17 Comments

Our expectations and City’s perfection make every draw feel like a loss, but the real problem is that we gifted them this point (just as we did Fulham).

I understand why Arteta went with Nketieh, but my gut instinct pre kick off was that we should have started Jesus at 9. And given he’s not ready for 90’ Eddie would have been fine as a option off the bench.

Arteta lands on this lineup by deciding Jesus is better on the wing than Nelson. Correct. But he’s even better at CF and that’s what we really needed.

I’m sure this is one Arteta will use as a reference point for future games.

A missed opportunity.

Great analysis once again Billy, a fantastic addition to the online Arsenal experience, and further confirmation that we have some of the most informed and intelligent football fans on the planet.

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Great piece! If you could discuss a bit about how arsenal’s ball progression has changed since rice came into the side, it would be great.

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Commenting here after seeing your tweet on questions for the next piece 😅

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Will do, thanks Felipe!

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Reading this has been therapeutic, finally found some answers to some of the things I was worried about and couldn’t figure out an explanation for, thank you.

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Reading this felt like much-needed therapy after Sunday lol. Great read as always, thanks Billy

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Always enjoy reading your work Billy, even if we weren’t particularly good 🥲. Fair to say the Havertz experiment has been a bit hit or miss so far but I’m curious to know what promise you see in the Martinelli/Trossard/Havertz left pod. You mentioned in an earlier article how you liked the look of that and I’ll be honest I wasn’t sure I did after Fulham. Care to share what positives you saw from that pod against Fulham?

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Absolutely love reading these Billy. Really helps me understand the game at a deeper level and see how individual performances makeup the team's performance. Thank you.

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Thanks for the insightful analysis, as always. What do you make of the Ivan Toney links for £60m? Feels like a sideways upgrade from Nketiah (considering age and price tag) and that we should be targeting another midfielder. Who would your next targets be?

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Billy, very well analysis of the game. As you mentioned and I did notice during the game, we did pressed very well in the first half and got quite a few loose balls but those 50/50 mostly went to Spurs way. This is a game of fine margin and not having the “luck” was a major factor of not getting all 3 points.

Also have to give Spurs some credit of playing like a team actually wanted to win the game. But still early in the season and I feel it is more of a new manager bounce period for them than actual progression, what do you think.

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Good read.

One thing still bothers me. Saka was fine until Udogie fell on him, wasn't he? I didn't notice he was in pain or some of the sorts for a long while until that point. And please tell me what minute Saka first show the sign that he couldn't carry on anymore? The only time that he looked like he couldn't run anymore and stayed out of the play was during the injury time.

Thank you, Billy.

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That was just an aside at the end, but it was at 88:40, so ~12 minutes left, and he was writhing and White was yelling at the trainers to come on -- but they never did, presumably because they wanted to keep it going

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Yeah, I remember that now. The medic team never came on even when White was yelling is the other thing that bothers me because I wonder what happened in the dugout during that moment.

That's probably why we only made the sub when Saka was clearly not able to carry on anymore. Because our medic team was never there to asses him in the first place. No one can tell his condition to the manager on the technical area. Even if he was assessed, the play would be on and he couldn't return to the pitch right away. It was complicated.

One last question. What do you think about Odegaard?

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Thanks for all your efforts as always. Very well written.

My only question is: I understand Jesus needs to play striker and drop deep so he can do his playmaking, but isn't requiring your striker to do this playmaking kind of a crutch. Shouldn't the goal be for our chance creation to be good enough without needing the involvement of the striker?

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I treat chance creation like agents treat fees: I don't care where it comes from, so long as it's a lot. Jesus is capable of being target man one game and the most expansive false-9 in the world the next. I'd have more concerns about him vacating, but the zone doesn't stay open -- "strikers" fill it (Martinelli, Havertz, Trossard, et al). Maybe in the future that'll change, but for now, I think it's when we look best

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That makes sense. Thanks.

One other question I had was your mention of spurs marking Odegaard heavily because he was the only central creator. Shouldn't Zinchenko be helping with that?

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He should, yes. He feels a bit more conservative this year. In interviews, he has mentioned wanting to work on his defensive side. Maybe it's causing him to stay back a bit further. I'll look into that.

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