Yesterday’s horror show at Anfield has brought out all the usual media clichés, memes and tropes about Arsenal Football Club. No fight, no leadership, no spirit, no heart, etc.
As readers are familiar, conventional ideas based on feelings and opinions have no appeal to me. There is need to identify the real objective reasons for this sub-standard performance and support real solutions rather than engage in hyperbole and vitriol. That is if we truly care for the club, rather than our own egos.
Arsene Wenger in the post game presser expressed his dissatisfaction with the performance:
“I think from the first to the last minute we were not at the level requested for such a game and not physically, not technically, not mentally were we at the level and we were punished and that’s basically it. You can of course analyse the chances we gave away, but I just think overall that the performance was not at the requested level.”
But he was careful not to offer his opinion as to why it was substandard:
“That’s a question that is very difficult to answer straight away after the game and there are some reasons, but I don’t think I have too much to come out on that now.”
We as fans are entitled to our own opinion. Many have been quick to suggest there was lack of commitment by want-away players prior to the close of the transfer window. Those of us who witnessed a very lackadaisical performance by Samir Nasri in his final game for the club prior to his Manchester City transfer have good reason to believe it is déjà vu all over again.
Outplayed in midfield
While there may be truth about lack of commitment by some team members, I am more concerned about how easily we were outplayed in midfield. Possession statistics are very misleading having Liverpool and Arsenal at 49% and 51% respectively. While Arsenal apparently had superiority, most telling was AFC’s inability to turn possession into goal-scoring opportunities. The data makes horrible reading. Liverpool had 18 shots on goal with 8 on target. In comparison Arsenal had 10 shots on goal, nearly 50% less, but zero on target. Watching the game it was obvious Arsenal’s midfielders were easily pressured and did not have the ability to retain possession or make forward passes into dangerous areas where the forwards could make good shots thus forcing the clearly skittish Kaius to make saves.
Whoscored.com summarized Liverpool’s strengths as the following:
- Created a high number of chances relative to their possession
- Stole the ball often from the opposition
- Were effective at creating goalscoring opportunities from the flanks
- Were effective at creating goalscoring opportunities from counter attacks
- Were strong at finishing
In contrast they concluded Arsenal had “no strengths.” (Brutal.)
Compare this to the similar fixture last year, Sunday, August 14th, at the Emirates when Arsenal lost 3:4 and the same analytics indicated Arsenal’s strengths as:
- Were effective at creating goalscoring opportunities through individual skill
- Were strong at finishing
Those with vibrant memories will recall Arsenal was playing poorly that day. The club was down 1:3 at the 61st minute mark when a certain little Spanish magician entered the fray and from his deep-lying midfield position helped retrieve some honor from a bleak position. It even worsened to 1:4 but Santi helped to stem the tide and bring it to a respectable 3:4 final score.
With Santi starting every game from then onward to October, when he finally succumbed to his current long term injury, Arsenal was an unbeatable force. I have kept banging the point since then. Arsenal’s midfield has a big giant hole, and needs a deep-lying playmaker to make the system work. This is a technically based team that needs technically accomplished players, especially in midfield, to play according to its DNA.
Arsenal’s midfielders are collectively inferior to main rivals
Based on EPL data, the brutal fact is, collectively Arsenal’s current crop of midfielders are arguably of inferior standard when compared to its main EPL rivals. I used data from Whoscored to compare like with like. For midfielders returning to their current teams I compared their 2016-17 data for Goals, Assists and overall Average Rating. By the way Whoscored classifies players like Alexis and Walcott as midfielders when in my opinion they are primarily wide forwards. In these cases and for similar players from other clubs they are excluded from the analysis. Similarly players classified as defenders but who played primarily as defensive midfielders, e.g. Emre Can, I include them in the analysis.
| Club | Goals | Assists | Avg Rating |
| Liverpool | 43 | 30 | 7.27 |
| Manchester City | 24 | 35 | 7.22 |
| Chelsea | 26 | 26 | 7.10 |
| Manchester United | 18 | 16 | 7.09 |
| Tottenham | 34 | 27 | 7.00 |
| Arsenal | 16 | 25 | 6.92 |
The data makes somber reading for all gooners. Among the top-6, of the returning midfielders from 2016-17 Arsenal is dead last in goals-scored and second from last in assists. Top of the list is Liverpool and hopefully the data should shut up the screaming imbeciles who think they are chopped liver.
What most concerns me is that although Wenger has bought quality players in Lacazette and Kolosinac to improve the forward-line and defense repectively, unlike his main rivals he has been unable to sign a top-top midfielder. Liverpool has brought Salah as an AM and he was rated 7.48 in the Scudetto, United has bought Matic who had a 7.01 overall rating at Chelsea last year, City has bought Silva who had a 7.29 rating in Ligue Une and Chelsea bought Bakayoko who brings a 7.27 overall rating from Monaco.
I am not arguing that any of these new players will suddenly become world class at their new clubs but they are clearly making an effort to strengthen with at least 7/10 players. Apart from Ozil, all other midfielders at Arsenal were less than 7/10 last year. This I would suggest is the root of Arsenal’s current midfield woes.
In my last blog I argued Arsenal will challenge based on the consistency of the club and its manager over the past 21 years and the evident efforts to strengthen the squad this season. The emotional outpouring of wailing and gnashing of teeth after the Liverpool defeat strengthens my contrarian conviction. There was a similar outpouring last year and the margin of defeat was far less. The data leads me to the conclusion that the manager knows where the weakness lie and will use the last days of the transfer window to try find a fix.
PS: I must take a temporary leave of absence from blogging to take care of some pressing issues. Hoping to return after the international break.
Positively Arsenal 
now just in case we are signing Sterling, I will say now there are two things I hate about Sterling,
1. the way he runs, when he is undergoing his medical I hope the take the poker out of his arse, then he might run in a better manner
2. now this is not of Sterlings making, but I hate the over hype of him by the english media when he first got in the England team, and then the way they have slaughtered him ever since, with the cunty Sun being particularly nasty, in fact vile towards him. I can imagine if he joins AFC the media will step up the hate campaign
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Chelsea make a £25M bid for Ross Barkley, looks like the Ox aint getting that midfield role he wants
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David OrnsteinVerified account @bbcsport_david
Arsenal have rebuffed all approaches from Man City for Sanchez. #AFC stance remains not for sale – unless huge money + player offered #MCFC
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The boys didn’t play well on Sunday, in fact they didn’t turn up at all. It’s not something new and it could happen to anyone. However, let’s not lose sight of what’s important, and that is backing our team after a loss. I listened to the arsecast earlier, and regretted why I wasted my time. The contradictions and lies are astounding. One could be forgiven for thinking these guys are on Usmanov’s payroll to spread as much hate as they possibly can to try and force Kroenke to sell him his shares in the club to him.
Anyway, just like Alabama, am choosing to back the manager and players and club. I refuse to be drawn into media lies and propaganda. As the proverb goes, a bad beginning makes a good ending.
Ps. The impact of the robbery at Stoke is even more telling now.
#UTA
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we are the loser in these battles. the more they drag the worse for us. if we had shipped these bastard away many weeks ago we would have replace them and moved on. even if we keep them now, it will be the story all season. we may now lose out on lemar a guy whom we were the clear and only bidder a month back. monaco we sell lemar because they have bought replacement. and now if we have to get him, it will be double the amount we have paid.
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*amount we bid*
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the latest report is that ox has rejected a move to chelsea. i think he was right because he wont have any chance of playng through the midfield but wing back and in competion with players who are proberbly better than him in the position. liverpool will offer him a role in the middle but will pay far less to him even less than we offer him
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we wait and we wonder…
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oxlade will take less at liverpool than we are going to offer him for to play a position we can easilly get a player who can play in the position half the money. if he had accepted our 180k we reportedly offer in desperation to stop him from joining a rival club and then continue to play as poorly as he played last game or at best be as inconsistent as he has been for the past six years, we will then have in our hands a player we will find very difficult to move on. oxlade will never play in our midfield and we dont have to pay 180k for a wing back because no club in the world pay such not even psg.
it is high time we stopped using wage to entice players who never want to play for us to stay or pay players who feel their class is above ours. we pay more than liverpool and spuds but we perform poorly against them. ironically these are the clubs we beat easilly in the past when we had a sort of egalitarian wage structure. there is nothing wrong if we pay players well or one or two players more than the rest. but this have to be players that are head and shoulder above the rest. not players that are rejected by some big clubs and they come here to form as if they are some sort of messi. every day i thank God for santi a genuine world class player who does it in and out of the pitch and still dont give truobles to us in matters of contracts.
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i see people clamouring for draxler. this season makes it thousandth season we keep hearing or linked to this player. since then we’ve had coutinho, dembele auba and many other who are rough gold and today going for world records. players we pride ourselves getting in the past. there are dembeles griezmanns and many coutinho mbappe hidden somewhere for less and lets stop messing around some spoilt super star failure who only come here to feast on our lean resources.
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BBC reporting Ox has turned down CFC cos they want to play him as a wingback, leaving only liverpool in for him, and they have bid £10M less than the bid we accepted from CFC, so the LFC bid has not surprisingly been rejected.
its all gone quiet on the Alexis to city talk
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Kieran Gibbs to WBA seems to have been completed. Sad to see a true Gooner leave,he was not in the plan here, so right move for all concerned.
First time I seen him play was for our U18’s and he looked to be a star in the making, but as a midfielder, wide left, I thought we had another Graham Rix on our hands. Wenger then decided that left back was the role for him, and so he had to learn on the job as he stepped up to the first team, it was a pity he had not been switched to left back in the youths, he may have progressed more if he had.
Some good and some bad memories from his time at AFC, the bad, the horror show v Man Utd in the CL semi final
the good – well there was that oh so important goal line clearance when 2-0 down to hull in the cup final, he was also the one guy back minding the goal when per slipped, fabianski missed the ball and man, and Aluko shot across our goal right in the last minute.
Another big moment from Gibbs was our final game of the season away to WBA, think he score was 3-2, we needed the win for Cl spot, and WBA broke into our area in the last seconds and it was gibbs with a mighty tackle to save the day.
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Gibbs move has now been confirmed.
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Edu, where has it been confirmed? Its not on the website yet.
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how come Man City and Pep are not being accused of dithering over their stalled move for Alexis, shouldn’t they just bid what it takes to get it done.
also will Conte be accused of not knowing what he is doing seeing as he could not close the Ox deal, all was agreed, fee, wages, then Ox speaks to Conte and move stalls
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Arsenal have confirmed it right now, and WBA confirmed it earlier
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with Gibbs gone that leaves AFC with just the 29 players over the age of 21, only another 4 to move on.
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reports from Liverpool suggest that Ox is only one of two midfield targets, with them only looking to sign one of them, Lemar the other target, and its suggested he is actually first choice for them, could ox be left in limbo, force a move and then not complete it and have to come back to AFC.
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I’m sorry to see Kieran leave the club. He always gave his best when he played, but unfortunately he was also injured a lot of the time. I hope he does well at West Brom except for when he is playing against us.
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edu, i really dont think that meeting the required 25 man squad is more important than strengthening the team. if that is the case, we may only get to sell more of our reliable first team players than the ones we do not need to keep. as it is no one is obligated to pay for a player that adds litle or no value to their squad. we need to replace the players we earlier counted on for the season who have now left or are about to leave, 25 man squad or not. the others we do not want, we can give them out on loan, paid loan or otherwise. i’m not sure we are the only club having more than 25 players who are above 21 years. we’ve done ok with gibbs but rather than allow the like of elnenny whom we were said to have accepted bid for earlier in the summer to leave, i’ll hope we let the player like debuchy campbell and apom go for free or cancel their contracts.
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Something about AFC is seriously fucked. I can’t countenance it being Arsene, so wtf is it?
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I really hope Mustafi stays and sorts out whatever issues he has. wondering what is that serious?
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reports that Mustafi move to Inter Milan has stalled after the clubs could not agree a deal.
Liverpool said to be in talks with AFC over a fee for OX
BBC report AFC are digging in over Alexis and are demanding Raheem Sterling + £20M from Man CIty if a deal is to be done.
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oxlade-chamberlain to liverpool agree according to his reps.
£35M fee it seems.
Arsenal are now in transfer profit, of about £15M
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https://twitter.com/colossalsportsm/status/902926937726885888
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oddest transfer rumor, Walcott to Southampton, with Arsenal paying £50K a week of his wages, its said Theo is demanding higher wages from Southampton than he is on at AFC, and that Arsenal will subsidize his wages over the course of a four year contract. That would basically mean AFC paying back SFC £10.4M over four years towards Theo’s wages. About half of the transfer fee. Could it possibly be true. If so what is going on.
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David OrnsteinVerified account @bbcsport_david
Liverpool have agreed a deal with Arsenal to sign Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain for £40m #AFC #LFC
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less than 29 hours of the transfer window left, we have today sold Ox and Gibbs, the Mustafi deal has stalled, as it seems AFC want to sign Johnny Evans as a replacement before letting him leave, but Evans does not want to move south, he has a young family and his wife works for MUTV, and with Man City in for him, he is not keen on move to AFC.
Latest rumor is that Elneny is in talks with a couple of clubs too.
Odd rumors have emerge in last number of hours that Arsenal are not releasing major transfer funds for any in coming players
Reports from Manchester say that Man City will not include Sterling in any move for Alexis, and will instead offer £70M, and feel that AFC will accept this.
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We’ll see won’t we. If a little over half of the more doom-laden talk is accurate, then we could have at least another big player leave without any major addition and end up massively in profit.
I struggle to believe that is a possibility. If so, and it is the culmination of some machinations which have left Wenger dealing with much more adverse conditions than he agreed to months ago…where the hell would that leave him?
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If I’m constructing a straw man here, someone please point out the alternative characterization. But it seems to me that many Arsenal fans, at least on Twitter, are more willing to believe that the manager is inept than that a billionaire, unaccountable, Trump-supporting owner might have changed a financial directive. Speaks volumes.
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Dearie me, I was hoping the Ox would stay as I rather like him and was hoping for a bit of payback for the years of investment.
I expect I shall get over it though, but it will take time.
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900ftgooner, AW is a popular punching bag and an easy target. Kronke is harder to blame because he is not the one facing the media every week. I’ve tried to keep a distance from the hysterical talk about lack of a plan and ‘shambles’, but it’s hard to see where all this is going to end up when instead of moving on the surplus to requirement players it seems like first team players are being shifted. I will be interested to see what shape we are in when the dust settles, but I wonder if there has been some sort of ultimatum of the “you want to keep Alexis? You have to find the money we could have made from selling him with other player sales and reducing the wage bill?”
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Right, that is my period of grieving for young Alex over.
What’s up next then ?
Bournemouth I think
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It seems that no matter how often the lure is dabbled over the river’s surface in the late evening sun of August the fish cannot resist. Bright shiny bright shiny. Apparently desperate for the hook.
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making a transfer profit or lose isnt the point, is it? with all the players arriving liverpool they might end u making profit despite strengthening their squad in quality and quantity.
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https://www.arsenal.com/news/analysis-why-did-it-all-go-wrong-anfield
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I’ve decided
I shall boycott the protest
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if we for instance manage to get raheem starling or aguero as part of the deal for sanchez as well as getting a good cetral defender, (hopefully not evans) we might still have done well in the window. lets not over react to ox’s sale. as a matter of fact we need to be happy we didnt end up paying 180k/w for a player liverpool dont think is worth more than 120k/w. we might have dodged a bullet there. personally i dont think we need to replace ox. he is an auxilliary wing-back. we can get a back up ik january if AMN or nelson couldnt do a good job. alfterall chelsea won the title with only alonso and moses as their only recognised wing-backs. i’ll be worried if we sell alexis for cash only without replacement or allow mustafi to leave without replacement.
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I’m not disappointed Oxlade-Chamberlain has gone, I’m relieved the saga is over. Clearly he no longer wants to be at AFC, so good riddance.
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Ornstein, who seems to have the honour of breaking club news this days, saying Incomings unlikely, and no money for major transfers. WTF, think we are now in profit for transfers this summer??on top of TV money and healthy revenues, and a relatively decent wages to turnover? No money for transfers?
Can only assume
1/ Ornstein has it wrong, or has been deceived, that would be very cruel on the trusted chap
2/ as suggested already, some sort of adjustment for not shifting or signing on Alexis and Ozil
3/ someone has pulled the plug for whatever reason, and I think in this case , unlikely to be Wenger
4/ arsenal are the only club in the league trying adhere to the EPL very of FFP, no expert on this, but would say that is unlikely , that is supposed to be riddled with loopholes, and look at what others are doing.
Cannot see beyond 2 or three as things stand. And as said, where does that leave Wenger? Selling good players to rivals, with no replacements, not great, especially in the current environment
But hopefully, tomorrow will finish with no other very decent players gone , with no replacements, there, that’s being positive
Best wishes and thanks to Gibbs btw, decent player who had some very great moments to remember.
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Struggling to see how we’d exceed the 7 mill difference with Lacazette and Kolasinac in and Szczesny, Gibbs, Ox, plus few fringe players and Jenkinson loan out. Perez, surely. Debuchy, meanwhile, now seems destined to do a half Bogarde
Or at least even with one extra in, as the suggestion is, would that push us over.
Hefty wages already for this two, plus another big signing, with those gone not on massive wages… maybe it would be close.
But then the fact Ox presumably wasn’t going until ‘quite’ recently, and was supposedly offered a big raise, plus big raises offered for Sanchez Ozil, which aren’t signed and in the first case very likely won’t be. The Lemar and Mbappe talk at the start…
Just seems bloody unfortunate and strange that we are the one prem club where there’s any suggestion of an issue.
I mean, how much can Everton have been playing Barry? Barry and Lukaku out; Rooney, Sigurdsson, Malaga striker, Pickford, 30 mill centre back, plus couple more signings in.
City, meanwhile…just give over.
As for rules which could see a club spend 300 mill on transfers and be ok, largely because they shipped out on cheap a lot of older players, signed at a time when this cap presumably didn’t exist…. while this 7 mill cap being broken, even if the club is fine with money because of the crazy tv deal which doesn’t count, can spell big trouble…those rules may need a little work.
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one of tomorrows papers say Arsenal will let Alexis go for £70M and are trying to sign Van Dijk, Seri and one of Lemar or Draxler
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just a reminder that last week Wenger said he wanted to keep OX and Alexis but that the board could over rule him, it certainly looks like they have.
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The whole thing is very odd Rich, unless of course we are surprised in the next few hours.
But agree, no other clubs seem to be paying any attention to this version of FFP, if Arsenal really are the only club paying heed to it, I would suggest it is because it suits someone
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If that’s the case Eduardo, and it may well be, its all been left very late
Hopefully wrong, but would suggest it is a lot easier to sell Alexis than get those players in at this stage, they really cannot afford to lose another key player, and miss out on replacements
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y
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Yeah mandy we only have to say yes to city and alexis is gone,
this whole AFC don’t have the money seems bogus, its only about 6 weeks ago that we bid £50M for Lemar, and were also trying to do an even bigger deal for Mbappe, since then we have sold Szczesny, Gabriel and Ox for about £60M, and if we sell Alexis that is at least doubled.
If we sell Alexis and don’t buy in some players then I can only imagine the uproar at the AGM when the accounts show us with over £300M
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Jean-Michaël Seri’s agents have been informed that Arsenal will not be making a bid for him, according to The Guardian.
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looks like Joel Campbell is off to Betis
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