at Emirates are fantastic. Few interesting odd tidbits, to me anyway, were: the clock in the stadium counts down to z

skipperj
skipperj

It’s taken awhile to process this today. I’ve been known to liken Wenger to Mack Brown, but Wenger has won way more than Mack ever did. Both of them should have bowed out years earlier, but Arsène w

skipperj
skipperj
Bone3421

Bone3421 716

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Ted Lange said:
Tough first two games, but it feels a bit like Arsenal is turning into Everton. 

You say that like its a bad thing...everton is 4 league trophies behind arsenal

Everton is a top 5 historical club who didnt luck into gobs of $$$ like some other lesser clubs

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Bone3421

Bone3421 716

Posted
Posted
Since I have been paying attention to English football, Everton has never qualified for the Champions League, generally finish around 8th in the league, despite being a bigger name.  It feels like that’s the direction Arsenal is heading. 
I feel ya ...im just pointing out the only difference from arsenal and everton is the slump the toffees have been in since lat 80's...the 4 league titles that arsenal win in the 90/00's is the difference 13 to 9

Evertons my dads team and half of family in liverpool so just sticking up for them
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Surly Bevo

Surly Bevo 25150

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Bone3421 said:

I feel ya ...im just pointing out the only difference from arsenal and everton is the slump the toffees have been in since lat 80's...the 4 league titles that arsenal win in the 90/00's is the difference 13 to 9

Evertons my dads team and half of family in liverpool so just sticking up for them

Great...hit the Everton thread bitch

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Surly Bevo

Surly Bevo 25150

Posted
Posted

On another note.  I feel like when I watch MO I am watching a player who has completely lost his passion for football.  It's not that he isn't playing at all but he isn't giving all of his heart and soul to things like you need to in order to play to the level he has set expectation wise.  I know he has had a difficult year but I sure hope he finds it, otherwise his juice isn't worth the squeeze.

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Goo Punch

Goo Punch 4275

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The Granit Xhaka Conundrum:

 

Granit Xhaka isn’t just a good midfield passer, he’s a great one. Everything will tell you this, from the most basic statistics to the most advanced ones to your very own eyeballs. The problem, for Xhaka and especially for Arsenal, is that the same instruments will tell you he’s a very bad defender.

 

How essential is Xhaka to Arsenal’s ability to retain and move the ball? He had seven assists last season, one less than team leaders Aaron Ramsey and Mesut Ozil while playing a deeper-lying role. His 82 passes per game led the team, and his 86.9% passing percentage was third among players with more than 1000 minutes played, behind only defenders Laurent Koscielny and Nacho Monreal, a fact which is even more impressive after taking into account that Xhaka’s 4.9 long balls per match are half a pass more than any other Arsenal outfield player played.

 

A more advanced stat, XGBuildup, backs those numbers up. XGBuildup looks at the expected goals of every possession in which a particular player is involved but doesn’t either take a shot or play a key pass (a pass that leads to a shot). In other words, it’s an attempt to measure how players contribute to attacking moves when they’re doing the hard work of moving the ball forward and not the glamorous shooting or assisting. Xhaka led Arsenal with a measure of 0.63 xGBuildup per 90 minutes last season.

 

And sure enough, in the first half against Chelsea on Saturday, Xhaka was able to move Arsenal forward while rarely venturing close to Chelsea’s goal. He completed nine of 11 passes into Chelsea’s final third and 29 out of 35 passes overall. He played a crucial role for an Arsenal team that spent the first half being out-possessed but not out-shot. The new look attacking Chelsea side completed 299 passes in the first half to Arsenal’s 192, but Arsenal outshot the home team 12-9. In a game like this, it helps to have a midfielder who can progress the ball up the field like Xhaka can, playing quickly and accurately to a dynamic strike force.

 

The problem is, Xhaka is also a terrible defender. His range is limited and his defensive anticipation is next to nonexistent. Last season, as Arsenal tried (poorly) to press opponents, he was over-exposed and expected to patrol way more territory than he was equipped to handle. Still, it’s not surprising that Xhaka made exactly zero interceptions and only one successful tackle against Chelsea in the first half of an attacking slugfest on Saturday.

 

Xhaka was bad defensively, so it’s understandable that Emery would choose to replace him with Lucas Torreira at halftime. And in some ways, Arsenal did become more difficult to break down. Rather than trying to step in front of Chelsea and intercept the ball, Arsenal stood off, kept their shape, and defended in their own half. After having eight interceptions in the first half, they only had four in the second, but they blocked five shots, up from one, cleared the ball a remarkable 15 times, up from eight in the first half, and successfully completed 10 of 15 tackles, up from 4 of 8 in the first half. These are signs that the team was focused on not getting broken down and perhaps had the right personnel to do exactly that.

 

But the story on offense was also that of a reversal. Without Xhaka, Arsenal simply couldn’t turn its defensiveness into attacking chances. Though they were heavily out-possessed in the first half, Arsenal was actually quite even in the attacking third, completing 43 passes to Chelsea’s 44. But in the second half, Chelsea completed 108 attacking-third passes while Arsenal completed only 32 of their own. Consequently, despite being a more disciplined defensive team, Arsenal were outshot a whopping 15 to three in the second half. With that kind of volume, it was only a matter of time before Chelsea finally broke through.

 

Arsenal’s conundrum is that while Xhaka is unquestionably a very poor defender in midfield, his transitional passing is also extremely important for the side. His passing, in addition to creating chances, helps relieve pressure and prevent Arsenal from being pinned down in their own half. That’s not exactly a defensive skill, but it’s one that helps a team have to defend less often.

 

If Arsenal are going to contend for a Champions League place this season, this is the major problem they’ll need to find a way to solve. Either the team will have to figure out a way to build a more defensively solid midfield around Xhaka, or they’ll have to build a team that can progress the ball and create attacks without Xhaka on the field.

 

It’s not an unsolvable problem. The team is only in their second week under a new manager, and in Manchester City and then Chelsea, they’ve played a couple of opponents that are uniquely able to exploiting this particular weakness. They are relying on two new and exceedingly young midfielders in Torreira and 19-year-old Mattéo Guendouzi, and hopefully both will improve and either do a better supporting, or supplanting, Xhaka.

 

Arsenal’s 3-2 loss against Chelsea laid bare the problem. Now it’s up to the new manager to solve it.

 

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drt

drt 640

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Enjoyed the breakdown, not that it's groundbreaking news but it laid it out clearly.

I would hope that in games against less dangerous sides than the Man City and Chelsea's of the world we'd be able to play Xhaka and cover for his deficiencies.  It just means that in big games we'd need to sit him and likely play a different style that is more pragmatic.

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GlenFromTheMailRoom

GlenFromTheMailRoom 1613

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3 hours ago, Goo Punch said:

The Granit Xhaka Conundrum:

 

 

 

Xhaka is no doubt a terrible defender.  The issue with losing the Chelsea match was not converting chances from 5 yards away.   By my account the match should have ended 4-3 or even 5-3 Arsenal had we not some shanked those opportunities directly in front of goal.

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Ollie Slatt

Ollie Slatt 289

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Good article.  Guendouzi has showed good passing range.  And Torriera is supposed to be a decent passer who should look better once settled into the club.  I am hopeful the two of them can pair up and negate the need for GX.  As the article points out, that did not really happen in the second half against Chelsea.  But I think it will work given time.  So far Guendouzi has been operating as more of a 6, but he could definitely be pushed up the pitch a bit more.  If those two start to really click (along with AMN once he is healthy), we could have a solid central midfield for many years to come.  

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Buzzrock

Buzzrock 14941

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Xhaka is no doubt a terrible defender.  The issue with losing the Chelsea match was not converting chances from 5 yards away.   By my account the match should have ended 4-3 or even 5-3 Arsenal had we not some shanked those opportunities directly in front of goal.


Shanks by Auba and Mhki definitely hurt
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Goo Punch

Goo Punch 4275

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

as an interloper i rarely post here, but had to troll derka this morning....

derka, if wilshere scores today, how will you feel?

i honestly came into today wanting jack to score. now that we're already down a goal though...

but yeah, my hope was for something like a 3-1 win with jack scoring a belter. so far looks like we could be on the wrong side of a 3-1 score.

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