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Interesting bit of info this.
I need to watch this game, its presented some different dynamics that the team and manager are still coming to terms with.
I assumed Gabriel was carrying a knock. If not, it wasn't just that he missed out and we disturbed our CB pairing, but we started with three players out of position as a consequence. No idea why White wasn't dropped as Sailba would have been in his natural position and better able to cover Partey who was getting skinned a couple of times. Or, White needs a game at CB for crazy rotation to come...Ding ding ding. This issue was shoehorning Rice in midfield / the side at home vs NF while admitting that you still need Partey to progress the ball and Havertz to support the attack as Rice really does neither well.
Extra crazy that the person who actually missed out because of this was big Gabby…breaking up our best CB pairing.
Arteta was asked about this and made it clear that it was a tactical decision.I assumed Gabriel was carrying a knock. If not, it wasn't just that he missed out and we disturbed our CB pairing, but we started with three players out of position as a consequence. No idea why White wasn't dropped as Sailba would have been in his natural position and better able to cover Partey who was getting skinned a couple of times. Or, White needs a game at CB for crazy rotation to come...
Now the dust has settled a bit, what are your thoughts on Partey RB? Did it really add anything?
For me, it didn't, and its an unnecessary experiment carrying on from the back of last season. Yesterday, what did it achieve? Our best moments came when him and White swapped, and we got the White Ødegaard Saka link up again, so really, whats the point?
The high line was worrying, it was often Saliba left on his own, may have worked yesterday, but i wouldn't want to see that against Palace, or even Fulham.
To me, this just seemed a way of shoehorning both Rice and Havertz in because Arteta wanted to go with Nketiah uptop.
I don’t think we “shoehorned” rice and Havertz - I think we shoehorned Partey in because we didn’t have Zinchenko.
Hear me out… Zinny is the guy that orchestrates our build up. Without him, we needed to have Partey who although not able to control tempo as well as Zinny, had some silky build up skills. Timber is not a tempo / orchestrator type player. Even if he inverts, he is not a like for like for Zinchenko. What timber does is produce moments of quality, it’s a bit different.
If we had Zinny, we would have just kept our normal back 4 and had Partey on the bench. Zinny and Rice is a combo we’re yet to see and I have a strong feeling it’s Arteta’s goto midfield. They have the potential to complement each other really well.
I disagree. While this might have been the original plan, Rice has shown so far that he's not progressive enough. Partey at 6 is invaluable for us right now. So then, it becomes a question of Rice or Havertz LCM, or Nketiah/Havertz striker. These were the two decisions that needed to be made. The back 4 should simply have been Timber Gabriel Saliba White.
You disagree about my post about Zinchenko but make no mention of Zinchenko?
Even with Zinchenko, its a question of Rice/Havertz LCM, because Partey is needed at 6 IMO, he just offers too much, whereas both Rice and Havertz come with flaws at 6 and 8.
I assumed Gabriel was carrying a knock. If not, it wasn't just that he missed out and we disturbed our CB pairing, but we started with three players out of position as a consequence. No idea why White wasn't dropped as Sailba would have been in his natural position and better able to cover Partey who was getting skinned a couple of times. Or, White needs a game at CB for crazy rotation to come...
What are you on about? Team selection was great.
Second half was poor, lack of concentration and intensity and too late to make changes, definitely. Baffling to question the original team though considering how well the first half went.
Now the dust has settled a bit, what are your thoughts on Partey RB? Did it really add anything?
For me, it didn't, and its an unnecessary experiment carrying on from the back of last season. Yesterday, what did it achieve? Our best moments came when him and White swapped, and we got the White Ødegaard Saka link up again, so really, whats the point?
The high line was worrying, it was often Saliba left on his own, may have worked yesterday, but i wouldn't want to see that against Palace, or even Fulham.
To me, this just seemed a way of shoehorning both Rice and Havertz in because Arteta wanted to go with Nketiah uptop.
That's fair and thanks for the explanation. All I would say is that Partey had some struggles at RB. I had the crazy idea that White could invert and give us greater security in defence lol.Gabriel was the obvious defender to drop if you switch to the RB inverting into midfield. Partey going into midfield meant that we formed our usual in-possession back three with White on the right and Saliba in the middle. So both of them played in their normal positions really. The option would have been to take Timber out and put in Gabriel. But with Timber you had the option for him to also go and occupy full back positions if Rice or Partey dropped back to cover (basically Timber is better suited to be a left-sided version of White compared to Gabriel).
You mean Elanga, who is rapid. Rice had the chance to stop it early, take a yellow, but he didn't.Not sure if this has been mentioned, but both Saka and Rice ran out of steam quite easily in the sprint while chasing Aurier for Forest's goal. Maybe that could have been rustiness, but I doubt either would have an extra gear left in them at that stage in the game in the latter stages of the season. The key question remaining in this transfer window to me is how much we're willing to sacrifice to upgrade on their current backups Jorginho/Partey/Nelson/Vieira - all of who'm have their own obvious frailties.
The injury prone players in the squad also make it more challenging to avoid burning out the likes of Saka/Saliba who are already setting records for amount of minutes played in their age groups. Even Rice would be in that category over the last few years. We still have a few gaping holes in the squad that are worth addressing IMO.