https://twitter.com/HaytersTV/status/1771249689804804571
His English is very good. I didn’t expect this considering he spent little time in England. Bit like Joao Mario.
What does second ball situation mean?
It’s when a velociraptor is getting ready to claw your dick and balls and you have to choose which ball to lose and which one to keep.
Hence second ball situation.
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ffs we need to get through this international break asap
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Best example of it
Ah right, we have been exceptional at that.
I think all of this second ball stuff is just plain basic, bread and butter stuff that’s been there since the begining of the game, just trying to get pushed like some inovation atm and highlighted a bit too much.
It’s impossible to be a dominant top team if you’re letting those balls go to the opponent, just like winning/losing your duels, having accurrate, quick passing etc. Just one part of simply having the ball/possession.
Obviously you can’t have a lot or possession if you aren’t winning those second balls too.
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I don’t think it was as efficient or considered a critical gameplay element in the 2000s.
It has reached a different level in recent years.
I also liked Arsene’s game management when Arteta & Ramsey played together. We didn’t care for the second ball. We allowed teams to have some luxury to play so they could come out of their block & open up spaces.
Not managing a high second ball win ratio is not a bad thing if you strategise for it.
I think it was.
Go look at our games in that era and the way our front line was poaching, hunting and winning those balls. Ljungberg, Parlour, Vieira, Gilberto (btw looking at some of those games in recent years I was surprised how hard even Bergkamp worked when we didn’t have the ball).
Or that 06 CL team, or even that 08 team.
The game is obviously becoming more intensive all the time, many elements became just more pronounced… Overall pressing mostly. Winning those second balls is just a part of that pressing/intensitity that’s constantly becoming more… Intense.
Btw it’s a war crime to even bring that Arteta/Ramsey team into discussion because we were on absolute amateur level on so many basic segments of the game at the time (including the collective pressing, ball winning, transition etc).
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I disagree.
That team lost just one game out of the last PL 16 games in the 2012-13 season.
We began poorly, which is understandable because we lost Persie and had to accommodate Giroud, Podolski, and Cazorla as new additions.
But once we got going in December, we were really efficient and collectively very good in pressing, ball winning and in game management.
Not capable of winning big games but “amateur level on so many basic segments” is ridiculous.
What I had in mind was more the team over those few years (2012-2015ish, including Ramsey, Arteta etc, didn’t refer to that exact period.
That team from the second half of 2012/13 was acutally our most balanced and compact team in those years (not very fun to watch though).
Mostly because Arteta still had some legs in him left and still was a very good CM/DLP (a bit like Jorgi atm) and Ramsey was still acting as an actual midfielder, before he started unleashing his inner Inzaghi in the later years. Also it was before his injury, his work rare was massive at the the time, and he was one of the most successful ball winners in the league in that year.
Alhough overall, I still wouldn’t praise that team too much. We managed to squeeze a good run of results at the time, just to get top 4. But that wasn’t a team (or way of playing) worthy of some special praise.
That was more like some in form Everton/West Ham stuff, not elite title winning stuff, we’re displaying atm.
What I had in mind was more our general organization and shape in those years… Regularly seeing Ramsey, Giroud/Welbz, Alexis running after the ball like dogs, getting stretched all over the pitch with no chance to win ball, just losing energy, with the rest of the team just jogging behind them and watching.
Now that was some proper amateur stuff. While also leaving huge gaps all over the pitch and getting stretched by mediocre teams all the time.
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Agree. Once Ramsey started going Hollywood, we were never organized.
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Once we allowed Ramsey to be that maverick, we lost the discipline in midfield and control of the game (in terms of results, not possession).
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One of the fundamental pillars of our game is our attitude to duels. Contesting and battling with an intensity that basically no other team can match. All the defensive metrics show us as being massively dominant. It’s remarkable.
If you don’t fight like a dog for every ball then Mikel is not going to give you minutes.
My concern is how we maintain that level of intensity.
We have lots of important players, but I’m starting to believe that Ødegaard is actually our most important player. He is the conductor, the general on the pitch who demands excellence, and leads by example in terms of intensity, pressing aggression and commitment to duels. Rice is also excellent at this (better in terms of duels obviously) but Ødegaard leads our team like a lighthouse. He has to stay fit.
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This was a problem ever since Wenger adopted a one-striker / three man midfield system. From 09/10 until he stepped away from it in 17/18. Funny enough Arteta is showing exactly how it should be done by keeping the pitch tight, more players behind the ball when attacking, high pressing. Basically everything that was a fundamental weakness during those eight seasons has been done correctly these days.
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