‘Near perfection’
An Arsenal blog from a coach’s perspective
I wanted to talk about both the Liverpool and the Slavia Prague games.
I will leave the thoughts from the Slavia Prague game to later.
The Liverpool game was one of the most memorable football matches I’ve seen in quite a while. Not because it was a barn burner but from my coach’s eye, it was the best example I’ve ever seen of how to defend your goal.
Over the last 20 years, we see a solid defensive performance on almost a weekly basis, but would we hold them up as the textbook example? They are all a mixture of great defending, bravery, fortune and fantastic goalkeeping.
Liverpool were energized, and in the second half in particular, were flooding forward. I didn’t realize until the game was over that Liverpool didn’t have a shot on target the entire game. It didn’t feel like that watching it live, but I suppose that is the joy of the unexpected, or the stress of the unexpected.
No doubt Arteta will hold this performance up as the defensive standard for the club. You’ll never get perfection, but every coach wants to be able to point to a day that was better than any other.
I can’t say that I enjoyed watching it live. Whether I be a football coach or not, I watch the game to see my team win whilst making notes for the blog.
On Tuesday, I had Max’s soccer team over to the house. They wanted to watch their spectacular 6–3 victory in the State League and so we did so. After an hour of that, they were quite upset with me when I told them that we had to switch over to watching the greatest defensive masterclass that they’ve ever seen. Kids aren’t interested in defensive masterclasses. I knew that so I started by showing them a few heroic defensive plays by Bruno and Gabriel so that they saw them thumping their chest and pumping up the crowd. That got the boys on board because they most certainly love that.
I told the boys a few things that they were going to see.
They were going to see a team determined not to tackle unless they were sure, absolutely sure, that they could win it. That this was part of the teams standards, and not just the coaches pregame request for this outing.
That instead of tackling, the team chose to not risk giving away dangerous free kicks or penalty kicks, but trusted themselves in packs of two and three to protect their castle and block everything heading towards the goal.
I told the boys to watch for how they defended in at least two or threes. That this was possible if your standards are so high that you shift so quickly so that you can achieve this.
I told them that defending isn’t about you. It is about delaying and waiting for help. It’s about being as compact as possible. It is about shifting, pushing out, dropping back, but doing it as a unit.
Everybody does all of it, and if you don’t, then if you have such high standards, you lose your place in the team.
The main point I made to them was that Arteta has created a culture where if you come to Arsenal, you are told to learn to enjoy defending as much as attacking. That doesn’t seem possible to anybody that’s ever played the sport. We could all tell a big fat lie and say that we do, but everybody prefers to be attacking and to be touching the ball.
So what is the difference between Arsenal and all of the other teams? For at least three years we have been known as the best out of possession team in Europe, and it hasn’t been a fad. Again, it’s a standard at Arsenal Football Club.
When you position a player the most important question you should ask them is do you prefer stopping the other team from scoring or scoring themselves? We all have different mentalities and most will say they prefer scoring. There will be one or two on the team that prefer denying.
What happens on other top professional football teams is an acceptance that the defenders, goalkeeper and defensive midfielders will give more of themselves to the defensive side of the game and the attacking midfielders and forwards will give more to the offensive side of the game. Both groups are asked to do both things, but the expectation is completely different.
Football has got to where wingers can spend more time defending than attacking and strikers spend more time running than attempting to score, but it’s more than that.
Most coaches require all of their players to defend, but they don’t ask for them to take it as seriously as they do their attacking. As long as they are in position and they are willing to try then that is enough. At Arsenal that is not enough and the game against Liverpool showed the clear difference between us and everybody else.
If football could be in a frame, then Pep’s Barcelona team and Brazil of the 70s would be two that you would frame to exhibit the best of attacking football.
Liverpool V Arsenal would be worthy of being framed to exhibit how to defend.
It was that good.
POSITIVES:
6 pointer:
I don’t want to over exaggerate because we’ve just started November but we popped Liverpool‘s momentum balloon. I’m not sure if anybody will be able to keep up with us quite honestly, but a Liverpool win at Anfield would’ve given them belief and only put them three points behind us. Teams that don’t look good enough can all of a sudden look plenty good enough when their players find confidence and the team hits it stride. Arsenal had to extinguish that and they did it in the most genuinely chest thumping way possible.
Noni:
Over the last few games there has been a subtle yet important change in him.
I’ve been contemplating exactly what it is.
I think it’s a few things, actually.
I think he’s either had a chat with himself or the coaching staff have had a chat with him about the opportunity that he will have whilst Saka is out of the team.
That he needs to be more serious about his efficiency.
That he needs to see himself as a first choice player because quite honestly he has the tools to be this at a top club.
Like I said above, he has started to be far more defensively reliable as far as his concentration and output is concerned.
Finally, and most importantly, that he needs to take more care with his offensive output. Care more about his crossing. Care more about the opportunities that the game gives him to get in goalscoring positions. Care about his consistency from moment to moment and game to game.
When you watch him either dribbling on the wing or cutting inside and shielding the ball, there is now almost no difference in him and Saka. Both of them protect the ball so well. Both of them are so very strong. Both of them offer a threat going both ways.
In short, he is playing as if he is ‘the man.’ There is some good in that.
Rice:
He is now being consistently talked about as the best midfielder in the Premier League and possibly in Europe.
Sometimes I find it really difficult to judge these kind of thoughts because I get so used to seeing him give 8 out of 10 performances every week. I get used to him hoovering up potential problems. I get used to him winning most of his duels. I get used to seeing him stride up the field to create attacks. I’m now having to get used to him overlapping, creating and assisting. I suppose the recent accolades have been because he has eye-catching statistics now. Most people aren’t paying attention unless you score goals or get assists.
I just feel very fortunate that we have a player that can essentially do everything and he’s also a born winner.
Viktor:
I think the criticism of him is inaccurate.
I think that this is the full picture…
He is far more creative than almost any true target man currently playing in the game. I frequently see him trying and often succeeding in creating chances for others by holding the ball up and making clever and well weighted passes. His assist against Slavia was no surprise. This is not something that is even asked for by most managers and fans that have a target man. They just want him to be good in the air in the box and be able to hold the ball up and pass it backwards when his back is to goal. Viktor has more than this and truly has a creative eye.
His dribbling is also much better than most people of his profile. Whether it be running at defenders or trying to find a teammate, he is above average.
People talk about his heavy first touch. Truthfully, it isn’t as good as others but five out of six times his touch is just fine. Not as bigger issue as people make it out to be.
Perception is often everything, and he most certainly can look clunky with many of his actions because of his body shape and also because I think people assumed he was faster than he is.
Whether he stays at Arsenal or not, will be down to three things.
He has to learn a different body position when receiving the ball with his back goal. For a huge guy, he is too easily knocked to the ground or not stable in his planting to give himself a fair chance of getting the first touch.
Will his teammates start to trust him and give him the ball on a more frequent basis when he makes a run?
If they don’t, I will maintain that he could’ve been good enough if he was trusted. He is too often ignored, especially when he makes runs behind a higher defence. If you think about his highlights before he came to Arsenal, he was frequently slid in on goal for him to thunder the ball into the net. That simply does not happen at Arsenal and so he’s either the wrong profile or he is being ignored.
The most important issue is his movement in the box. It is largely nonexistent. If he scores a goal in and around the 6 yard box, it is an absolute fight for him as he isn’t elusive, and hasn’t seemed to be able to improve in that facet. When I’m upset with him I pine for a striker like RVP. He was so incredibly elusive and would make at least two runs to lose the defender and therefore was able to score all kinds of different types of goals. You rarely saw RVP having to fight a centre back for a one touch finish.
Kai:
He looked like he got his game back at Anfield. Was so pleased that he scored, but also that he made it look so easy. The way people have been talking about him, you’d think that he was on the outs, so his performance shut many up.
Konsa:
We have started signing players just before or at their prime. Konsa has proven that this is a good strategy. A centre back without a clear weakness, much like Saliba and Gabriel. A player born to play for a serious coach.
NEEDS:
Subs in Prague:
Why did Rice play 96 minutes?
Why didn’t Dowman play the last 20-30 minutes?
Could Mosquera have started and given Gabriel or Konsa a rest?
Second half in Prague:
Were Arsenal expecting the enthusiasm that Slavia came out with in the second half?
We weren’t poor but seemed to find it hard to change up a gear when it was necessary.
Raya:
He seems a little over enthusiastic and unnecessarily lacking in trust of his centre backs in the last two games.
Merino:
Much like Raya, this is not a problem as they have both proven themselves, but in the short term he needs a goal.
He seems reluctant to shoot from the top of the box and is mistiming headers inside the box.
HOPES:
Tragedy:
As I’m sure you have seen, the picture below is of the tragedy that happened in Spain on the weekend.
I hope the keeper gets forgiveness because even though it looked intentional, he didn’t mean to end his life.
Saliba:
Is he the first example of an improvement in our medical department?
Dowman and the red:
He should never have been sent off. If he were my player I’d expect him to react like he did.
The PL has become lost amidst the drama in the game. The red card should’ve been shown to the Fleetwood player who could’ve broken his ankle.
A referee’s primary job is to protect the players. Safety. In no world does Dowman pushing the players boot away from his leg get any punishment in a sane world.
Then we have to listen to all the pundits talk about Noni’s ‘headbutt.’
Think about it….. the ‘touching of heads’ and one or both players falling over has been a thing for at least 10 years. There is absolutely nothing wrong with two players going head to head. We are over-parenting the situation. The problem becomes when one actually headbutts the other. I don’t think I’ve seen this since Joey Barton. The problem in this situation is the simulation, not two sweaty heads exchanging sweat.
SCOUT MAX:
You really need to pay attention to this player.
Mfuni is a City Academy graduate who is currently on loan at Coventry. Max put me on to him and I haven’t been as impressed with a young centre back since Saliba.
TWEETS and THOUGHTS:
Arsenal need a player that includes a hairdryer in their creative line of ways to celebrate goals.
It will be really interesting if Arteta tries this. In my opinion, I don’t think it’s necessary because it’s not as if we are struggling to be solid with two centre backs.
We’ve been given a perfect situation where we have the best two centre backs in the world and the best backup. Not sure why you would leave his as it is so nobody gets fatigued or injured.
The only reason I’d try it is to ask the opponent more questions. During the second half of the season some teams nullify us as they have a video of how they failed during the first half of the season.
FINAL THOUGHT:
Arsenal are starting to get the respect that they deserve. Years too late, but it’s happening. The above comments are from Alan Shearer.
If the media were to tell the actual truth about what is going on at Arsenal then we wouldn’t be hearing about technical areas or dull football, but the most impressive turn around from any club in the game in a long, long time.
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.
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