I have ZERO confidence we can get 30 league games out of Partey or Tierney next season. I would go as far as saying making any plan for next season that requires them two players to feature in more than 50% of our league fixtures is suicidal.
As for Tielemans, not his biggest fan. We need a consistent performer in the middle, someone that will give a 7/10 performance in most games. And there are question marks over his defensive work.
Yeah I’d like to see Smith Rowe rotating in there and us sign a new LW.
But an improved DM backup to Partey with mobility would be good like Bissouma/Ndidi, he could play also play as 8 alongside Odegaard/Tielemans in harder games as necessary.
Not sure we needed any more front footed midfielders, or at least not any without strong defensive attributes
“negotiations will take some time”
FFS. This has all the hallmarks of your average Arsenal transfer. Weeks and weeks of speculation culminating in the club paying the original asking price and the player showing up late to preseason.
It’s Leicester mate, they’re known for being hard to negotiate.
Can’t escape it.
Thought he was a decent player when he was younger but haven’t really paid much attention to him at Leicester other than when he gifted Spurs a goal earlier this season.
Obviously decent passer, he won’t have lost that but how is he positionally and defensively? Partey isn’t an all out DM (far from it tbh) so whoever partners him can’t be shit defensively.
I never liked him off the ball, I found him to be the weak link every time we played them.
He certainly needs runners around him. I think his best periods came with Ndidi in the side.
I think Arteta could be a manager that can get the best out of him and straighten him out a bit.
Xhaka was shit defensively too and he certainly improved that aspect of his. Kolasinac used to be literally useless at defending and he turned the man into a not so poor defender(still an improvement 
) that can fill in at CB.
Philippe Auclair was on the Arsecast and spoke very highly of Tielemans but highlighted that he was a smart player in a situation at Leicester that needed a little refresh.
I’ve seen the clips of him getting ghosted on a break and that worries me a lot because I think we’re going to continue playing with only one holder when everybody is healthy (insert joke here).
But if he’s able to help us play higher up and increase the amount of danger on our left, then I think it’s a good thing.
It doesn’t really help if he’s the only midfield signing in my opinion, but I think the Elneny move makes it clear that he is going to be the only one.
Getting the best out of players isn’t one of Arteta’s strong points.
Like with Aubameyang, Lacazette, Guendouzi, Saliba, Bellerin, Torreira, Willian, Ozil, Pepe, etc.
Respectfully disagree. For all of those examples you mentioned you have more cases for guys that he improved like Odegaard, Saka, Nelli, ESR, White, Ramsdale, Xhaka, etc.
Arteta has improved our players’ defensive ability tremendously. We went from conceding to 51 with the likes of Mustafi, Sokratis, Bellerin and Kolasnic to conceding a measly 48 with the likes of Gabriel, White, Tomiyasu and Tierney. Did I mention that he did it with such a young and delicate squad?!
I give Arteta credit for ESR and relative consistency with Xhaka that’s it really.
Saka and Ode would thrive anywhere if given a chance. There’s nothing unique about Arteta’s coaching that has taken players to a new levels
I guess you forgot we used to concede 20-25 chances against bottom 10 teams under Emery before he fucked off, and then Arteta came in made most of that lot put respectable defensive performances to win us the FA Cup.
He even convinced some of us for a brief period that Dani Ceballos was a good player until his true level got exposed.
Don’t get me wrong, I definitely wasn’t a fan of our defensive record under Emery, but doing better than the worst doesn’t make you good. 3 seasons in and we are barely less leaky than that horrible defense, even after an investment of well over £100M in our back 5.
I don’t think you can just look at goals conceded from the last two years. We were extremely conservative in our play in 20-21, with one of the lowest pressing frequencies in the league and often not putting many players into attack. We played a lot higher up the pitch last year, pressed a lot more often, and that translated into significantly better chance creation and time spent in the final third (which we didn’t translate into goals very well, but that’s another problem). But that approach will always be riskier too and you’ll concede goals simply because you’re playing higher and putting more players into the attack.
But overall that was a really important step to take. To have any chance of real success in the PL, you have to learn to be a team that plays high up the pitch and tries to dominate territorially. And to do that you need defenders who are athletic enough to play in space and handle themselves in 1 v 1 situations.
Well, that’s true but there is a clear improvement defensively in our play. When our best back 5 was fit we had one of the best defences in the league.
Even so, we still defend well regardless. There’s only so much a coach can do to help the team out. We concede very few chances, barely any big ones. When you do that and somehow still concede a goal or two then you either lack a lot of luck or individual errors cost you.
There’s so much you can do with certain players. You can try and keep them in check for 90 minutes, but there will always be a lack of focus or lethargy from certain guys.
An example, you have a backline of 3 guys deploying a perfect offside trap and one individual that @Phoebica loves(and I’m not talking about Bellerin) who had a good overall performance far gets caught slacking, gift a chance to opposition and you concede then you really can’t do much else. You can’t perform brain surgery on these guys.
This is why I use Kola as an example, went from a useless defender to a poor one. He can offer something but he’s still shit. He’ll still have that brain fart like in the NLD.
Auba - behaved like a plank
Laca - shit no matter the manager
Guendouzi - I don’t think his ceiling is as high as some think
Saliba - hasn’t worked with him yet in order to be able to get the best out of him. We will see
Bellerin - according to most on this forum, he is slow and shit, so what is Arteta supposed to do there?
Torreira - just didn’t settle in England. It happens
Willian - lazy prick just wanted a payday
Özil - his cycle expired. Arteta dealt with this well
Pepe - probably should have been given a bit more game time, but he’s just not that good
You’ve basically listed a group of players who were partly responsibly for the rot that had set in. We needed a clear out and got it. Arteta has done well with the young guys and the new ones who came in.