Blahovic

I think he's clearly worse than we wanted him to be, but that some of his underwhelming numbers are related to our attacking dysfunction this season. I think him and Eze will both settle much better with a bit of time and fitness. It's been a very chaotic year personnel-wise.

I cannot believe they put him back in government. Utterly fucking disgusting.

In another world he's Arsenal's PL-winning CF signing this year

Your bitterness over this delights me.

We also have a few flashpoints in the team from a minutes overload perspective. Timber is currently on track to play about 55-60 90s for club and country before the World Cup this season. That's just not possible.

I think another quiet issue is that the attacking output of our fullbacks is very fragile. We don't have a Calafiori alternative right now and Timber is occupying spaces in which he is essentially harmless to the opposition. Against such low blocks, everyone up top needs to be a threat.

I don't know if that's true anymore. It'd been a long time since Odegaard and Havertz played together consistently. We basically only have half a season from two years ago of a sample size with relatively normal circumstances.

Why would you want three guys with massive technical limitations and no 1v1 dribbling ability in the front 4? What are they gonna do when the space compresses and defenders double up on them?

I think tbh it's more that those were games where Eze played more distinctly separate from midfield (and away from the right) because Merino dropped into the old Odegaard zone. The Eze as second striker concept is more projection than reality, bcs apart from those Merino games he was just at RCM.

I think there's a number of factors hindering the output of basically everyone who doesn't take corners. If we get over the line this season or make a genuine tactical change, I strongly believe that the same attackers would produce much more next year.

Well people saw us nail a couple of high profile games with that pair. The rest is theoretical.

Tbh I think we have lots of interesting attacking combos, just haven't had the leeway to explore or the freedom for them to combine.

Tbf Gyok had decent run last few games. Chelsea, Inter, United looked bright and featured end product.

I do think Merino-Havertz could be very interesting for us, in terms of letting us play our possession game while maximising our aerial threat.

E.g. drop in Odegaard instead of Merino and give us better build up + more box threat.

I don't even think Havertz is a non-striker tbh. When he plays there, he's basically just an all-around striker with shit ball-striking. It's not like he's a 4th midfielder when he plays 9, he's a true forward.

I think calling it a gimmick js harsh. I think it can actually work consistently (albeit with adjustments and changes off the bench). The main problem is that you can't employ one ideal combo of ideal personnel while trying to compete in 60 games across 4 competitions.

A lot of fans keep going back to Merino/Eze as a front 2 vs Bayern with no understanding that it was a completely unique game context that will not be repeated once in the PL.

People keep seeing attackers play well in much more open cup games and expecting a translation to the PL. The game context is just completely different. E.g. Gabriel Jesus playing well vs Inter or Gyok vs Atleti simply has no bearing on the next PL game.

Do you have to design everything from scratch, though? Elden Ring is an enormous, distinctive world which is in many ways the product of reused assets.

Is it not possible to resuse many assets and character animations while making it feel fresh with clever technical/design and strong writing?

We only really looked good in two games, both of which were 1) tactically unusual (Spurs in how bad they were, Bayern in how aggressive they were) and 2) games we were pretty fresh for.

They don't really tell us about how to deal with playing serious PL low blocks after draining cup games.

I think that kind of consistency is unlikely given the investment we're putting into three other competitions. We never really go on those runs. We're more like 3 wins, 1 draw, 4 wins, 1 draw at our best.

In this game, Gyokeres played the role he was probably bought for -- coming off the bench to add a different option. He looked a bit brighter than the starter and won some duels to help us generate some threat.

Yet we still did mostly fuck all in open play both with him off and with him on.

Gyokeres is clearly worse than we wanted to be -- clearly.

But Gyokeres/Jesus/Saka/Madueke/Eze/Odegaard/Martinelli combining for 13 PL NPG in 63 combined 90s simply cannot just be a player quality issue.

We're oversensitive to this because we create so little in open play. We have systemic offensive struggles in open play dating back two seasons now. All of our non-Gyokeres attackers are simultaneously in the worst form of their careers. That can't just be coincidence.

My biggest concern is a 18/19 repeat on a bigger scale, where we bite off more than we can chew and narrowly miss out on everything

I agree it's not the end of the world, but I have a lot of concern about us maintaining our level thru the home stretch. Arteta has never contended on multiple fronts simultaneously and the games will just bigger. We already went first 11 in the Carabao and rested Saka/Trossard for a CL dead rubber.

But yeah marginal gains are huge. Maybe we beat Forest if Saka/Trossard start and we're fresher. Maybe if we beat Forest we are not in the same blind-eyed panic we entered into vs United. Just those little things can spiral into a 3-5 point difference so easily.

Both of those players will make us marginally better, and margins do matter so that could be the difference, but we're still going to underwhelm offensively with those guys in the 11.

Arteta doesn't have a counter (that he's willing to use?) for how PL teams defend us.

MLS has regressed and I'm not pretending he's at the same level, but the transition has left missing something important. We're already so restrained in our play that reverting to a limited CB as our auxiliary left attacker is a big problem. I would buy a new LB in the summer.

A final layer is a pure quality thing -- we are so so shit when we create a high turnover. That move in the first half where we dispossessed Bruno and Odegaard slips in Rice -- the fact that we only create a harmless blocked shot from that is just so poor. Those should be moments that change games.

1) is personnel-related -- yes we don't have world class forwards but honestly a huge problem is the FBs making supporting runs are very limited in the final 3rd. So often the freest guy in the front 5 is someone who won't hurt the opposition

2) is tactical -- we need to be a bit more creative here