Mistakes and Moments – the only difference between world-class teams (Positives Needs & Hopes) [LIV 1-1 ARS]

Mistakes and Moments

An Arsenal blog from a coach’s perspective 

Dear Manchester United, Chelsea and Spurs fans (there has to be at least one of you reading),

This is an Arsenal fan who has been where you are.

Well actually, we’ve been where United and Chelsea are but we’ve never quite been as nakedly barren as Spurs, whistling in the desert with the tumbleweed and their last important trophy so far away that NASA have given up trying to locate it.

Anyway, here it is.

Arsenal fans remember 4 years ago quite vividly. Not only were we a total mess on and off the pitch but we were so very far away from where we are today. We started the fix and because our coach is more epic than Rupert the Bear, beef wellington and chocolate gravy, which I had yesterday in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee, we won the FA Cup. We then fixed Arsenal by ditching the problems and starting to teach Mikel’s Juego De Posicion style from chapter one. Our coach is a smart cookie, much like Custard Creams which are elite, so he started with the defence and the off-ball structure.

I need to get back to the Arsenal fans so I won’t tell the whole story. Fast forwarding to today we are in a totally different place. We don’t lose games because we are not good enough. We don’t lose games because our players give inconsistent effort. We don’t lose games because our players are out of position. We don’t lose games because of weak mentality. We don’t lose games because of ego or blaming others. We don’t lose games because we were incredible last Sunday and rank average on Saturday. We don’t lose games because our coach can’t make his mind up as to who plays down the spine of the team.

Now we are good. Very good.  Not just once in a while. Every game. Do you rival fans know how hard it is for me to write the ‘Needs’ part of this blog and have original thoughts? I think Chelsea away was the only time that I found it easy. That was 60 minutes out of 1800 that we have played this season.

Arsenal now live with the elite. We can sit around a table with Real Madrid, Man City, Liverpool, Bayern Munich and PSG and debate who is the best team in Europe.

When you get to this level your games are decided by two things. Mistakes and moments. Those are the two. Elite teams develop or sign players that can win games like Liverpool away. They know that the majority of players out there simply nullify each other. Then you have players like Salah that can give you a moment in a game that looks more like a draw than any other I’ve seen in a while. A good coach will always find a weakness or two. But that’s it. They are always there because nobody or no team has ever been perfect.

Liverpool had TAA. The world’s first player to give up when he’s beaten. Arsenal have Zinchenko who doesn’t give up but is too cocky.

Our mistakes are illuminated so Zinchenko is getting his head ripped off today. We do that because we live in a world of ‘extreme opinions only,’ and because they are rare. We have a whole team of players who share the moments. Trust me, I know because I write about them.

That game was a barnstormer. Absolutely nothing like watching Spurs v United. Two teams that respected each other and knew that the only way to win was to rely on mistakes and moments because both don’t really offer you another way.

At Christmas I think we need to show gratitude for Mikel Arteta.

This man more than any other has made our football experience one that once used pre-game adjectives like ‘trepidation’ to describe how we felt  to adjectives like ‘confident.’

POSITIVES:

Saliba 

France have more good centre backs than England have right backs. It would be quite lovely if they didn’t pick William Saliba in the summer because that gives England a better chance of winning the Euros. Even though there are many of the others who have more experience than him, I don’t think that they can ignore him any longer. If there is a more consistent elite center back in world football, then I haven’t seen him. I don’t think William Saliba cares about experience or his age though.

David Raya

After much analysis, I think David Raya’s best quality is his positioning. Look at all of the simple catches that he makes in games. All of the unspectacular simple looking ones. Most goalkeepers would punch them because they would get there too late because their starting position is off. He constantly puts out fires because he values staying awake and knows that a transition could happen at any time. Others have mental naps and  it’s too late to figure it out at that point.

Gabriel and Saliba

Firstly, I liked this tweet. It’s true and a huge compliment to these two.

Yesterday was crowded so I didn’t get to write. I’m sitting here on Christmas Eve watching a Premier League game for the first time and realizing that Chelsea and Manchester United, the two fallen giants, have one issue in common. They can’t decide who their centre back partnership should be.

Your communication on the field comes from this area and communication needs understanding and understanding needs repetition. All of this has to be done at lightning speed which is how the Premier League is played. If a fan from any other club wanted to have an argument as to who has the best center back partnership in Europe then there will be a lot of us put our hands up and happily offer to have this argument.

Chelsea and Manchester United could have the ‘potential’ argument, but would show up with no actual evidence. If it was me, my top argument would be that our attackers are actually yet to hit consistent elite form and so it is our out of possession and defensive solidity that sees Arsenal at the top of the best league in Europe. Gabriel and Saliba are the consistent thread and communication at the base of this success. I can’t prove this, but I think that those two now have a similar affect and aura as Campbell and Toure or Viera and Petit. I think that strikers somewhat shrink in their presence. Did you know that a chap called Cody Gakpo played in the game. Me neither.

Saliba gets the love because there is more elegance to his game but Gabriel’s influence is reflected by his status in his home country. The Sol Campbell comparison is now not an exaggeration.

Free kicks

We are good at improvement. We had three free kicks in the game that were sent into the box. All three were far better delivered than they have been. That is an improvement both in delivery from Odegaard and Rice and the threat we caused, including the goal. Like much at the top level perfection is needed because the coaching is too good. If you get the free kicks too high then the goalkeeper catches them. If they are too low then they are headed out by the first man. If they are too fast, then they go out for goal kicks.

Finishing

It’s not often that I say positive things about Jesus’ finishing. His first effort in the first 30 seconds was unfortunate. His second in the first half should’ve been a goal. What I liked about both were that he took them early. When you take shots early you eliminate the quality of the defender you are playing against. They have to just simply rely on their bravery and so Lewis Dunk becomes the best of in the league in that moment.

My second observation reminds me of one of my biggest coaching soapboxes. Coaching kids how to shoot and finish is difficult. You might remember getting to an age where you could kick the ball hard enough to make it go over the crossbar, and what a superstar you felt. Then you learn to hit it really hard and that felt good and certainly for us guys, manly. And then you scored from one of them and then power became an addiction. Then somebody like me came along and tells you that you don’t need all of your power to score. That you actually need about half of it, if that. Then you tell them when they are hitting them over that they need to take the power off it and focus on the accuracy. That if they try to hit it any harder than it is already traveling, then the chances of scoring fall away. If I had the opportunity to work with any team in the Premier League for one session and was asked to make a difference, then this is what I would teach. Actually, that’s not true. If it was Arsenal it would be. If it were the others it would be diving headers from the halfway line.

Premier league footballers are just as bad as kids. Power is their favorite. The coach of the team needs effectiveness over power. How to take the power off a shot and that its chances of hitting the target multiply.

I have no idea what the statistics are. I’ve been watching football for 45 years though and I know what I see and more shots go over the crossbar than anywhere else. Why? Because they are hit too hard.

NEEDS :

Opportunity

Declan Rice is the best at what he does because he anticipates danger.

Arsenal will win the PL and or the CL when they find a player who anticipates opportunity in front of goal.

There were two moments. They came back to back. Saka provided them both and both should’ve been tap ins. The second one was bad timing by Havertz who arrived too late. The first one lost me at least 100 strands of hair, and I watched it on replay and I knew the score.  It was Martinelli. Standing in the same line as Havertz when the opportunity was in the 6 yd box.  The thing about the 6 yd box is that even if opportunity isn’t there, if you run there then at least two of them run there too, leaving the cutback wide open. I’ve been watching Solanke and wondering why we are supposedly interested. He may not be a name but he is predatorial in his anticipation of opportunity.

As you will know from my previous posts, I believe Arsenal need a striker whose main quality is HUNGER. So much hunger that I will capitalize everything he does. A player who froths at the mouth when the ball enters the penalty area. So much froth that the penalty becomes like a foam pit by the end of the game. A player who makes you wince when the ball goes into the 6 yd box because car crashing into the goalkeeper is his favourite hobby. The way Jesus and Martinelli play outside the penalty area, you’d think they’d be the main candidates.

Anfield

I was a little surprised with our strategy. Normally we would slow the game down and try to quiet the crowd. Anfield was more excited than usual. Their atmosphere is grossly overrated if you haven’t been paying attention to reality over the reputation. They seem to get hyped up when we show up even more so than when they play Manchester United, which is really strange. I thought that if we had that game back then we might just slow it down in order to keep the crowd out of the experience.

Eddie

Should I pick on Eddie again? Should this be a positive? His high-level energy and therefore impact on Liverpool defenders, annoyed me even though it was great. As explained at the beginning of this post, we aren’t like other teams. We aren’t inconsistent. Our effort is even. Running around because the transfer window is about to happen and he probably wants to stay isn’t good enough for me. That part is the part that he needs to do every single game. If fitness is the reason why he won’t do it then he needs to understand the team would rather have him play with high energy for one hour and be applauded coming off, than an hour and a half with inconsistent energy.

TAA

Why didn’t we run at him more? He might have elite technique but he is a poor defender and the laziest player since Ozil came to England or Anthony Martial last played. We should’ve posted Jesus or Havertz on Konate and ran him the other way so Martinelli could’ve run at TAA instead of Konate. That could’ve been the coaching moment that changed the game in our favour.

Liverpool’s goal

The scrutiny is brutal these days, but the level of detail is too. Zinchenko is 2 yards too deep and not holding the line with the other defenders. His second sin was jockeying with a stride pattern too narrow. He remembered being nutmegged by Trent last season. He didn’t want it to happen again. His third sin was lunging for the ball. Then the fourth was not holding on to Salah and at least slowing him down. Total truth is that Saliba should’ve sent Gabriel out to help him because he only had Gakpo in the middle.

Saka

I hate that I wanted Saka to dive when Alisson hit him. The reason that players dive is firstly because they don’t believe that the ref would blow if they stayed on their feet. They are right in believing that. If there is a rule change or better put, an attitude change, it needs to be giving penalties when players are hit but don’t go down. That would actually be helpful rather than worrying about how to protect the 4th official from bad words.

HOPES:

The pitch

It’s important that the things that are loved about the Premier League, stay. I’m not sure if other leagues allow pitches to be different sizes and prepared in different ways. I don’t think that chewing up your pitch, over soaking it or perhaps growing the grass too long are really a tradition we need to hold onto. Also, I don’t think that I know it should be stopped. The pitch at Anfield looked fantastic, but obviously was coated in some good quality margarine. Liverpool obviously did something to the pitch but didn’t seem to benefit from it though which seemed odd. Both teams had players consistently falling over or slipping. If Liverpool were trying to take advantage they would’ve had longer studs on and wouldn’t have been slipping so either the pitch had three layers of margarine on it or the Liverpool kit man forgot the sneaky plan and forgot the long studs. I hate sitting on the fence, so I’m going to lean one way. That game was some epic Premier League encounter. It absolutely did not need to be decided by somebody slipping. If that can be avoided by teams not being allowed to go to the grocery store and purchase every type of margarine that they have then is what needs to happen.

The Saka/Tsimikas incident

Firstly, Klopp shouldn’t have been standing there. What did he think was going to happen? Zero anticipation skills. No wonder he was an average player. More importantly, that is not a foul. Football is a contact sport and that was a shoulder barge. Just because Tsimikas got hurt it doesn’t mean that it was a foul. It’s not about Saka being ‘too strong’ either. It’s about balance. One player had theirs and the other didn’t. That’s why he fell. If we were to meet in the street and you were so excited to meet me because you love blogs that are too long and waffle a lot and you shoulder barged me out of happiness and I fell and broke my head, I think you should feel ok about your choice of affection.

Goncalo Inacio

There was a report the other day saying that Arsenal are trying to get him on loan with an option.

I can see this being true. The loan part makes absolute sense and having watched him quite extensively he looks top quality. He was actually responsible for the equaliser in Lisbon during our first leg. The reason that I think that this might be true is that he plays defensive midfield as well as centre back. In the short term, we need someone to cover for Rice and Saliba if they were  to get injured. In the summer we would get another midfielder and he would compete with Saliba/Gabriel and Kiwior. He is big, strong, fast and confident.

Gabriel and Saka

Congratulations to both of them for impressive records. Gabriel scored more homes in his three years of Arsenal than any other , defender in the Premier league.

Saka was just named as the best right winger in the world by a research group. I’m trusting that their research is unbiased, but I’ll take this over an award given by biased players or pundits.

Handball

If the VAR thought that Odegaard slipped then they have actually got a tricky decision right. I can’t believe it.

FINAL THOUGHT:

Arsenal’s shoulders are broader now. They can’t possibly not believe that they belong at the top.

I have some extra time today, so I’m putting together a short podcast. Take a listen below.

Happy Christmas to you, your family and especially our creator who I have over flowing gratitude for.

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.