ARSENAL DIP: THE PERSPECTIVE YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR
WHY FORM HAS DIPPED AND BOURNEMOUTH WAS THE WAY IT WAS
The beauty of this new membership model is I save my angry/spicy takes—the reactionary, knee-jerk stuff—for the members (read). Today, to LG casuals, I can pretend I’m Mr. Balance, calmly considering things from all angles.
That’s not to say what I wrote yesterday wasn’t absolutely correct. Arteta did what he always does in times of pain… worked his knackered players into the ground to try and get a bounce out of the family cat that’d just been hit by a javelin super sonic missile.
Today, the post is going to take more of a sporting perspective—not to excuse what you saw against Bournemouth, but to give some rationale to the thinking in a game that is still more driven by emotion than data and rational thinking.
I don’t agree with it, but you know my narratives are driven by lots of folk who actually do things at the highest level. That sounds like a patronising point to make, but I can tell you firsthand from being around sport: my views have been totally warped by being around athletes that actually do this every day.
Banging the table about ‘DISGRACEFUL PLAYERS SHOULD RESPECT THE BADGE’ rings hollow when the person shouting it is an auditor at a full body odor relief concept firm. It’s always hard to get into the head of an young pro when you are a fan. It’s life or death for you, it’s work for them. I know what you’re thinking: We need to have a deeper conversation about full body odor care because you have also seen the TV ad for Lume and have questions.
Arsenal are at the highest level in world football now. That’s objectively a fact. You can’t call the manager a rookie. You can’t question weak-willed players. We are about to close out a third year in the Champions League, hopefully a third second-place finish… and we’re in the final four of the Champions League after battering ‘mentality monsters’ Real Madrid by a scoreline that absolutely rocked the world.
Don’t reimagine what we did over two legs against Madrid. They had all their big dogs on the pitch. We absolutely battered them without Gabriel and without an actual striker. If we’re being really honest, we did it with two full-backs who were backups at the start of the season. We had no bench to work with. Bukayo Saka was 60% fit. Don’t reimagine that win as insubstantial, especially if you were telling people we’d get battered before it happened.
No other team in the Premier League could have absorbed the injuries we have and finished in the top four this season. The only reason Man City have been able to creep back into contention is because they spent a quarter of a billion in January… and went out of CL knockout phases immediately to Real Madrid 6-3 on aggregate.
Arsenal has an incredible group of core players. They have a brilliant coach who is the envy of every club in sport. We are one of the hardest teams to play in the world.
But… we’ve had our problems.
One of the biggest is that Arteta is a psycho when it comes to beasting his players.
His tactical understanding of the game is like Johann Cruyff; his load management views would sit well five pints deep with Sean Dyche. Arteta’s religion is ‘man up, bitch’—and it’s been a huge part of our season falling apart. Arteta has even acknowledged this. I wrote at the start of the season that this was one of the most important things we’d need to address to succeed, and I was sadly correct… because we didn’t address it. Liverpool led the way. No summer or January signings, but they hired a manager who understood that fresh players who never get injured was a good strategy.
Ok, back to Bournemouth.
Arteta felt the team lacked rhythm heading into the PSG game. We’ve had an awful couple of months. Second was under threat from a host of teams. We’d just lost to PSG. The manager felt the boys needed a positive outing before they jumped on the plane to Paris.
That was why he rolled with a largely unrotated XI.
Do I think that was the right move? No. Would most High Performance Directors at major clubs agree that was the best approach? Also no. Inter, PSG, and Barca all rotated heavily this weekend. Freshness is the best weapon you can have in the Champions League. A heavy weekend game, like we had, means Arsenal are now screwed if the Paris game goes to extra time. We have no options.
But… that is what Arteta was thinking.
Now for the players’ view.
This isn’t me making excuses for them or denying that you have feelings about football as well. But, you’re a fan—not an employee of Arsenal. You tune in for 90 minutes three times a week. They play those games. Get on a plane or train. Sleep in a hotel. Go to training. Manage their wounds and tears. Football, at any level, is exhausting. There’s no glamour to it. It’s not fun being in hotels all the time. It’s lonely. People you love and respect get annoying. The emotion of the job is extremely dependent on how you’re playing.
When you’re working on a GlaxoSmithKline creative brief for hands-free hemorrhoid cream, the failed pitch doesn’t impact your weekend, until you realise their human mascot earns more than you by A LOT OF DOLLARS. Working in sport, at this level, you can’t escape a shit result at West Ham. Someone is in your DMs wishing a prolapsed anus on your pet dog (salved by Preparation H).
Arsenal players have had a shit season. They were brutalised by PGMOL earlier in the year. The injury gods have been throwing lightning bolts at the players all season (that sever hamstrings), chopping a small squad down to bare bones on the regular. Players know, when they get on a plane, how much harder a game will be without key players.
At some point, we’re all human, and when the luck is running low, and everything that can go against you does, it affects your mental health and sunny outlook. The Premier League has been dead for 7 weeks and the players have known that. You’ve seen a decline in results because the team doesn’t really give a shit about Le Grove saying second would be nice from a ‘symbolism’ perspective. They wanted the league—that’s all that mattered.
Now, the most important thing for them is the Paris game.
The home game was tough. Paris pressed like monsters in the opening 20 minutes. They were sensational. The goal they got was a quarter-chance. But those elite players we have know that the game could have been totally different if we’d buried one of the three major chances we had. But… they had to deal with the reaction. (im)Famous fans giving up. The media narrative being we weren’t good enough despite having a better xG. And the usual bedwetting from an Arsenal fanbase so used to hurt they’re giving up on the next round. Even my dad said this to me today:
‘Pete, I went to bed stewing on the game. I didn’t sleep. I said I’d not watch the next leg. But, now I think we’re going to smash them.’
That’s how we be.
So, now picture this. You’re tired, nursing injuries, and licking your confidence wounds. Who shows up? Bournemouth. Your psycho manager used to play in the same team as their coach, so he has Basque pride on the line. But you don’t want this game. They go man for man, they kick you in the air, they create transition moments that require a lot of running. They might be 10th in the league, but they LOVE playing unfresh elite teams. If you get injured, you’re giving up your moment in history for a double-barreled name Hale-Ender.
Arsenal players didn’t want that game. But they dealt with it. They did enough to win the game. But for the umpteenth time this season… we conceded two goals from extremely low xG chances. Huijsen has no idea what he’s doing and Evanilson probably handballed it in by accident. Say what you want about the game… but Bournemouth scored two goals from two shots on target. It’s hard to stomach that. It’s good luck. It’s not bad defending. How do I know that? Because we have the best defence in the league this season.
If you’re in the Arsenal dressing room, imagine how you’re feeling? Yet another game where you’ve given a team virtually nothing and still managed to drop points.
All that matters to Arsenal players right now is PSG. Arteta knows that if we don’t beat them, it’ll be hard to motivate them to do anything against Liverpool or Newcastle. So he rolled the dice on the players going outrageously hard before they all play the BIGGEST game of their careers.
Are you really shocked, knowing that nugget of info, that the players didn’t have a shot on target in the last 20 minutes? I’m not.
Arsenal aren’t finishing lower than 5th this season. We’ll beat Southampton. Likely get a point from NUFC or Liverpool. Arteta made an emotional decision, like he always does, and it has degraded our chances for the Champions League.
But… if we beat them. Make the Champions League final. Whatever the result, the season has been a massive one. Hell, I’d even say a semi-final this season is massive progress. I suspect most professional Premier League analysts would tell you that Arsenal retaining their position in the league with so many injuries was also a MONSTER achievement. But fans don’t like to hear that.
Tomorrow, I’ll talk about what we do to make sure this NEVER happens again—and you’ll like that post, cause I’ll give you some thoughts on what we’ll do, and they’ll be good thoughts. x
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""His tactical understanding of the game is like Johann Cruyff; ""
You should be locked up and sent to solitary confinement. That is criminal.
Arteta does not just need to rotate, he needs an adjustment to the whole system balance. You can't ask all your attacking players and attacking midfielders to defend like demons just as much as they attack. You have to have at least 2 players who are not asked to run up and down the pitch making 50 and 60 yard sprints all the time if you want to maintain a balanced open play attack and not have injuries all the time. I also believe this is also why we give up goals on low amounts of chances. Our defense relies on our attackers defending a little too much. A bad turnover and that midfielder is not in his gap. or does not have the energy to get back into his gap. Also why I think we fade every season in the last 2 or 3 months.
It's admirable that Martinelli, Saka, Havertz, Ode and Merino and Rice can do it but I fully believe that the amount of injuries we have and the wild fluctuations in form have a lot to do with this. Having a 9 that plays as a 9. And perhaps an attacking mid that is not asked to drop deep, track late runners, advance the ball, lead the press from the front and be available to every counter attack the whole game is not the way to go. Klopp learned this, when he had to dial back the "Rock and Roll" Gegen- Pressing. Slot realized Mo Salah needs to do what he does which is attack at pace not sprint up and down the wing like Saka and Marti tracking fullback runners. It doesn't have to be a huge adjustment but their needs to be some strategic thinking on it this summer.
I don't think it's all player personnel issues like replacing one attacking mid or winger for another if we are asking them to do the same things.