TIME FOR ARTETA TO GALAXY BRAIN OUR DEFENSIVE ISSUES

Ok, so the big news: Bill Saliba sitting on a bike next to Barry Solent (S&C) and Mo Elneny – the Egyptian on video duties. So what else? Sami Mokbel of Daily Mail notoriety released a story that suggests the Frenchman is GAME to play the big game against City next week if he can... Read more »

Ok, so the big news: Bill Saliba sitting on a bike next to Barry Solent (S&C) and Mo Elneny – the Egyptian on video duties.

So what else?

Sami Mokbel of Daily Mail notoriety released a story that suggests the Frenchman is GAME to play the big game against City next week if he can get fit.

What do we deduce from this?

Arsenal would have sanctioned the Big Mo video. There’s no way a player of his experience is dropping hints like without sign-off from the PR department.

I think we can dig a little deeper here. Saliba has been out for a month. He hasn’t been training with the players according to Arteta. My guess is the club must have inspected the injury and be comfortable that he’s healing and the risk is worth it.

If he’s just getting back on the bike, there’s near zero chance he’s going to play this Friday against Southampton. But they might get him into good enough shape for the City game.

The reality in the Arsenal camp right now is that Rob Holding hasn’t been able to cut it. People get angry about this when I say it because there hasn’t been a single fuck up… but be real, the problem with Holding isn’t that he can’t defend, it’s that the drop from Saliba to him is so big, it affects the way we play. He’s not as good in one vs one duals, his passing isn’t sharp enough, and he can’t deal with power and pace the way Bill does.

Did I say he’d be fine? Yes I did. Was I wrong? Yes, very wrong. I’ll eat a bowl of crunchy nut Ls minus the oatmilk as punishment.

Simply put: We have a 90% chance of losing to City with Rob Holding in the starting 11. We have a 35% chance of winning if Saliba can drop a standard 8 out of 10 performance.

The gulf in class is so pronounced I am expecting there to be a change for this Friday against Southampton.

The most obvious?

Take the most technically gifted player in the team and ask him to play at right back. Zinchenko can play with both feet, he’s an exceptional ingester of instructions, and he’s a winner. Arteta has to pull the emergency ripcord because Rob Holding has already shown that he’s not going to be able to do the business against City. If we put Tierney as the more traditional left-back, Zinchenko can invert from the right, and this would allow Ben White to come inside… which gives us the ability to play the way we know we can play. There’s balance there. More than we have now.

Some folk have criticized this idea, calling it too risky. I’m sorry, I don’t buy it, too risky is throwing holding to the wolves with the sharpest teeth in the league. We can’t risk it.

Not like Arteta hasn’t tried these things before and I have to remind them: If Tomiyasu was fit, he would be playing centre back right now, and none of these conversations would be happening.

Arteta also played Granit Xhaka at left back last season defended his record with vigor.

Are there disadvantages here? Well of course. By doing this, we are disrupting 3 positions instead of one. But at this point, we have seen how badly just one change has been for our defence. We haven’t had a cleansheet in 5 straight games. We’ve give up leads in 3 of those 5 games. We’ve conceded 7 goals in that time. That isn’t good, we’ve seen enough, it’s time to try and change our fortunes.

Trying something different against Southampton feels like the move. It’s low risk, it is testing a backup idea for City, we should be able to manage that. I don’t think going into the City game without trying something new prior is a good idea.

But we’ll see.

Rio Ferdinand reckons Real Madrid is chasing down Mikel Arteta to replace Carlo Ancelotti this summer. Firstly, that’s not a shock, he’s the hottest manager in world football right now. Secondly, I’m not sure Madrid is the one right now. He’s a Barca kid, there’s no security at Madrid to truly build, and he’s just spend 3 years painfully rebuilding Arsenal into one of the best clubs in world football. Why would he leave before he’s had a chance to win us our first ever Champions League trophy?

Graham Potter is the test case here. He was chewed up and spat out by a club the had no respect for a timeline and had no appetite to listen to what he needed to get them back to the top. That happens at Madrid as well, no one there is going to accept that trusting the process is the way forward.

The way we keep Arteta at the club is simple:

• Pay him well.
• Match his ambition with signings in the transfer window.

We’re doing both of those things right now, so he has no reason to go to a league that is inferior.

Ok, that’s me done.

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— Le Grove (@LeGrove) April 18, 2023