Arsenal and Liverpool play down £86m transfer panic despite ‘bad planning’

Liverpool will probably manage without their fourth-choice centre-half and there are a fair few reasons why panicking over Eberechi Eze at Arsenal is daft.

We also have thoughts on Mikel Arteta because obviously.

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.

The Arsenal delusion

That Will Ford article about Arteta is spot on but it also describes many Arsenal fans. You can be arrogant as you want in football but there’s only one place where success counts, and that’s on the pitch. Its exactly what Stewie Griffin has been raging about for 20 years now.

Here’s some things that Arsenal fans demand or have demanded credit for in the 20 years of Stewie:

Going unbeaten in the league that time. Every year.
Fourth place trophy.
Winning their own friendly tournament where they pick the teams that they play against.
Playing the prettiest football.
Playing the boringest football.
Not losing to teams with a certain amount of turnover for a while in the league but not the cups.
Coming second.
Coming second again with 75 points.
Having the best worse player in their reserve XI.

And now they’ve invented super subs. Imagine, there’s 5 subs a game now and Arteta has invented the concept that those subs can help win a game! What is in his mind and why are these fans falling for it?

In 20 those years Liverpool, City, Chelsea and Man United have won leagues and champions leagues. That’s the top table.
Alex, South London

Arteta is Trump?

I saw the Sky Sports’ Rashford headline — “Barcelona unlikely to discuss a permanent move until next summer” and thought, here we go again. Another non-story spun into a witch-hunt. Which club seriously discusses a permanent deal for a loan player after matchday 6? Yet, Rashford has become the next Sterling. Everything is now a stick to use to beat him with. A narrative so wicked even Matt Stead had to jump in his defence.

But this is precisely why Will Ford’s piece on Arteta was so disappointing. I’ve always enjoyed F365 (looking at Mediawatch) because it usually exposes this kind of lazy narrative. But instead we got a DailyMail style takedown. Arteta makes a joke about handbrakes and suddenly he’s Donald Trump with a clipboard? Wow!

Because the pattern is obvious. This is same narrative that mocked him for playing YNWA before the Liverpool game as cringe, mocked Arsenal’s celebrations while Conte was “passionate” for his knee slides and called his touchline behaviour arrogance but Pep and Klopp can march onto the pitch mid-game. It’s the same narrative that turned giving Nwaneri a debut into a “PR stunt,” framed a gameplan that worked against 10 vs 11 man City as cowardice, though Simeone and Mourinho built careers on it, and painted Raya over Ramsdale as betrayal but Pep was allowed to discard Hart because he doesn’t fit his style.

Then there’s the infamous Carabao cup “ball excuse” which if you read the full interview was not an excuse at all. Now a joke that Will has now inflated into a character assassination. He has to be egotistical narcissist. Will even mentions his handling of Partey. As if we’ve learnt no lessons from Dani Alves and Benjamin Mendy. This is not analysis; it’s theatre. And the dangerous part is the cycle doesn’t stop until another victim comes along. Sterling yesterday, Rashford today, Arteta tomorrow, who’s next?

This was a huge letdown.
Damola AFC, Berlin Germany.

Supersub v mid-tier starter

Watching another game where Trossard comes off the bench to score a clinching goal, I wondered which would be a better situation to be in?

I don’t believe Trossard is a first team player. Whenever he starts, like Martinelli, for some reason he struggles. But when he comes off the bench, he is a game changer (as is Martinelli) and I wonder to myself, would you rather be a starter who constantly underperforms and is replaced, or the game changer who is brought on?

I tried to think of the great super subs, Defoe, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer or Giroud, players who are loved by the fans. Makes me think the latter is the preferred choice.
John Matrix AFC

Wasted Eze?

Arsenal have played 5 league games and two cup games so far this season. The club bought EIGHT new players last summer. Eberechi Eze has played in 3 different roles and has already provided 2 assists and a goal, despite being so new to the club that he barely understands the team’s pressing structures yet (Declan Rice said it took him 3-4 months to get there).

In other words, can we try to relax a bit instead of catastrophizing about a future none of us can predict based on an out of context moment from one game? The manager has already used Eze through the middle as much as he’s used him as a left winger – yet fears, paranoia & Grealish. In September. After 7 games while a manager is trying to incorporate several new player and dealing with injuries to several players already.

Maybe the Eze signing will work out. Maybe it won’t. What’s for sure is that no one will be sure about the outcome of any SUMMER signings at any club in September.

Best,
Deen (AFC, USA)

Rash call

Opened the Rashford article by Ian Watson disagreeing with the point that the headline made about it being fair but ready to be convinced by the litany of statistics that a journalist working for F365 was going to provide having access to underlying opta data and other statistics the lay man wouldn’t see. I wanted to know how he came to the conclusion that Rashford was working less and comparing him to others at United who were producing at a level above at that time.

Instead all we were treated to was conjecture and vague points, one that he would be held to a higher standard to Sancho because he was one of the higher earners. Ignore that Sancho was on more. No mention or any other attackers on the pitch, all of whom significantly underperformed too and continued to when Rashford left.

Rashford has shown the ability required in the past. To say he was the problem while players who never achieved anything in their careers were apparently being held back by him. They were unlocked so much that United had to sign 3 new players up front this summer and Rashford ended the season with more tackles for United than a certain “hardworking” Danish striker who has been sent off with well wishes.

But yeah. Low effort article which doesn’t use any metrics (I’m sure they exist as he was below par during that time) that he had given up relative to the others there.
Liam

Sliding doors

As a thing, on its own, I can kind of see the point of XPts: it quantifies XG/SoT and extrapolates that over a number of games, and voilà, clubs positions rise and fall according to that metric.

It gives us all a fair idea as to how over/under performing these clubs currently are, well … performing. But it only takes the reader a brief moment to realise that it is pure unadulterated nonsense.

Let’s take Liverpool (as you so kindly placed them in your graphic), and take a look at their last league match. A 2-1 win vs Everton it may have been, but it was 0.9 vs 0.7 Xgs, with 3 to 2 SoT; that’s give or take 1-1, if we are to be lenient and rounding up.

But what if that first goal didn’t go in? What if that gave the kick.up the ass Everton needed (despite this being a Derby, and as such shouldn’t need one)?

What if they scored making it 0-1? Everything after every kick, shot, corner, save, miss, foul, and so on is born from the previous action. This is causation not correlation. A goal that wasn’t or indeed vice versa changes the entire game – a chance that comes up in this nonsensical XPts does not equate to another chance that does or does not go in.

In fact straight from KO, the entire match will be played out completely differently if the ball is kicked straight to the goalie (this seems to happen a lot these days), to if it is passed to a midfielder. This and every single action changes the entire game.

Again, I do kind of understand why it is a thing, and it is interesting to read the table in this fashion, but it is nothing more than buts, ifs, and maybes, that simply do not exist in the real.world.

Minor rant over. Ta.
Mike D 

Defenders

How many CBs is too many for a squad? In a 4-3-3 surely 4 CBs is the right amount, with a couple of players who can fill in in a pinch as well?

I get why people wanted Guehi – he’s great and Ibou/Gomez have had injury problems – but unless you can find elite players who are also happy to not play regularly (CBs get rotated a lot less than other positions) you need to make a judgement call between the amount of cover and the game time and development you can offer.

If your 4th choice CB then blows out his ACL it looks like bad planning, but you can’t realistically build a successful squad predicated on having 3 back ups for every position. We’ve still got plenty of options who can play CB and they won’t let us down.
Tom, Andover. (If all 3 of our remaining CBs are also done for the season by Christmas like in 20/21 then we just have to accept we’re cursed)

So apparently Liverpool’s season is derailed because our 4th choice CB who was making his club debut in the league cup has been injured? But our other three players in that position are all still fit? As gutted as I am for the lad, let’s calm down here people.
Alex, LFC