If I didn’t support Arsenal, I’d choose Arsenal: Season Review (Part Two)

If I didn’t support Arsenal, I’d choose Arsenal 

Season Review …Part Two (of 3)

 Part One – for those who haven’t read it.

POSITIVES:

• Arsenal are at least one year ahead of schedule. Arteta cannot say publicly but after such a good start he likely changed his goal for the season. I think he saw the opportunity to win the league and decided that it was only possible if he played to the advantage of ‘Team.’ Knowing City had a better squad I think he thought that his first choice 11 could compete and so he picked the same team most weeks. We had by far the fewest changes to our team in the league. It didn’t work but what it has done is create a true team. That is in some regards a coaches dream. Especially Mikel. When you coach based on patterns, rhythms and automatisms a whole game can be thrown off by a player or two not being in sync. At the height of the season there was an argument that Arsenal were the smoothest and best organized team in Europe. Many of the big boys struggled in Europe this season so that helps too. In retrospect I like that the team of 2022/23 can be named from 1-11. That is extremely rare and has been for 20 years. So, even though fatigue and picking the same team may have cost us the league, it has given us a fluid team. Also, I’m not sure if for example we would’ve picked let’s say Vieira instead of Odegaard/Saka, that we even get to April in the top two.

• Perhaps my favourite part of watching this team are the clear standards they have. You can see how well coached they are by the consistency in these standards. How often did you see a player give up? It’s really hard to remember even one. Our opponents don’t have the ball much. This is because we instantly chase and stop them from getting their head up. I suppose this is part of the non- negotiables. I like them. I’ve had these for most of my coaching career but under a different name. It is really very difficult to stand by them as you can lose games because the wrong player broke code. As Arteta has been given the true backing of his owners he knows that he can lose games and not suffer a knee jerk reaction. This is the way it should be. Give a man time to set the standards and then the players will realize that they aren’t just words. I remember back in 2003 seeing a coach have his players juggle in the warm up. He told me that the last 11 to drop the ball started the game. He taught me that this helped them deal with pressure, understand accountability and ultimately made them more technically competent with both feet. He said that his players parents would often complain but he stood his ground. I never found out how far his team went but you could watch and admire the single mindedness and predict the long term benefits. If I had one word to describe Arsenal it is ‘serious.’ Maybe that’s because I have the contrast to Wenger’s second half of his reign to compare to. They weren’t anywhere close to being this serious hence the wild inconsistency.

• Ultimately it comes down to points and position. Both were good. Very good. Unexpected. Dramatic improvement in both areas. 

Alongside my first thought, this short tracks our long term plan as it puts us not only in the bracket of teams that potential signings would come to for CL football, but we now can realistically say that we are contenders for titles. I honestly think that the Champions League is closer than the Premier League. If Milan and Inter, who are both inferior to us, can get to the semis and final then we can. I’ve watched a lot of European football this season and only Napoli had the same level for an extended period. The fact that it looks like Declan Rice will choose Arsenal over Chelsea, Manchester United and Bayern  Munich is proof enough.

• On the field we are doing elite things. We could give any team in world football a close game due to our attitude, talent and modern thinking. If you were to ask the other PL coaches what they found difficult about playing Arsenal, I’d say that the fluidity of the front line but particularly dealing with Zinchenko were the hardest. Our coach is in a very small group of elite thinkers. Some of those can think but not translate it to their players. Others can but don’t have the same standards. Mikel Arteta is close to the final package. We are blessed.

• I don’t think that the Partey at right back deal was just because of injuries. I think that the next evolution of our team is to have a few ways of playing that make opponents preparation very difficult, if not impossible. For at least two days of every week there is a team talking to and preparing their players for what they will face against us. Imagine not knowing if our right back or left back inverts? If we will play Trossard inside or out? If we are going to play with three or four tall centre backs or not? If we are going to play a dribbler, passer, connector or presser as our 8’s? If we are going to sign a target man, then he gives a completely different look to our current options. I have a feeling that we will see more ball carrying from our centre backs which always causes havoc as opponents have to step out of shape. It sounds like ESR will play, but where? They’ve been working quietly with Martinelli as a striker. When do we see this? 

I just love that we may well add this unpredictability and waste opponents training sessions practicing for a team that didn’t show up. Football is now a coaches game and this is likely part of the next evolution.

• When you think of the best of Arsenal, we are a club that competes and plays the beautiful game along the way. We have returned to this. The early Wenger teams are largely responsible for the country I live in having ‘Arsenal’ as the most popular name for youth teams. Such credit to Mikel Arteta for combining all he has to do with the thing we want him to do. It seems that maybe the most common complaint from rival fans is that they don’t like how their team play. I’m glad I chose to support Arsenal as the majority of my life, we have been a delight to watch.
• Where in the world can you find a team of mostly young players that are probably all in the Top 10 in their position? Example; Look at this…

Three play for Arsenal and one (Wahi) may soon. As I write, Balogun is playing Wahi in his last game for Reims. Balogun has one goal and Wahi has two.

If in doubt, start again and build a team for the future. Arsenal did this but also discovered a team for the present.

• So many are afraid to praise the ownership. Probably because they went too extreme on them previously and don’t want to say that it’s ultimately worked out. I am not a business head, so I don’t fully understand, but it is totally clear that they did not want to fully invest until they owned the club outright. Everything changed at that point if you’ll remember. Because we don’t fully understand, it’s ok to admit that. We should then temper our emotions and try to be a little more realistic or at least educate ourselves. Since they have owned the club outright, they seem to have given Arteta exactly what he has asked for. That is one most fan bases our baking for and we have it. I’m not saying we should make a chant about Josh Kroenke and his wonderful Star Trek beard, but at least be thankful.

NEEDS:

• Blitz. That’s the word. Ruthless. That’s the other. Arsenal need to ruthlessly blitz teams when they go sad face. All the best teams all over the world win by 5 goals at least once a month. Bayern, Real Madrid, PSG, City, Barcelona and Me vs Max in the basement. Brutal way to teach adversity to your son. Arsenal are capable of this. Arsenal do this once in a while. I want Arsenal to be known for this. Then we are really playing with big boy pants on. How do we do this? You sign Rice and Caicedo. I think attacking transitions and duel winning are the two main reasons we are after these two. Why? Because football being a coaches game now, coaches rely on control. A football match will never produce 95 minutes of total control. It’s when you win it back that the mouth starts frothing. So, go buy the best pick pockets you can find. We already have two quick wingers that we could utilize on the break more. This area of improvement isn’t at the top of the tree because we are rubbish at it, it’s because we are 60% of the way there and it’s leaning into a strength we already possess. A very well organized press and a bunch of junior thieves. If it were me I’d combine these pick pockets with Balogun on the field. When the opponents get desperate, get him on. He was born on the shoulder of the last defender. For some reason we seem to score as good as nil goals on the break with the ball slid behind and a striker running through 30 yards from goal. The only one I can think of is Martinelli one on one with nobody, at Villa. Again, this leans into our strengths as we arguably have the best slide rule passer in Europe in Odegaard. It frustrates that we don’t utilize this unique gift. This leads into the next thought…

• Arsenal leave goals on the table. Like going out for a Sunday lunch and forgetting the gravy boat. And the gravy boat keeps winking at you. On the way home the conversation turns to how the food was a little dry. Everyone in the car simultaneously shouts, ‘What?!?,’ when Granny tells us she hid the gravy behind the potatoes. Enough of that nonsense. My analogies are getting weirder. My kids would tell you that they are normal for me though. Trossard, Nelson, Saka and especially Mr Martinelli can drop a ball on your head once every two attempts, yet Jesus has to compete with Lewis Dunk. This is the gravy. 

• How often does Martinelli, White and Saka have the ball available for a short ground cross? Let’s say two from each. That’s a minimum. Do you think we are going to score as they deliver it? On a scale of ‘not a chance’ to ‘absolutely,’ I think we sit at ‘probably not.’ We need to move up three levels to ‘expectant.’ The six yard box sits naked too often. The Giroud run to the front post isn’t done often enough or with the correct deceptive movement. More gravy. The cutback to the penalty spot is working well as Odegaard’s goal compilation will evidence. He’s the granny that has the gravy and he needs to share it. 

• Here is an interesting thought. I think. We have a striker who is an elite footballer but not a statistically elite striker. Our 8’s play very advanced. Not really midfielders when we are attacking. Only when we are defending. Personally I’d like to see Jesus tried pre-season as a left 8. He certainly has the work ethic of a midfielder on the defensive side. He drifts left naturally. He can connect, dribble, play in tight spaces and the major benefit would be that his shoulders might relax in front of goal as he wouldn’t have the expectation of having to be the main man. This would allow us to buy a statistically elite striker like Oshimen. This would also create a nice balance between Odegaard’s passing on the right and Jesus’ running with the ball. I think it’s worth trying. We might find that he was never really at his best at striker. Arguably the best team that we’ve ever had, had two wingers who scored and assisted regularly in Pires and Ljungberg. We have similar now. Our conductor was elite in Bergkamp. So is Odegaard. Henry scored twice the goals and on a regular basis, to Jesus. Just thoughts.

• Set plays. We were conceding a big fat zero from corners, until we weren’t. Fix up time. At the other end, we occasionally have some creative corners but they don’t seem to come off. We need to be known for all our set plays and we aren’t. Rarely score free kicks or deep free kicks against the high line. Maybe more attention and time needed in this area.

• Do we need to evolve next season especially how we attack? I’m just wondering if we might see Saka or Odegaard move to a different space? Maybe not for the games that are easier to win, but perhaps for the bigger games. It seems like they must be the biggest conversation in opponents dressing rooms, and the week beforehand so if they think they figured out a way to stop them, give them a new problem. It’s not what I would do initially, but I do wonder if this is something we will see in preseason?

• Rest. How on earth these days do players get appropriate rest? Playing in the PL is the most intense footballing experience by far. More league games, more competitions, most players play for their national teams etc…  The two the jump out at me are Saka and Balogun. Saka might have ‘robot body,’ but even robots malfunction and break down. Well, in the movies they do. I don’t own too many robots personally. I wish I did though. I’d make it take my place occasionally and watch random soccer with Max. I’m booked at 2:45pm today to watch Stuttgart v Hamburg. Balogun changing allegiance is bad timing. I’m sure the club would prefer to watch him in the beginning of pre season to evaluate and compare. That won’t be happening now as he will be on vacation when pre season starts as the US have two summer tournaments. I suppose that the current ridiculous schedule for footballers is a byproduct of what happens when the world gets obsessed with money. The thing that I cannot wrap my head around is that Balogun could legitimately be Arsenal starting number nine next season. Every single team that I’ve seen him linked with is a step up from Reims for sure but not Arsenal’s level. I just cannot understand why he has agreed to go with the US this summer when he had the leverage to say ‘not yet’ instead of having a rest and showing up at preseason and proving that he is worthy of playing in a team that is better than any team that he is about to sign for. If as reported, he leaves anyway then at least he and we knew because he/we tried. If Jesus has a weakness, it is Balogun‘s strength. Always has been for both of them. Balogun isn’t the footballer that Jesus is, but he has always scored a boatload of goals at every level he’s been given a proper chance at. Nobody will ever convince me that it wasn’t worth even trying to take a look during preseason. His value would not drop but only rise if he was to score a handful of preseason goals. We could still sell him to AC Millan, or whoever for the same fee in August as we would get in June. Baffling.

• There seems to be a plan, a new plan for the back five. When I say back five, I mean a back four with an inverted fall back on one side alongside a defensive midfielder. The 3–2 look. It’s hard to comment on who is going where because Thomas Partey’s future is unknown. There are so many different permutations. If for example, we were to sign Declan Rice and Moises Caicedo then all three of these guys could play in a variety of positions. What does seem like it’s becoming obvious though is that we are exploring the option to play four tall trees at the back and one of them will invert. 

Part 3 is ready but this is already a long read. It’ll be out tomorrow.

Mike McDonald

Former Highbury regular. Moved to TN, USA in ’99. Married with 3 kids. Coached in UK and US for 27 years.
Mike McDonald Soccer Academy in Morristown TN, Olympic Development coach, Regional Premier League Champion.