Arsenal supporters seethe at Stoke comparison and slam ‘bitter little man’ Neville for ‘disrespect’

There is some throwback criticism of Mikel Arteta for leaving his technical area, but also more considered reaction to the Arsenal and Stoke comparisons.

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.

Stoke the fires
The people calling Arsenal Stoke very clearly don’t actually watch them play.

Yes both goals came from corners, but it was more out of necessity than an actual style of play. Man Utd were set up to contain and press Arsenal’s creative players. Unlike against West Ham and Sporting, Saka, Odegaard and Martinelli were well dealt with by the defenders and as such the best chance of scoring came down to set pieces.

They are not a boring long ball team as some seem to want to suggest, they just have different ways of scoring goals and have in recent times become a particular threat from set pieces.

I know its fun to laugh at a bigger team playing what could be deemed old fashioned football, but if you actually watch them for 90 minutes its simply not the case.
Andrew (Saliba scoring with his Arsenal was fun)

Anybody else think complaining about set piece goals is stupid? They’re a vital part of the game. England got to a World Cup semi final on the back of them. If England were conceding a lot from set pieces it would be identified as a massive problem that needed sorting out. My club, Forest, were undone many times last season from poor defending in those situations. The fact that Arsenal are doing well from them is testament to great delivery and great coaching. Why wouldn’t any team try to get better at them?

I think this Arsenal team are showing that, for all the open and expansive football being played these days, a great set piece can always make the difference. I expect we will see more teams trying more intricate training group routines in the future.
Keith, Worthing 

After reading the mailbox and various comment sections on social sites, I was just checking to see if it’s only Arsenal that can score from set pieces or is it a tactic other teams can employ too?

Also, if they are so basic and simple, why can’t other teams work out how to defend them? I’d be a little worried if your team, coached by some of the finest coaches and made up of the best players money can buy, can’t work out something so simple and basement-level football as all the opposition fans seem to be making out.

Thanks,
Stew

They used to be too soft and didn’t like it up ’em. Current mailbox criticism is that ‘Tony Pulis would be proud’.

Maybe Arsenal’s next bowl of porridge will be just right.

Doubt it though.
Conor Malone, Donegal.

Is the Mailbox ok? Can it point on the doll where exactly Arsenal hurt you?

Get over it. Change tune. It’s becoming a bit boring now. (Yes, just like Arsenal apparently hurdy hur.)
Malcolm, AFC

I saw Delap linked with Arsenal. I thought they meant Liam, but Rory would seemingly be a better fit
Dom

Damned if you do…
Having been told over the many, many years that Arsenal:

– Don’t like it up em, you just have to rough them up
– Can’t break down defensive teams
– Are profligate with set pieces
– Lack courage to go and attack a team

It is funny but unsurprising to see Arsenal tarred with the Tony Pulis brush. It’s just another in a long line of ways to denigrate the team. I must have watched a different match to most people. I saw an Arsenal team that had 14 shots to United’s 5. It was United with their backs to the wall, making over double the clearances to Arsenals while Arsenal had two reserve defenders at the back.

It seemed like one team wanted to win the game, and the other not to lose. After the shoeing Arsenal were given for having the temerity to try and hang on at City with 10 men, I was unsurprised at the kid gloves United were being treated with.

Arsenal have faced a low block deployed by countless teams, I’d go as far as saying every team barring City produces a low block against us, and our corners is how we’ve figured out how to beat this. This is a reactive league, where new ideas and tactics are often rewarded. It is up to our opposition to find a way to stop us, not ours to play some fictional idea of ‘proper football’. We played ‘proper football’ in the final years of Wenger and look where that got us.
John Matrix AFC 

Technical knockout
I spend far too much time thinking about this (and getting annoyed by it) – but how difficult is it for Mikel Arteta to actually stay inside the technical area for 90 minutes? Seriously…those lines are put there to designate the limit of where the managers are allowed to roam, and yet he invariably still insists on going beyond them. When watching on TV the camera pans up to halfway across the pitch and you can still see his head at the bottom of the screen, it’s comical.

My solution at away grounds would be to get the groundsman out to paint some lovely fresh white lines just before kick-off so that he ruins his (presumably very expensive and shiny) shoes every time he can’t keep himself away from the pitch.
David Horgan, Dublin 

Jover: Folie a Deux
Sorry Tony, as a fellow sports ‘liker’ I’m not having Jover’s input derisively compared to Amercian Football special teams play.

Firstly, special teams has for all intents and purposes been neutered now in American Football (broadly for good reasons re. concussion) and the game is at its best when it doesn’t even make the field (teams going for it on 4th down, yes please).

Secondly, there isn’t any real tactical innovation there at all, especially at the level/potency of Jover’s corner routines (worth roughly a goal every other game at this point!).

What Jover is, is a Shanahan/McDaniel-level innovator for offensive play calling, but on set pieces. You have players in motion, smart blocking/shifts, isolating a mismatch due to defensive co-ordinator’s corner scheme (hilariously, zone and man-to-man are as relevant a terms here too).

Gabriel is our tight-end in space mismatch against a nickel corner (seriously, teams should man-mark him with a centre half; he’s beasting wingers and full backs every week).

So yeh, put some respect on the man’s name and Arsenal’s game pal.
Tom, Leyton

I tend not to get annoyed by anything Gary Neville has to say because if he’s complaining about you then you know you’re doing something right.

However, declaring Nicolas Jover as the most annoying man in football  is too much and it really exposes the shallow thinking of a bitter little man.  A few weeks ago he had a go at Jover for standing in the technical area shouting instructions at a corner saying that he didn’t see how that was helping.  Footballers need to be relaxed when they’re taking corners you see.  Except results would suggest that whatever Jover is doing is bloody well working, so much so that that’s the reason you’re even talking about him.  It’s disrespectful to a professional whose only crime is to be exceptional at his job.  I know enough United dicks that if I wanted to listen to this kind of rubbish I’d call round for a cup of tea, I don’t need it from supposed professional pundits.

It’s a common theme with Neville and the ex Man Utd crowd, see a team playing well and start criticising the things they do, seemingly unable to join the dots.  Arsenal celebrate too much.  Yes, it builds momentum and bonds the team together.  Arteta’s too animated on the touchline.  Yes, it emphasises passion and shows the players the behaviour he wants from them.  Maybe United could do with doing some of the things Arsenal are doing?  Nah, just keep dragging Marcus Rashford through the mud every week, that’s worked so far.

As for you mailboxers…  I’ll say one thing for Stewie, he waits until Arsenal lose before he writes in with one of his increasingly weird diatribes.  Neville and the rest of you mid table mouth breathers always seem to start criticising when Arsenal are winning.
SC, Belfast (Corners account for a higher percentage of Utd’s goals than Arsenal’s this season)

READ MORE: Neville brands Arsenal genius as ‘the most annoying man in football’ after Man Utd win

Mo money, Mo problems
Doesnt every team want to sign the very best players it can in any given position?

And if you are old enough, you are good enough is still something people say?

In which case Liverpool have the best winger in the world right now? Or in the discussion at the very least. And he is clearly old enough…. Surely that can work both ways.. If you are good enough, then you are young enough!

With Salahs improvement, the only thing I can think now is that they think they will lose him for 6 weeks or so, over the mental Christmas period next year and are worried he might not return at his best…

It has to be a gamble worth taking surely and if any of the rumours are close to the truth and Mo has said he will accept a 1yr extension (I cant believe thats what they are delaying over) then its a much of a no brainer as Mad Dave from the village who wanders round the park shouting at bins!

I really think that LFC need to issue some statement or other (We offered him 2yrs with option of 3rd on £300k a week would be the sort of thing) just in order to stop the rumours and nonesense

But if they are holding off to try and make him play for his place.. then they have nailed it! Hes on absolute fire

But now you have give him his dues and sign the lad up.

I can see no sense in not giving him 2yrs and wish they would let us hear their (terrible) argument
Al – LFC – Only 7pts now and suddenly everyone is back in the race… Ahh narrative!

Quality
Having watched the game and settling down after that most football of feelings, where after 45 minutes you’d happily take a point, only to get that very point and for it to feel like an absolute kick in in the balls. One thing struck me….those goals mate!

Now I’m not going to pretend after Newcastle not being able to hit the broad side of a barn against West Ham and not even mustering a shot on said barn against Palace hasn’t left me slightly irked but credit where it’s due.

Isak’s 20 yarder into the postage stamp was just *chefs kiss*,  Jones taking his first time into the very same top corner so good, Gordon’s trickery before a quickly taken finish. Salah doing Salah bits TWICE and even with Kelleher going walkabout, Schar’s finish is outrageous and 9 times out of ten doesn’t score.

A quality game with (probably) a fair result. You love to see it*

*I’d still rather have seen Liverpool win like, but they were probably due after the Nunez game last season
Adam (Leeds)

A delicious four-way title scrap
The two near certainties I can cater to within the ‘24-‘25 season are, far too many top players will be sidelined by injury. This is around the money-men not caring about individual player protection. If, and it’s a stretch, they were getting ‘stadium builders‘ in qatar, saud’ rates, we’d be wrongly calling it slave labour. This is highly likely to be exacerbated during the period we have just started.

The other is that there are a good handful of ‘ non elite ranking teams’ posing so many problems that points are bound to be dropped or perhaps more pertinently ‘won’ .

Brighton & Hove Albion are the glorious flag bearers of those , But Bournemouth, Brentford and Fulham are doing it too . ( I cannot decide if the magpies ought to be in this group or not – yet points have clearly been won ).

Happily, the horizon now looks set for an intriguing four way title scrap . All four flawed in different ways – Citeh , Arsenal , Liverpool and Chelsea.

Although Enzo Maresca is also in his maiden season he is going under the radar a little due to Arne’s shadow . Another big plus in Hammersmith is the lack of Champions league football.

Arsenal were incapable of prioritising the league re Porto- Bayern etc and those rizzla slim margins cost them . I know that this is debatable yet with physical & mental extensions on players, this has to become a thing – prioritising.

So with a wide, young squad Chelsea are in this tussle . Liverpool may not strengthen as much as City during the winter window and also by failing to prioritise the league will likely suffer another squad burn out come April .

Quadruples are for the past and this club World Cup farrago is taking the piss.

Arsenal could also do with a huge splurge , how they need a killer in the Agüero style eh ? But alas , this seems unlikely.

All in all , a four way fight to become champions is mostly good for everyone.
Peter ( it’ll be interesting to see if Chelsea ‘opt out’ of the FA Cup ) Andalucia.

View from B6
Quick Villa report – very happy with that. Brentford were strangely ropey in the first half, although the lad at left back, whose name I’ve forgotten, was really good. But Blonde Rogers was back on form, Digne excellent again, Lord Kamara the most beautiful sight in the stadium – part of a 3-man midfield that cost less than £3m, btw.

But the main thing, welcome back Tyrone Mings. Pau Torres is a gorgeous central defender in all senses, but he doesn’t have that dog in him. Sometime him and Konsa work. But Mings and Konsa are like Bet and Betty in the Rovers Return: one of them does the leopard print, cigarette holder and glassy put-downs; the other one cooks the beige food and tells people to f*** off.

Worth also mentioning that the 3rd goal was a bit dodgy – not sure if Watkins was interfering or not – and the penalty was an absolute joke. But yesterday was Paul McGrath’s birthday, so if there’s one day that God shines on Villa, it’s 4 December.
Neil Raines (people are allowed to score from corners, yes?)