Win Europa League: Arsenal 1 - 0 PSV Eindhoven | Thursday 20th, October | KO: 18:00 BST | BT Sport

We need to rest all our starters barring Xhaka. Some of our players are approaching the red zone.

Prediction

Arsenal 2-0 PSV

 

[ksarp]

I stated this earlier, let me reiterate, Xhaka is our MVP so far, and Partey is our MIP. Yesterday was a further testament to that.

 

[drippin]

Do we have four players in that list? Did I miss highlighting one?

Ødegaard is next to Diaz at 23% as the fourth player.

 

[BergMan]

I stated this earlier, let me reiterate, Xhaka is our MVP so far, and Partey is our MIP. Yesterday was a further testament to that.

Both Xhaka and Partey are our MIP’s. Most valuable would be the young player who would cost the most in the market. So I’d say our MVP is Saka.

 

[Nunowoolmez]

Okay so Partey is unique because essentially, he can do everything. He can do everything because he is supremely confident and borderline arrogant. You cannot buy a player with that level of confidence in the age range of 18-22 range, especially at the base of a midfield. Fabregas is THE exception. Thats even before you consider the talent. There isn't anything he can't do.

So when building for the future, we need to really think about how we play and the players we target. We play a possession based style of play with positional rotation. Players need to be intelligent but their base line level of technique that comes before everything is that they need to be able to pass the ball. Watch another Premier League team. We take for granted how good at passing our players are. Statistically our entire back four are in the highest percentile for passing and also in the highest percentile for completed passes. Tierney is the exception who is in the 70s which may be an indicator to an upgrade. However, Zinchenko is in the 99th percentile. We will not entertain signing players who cant pass the ball.

Look at Caicedo. The flavour of the month, but his passing is ****. It isn't the team he is on or where he is playing. He cant pass well enough to play for our team just like Bissouma couldnt. There are good young players who have good short to medium passing and physicality. Kone at Monchengladbach, Fofana at Monaco, Thuram at Nice. They have the physical profile and on the eye they look good, but in reality, they simply are not good enough passers. Arteta won't entertain it. We won't sacrifice passing quality for physicality. They also dont have the mental capacity to hold the midfield.

Now. The one player we should be buying in the summer and we should go up to 100 million if needed is Rice. I see a lot of debate about Rice, but the reality is that he is so good he can play CB, CM, AM and DM. If we are talking positional rotation, he could literally drop into CB to play from there. He is a leader, he is physical and he can do it all. Statistics back it up also. He beats Partey in every passing metric except progressive passing. My opinion is that is due to the team he plays in. Watch any compilation of Rice and you will see him cutting in from the left. He is an 8 who can play 6 and CB. I would buy him over Bellingham because we could play him with Partey and with Xhaka.

The player I would bring in during the January window is Tielemans. We have been dependant on Partey, not by choice, I feel. This is why we have Zinchenko and White to aid in buildup. Partey isn't as focal when those two play, if anything its Zinchenko as he is a better passer. Bringing in Tielemans would allow us to keep everything that Partey does. Tielemans is also good at recovering loose balls which is the main thing Partey does. He juts does it in a different way. Partey isn't fast either. He can't recover, so that meme of Tielemans is irrelevant. Tielemans would be protected by two defenders either side of him during transition.

Xhaka, Tielemans and Partey come the summer would do us till the end of the season. Rice after that would complete the 4.

Any combination would work with those 4 because we have two monster CBs and our fullbacks are good on the ball.

Rice's family are Chelsea fans. He won't move out of London. We are the only club who can compete for his signature if we really wanted to. Arteta could literally call up Moyes. I would blow £100 million on him as he completes our midfield and makes it impossible to lower our floor. He is probably the future England captain also.

Are you in competion with @AbouCuéllar ?

 

[yorch44]

Dont think you've won yet to be honest.

We were calling TP5 a waste of a buy not too long a go, so lets see how Sambi's game develops.

Partey was always a good player but he has injuries and we had a very poor team around him. Just an scape goat for many people because we spent many millions on him. And he had to adapt to a new league and a new position.

But in difference with Lokonga, you never saw Partey in his whole career walking around and tackling with fear or playing with laziness.

 

[AbouCuéllar]

Okay so Partey is unique because essentially, he can do everything. He can do everything because he is supremely confident and borderline arrogant. You cannot buy a player with that level of confidence in the age range of 18-22 range, especially at the base of a midfield. Fabregas is THE exception. Thats even before you consider the talent. There isn't anything he can't do.

One word: Tchouameni. But yeah, I agree, it's extremely, extremely difficult to find these players in that age range, and if you do, they go to bigger clubs. There are basically a couple every generation that are good enough to do it at a young age. This generation you have Tchouameni last you had Busquets, that's about it (for 5s I mean, if you widen it to 6s and 8s to include people like Cesc there are more of course).

So when building for the future, we need to really think about how we play and the players we target. We play a possession based style of play with positional rotation. Players need to be intelligent but their base line level of technique that comes before everything is that they need to be able to pass the ball. Watch another Premier League team. We take for granted how good at passing our players are. Statistically our entire back four are in the highest percentile for passing and also in the highest percentile for completed passes. Tierney is the exception who is in the 70s which may be an indicator to an upgrade. However, Zinchenko is in the 99th percentile. We will not entertain signing players who cant pass the ball.

Yeah, Tierney is technically a good enough passer, but his passing profile--same issue I raised with Bissouma--ie, his personality and types of decisions he makes as a passer, is quite worrying.

Look at Caicedo. The flavour of the month, but his passing is ****. It isn't the team he is on or where he is playing. He cant pass well enough to play for our team just like Bissouma couldnt. There are good young players who have good short to medium passing and physicality. Kone at Monchengladbach, Fofana at Monaco, Thuram at Nice. They have the physical profile and on the eye they look good, but in reality, they simply are not good enough passers. Arteta won't entertain it. We won't sacrifice passing quality for physicality. They also dont have the mental capacity to hold the midfield.

Now. The one player we should be buying in the summer and we should go up to 100 million if needed is Rice. I see a lot of debate about Rice, but the reality is that he is so good he can play CB, CM, AM and DM. If we are talking positional rotation, he could literally drop into CB to play from there. He is a leader, he is physical and he can do it all. Statistics back it up also. He beats Partey in every passing metric except progressive passing. My opinion is that is due to the team he plays in. Watch any compilation of Rice and you will see him cutting in from the left. He is an 8 who can play 6 and CB. I would buy him over Bellingham because we could play him with Partey and with Xhaka.

The player I would bring in during the January window is Tielemans. We have been dependant on Partey, not by choice, I feel. This is why we have Zinchenko and White to aid in buildup. Partey isn't as focal when those two play, if anything its Zinchenko as he is a better passer. Bringing in Tielemans would allow us to keep everything that Partey does. Tielemans is also good at recovering loose balls which is the main thing Partey does. He juts does it in a different way. Partey isn't fast either. He can't recover, so that meme of Tielemans is irrelevant. Tielemans would be protected by two defenders either side of him during transition.

I agree on Rice. And I agree it's become a bit fashionable to hate on him. I do not know however how he is in press resistance and quick combination. I guess he could be taught. But Thomas has a wonderful press resistance, ability to turn unexpectedly against pressers (which takes a lot of composure, not sure Rice has the same level), and he's never played as a 5 in a juego de posición system anything like ours that plays out against a press based on quick one touch triangles and when necessary clever dribbles to surprise a presser like Thomas'. Perhaps I am bringing a bit of anti-English bias because as I say in another thread you just don't see top class 5s trained in England ever really, but I do worry if there is too much re-wiring of his brain to do for us with Rice...I think it would be a massive, massive gamble at £100m and having played under the managers and systems in which he has, you're talking about a project with some major, major risk for the price of a world class player. I think he would profile more in the Xhaka role for us, honestly. To re-wire his DNA at his age is really difficult, as we saw a bit with Xhaka as a 5 (very different players in terms of physical abilities here, so I admit it's a very flawed analogy / reference point).

Re: Tielemans you are underrating Thomas' athleticism. He is not the 'fastest' in the strict sense but he has long strides and makes up ground quickly. Like Rice (who is one of the fastest central midfielders), he is deceptively fast. Not as much as Thomas but Thomas' top speed was 32,5 in 19-20 in the CL for Atléti, which is quite rapid, Rice is in the 33s which is super rapid for a CM, Thomas will have dropped a bit of pace since then maybe but will still leave him rather rapid for a CM. Tielemans is under 30, he's far far slower than both of these players and far less strong and agile. He is a wonderful passer though, with both feet, extremely progressive, and better at ball recoveries than people realise, but in a different position, and seems pretty press resistant. I just don't know enough about his positional sense to say anything as you have to watch the player a lot to know about that, so I don't know if there's any scope to train him as a 5. Our scouts will know, though...I agree he's a decent shout, given price tag I would certainly take him on as a project before Rice.

You are right to point out Zinchenko's importance. Makes everybody's job, especially Thomas', much easier, and gives us so much balance. Our system isn't quite the same without him, like City's without Cancelo. He's one of our most irreplaceable players. An underrated area of improvement in the squad might be another inverted fullback / midfielder like him, whether RB or LB, as we will suffer a lot when he is unavailable, you could see that at Leeds. Maybe Grimaldo who seems quite good on the ball and a very good passer.

@Nunowoolmez thanks for alerting me to this essay

 

[GoonerJeeves]

One word: Tchouameni. But yeah, I agree, it's extremely, extremely difficult to find these players in that age range, and if you do, they go to bigger clubs. There are basically a couple every generation that are good enough to do it at a young age. This generation you have Tchouameni last you had Busquets, that's about it (for 5s I mean, if you widen it to 6s and 8s to include people like Cesc there are more of course).

Yeah, Tierney is technically a good enough passer, but his passing profile--same issue I raised with Bissouma--ie, his personality and types of decisions he makes as a passer, is quite worrying.


I agree on Rice. And I agree it's become a bit fashionable to hate on him. I do not know however how he is in press resistance and quick combination. I guess he could be taught. But Thomas has a wonderful press resistance, ability to turn unexpectedly against pressers (which takes a lot of composure, not sure Rice has the same level), and he's never played as a 5 in a juego de posición system anything like ours that plays out against a press based on quick one touch triangles and when necessary clever dribbles to surprise a presser like Thomas'. Perhaps I am bringing a bit of anti-English bias because as I say in another thread you just don't see top class 5s trained in England ever really, but I do worry if there is too much re-wiring of his brain to do for us with Rice...I think it would be a massive, massive gamble at £100m and having played under the managers and systems in which he has, you're talking about a project with some major, major risk for the price of a world class player. I think he would profile more in the Xhaka role for us, honestly. To re-wire his DNA at his age is really difficult, as we saw a bit with Xhaka as a 5 (very different players in terms of physical abilities here, so I admit it's a very flawed analogy / reference point).

Re: Tielemans you are underrating Thomas' athleticism. He is not the 'fastest' in the strict sense but he has long strides and makes up ground quickly. Like Rice (who is one of the fastest central midfielders), he is deceptively fast. Not as much as Thomas but Thomas' top speed was 32,5 in 19-20 in the CL for Atléti, which is quite rapid, Rice is in the 33s which is super rapid for a CM, Thomas will have dropped a bit of pace since then maybe but will still leave him rather rapid for a CM. Tielemans is under 30, he's far far slower than both of these players and far less strong and agile. He is a wonderful passer though, with both feet, extremely progressive, and better at ball recoveries than people realise, but in a different position, and seems pretty press resistant. I just don't know enough about his positional sense to say anything as you have to watch the player a lot to know about that, so I don't know if there's any scope to train him as a 5. Our scouts will know, though...I agree he's a decent shout, given price tag I would certainly take him on as a project before Rice.

You are right to point out Zinchenko's importance. Makes everybody's job, especially Thomas', much easier, and gives us so much balance. Our system isn't quite the same without him, like City's without Cancelo. He's one of our most irreplaceable players. An underrated area of improvement in the squad might be another inverted fullback / midfielder like him, whether RB or LB, as we will suffer a lot when he is unavailable, you could see that at Leeds. Maybe Grimaldo who seems quite good on the ball and a very good passer.

@Nunowoolmez thanks for alerting me to this essay

The printing press was invented for this.

 

[CaseUteinberger]

Okay so Partey is unique because essentially, he can do everything. He can do everything because he is supremely confident and borderline arrogant. You cannot buy a player with that level of confidence in the age range of 18-22 range, especially at the base of a midfield. Fabregas is THE exception. Thats even before you consider the talent. There isn't anything he can't do.

So when building for the future, we need to really think about how we play and the players we target. We play a possession based style of play with positional rotation. Players need to be intelligent but their base line level of technique that comes before everything is that they need to be able to pass the ball. Watch another Premier League team. We take for granted how good at passing our players are. Statistically our entire back four are in the highest percentile for passing and also in the highest percentile for completed passes. Tierney is the exception who is in the 70s which may be an indicator to an upgrade. However, Zinchenko is in the 99th percentile. We will not entertain signing players who cant pass the ball.

Look at Caicedo. The flavour of the month, but his passing is ****. It isn't the team he is on or where he is playing. He cant pass well enough to play for our team just like Bissouma couldnt. There are good young players who have good short to medium passing and physicality. Kone at Monchengladbach, Fofana at Monaco, Thuram at Nice. They have the physical profile and on the eye they look good, but in reality, they simply are not good enough passers. Arteta won't entertain it. We won't sacrifice passing quality for physicality. They also dont have the mental capacity to hold the midfield.

Now. The one player we should be buying in the summer and we should go up to 100 million if needed is Rice. I see a lot of debate about Rice, but the reality is that he is so good he can play CB, CM, AM and DM. If we are talking positional rotation, he could literally drop into CB to play from there. He is a leader, he is physical and he can do it all. Statistics back it up also. He beats Partey in every passing metric except progressive passing. My opinion is that is due to the team he plays in. Watch any compilation of Rice and you will see him cutting in from the left. He is an 8 who can play 6 and CB. I would buy him over Bellingham because we could play him with Partey and with Xhaka.

The player I would bring in during the January window is Tielemans. We have been dependant on Partey, not by choice, I feel. This is why we have Zinchenko and White to aid in buildup. Partey isn't as focal when those two play, if anything its Zinchenko as he is a better passer. Bringing in Tielemans would allow us to keep everything that Partey does. Tielemans is also good at recovering loose balls which is the main thing Partey does. He juts does it in a different way. Partey isn't fast either. He can't recover, so that meme of Tielemans is irrelevant. Tielemans would be protected by two defenders either side of him during transition.

Xhaka, Tielemans and Partey come the summer would do us till the end of the season. Rice after that would complete the 4.

Any combination would work with those 4 because we have two monster CBs and our fullbacks are good on the ball.

Rice's family are Chelsea fans. He won't move out of London. We are the only club who can compete for his signature if we really wanted to. Arteta could literally call up Moyes. I would blow £100 million on him as he completes our midfield and makes it impossible to lower our floor. He is probably the future England captain also.

One word: Tchouameni. But yeah, I agree, it's extremely, extremely difficult to find these players in that age range, and if you do, they go to bigger clubs. There are basically a couple every generation that are good enough to do it at a young age. This generation you have Tchouameni last you had Busquets, that's about it (for 5s I mean, if you widen it to 6s and 8s to include people like Cesc there are more of course).

Yeah, Tierney is technically a good enough passer, but his passing profile--same issue I raised with Bissouma--ie, his personality and types of decisions he makes as a passer, is quite worrying.


I agree on Rice. And I agree it's become a bit fashionable to hate on him. I do not know however how he is in press resistance and quick combination. I guess he could be taught. But Thomas has a wonderful press resistance, ability to turn unexpectedly against pressers (which takes a lot of composure, not sure Rice has the same level), and he's never played as a 5 in a juego de posición system anything like ours that plays out against a press based on quick one touch triangles and when necessary clever dribbles to surprise a presser like Thomas'. Perhaps I am bringing a bit of anti-English bias because as I say in another thread you just don't see top class 5s trained in England ever really, but I do worry if there is too much re-wiring of his brain to do for us with Rice...I think it would be a massive, massive gamble at £100m and having played under the managers and systems in which he has, you're talking about a project with some major, major risk for the price of a world class player. I think he would profile more in the Xhaka role for us, honestly. To re-wire his DNA at his age is really difficult, as we saw a bit with Xhaka as a 5 (very different players in terms of physical abilities here, so I admit it's a very flawed analogy / reference point).

Re: Tielemans you are underrating Thomas' athleticism. He is not the 'fastest' in the strict sense but he has long strides and makes up ground quickly. Like Rice (who is one of the fastest central midfielders), he is deceptively fast. Not as much as Thomas but Thomas' top speed was 32,5 in 19-20 in the CL for Atléti, which is quite rapid, Rice is in the 33s which is super rapid for a CM, Thomas will have dropped a bit of pace since then maybe but will still leave him rather rapid for a CM. Tielemans is under 30, he's far far slower than both of these players and far less strong and agile. He is a wonderful passer though, with both feet, extremely progressive, and better at ball recoveries than people realise, but in a different position, and seems pretty press resistant. I just don't know enough about his positional sense to say anything as you have to watch the player a lot to know about that, so I don't know if there's any scope to train him as a 5. Our scouts will know, though...I agree he's a decent shout, given price tag I would certainly take him on as a project before Rice.

You are right to point out Zinchenko's importance. Makes everybody's job, especially Thomas', much easier, and gives us so much balance. Our system isn't quite the same without him, like City's without Cancelo. He's one of our most irreplaceable players. An underrated area of improvement in the squad might be another inverted fullback / midfielder like him, whether RB or LB, as we will suffer a lot when he is unavailable, you could see that at Leeds. Maybe Grimaldo who seems quite good on the ball and a very good passer.

@Nunowoolmez thanks for alerting me to this essay

Quality posts both. Slightly different views but really nice reads. Thanks for posting!

 

[The_Playmaker]

One word: Tchouameni. But yeah, I agree, it's extremely, extremely difficult to find these players in that age range, and if you do, they go to bigger clubs. There are basically a couple every generation that are good enough to do it at a young age. This generation you have Tchouameni last you had Busquets, that's about it (for 5s I mean, if you widen it to 6s and 8s to include people like Cesc there are more of course).

Yeah, Tierney is technically a good enough passer, but his passing profile--same issue I raised with Bissouma--ie, his personality and types of decisions he makes as a passer, is quite worrying.


I agree on Rice. And I agree it's become a bit fashionable to hate on him. I do not know however how he is in press resistance and quick combination. I guess he could be taught. But Thomas has a wonderful press resistance, ability to turn unexpectedly against pressers (which takes a lot of composure, not sure Rice has the same level), and he's never played as a 5 in a juego de posición system anything like ours that plays out against a press based on quick one touch triangles and when necessary clever dribbles to surprise a presser like Thomas'. Perhaps I am bringing a bit of anti-English bias because as I say in another thread you just don't see top class 5s trained in England ever really, but I do worry if there is too much re-wiring of his brain to do for us with Rice...I think it would be a massive, massive gamble at £100m and having played under the managers and systems in which he has, you're talking about a project with some major, major risk for the price of a world class player. I think he would profile more in the Xhaka role for us, honestly. To re-wire his DNA at his age is really difficult, as we saw a bit with Xhaka as a 5 (very different players in terms of physical abilities here, so I admit it's a very flawed analogy / reference point).

Re: Tielemans you are underrating Thomas' athleticism. He is not the 'fastest' in the strict sense but he has long strides and makes up ground quickly. Like Rice (who is one of the fastest central midfielders), he is deceptively fast. Not as much as Thomas but Thomas' top speed was 32,5 in 19-20 in the CL for Atléti, which is quite rapid, Rice is in the 33s which is super rapid for a CM, Thomas will have dropped a bit of pace since then maybe but will still leave him rather rapid for a CM. Tielemans is under 30, he's far far slower than both of these players and far less strong and agile. He is a wonderful passer though, with both feet, extremely progressive, and better at ball recoveries than people realise, but in a different position, and seems pretty press resistant. I just don't know enough about his positional sense to say anything as you have to watch the player a lot to know about that, so I don't know if there's any scope to train him as a 5. Our scouts will know, though...I agree he's a decent shout, given price tag I would certainly take him on as a project before Rice.

You are right to point out Zinchenko's importance. Makes everybody's job, especially Thomas', much easier, and gives us so much balance. Our system isn't quite the same without him, like City's without Cancelo. He's one of our most irreplaceable players. An underrated area of improvement in the squad might be another inverted fullback / midfielder like him, whether RB or LB, as we will suffer a lot when he is unavailable, you could see that at Leeds. Maybe Grimaldo who seems quite good on the ball and a very good passer.

@Nunowoolmez thanks for alerting me to this essay

Pretty funny that you have the tag as an essay writer. I may be the original

 

[AbouCuéllar]

Pretty funny that you have the tag as an essay writer. I may be the original

No respect for the real institutions around here, eh!