With a bit of good luck with injuries we’ll be fine. 12 of our last title winning squad played in over 30 matches. And they had Oleg Luzhny and Igor Stepanovs as back ups in defence and we also had some young stars who broke into the team like Fabregas and Van Persie.
If all goes well and some of our squad and U21 players step up when called upon (like Vieira did last weekend) then we have a good chance at winning the league.
Amazing that 3 weeks ago I felt so good and couldn’t believe how much quality and depth we had in defence.
Fast forward 3 weeks and we’re only the usual Tomiyasu and Zinchenko injuries away from being on the cusp of seeing Cedric.
Don’t forget Tomiyasu might be going away in January for the Asian Cup. We’re already going to need to buy in January.
It just makes me wonder about that story from Football Weekly or The Athletic (can’t remember which) that Chelsea were shocked at the number we bid for Havertz. Maybe we should have been a little more strategic with that deal and wouldn’t have had to rely on dumping bench scrubs on loans to generate money for an end of window signing.
If we’re even one defender short in January, we clearly need to bolster the squad in the short term.
I’ve not watched Walters recently so I don’t know how he’s progressing. Is it possible that he’s a better right back than Cedric now?
I would hope that we’ll see a break-through from the U21s this season, I want to see someone with a stupidly high squad number taking the place of a regular again a la Saka/Pepe.
Longterm we need
No 8
Another striker and I’d sell Eddie. Need real competition at the striker position.
The truth is, we’ve been struggling since the pre season.
A few in the past games have been saying “doesn’t matter how we win, as long as get the 3 points.”
Well it does matter how we play, because 3 points are not always guaranteed, what gives us guarantee in comparison in a more solidified manner is we consistently play good football.
The football we have been playing has been predictable, strong in possession, starting attack from Odegaard to Saka.
However in the past two games what has been concerning is lack of dominance in possession, we have allowed teams to dominate us in possession which is so odd to see.
The other long term issues are: conceding silly goals, weak at the Emirates. Not testing the opponents’ keeper enough. Injuries are injuries, Manchester United for the past 2 years have been struggling with injuries yet they seem to be doing ok for their level, so I am not going to complain as we have depth.
What we do need is a clinical striker that defenders fear. It’s going to be a long season.
Unfortunately we don’t know what depth we have because ESR is getting cameos, Nelson isn’t making it off the bench enough and Nketiah keeps getting picked because he’s doing well in training but doesn’t really fit any of our systems. Eddie is a great player to give you options off the bench but hasn’t done enough to start up front in the big games for me.
Meanwhile proven game changers ESR and Nelson are slowly moving towards the exit because they’re not being given a chance.
Arteta’s failure to rotate more regularly is causing apparent exhaustion for the likes of Saka and Odegaard who were seriously off the pace yesterday. Each member of the 25 man squad should be capable of contributing to a successful season. If there are weaknesses within that squad, if there are players we’re not prepared to throw on to change the game, then that’s on Arteta now.
I still think Arteta will improve his squad management but the path there could still have some nasty bumps so thoughts of the title this season should be forgotten.
I also think he lacks a strong assistant who will question his crazy plans.
Not to ignore you entire post, which is well thought out and detailed, but we are better than we have been in many years. If this is set to be a long season, I dont even know how I’d describe the past ten seasons or so when we were way worse.
Generally speaking, I think a bit of perspective is needed, we’ve got a great squad and are still unbeaten and well placed to have a good season.
Personally, I’m excited to see how we do this season, there’s loads to feel optimistic about.
The whole “we got worse” narrative is incredibly lazy.
It’s honestly rosy retrospection. We used to play some fantastic football, but so we can now too.
We didn’t blow teams away for the 90 minutes either last season. Just like this season, we had periods where we were playing champagne football but there big chunks of games we either passed the ball around without real urgency or just sat back and absorbed the pressure.
Arteta absolutely hated having to call upon his bench too with the shitters we had. And that was without any major injuries too.
We’re a much better team now than a year ago purely on the strength in depth we finally have. Had City not looked as impeccable as they are now, people wouldn’t be so down on Arsenal.
We’re certainly stronger in depth but the only real first team upgrade was Rice replacing Xhaka.
So with players like Trossard, Jorginho, Raya, Timber and Havertz, we’ve got plenty of depth to contend with the CL games and the players have had a season to get used to the way Arteta wants them to play.
But we still lack a couple of game changers upfront and I still think a player like Maddison would have made more of a difference in our attacking play than Havertz.
I also think that at some point Jesus needs to be upgraded to a more efficient goal scorer but clearly that is going to take up a massive amount of our budget so it might mean we’ll have to sell either him or Nketiah.
Fully voice what you say, definitely when we put things into perspective, we are in a far better place.
But my assessments are made from 2nd half of last season to now, and the signs I’m seeing are worrying. We are seeing patterns which need to be addressed and can be addressed.
I think it’s just frustrating because we have a good group of players, strong foundations and incredible run last year; expectations naturally change. But the manner we are conceding goals, showcasing patterns just isn’t what I expected. We are much better than that.
How much of this do you reckon is from Arteta trying to get the team to adapt to different types of gameplay and they aren’t there yet…learning new roles so to speak? Arteta did mention he wanted lots of different plans for differing situations maybe the players ar struggling a bit as they are learning new things to do.
Rice has more or less replaced Partey IMO as naturally both are no 6’s.
Don’t think we’ve really placed Xhaka adequately as of yet, Arteta had this idea it would be Havertz which isn’t really working out yet, maybe it’ll end up being Fabio who knows ? Unfortunately I think it may still require some big money spent to get the desired player in that position.
Fucking shame we couldn’t get Gundogen over the line for a couple of seasons.
I think it was more about how we accommodate both Maddison and Odegaard. If there would have been some way to do it, with only one DM behind them, it would have been nothing short of glorious (I just feel it would’ve made us susceptible to the counter attack and punished more often than not)
We finally have depth! And if we can improve the output from Havertz & Eddie, I think we could be good for a few yrs.
Timber will be starting ahead of Zinchenko, imo
Yeah competion is really strong for all three positions on that left side.
That is about as strong as any second team in the PL.
Ramsdale, Partey, Jorginho and Trossard would walk into the first teams of most other clubs.
Would folks be happy if we sold any of the above in January if it meant bringing in Ivan Toney?
