Until the classic 0-0 at The Emirates when AFTV and other stupids, in favour to keep all the smaller strikers and sell Giroud, will pretend to have a proper number 9 on the bench.
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In my mind If you want to improve the proficiency and quality of our football there far more issues to deal with in CM and RW than at CF.
In any case that says nothing of organization, mentality and tactical problems coming from the manager.
Hate this idea that with Laca our football all over the pitch suddenly improve when our attacking record isn’t our biggest issue. I’m much more concerned about the efficiency of our transitions and defensive organisation throughout the 90
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Smaller strikers can be good headers still. Improving the first team football will provide more results on the long term than depending on a plan B. Or at least has more priority. We’re slow, uninspirational, predictable. Let’s solve those fundamental flaws first.
I haven’t seen anybody claim that with Lacazette, only, stuff will get better. People have been screaming for a CM for ages now. However a player who provides speed, mobility, agility combined with good technic and goalscoring ability can make us play better.
Hah you caught that huh 
, I thought it seemed a little too good to be true but if this guy is followed by multiple journos like you say it might actually have some legs, fuck it, it’s going back up 
The fact is that this line up doesn’t work for us anymore. It will be interesting to see what Wenger would do.
It’s worked far better (and worse) than a back 3 has for us.
I really don’t understand why people think a back 3 is our salvation. We’ve had strong ends to seasons before not playing a back 3. Right now it’s just a formation we’ve used that happened to help us grind out some wins. Play it for 38 games + Europe and we’ll start bottling games again. For now it’s still an experiment.
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Agreed. We’re gonna have to find the system best suited to our group of players come August. The main relevance a back three will have into the future will be as an alternative option as far as Wengers thoughts go.
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Surely Wenger knows, or at least has planned what formation he wants to start with next season, now? Buying players to accommodate positions that need strengthening etc. For example, where will he be playing Mbappé in the 433 or 4231? 
Mahrez was such an exciting player in that incredible season. Every game I’d tune in just to see him and Vardy serve up pure counter-attacking entertainment. So much skill and flair. Those goals against Chelsea and Man City were fucking magnificent. Would love to see him in the red and white.
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Because
- It allowed Sanchez and Ozil to stay further forward
- The 3 at the back gave us more protection (before we would leave 2 at the back with DM floating in no mans…
- It finally gave the Ox a home after many years of limbo
- It allowed Nacho to play CB comfortably with two others protecting him
- And most importantly, no position for Lolcott.
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It’s always been said wenger doesn’t like 3 at the back as it’s too defensive but with nacho at LCB and mustafi at RCB the fact they are also both very good fullbacks allows us to basically play 1-6-3 or 1-7-2 when we are really piling on he pressure
Yeah but in a back 4 Alexis got 20 goals as a winger, Ozil should’ve broken the league assist record. At the start of the season our front 4 looked deadly and we ripped Chelsea a new one. When Song was deployed as a sitter he did pretty well and when Coquelin came back from loan our midfield looked the most solid it’s been in years.
If you’re only judging stuff in isolation when it’s good then it’s easy. I hope this can last long but I still don’t trust this team.
Ok I take it all back. You win.
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It also gives Xhaka the platform around him to fulfill his potential.
Not to mention when we rocked the 3-4-3 we won 9 of of last 10 games beating the likes of Man City, Utd & Chelsea along the way as well as two of our bogey teams too (Southampton & Stoke away for the first time in the league since 03/04 & 09/10 respectively).
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MM you’ve been following arsenal long enough to know that we stumble upon things which are serviceable and get us results in the short term. Look at us playing theo up top for a few months in 15/16(?) it dosnt mean that it is long term the only way for us to play.
Our underlying stats wernt greatly improved with 3 at the back if i recall. I completely dont agree it is the only way for our team to play. As ever with arsenal we can put the same 11 players down on the pitch and get wildly different performances based on the time of year.
I’m not ruling out 3 at the back but as a team which is so confidence driven it’s as close to certainly that if we start with 3 at the back we will ditch it some time next season when we go on one of our long arse performance droughts. Its not like the players were executing 3 at the back perfectly or anything and it all clicked we just got some decent results in and things pick up from there.
We have spent longer periods of the season over the years playing different variants of 4321 and 433 and looked insanely impressive. An on the whole quite unimpressive seriers of results with 343 dosnt mean its the new formation saviour imo.
With arsenal its simply about confidence and organic synergy between players on the pitch. ie caz/coq ramsey/giroud alexis/ozil.
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Why can’t you just like my post like everybody else 
No seriously, I totally get that and you’re right, it does have a hell of a lot to do with confidence. But sometimes that confidence comes from swtiching things around and dropping certain players - that is what the manager is paid for after all.
I was only pointing out the positives in the change in formation, and to be honest I don’t think any foresaw the drastic effect it had on us. For example who knew the Ox would take to RWB like a duck to water. I agree it’s not the be and end all, but it bloody works and works well for us. Not many of the players changed in the line up, but we looked a much better team. We were so, so bad towards the last few games using 433, something needed to be done, glad it came late then never.
Anyway formations are always changing during the match, they are fluid. Formations are just a graphic sky sports like to use pre-match. 4-3-3 would be 4-2-3-1 when defending and basically 2-1-4-3 when attacking. For me it’s more about the individual roles of a player on the pitch rather than formation. In the our latest formation, players seem to have more defined roles and know their job. When we played 4-3-3 we would often get countered to fuck at almost every opportunity… I’m sure there are stats out there that show we’ve faced less shots since changing.
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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-rYnIYXoAEXrpA.jpg 
Couldn’t find our game vs Everton so this one’s just for me 
It takes a little digging but they’re on @11tegen11’s twitter - https://twitter.com/11tegen11?lang=en-gb
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thank God you are here.