re: Arsenal 2023/24 Season Thread - Rice, Rice, Baby

We will be lucky to finish top 4.

1 win in our last 7 is unreal tbh, but really these last 3 games are the ones that are brutal.

FA Cup 3rd Round Loss and 2 PL losses. If you look at the xG of the games also we dominate those games. Arteta coached the team to 3 wins in all 3 games, but we just can't put the ball in the back of the net. It is unreal.

Auba won the golden boot, would be nice to have those goals. Too bad he wanted to frick off and was a locker room problem.

We still need a consistent, 20-goal striker.

I really wish we applied some Wengerball principles, as there are opportunities if there is an early ball played, but we always take an extra touch.

On the upside, our offensive structure is superb, and there is always multiple players available for a pass. But we need some variation too. One notable example I saw was when Saliba played Nelson in over the top, which was based off movement from Havertz to the ball, which drew a CB upfield.

There has to be some balance between the structure and creativity. We carve out chances repeatedly, but we also don't change our pattern of play enough to take advantage of that superb structure. We rarely see players carry the ball except in wide positions. Even when Jesus gets the ball and drives toward goals, he often receives it in inside-left or inside-right positions.

I'm not suggesting we change our approach, but when we finally draw teams out we rarely take advantage of that space.

Something hasn't clicked all year and I really don't know what it is.

To me it’s just fatigue.

Need to rotate better. Would be nice to have partey and timber.

odegaard was playing through injury then got a concussion. Sat for a bit and looked much better after that rest.

Ben white has been playing injured.

Martinelli came in and made a few runs then just look like he died again.

Jesus has been in and out injured, I like his style, but we keep buying players that can’t stay fit.


Some of the weak shots and absolute trash corners is tired legs.

Martinelli is having an off season but I don’t know if saka really is. Wasn’t most of his goals in the second half of last season?

Havertz will prob end with close to xhakas goal tally I think he’s half way there.

And odegaard isn’t scoring but I believe he’s created the most chances not resulting in a goal, so he’s setting up his teammates and they aren’t scoring.

Reis Nelson hasn’t really started a game like this in years. I just think it’s kind of like okay throw him in against Liverpool? I don’t know throw him in against someone else and rest Martinelli then. It’s just stuff like that worries me.

Same with esr, what’s the point throwing him on at the very end of games? Or not at all in some games. We are crying out for a goal scorer. What was he going to do after barely playing all season? Score a hat trick in a few minutes?

Finding a solid rotation cycle is something that Arteta has neglected to do. We need to have more variation in our attack in terms of personal. We have some unique players, in that we have players who can play along multiple positions along the front line or in midfield. Yet we don't see positional variance within the structure, which is a pretty weird thing.

Another thing that I notice is that there isn't even a consistent effort to overload specific areas of the field. We are so positionally disciplined that we always seem to remain balanced. That both has positives and negatives, as that positional discipline means players know where their teammates should be, and thus our passes always seem to find feet. The problem is that we can't take advantage of our positional discipline.

For example, we clearly see that MO8 loves to receive the ball in the inside right channel, while Saka's width sees him getting the ball on the right side fairly early in the build-up. MO8 and Saka combine with the RB, the DM and the RCB until either Saka is in an advantageous position relative to his opponent, or until we recycle possession to start it over again. But during these periods of play that is exclusive to one side of the field, the opponent always seems to match our numbers and our positional play is such that working the ball across the field to where other players might have an advantage requires recycling possession. We don't overload situationally and when we have the opportunity, we don't seem to play the overload to help create space horizontally for Saka or MO8.

One reason for this is that our angles are limited by our positional play. There is rarely an angle for MO8 to turn towards the center of the field and play a final ball without significant interplay between he, Saka, and a third player, either the RB or the DM. Not only this, this interplay is slow, purposeful, and methodical and largely it works. But to win the league, we need some variation in the speed of the interplay at some point. We need to create situations for our star players to actually be star players. We need to occasionally let chaos reign for a bit.

It's a hard balance to strike between a methodical possession based team, and being one that can be creative on a whim. But there were times under Wenger we were able to do it, and the main way was through players like Arteta himself, as Arteta was superb at controlling the tempo of the play. It seems odd that his method of coaching doesn't seem to account for the very thing that made him a superb midfielder.

Gabriel on a hat trick, I mean I wouldn’t have drawn it up this way, but I’ll take it.

Doesn’t matter now but they would have called that a penalty on us every damn time.

Love to see Martinelli sent on here to run at that line now. Hopefully get some confidence.

I like that we are making offensive subs here and not content on just keeping this 3 - nil.