There are often weekends in a season where you look back and say: yes, that was very important for the belief in the project.
Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can call those weekends crucial for a big trophy.
This was one of those good-for-a-cause weekends that have fueled the belief that this season could be there for the taking.
This whole hype is painfully premature, and we should know better. What fanbase has been punched in the alley by Hope more times than us? Not much. But we love to be spanked, masochistic kinks, we invite the pain because maybe we’re just that sick.
But… it does feel different, doesn’t it? This pile of hope has something of something the usual chalk dust lacked: realism. We don’t look at this particular bag of heap and see too many impurities. The product is built with the best defense in the world, it has a powerful midfield with some stardust, and the forward has a lot of potential to be very special.
Arsenal beat Crystal Palace and wrestled another demon from last season to the ground and smothered them with a potato sack. The game didn’t look particularly pleasant, but it had all the hallmarks of this new Arsenal.
Yep, my favorite term here. We lacked bang-BANG in tight games. One of my complaints from last season was that Arsenal tended to get what they deserve from games. Too often we lose even when we make something. Arteta and Berta tried to turn the tide on that front this summer, and the biggest move was Eze. Not really your typical Arteta player. Unpredictable, laissez-faire in style, and a big, big risk taker.
Well, his risk taking split a match that very much felt like it had the potential to be a disappointing draw. Declan Rice threw a ball to Gabriel at the back post, Palace headed meekly into Eze’s path, he beat Wharton to the ball and karate cut high and to the right of the keeper. Dirty things. Absolutely disgusting to do that to your old club.
The goal was different because we don’t normally do things like this. Do you understand me here? It didn’t feel like we deserved the goal in the way we normally should. Until then we had only had one shot on target. For someone to just say, ‘Fuck it, I’m going to do something crazy and it’ll work…’ felt good. Like progress. The sort of thing Liverpool and City do on a regular basis. The kind of things Bergkamp used to do for us. And I really feel like Bergkamp and Eze have a lot of crossover for some reason, even if it’s just the confidence I have that he’ll be there with his magic hat.
It’s quite difficult to write about Arsenal at the moment. As a team we are pretty drama-free. Crystal Palace had 16 shots against Liverpool and hit the target eleven times. Against Arsenal they only hit the target when Eddie came on late in the second half. They registered under 0.5 xG. Mateta looked more Akinbiyi than Drogba – and I think that’s quite an achievement because he’s unplayable at times. Was it because he was terrible? No. It was because Arsenal are simply outrageous at defending.
I don’t want to pick on individuals, and you know if I say that, I’m definitely going to do that, because picking and picking are actually my favorite things to do.
BIG GABI. This man is such a monster. Every game he becomes more Mr Arsenal. There’s a lot to be said about feeling loved where you work, and I believe he feels very valued by the club. He has a big contract, he plays in a defense that he is good at. He is now being recognized as a world-class player and possibly Arsenal’s best centre-back at the moment… and he has been sensational. Just a gift. Saliba leaves at halftime, Mosquera enters. No problem. Big Gabi is here. Hincapié is back in action for the first time in months, no problem, the big man is there. He is a leader, a brilliant defender and one of the most threatening centre-backs from set pieces since John Terry roamed the league.
There was some grumbling, but I’m not going to go crazy. The context for me is a very emotional match against Atletico Madrid a few days ago. It’s hard not to be affected physically and emotionally, especially if you’re Spanish. Zubimendi looked a little rough today. Eighty-five percent completion against a team we had complete control of may not be the standard we expect from a man who pushed 90% against Atletico this week. I guess misplaced passes are fine, but it just felt like the severity of some of his mistakes today were out of character.
We need to talk about the attack in general as it has been under fire for the separation between set-piece goals and open-play goals. Arsenal scored sixteen goals this season; a number of teams have one goal more than us, and at first glance you would have to say that is a good number. But eleven of those goals came from set pieces. That’s 68%. Quite high. Chelsea come closest, with 52% of their goals coming in the same direction. Obviously all the rage bait sites are trying to point out how egregious it is to score so many goals from set pieces, like we broke a law or something. But that puts us at 17th in open-play goals this season, which is quite low.
You might fear that being too dependent on a kind of goal that can be streaky is problematic – we could run into trouble at some point. Luck may run out. One of the most important players who manage the process can get injured. You can also be positive about it and say that we have just seen an opening, like the Warriors did with three-pointers, and we are exploiting it with the best players in the world who can make this part of the game work harder for us.
The bigger concern is open play goals. That was a problem last summer, and we added players like Eze, Gyökeres and Noni to the mix to help with that… and so far it hasn’t really clicked in the way we would have liked for the output. We are underperforming our open play goals xG by 2.36, which is very high considering our total open play xG is 7.36. We’re sixth in the league on the xG number, the real number, 17th.
There is room for improvement, but again let’s add some context here.
Our best creator, Martin Ødegaard, has been absent all season.
Kai Havertz has been injured all season.
We provide a new striker.
The entire team has absorbed eight new players… all while winning.
It is foolish to ask for perfection on October 26th. Complaining about the kind of goals we score is a bit pathetic in my opinion. When you make set pieces the core of your identity and you do it well, that’s a point of praise, not ridicule. We are at the top of the league. Seven away from Liverpool. Six away from City. If you’re dealing with people whining about how we’re scoring goals, then you’re the problem and you need new friends.
It wasn’t a great afternoon for our front three. Saka was sick all week and had a very meek performance. I wish Arteta had played Dowman. Trossard was not at his best. Neither does Eze, if we’re honest.
Then there is Gyökeres. Now I’ll be honest: he has lost 1,000 minutes in a row without preseason. He’s in a new league, a new team, and the level is higher.
But we are now at a point where we should be able to have dispassionate conversations about the pace of development. That was a really bad game for a Premier League striker. The things that worry me most are the things I don’t see changing.
His touch is very heavy and it doesn’t get him into good positions.
He lacks speed, so when he attacks a ball the best he can do is cut back on himself nine times out of 10.
I think it’s a bit of a myth that he gives defenders nightmares with his heavy running and occupying skills. He was eaten by Lacroix and Richards for strength, pace and everything he brought to the game.
He also doesn’t get many shots against teams he should actually do better against. He scored three shots on target against West Ham, Fulham and Palace. In September he scored two shots on target against City, Newcastle and Forest. Liverpool, Leeds and United, 2 shots on target.
Talk to me about running all day, but to me those are table stakes, and we’re not talking about a goal surplus from the wings as a result. In his peak years we drew ready-made. It’s still early, but I hope new attackers make a lot of mistakes in front of goal and are just unlucky. We’re not there yet and it doesn’t seem like it’s improving.
The good people at Le Grove and The AOP keep asking me if I will hold Kai to the same standards – of course. But we need to be clear: Kai was a converted lefty eight, not a natural number nine. But if we look at the series at the beginning of last season with Kai, he scored in four games, adding four goals and one assist. Gyökeres scored three Premier League goals in twelve games in the same period.
If Kai returns, I’d be surprised if he doesn’t get starts, and I’m very curious to see what he will bring to a very different offensive unit. If we are all very happy with the way we play in open play, if we all like the attacking range of passing, then we should all be interested to see how someone like Kai can bring players with better control, more creativity and in my opinion… more speed into the game.
Gyökeres now feels more like an asset to Sylvain Wiltord – and the good news is this: we won the competition with Wiltord.
But that’s all nitpicking, and I’d rather do it when we’re winning, because people say you’re being scapegoated if you say the same things when you lose a game.
Back to the positive news… Liverpool and City dropped big points against Brentford and Villa.
Arsenal complete block four with two big games against in-form Sunderland and Burnley, who are not in form but are well coached. You hope for six points.
Man City’s next two games? Bournemouth (H) and Liverpool (H).
Liverpool’s next two games? Aston Villa (H) and City (A).
Both parties are flirting with the danger zone on the way to the November holidays. If Arsenal can deliver a six-point masterclass, it’s hard to see one of our main rivals taking the full six points in their games.
Arsenal were able to go into halftime with a nine-point lead over both.
Now we can’t book hotels for May yet, but it gives us some breathing space for the three London derbies after the break against Spurs, Chelsea and Brentford… followed by the Unai Emery HATES PEDRO Derby which gives me goosebumps every year.
Anyway, you’d rather be Arsenal now, wouldn’t you?
Yes. Yes, you would.
Okay, that wraps me up for today. If you want a little hit from that On The Whistle podcast, download it below. X
#BANG #BANG #MAGIC #SOOOOO