Little by Little

An Arsenal blog from a coach’s perspective

This period of the season is likely to be the most forgettable month. If anything at all, maybe it’s the month of favour. Where Father Christmas showed up and left a few extra presents because he found out that dad was struggling to get it together. For us this showed up as three own goals, two of them being match winners.

Those who don’t support Arsenal they will see this as luck, whereas the truth is that we have been quite a way off our best and this coincided with the loss of Gabriel. That even though most of the games have been decided by one goal, we have found a better rhythm and certain players have really improved their game.

The big plus for this game was Martin Odegaard.

There were others, but I suppose I have a whole section for this coming up.

With the return of Gabriel and hopefully a return for Timber and Ricky, we all hope to hit a gear that we haven’t hit since November and swat Aston Villa away on Tuesday.

POSITIVES:

Raya:

I thought it was in. I think that this is the only criteria in the rubric when you are discussing the greatest saves.

I suppose that from my spot on the couch, I was sitting right behind that far post curling effort and I couldn’t quite believe that he got that high that fast and also got enough on it to keep it over the crossbar considering he was about 8 yards out when he made contact with it.

Raya isn’t called ‘the cat’ because our defence and our team defending is too good for him to have to make many saves at all. If you were to write down his best qualities though, his cat like reflexes would have to be one of them, alongside his brave positioning and ability to claim almost every cross as well as his comfort with the ball at his feet.

Odegaard:

I haven’t finished my extra piece of writing which involves Martin Odegaard.

What stood out to me against Brighton is how useful it would be if we could watch a highlights package of a player at his best before we write him off.

MO at his best isn’t just one of the best players in world football at moving the ball away from pressure, but a wizzkid at drawing pressure towards him before connecting, disguising his intentions and his weight of pass.

I think what has been disappointing for Arsenal fans is that the majority of our players have greatly improved over the last few seasons, whereas we look at MO and see a player who hasn’t really pushed on. In fact, it would be fair to say that if you look at his best goalscoring season at Arsenal, it was a couple of years ago and all of the positive things that I’ve mentioned were also evident then.  So regression would be worth a discussion, even though it’s hidden by his leadership, positive attitude, and physical effort.

What has to now be mentioned though is that he has clearly been giving attention to his ball striking. Over the last year, he had been hitting the ball off centre and we are now seeing him hit the centre of the ball and therefore getting 30% more power.

Rice:

Declan Rice is almost like a footballing experiment. Designed in a laboratory where you can make him whatever you want. So then you do. You give him a ‘will do’ attitude that is perfect in a team sport.

Give him elite athleticism. In fact, you find a button that gives him a third and fourth ‘wind’ where you thought there were only two.

You get a special token to give him the highest possible rating for ballstriking, game understanding, positional sense, and tackling ability.

You got so excited by this super footballer that you were creating that you felt it was greedy to add 10 to 15 goals of season, but you know where the button is and you know it’s possible.

How good a footballer is he if he can play a game in a completely different position and still look better at it than most of all the other specialists in the league at said position?

Saliba:

Saliba is called a Rolls Royce because a Rolls Royce is always a Rolls Royce and doesn’t need to be driven frequently to hit its peak. It lives in a gold plated garage and give it five minutes after sitting dormant for weeks, and it will start purring.

Hincapie:

His reliability might just lead to him being chosen in favor of MLS if Ricky is out for a few games.

Get the feeling that Arteta has been wanting to give him a run at left back and utilize that aggression and power driving into the box on the overlap.

Saka:

I don’t often offer up much comment on Saka because one Saka game is much like all of them. A consistent flurry of elite decision-making. One after another after another after another.

What I did notice yesterday is how quick and powerful he is after his second touch. Nobody ever talks about the importance of having a great second touch. All professional footballers have a good first touch that is consistent and reliable. It is the most important skill of the game and so you don’t get to play the game if you don’t have it. Some have an elite first touch like Bergkamp or Berbatov. The ability to have the perfect first touch whether you have nobody on you and you are in your back garden kicking around or whether you are surrounded by three aggressive defenders.

The second touch is probably more important for these professionals as not, everybody values it. After the first touch, there is often a challenge coming in and whoever’s got the quickest feet gets possession of the ball. Saka combines quick feet with incredible power in his first few steps to lose a defender and because he’s smart, cut the defender off.

NEEDS:

Eze:

I’m sure Eze will start getting minutes when we have separation in form and separation in scoreline, but he hasn’t earned enough trust due to the inconsistency of his performances, to earn more than that. That might sound rough. It’s only a month ago that he scored a Hattrick in the most important game for the fans of the season, but we are talking about a club that are now being considered as consistently one of the best five club teams in world football and many would say, the best.

You can’t be inconsistent and you can’t disappear if you want to be in that team. That’s it.

Nwaneri:

I’m just hoping that Arsenal don’t sell him in January because I’m sure they will get bids. Surely they won’t. He has such a bright future and whatever is going on, I’m sure it can be ironed out.

Madueke:

I hope we haven’t ‘sat him out of form.’He had such a big moment in Belgium and hasn’t seen the field since.

I think he sits in a similar pocket as Eze. You don’t know if he’s gonna have a huge game or a largely invisible one.

They are both talented players who are clearly good enough, but does the coach really know on which day they are going to do it?

HOPES:

Guehi:

I do have a tendency of reading into things too much. So here I go again.

The Carabao Cup is the most realistic trophy for Crystal Palace to win every season. By far. Their first team is as close to equivalent to the team that the big clubs put out.

They are about to go out of the competition away at Arsenal and deep into injury time Guehi equalizes and keeps his club in the cup. Not only did he not celebrate, but he looked really upset that he had scored. Then after the game, all of the British players who are obviously his friends, surround him and are in deep hand over mouth conversation. Arsenal don’t really ‘need’ Guehi. Unless… the club feels that Ben White might want to be first choice elsewhere next season or perhaps the club know that his body won’t hold up. In this case, even though he does not play right back, I can very much see him being a Ben White replacement. As I often say, at least half of our team have changed their position since they met Mikel Arteta. Timber made the same journey from centre back to right back. Guehi is the closest to Timber that I know to being the type of defender who is almost unbeatable in one on one situations.

FINAL THOUGHT:

I’m sitting here watching Palace v Spurs. I try to avoid watching Spurs and Manchester United both. Spurs for obvious reasons and Manchester United because I dislike them even more.

I’m only giving this a moments thought, as it does not deserve any more headspace, but why do Tottenham fans expect their club to be in the top four. The Premier League has become richer and richer and well over 2/3 of every team in the league has a squad of good players much like Spurs do. Spurs cannot attract elite players because they’ve never shown an aptitude to challenge for the biggest honors that big players desire. I’m sure they have similar wealth to Chelsea now, but Chelsea have a recent history of consistently challenging in every competition.

I don’t know any serious Spurs fans living in East Tennessee that I have a close enough relationship to try to council them into being a little more realistic. If you do then help them understand that they truly aren’t any better than Crystal Palace and so if they hold out and win this game that they are currently ahead in, this will be one of the best results of their season, and if it pushes them on to conference league qualification, then they should be happy.