Noticed something unusual while looking at the table. Only the top 2 (Liverpool and City) have fewer losses than Arsenal, but only the bottom 2 (Watford and Norwich) have fewer wins.
His not Mustafi-ness is a hugely admirable trait. In fact, it's the only thing I know about him, but it's enough for me to want the loan to go through.Looks pretty likely Arsenal will sign Pablo Mari from the Brazilian club Flamengo. He's in London now for a medical.
https://arseblog.news/2020/01/pablo-mari-arrives-in-london-for-arsenal-medical/
He's Spanish, and was with Man City but never played for them as he was always out on loan. But supposedly he's done well in Brazil, including when Flamengo faced Liverpool in the Club World Cup.
https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/transfer-news/pablo-mari-arsenal-liverpool-transfer-17630486
Arteta should have a good idea of him, since they overlapped at City, and presumably Arteta followed his loan progress.
He's 6'3", left-footed, and 26 years old. Rumored to cost about 7 million pounds.
Most importantly, he is not Mustafi.
At the end of last week, Flamengo agreed to sell defender Pablo Marí to Arsenal, from England, in a negotiation that was about to be made official. On Saturday (25), the athlete was already in England to carry out the last steps and be made official as a reinforcement of the English club. However, this Monday (27), the transaction had a major obstacle. The main reason, according to the Coluna do Fla report, was linked to the financial issue. After agreeing to pay about 9 million euros for the defender, Arsenal indicated that they would not be able to afford the cost. With that, the tendency is for the defender to return to Flamengo.
A one-minute highlight video of his performance against Liverpool had gotten my hopes up, ha. Yes, I know, someone could put together a highlight video of Mustafi that would make him look amazing, but it's fun to dream on the mostly unknown player who has yet to reveal any of his faults to me.Talks between Arsenal and Flamengo over Pablo Mari are "ongoing". Player was always due to return to Brazil.@TheAthleticUK
— gunnerblog (@gunnerblog) January 27, 2020
If this does go through, Mari will have flown from Brazil to England, back to Brazil, and back to England in a few days. Greta Thunberg will not like Arsenal's transfer dealings.Arsenal remain optimistic the transfer will go through before Friday's deadline for a fee of €10 million. Flamengo bought him for €2m. Pablo is ready to fly back at any time now once the deal is agreed and he will become Arteta's first signing at Arsenal. [
@ESPNFC]
The 26 year-old joins us from Brazilian side Flamengo, where he helped the Rio de Janeiro based team win the Brazilian Serie A title and the Copa Libertadores last year.
Mari made 22 appearances for Flamengo after joining them last July from Manchester City, where he had been since 2016. The left-footed central defender had three three different season-long loan spells during his time at City – in Spain with Girona for the 2016/17 season, then to the Netherlands with NAC Breda in 2017/18, before returning to Spain for the 2018/19 campaign with Deportivo La Coruna.
https://www.arsenal.com/news/pablo-mari-join-club-loanWe have an option to make the deal permanent in the summer.
Technical director Edu said: “Pablo is an experienced player who will provide us with additional defensive quality. We have been monitoring Pablo’s career for a while and we are very pleased to have reached agreement with Flamengo for him to join us initially until the end of our season. ”
@David_OrnsteinExpectation is Arsenal will complete signing of 28yo Portugal full-back Cedric Soares from Southampton within 24hrs. Loan until end of season will earn #SaintsFC £5m inc full salary cover + put #AFC in pole position if they want permanent when free agent in summer @TheAthleticUK
-Arseblog NewsSoares himself was taken off during Southampton’s last Premier League game with a knee ligament injury which is expected to keep him out for around three weeks.
It sounds like he is not just left-footed, but particularly reliant on that left-foot:Stylistically, Mari is potentially a good fit for Arteta’s team, Flamengo broadly play the sort of aggressive, front-footed style Arsenal are looking to emulate. Arteta looks to push his left-back up the pitch and Mari is used to covering that left half-space at Fla with Filipe Luis encouraged to push forward.
He does not have great pace, but stays on his feet pretty well, making a lot of stand-up tackles:Mari is also left-footed [he’s veeeery left-footed, Nigel Winterburn levels of left-footed] unlike all of Arsenal’s current centre-halves. He uses the ball well and can play long or diagonal passes with that left-foot too.
He played with a very strong Flamengo side, so it is hard to say how much of an impact he had directly on the defense, and they were often playing far inferior competition, so the Premier League should make for a challenging adjustment:He is much more a reader of the game and he makes stand-up tackles, he is judicious and rarely leaves his feet to make challenges and is strong in one-on-one duels. His lanky frame makes his legs appear telescopic as he pokes them out to burgle opponents of possession, he has quite a Mertesacker-esque frame.
Finally, the expectations should be set realistically that he is probably not here to claim a first-choice spot at CB, but rather a backup option.The presence of the still excellent Filipe Luís at left-back makes playing the left-sided centre-half role far easier and Rodrigo Caio is a very good partner for him in defence. Fla are so far ahead of their domestic counterparts and so good at pinning opponents back that their defence is rarely exposed... Mari was the final piece of the jigsaw rather than the kingpin of a Flamengo defence that is better than Arsenal’s on both a collective and individual level.
(All of the quotes are from the Stillman article.)This looks more like a replacement for Chambers or Mustafi than Sokratis or Luiz.
Jesus, Dude. Klopp finished in eighth the season he was hired. You think Arsenal‘s roster is that much better?Worst performance under Arteta so far.
My confidence in this hire wanes.
I do, actually.Jesus, Dude. Klopp finished in eighth the season he was hired. You think Arsenal‘s roster is that much better?
Sometimes you're just insufferable.I do, actually.
Klopp had actually accomplished things prior to Liverpool so there was already a track record also.
Ozil:“In this short time he has made a big impact. You can see the intensity [with which] we play. Also, the structure in the team and the mentality all over the pitch. Before, I don’t want to say it was a mess, it was a little bit confusing. Everybody was doing different things. We were not a team, not in the dressing room, not on the pitch, and you could see this."
Bellerin comparing Emery and Arteta:“Even the players – let’s say that after 60 or 70 minutes, if that player’s changing, everyone knows now in which position they have to play or how [the manager] wants to attack or make a lot of pressure on the opposite team."
Emery, probably getting ready for future jobs, has taken to defending himself a bit:“They’re very different type of managers. Mikel has always been very tactical in his work and in his whole life – he’s very professional with very clear ideas. He’s put that into the team very quickly. The discipline in the dressing room has also changed a lot and that’s a very important pillar to then build on.”
There also have been a couple of articles that show the precipitous downfall of Arsenal's creativity and attack in the past three seasons.Arsenal was a club on the downward slope for two years when I arrived... I obviously am partly responsible, but you see that the team has not exactly done better since I left.
I'm along for the ride with Arteta and look forward to, hopefully, continuing to see incremental improvements when they return versus Newcastle on Sunday.In 2015-16 Ozil passed most frequently to Sanchez and the next best combination was that willing forward runner Aaron Ramsey. This season after Guendouzi, the next favoured pass is to Lucas Torreira and then Granit Xhaka. That’s three defensive midfield players rather than two players with attacking instincts who love to take risks. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is, bizarrely, eighth in the list of players found by Ozil.
Current Arsenal are not constructed to have that variety of option around him. He was able to aim at Giroud’s head, exploit Walcott’s speed, unleash Sanchez’s dynamism, and pick out Ramsey’s runs from midfield. The pressure trying to find better balance in midfield to more securely protect a defence that had been leaking chances has taken a clear toll on the team’s collective attacking urge.
You're telling us your confidence in the hire has waned after not even half a season in which he hasn't made a single transfer or even choice for who he has on this team.The defense looks better and the offense looks worse, what's your point?
And the defense doesn't even REALLY look that improved if you look at xGA
Chelsea game: 1.50 xGA (2-1 loss)
United game: 0.72 xGA (2-0 win)
Palace game: 0.31 xGA (1-1 draw)
Sheffield game: 0.92 xGA (1-1 draw)
Chelsea game 2: 3.27 xGA (2-2 draw)
Burnley game: 2.25 xGA (0-0 draw)
Our xG has been under 2 for every game.
David Luiz may be a target in the game threads and that poor header that led to an Everton goal was ugly, but anyone watching Arsenal closely can see that he has been a net-positive under Arteta's watch. The progressive passes he completes (including a beauty to Aubameyang, leading to a goal) are very important to the attack, especially when some of the midfielders struggle to advance the ball. He is not the perfect center-back by any stretch, but there's only one Virgil Van Dijk.“I am so happy with him,” said the boss. “Obviously, because he’s scoring very important goals but also because as a captain, he is giving a great example to everybody else that a player of his calibre is able to work the way that he is working defensively because the demands every three days are big and he is willing and happy to do it."
But also during the five-day camp, Arsenal’s technical director Edu had to tell off the Frenchman for his behaviour at an external event. The group were enjoying some local music when Guendouzi briefly removed his shirt and waved it around in support of the act.
With the Manchester City game postponed, the next four Premier League games (West Ham, @Brighton, @Southampton, Norwich City), definitely would be nice games to pick up some points.They really need to win the next 4 games to stand a chance at 5th
Pos. | Team | Points | Points/Gm |
4 | Chelsea | 44 | 1.63 |
5 | Manchester United | 41 | 1.52 |
6 | Tottenham | 40 | 1.48 |
7 | Sheffield United | 40 | 1.48 |
8 | Wolves | 39 | 1.44 |
9 | Arsenal | 37 | 1.37 |
Team | Current | 1.75/gm | 2/gm |
Chelsea | 61.93 | 63.25 | 66 |
Manchester United | 57.70 | 60.25 | 63 |
Tottenham | 56.30 | 59.25 | 62 |
Sheffield United | 56.30 | 59.25 | 62 |
Wolves | 54.89 | 58.25 | 61 |
Arsenal | 52.07 | 56.25 | 59 |
Arsenal did suffer some significant injury blows, with Danny Welbeck, Rob Holding and Hector Bellerin all missing at least half that season. Burgess says Welbeck and Holding’s injuries were “unavoidable”. Bellerin’s case is more debatable, as he had been overplayed in the wake of an injury crisis at full-back.
“Once you get close to your game average, particularly on metres sprinted, that puts you in a really high-risk scenario — whether that’s in training or in a game. And that ‘red zone’ could be across a game, a week, or a month. If you’re approaching, or above, your previous week, previous month or previous game, particularly on sprinting distance, that puts you in danger of a muscular injury.”
Better him then Wenger I suppose.Jesus fucking christ, Arteta has coronavirus.
https://arseblog.news/2020/03/mikel-arteta-tests-positive-for-coronavirus/A horrible, bizarre, insane season just gets worse and weirder. Hope he recovers soon.
The core argument of this piece is hard to argue with: Buy good, younger players who are undervalued by the market and find a coach that will develop them and make them greater than the sum of their parts.This is a pretty thorough analysis of how Arsenal can rebuild and also works as a condemnation of just about everything they've done the last four years.
https://nograssintheclouds.substack.com/p/what-can-arsenal-learn-from-liverpool?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMTI5MTQsInBvc3RfaWQiOjQ5ODEwOSwiXyI6IkZpRk83IiwiaWF0IjoxNTkwNzU4NTI5LCJleHAiOjE1OTA3NjIxMjksImlzcyI6InB1Yi00MDgwIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.do3GmXytuPmyq6oVxLjMrF12HvU_CRNuZaPpypRZGbg
this makes no sense when the comparison is how liverpool built their team. they splashed for the time on mo salah and they splashed on VDV, whats the difference?"Other than spending 70m on Pepe, Arsenal have been rebuilding with young cheap players" is kind of an "other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show" argument.
Meh. Focusing overwhelmingly on Pepe is a lazy way of thinking about what Arsenal has done in the last two years. As is writing an article exhorting Arsenal to buy younger and cheaper players with high ceilings and not mentioning Martinelli, Guendouzi, Saliba, etc."Other than spending 70m on Pepe, Arsenal have been rebuilding with young cheap players" is kind of an "other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show" argument.
Yeah, their problem has been screwing up contracts for their star players and selling them for little or seeing them walk away. There has been a huge drain in star power, and no money coming in from the sales to replace that. That when they have spent that money it hasn't been wisely spent just exasperates that. But the academy players and young purchases have been good.Meh. Focusing overwhelmingly on Pepe is a lazy way of thinking about what Arsenal has done in the last two years. As is writing an article exhorting Arsenal to buy younger and cheaper players with high ceilings and not mentioning Martinelli, Guendouzi, Saliba, etc.
Has one player been more responsible for his opponent's goals over the course of a season? He's basically been good for -1 goals all season.Well, Leno was a positive today, but... whatever the opposite of glory is, Sideshow Bob covered himself in it.
Also seems to indicate that Wenger, Gazidis, and Raul all made really poor transfer market and wage bill decisions over the last few years. The performance yesterday was such a mess, but I also look at a number of players and wonder why we spent so much on them. We've been "rebuilding" for 2 or 3 years now but still feels like we're at square one with limited talent and limited resources due to poor decisions.The fact that Arteta started Nketiah, Willock, and Saka (at wing) over Lacazette, Ozil, and Pepe seems to indicate he's going to give the younger plays a shot to close out the season, so maybe he'll at least get a better idea of what he has with them.