If our transfer windows continue to be poor and the defensive coaching doesn’t change then why would this season be an anomaly?
We have a novice manager, a board with no plan, a squad that is probably going to lose its only top quality player and performances that would indicate that we are nothing more than a mid table club.
I haven’t seen a game this season where we looked convincing or anything like a top six club.
What is also more of a problem is that we won’t be able to keep any of the few decent players we have have, let alone attract any top quality players to come here.
This is the worst I’ve seen the club, and I’ve have seen us mid table before and unless we get new owners, this will continue.
There is no semblance of a plan or structure from the board.
Everything they do is reactive and lazy, rather than proactive, and they clearly don’t care enough to do something about it.
Unless this changes, neither will our league position.
Trouble is the talent bar is set too low at our club right now. There are only a handful of players at our club that are genuinely decent level Premiership players. The rest are dross or youngsters with low ceilings.
We need to raise the bar on what constitutes playing for us.
Assuming we don’t buy an attacking midfielder like Buendia from the Championship, I think this leaves a lot of opportunities for our younger players, especially if we start lining up with Auba in the middle more often.
With Auba central, the top three players wide or behind the striker are clearly Pepe, Saka, Willian in some configuration. But after that its all kids - Nelson, Smith-Rowe, Willock, and Martinelli (when he returns). If Auba central becomes our default, we’re only one injury to the other three away from potentially starting Reiss Nelson or Emile Smith-Rowe in important league and cup games.
I don’t have much hope for Willock but I still have some for Nelson and Smith-Rowe, and a lot for Martinelli, so it’ll be nice to see them get chances this year, as long as it doesn’t bite us in the ass too hard.
Fuck I hope the two players we don’t register are 7th CB Sokratis and 3rd choice RB Cedric, sadly I think it’ll be Ozil instead of Cedric which is a shame as we could use some form of Ozil’s creativity way more than we have use for Cedric.
Aubameyang Pepe
Saka Partey Ceballos Willian
Tierney Saliba Gabriel Bellerin/AMN
Leno
Willian playing deeper should help him limit his decline, especially with a dedicated full back behind him. Saka can do everything and I think playing left midfield let’s you do that.
Pepe quite often seems too wide to be able to get his shots off, playing in a 2 upfront will mean he’s more central and should be able to get in behind more often. Also means Auba can play on the left without being too wide.
Tbf Bellerin is doing enough to keep his starting spot so I’m not too mad about that right now. However in the big games against the best wingers, AMN should start. He can lock down anyone.
Willock, Smith-Rowe and Nelson will be the depth options supporting Saka in terms of creative attacking which we will have to make do with for now.
However illuminati exists and Arteta learned how to do silly things from the best in the business, that awful bald man.
So I fear this will be the lineup:
With Saka and AMN interchanging that awful LWB role, screwing both in the process.
You could play 4-3-3 with a flat midfield, or Saka and Partey as twin 8s ahead of Elneny, or shift easily to the 3-4-3 with Saka and AMN as wingbacks.
If we can finally get this group of players on the field regularly, and the team hasn’t just completely fallen apart by that point, then I think there is some significant upside for us over the next 10 fixtures or so. We’ve basically played the whole season without our second best attacker (Martinelli) and our best midfielder (Partey).
