I, for one, would like to see ESR play false 9 again…
Mate I’m sure one of these seasons our best eleven will play every minute, every decision will go our way whilst other teams get decimated.
Arsenal’s record 29-7- 2 = 94 points and a GD + 62. Scored 85 conceding 23 
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Good you say that is an Arsenal tradition because it happened a lot under Arsene Wenger also (not his Highbury days so much).
Arsenal was one of the least injury hit team in the PL this season, and yet look at the excuses pour. Imagine if Arteta had to deal with the kind of injury crisis that Wenger had to regularly deal with, or were as badly affected by injuries as Everton were this season, we would probably have been fighting against relegation.
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Probably a too simplistic view of things. The drop in quality of replacement players is a big factor on the impact the injuries have on the teams performance, especially when you have a young, inexperienced, and small squad. Not defending Arteta here cause he knew what he was doing when he decided to try and operate with a small squad.
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Exactly, Arteta and his supporters always have ready made excuses, like injuries and having the youngest squad, or even when we had to squeeze in a couple of extra games in hand.
But Arteta has been here long enough and spent enough so the responsibility is with him.
The main reason we had so few injuries is because we had no European football and were knocked out of the FA Cup.
If we were short of players in certain positions, that cost us top four, there’s only one person to blame.
He sold Aubameyang and had several useful players out on loan because he couldn’t work with them.
Every other manager in Europe has to get the best out of the players he has at his disposal but it seems Arteta is more special than them and can only work with players hand picked by himself.
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interesting. I am also convinced we stressed the squad quite a bit on top of that, Partey virtually never injured before he came here, Saka playing every game etc. I think the squad ended up at 21 players registred during the second half of the season with a barely functioning starting XI and a bench often consisting of a backup keeper, our most expensive signing of all time and a couple of kids I’d sometimes never even heard of 
I can’t stress enough how badly we need quantity not just quality added this summer. Maybe some of that comes from extending contracts and bringing back loanees, idno but I worry about this a lot, and even more so when they go out publicly and say “last time we went for quantity, now we want quality” 
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Don’t worry, we’ll still sign 4-6 players. It’s just that not all of them will be marquee ones.
Yeah, a couple first XI players and a couple squad players, and we’ll be good to go.
It appears that table was published April 5, so its not really accounting for the time lost to injury of Partey, Tierney, White, Tomiyasu, etc during the run in.
Where we’d end up in the full season data I have no idea. But I think these kinds of counts can also be pretty deceptive, as its treats every player the same. Losing Partey for 10 matches is more impactful than Spurs losing a player like Japhet Tanganga for 30 matches.
Found one with end of season stats, although it isn’t as detailed as the previous one.
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The more I think about this move, the more I’m trying to figure out what the plan is.
We had Lacazette playing at forward most of the season. He was praised for working hard, dropping deep, holding the ball up and linking play. What he didn’t do was score goals. He’s not a big guy who can occupy defenders and can’t run.
We switched to Eddie who can run a little more, can occupy defenders a little but still isn’t a really big guy.
So now we’re chasing a guy who a similar physical profile to Eddie, played 13 matches at CF last season and scored 8 goals (4 in one match against Watford). I like a fluid front line but I just don’t see how we’re able to change matches if we have Jesus, Eddie and the same guys from last year.
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No idea how its calculated but it seems pretty deceptive.
Just look at Arsenal vs Spurs for example, two sides that really had a first XI and not much depth beyond that.
The only significant injury Spurs had to a first XI player after Conte arrived was to Romero, who did miss a couple months in December and January. Son had a minor injury but missed only one league match, Dier also missed a couple league matches, I think Bentencur missed one too. If you count Doherty as a first XI player, then he missed some matches too.
Even just counting from around the time Conte arrived to make the comparison fair, for Arsenal Xhaka missed 4 league games after that point, Partey missed 9 league matches, Tierney missed 10 league matches, Tomiyasu missed 12 league matches, White missed 3, etc.
I wouldn’t cry about it but I’m not having the idea that Arsenal were luckier than Spurs with injuries just because Japhet Tanganga, Oliver Skipp, and Bryan Gil and some other backups or peripheral players were technically on the injury list much of the year.
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We improve our midfield options so that we can dominate games and have genuine goal threats in the team. Lacazette carried next to no goal threat - Eddie isn’t a huge threat either. Martinelli is a goal threat and our top two players in output were ESR and Saka. Replace Laca’ 4 league goals with 15 plus from Jesus and add another forward capable of 15 plus (Sterling, Gnabry or Richarlison would be great) and things can change quickly.
I know what you mean though. Doing the same as last season and swapping Laca for Jesus isn’t enough.
Bring in somebody who can cover for Partey, a midfielder who can beat the press and better cover than Tavares and our whole team functions much more fluidly.
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Agreed. To be honest Can’t wait for the day Son and Kane leave the scum no matter how much money they get for them two players Spurs will never be able to replace that partnership. Both players are the main reason for they have finished above us in the league in recent years.
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Football Manager regen, surely.
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If we get Jesus and either Sterling or Richarlison, it would be a great window.
But with so many clubs looking for a goal scorer, just getting one is going to be difficult enough, let alone two decent PL experienced players.
I’m not convinced that Jesus is what we need but the quality and experience of Sterling or Richarlison would make an impact on our first team immediately.
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What experience does Richarlison bring. Never hit more than 13 League goals with penalties anywhere he’s been.
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But his aggressive attitude and winning mentality is something we’ve lacked.
If he can still get goals and assists at the worst Everton team most of us have seen, he would do a lot better here with the quality attacking players we have.
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Well he can’t of assisted much if it took 37 games to avoid relegation.
He cost 50 million quid when he first went and done nothing much.
I mean you put him and Sterling in the same bracket.
People are zoning in on a couple of goals that kept them up a few games from the end.
There’s nothing to see here.