Mikel Arteta's Arsenal May Need More Madness in Their Method

Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has struggled this season under Mikel Arteta.
Photograph: Shaun Botterill/AFP/Getty Images
Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has struggled this season under Mikel Arteta. Photograph: Shaun Botterill/AFP/Getty Images
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Mikel Arteta's Arsenal May Need More Madness in Their Method

Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has struggled this season under Mikel Arteta.
Photograph: Shaun Botterill/AFP/Getty Images
Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has struggled this season under Mikel Arteta. Photograph: Shaun Botterill/AFP/Getty Images

The utterances offered by footballers before European games tend to be crushingly banal but Shkodran Mustafi offered an insight that lingered in the mind when asked, in the buildup to Thursday’s visit of Dundalk, what it is like to train under Mikel Arteta.

“I’ve never had such detailed training sessions,” he said. “Sometimes it’s not always nice … it’s not that you jump around and have fun and score a lot of goals. It’s more about focusing and knowing when you go to the next game that you know exactly what you have to do.”

No criticism was intended: Mustafi’s point was that the Arteta regime puts meticulous preparation, with a keen emphasis on the specific challenge an opponent will pose, before anything else. It recalled conversations with Arsenal players during the latter half of Arsène Wenger’s reign. Back then, it was not uncommon for them to walk off the London Colney pitches raving about the twists and turns of the small‑sided games they had just enjoyed.

In reality a mix of both approaches is required, in training and its translation into matches. That is the balance Arteta must strike and, in their Premier League fixtures at least, Arsenal have struggled to make it work. They are unquestionably well drilled; everybody knows his job and those who cannot quite plug in are conspicuous by their lack of starts.

Their defensive work is generally light years removed from the shambles of late-stage Unai Emery but the problems lie in their progression to the other penalty area. Whether or not Old Trafford on Sunday is the place to test this particular theory, Arsenal need more madness in their method.

The statistics bear out an impression that strikes the eye: Arsenal’s play has been labored. They are fourth-bottom in the league for shots taken and were only two places better off than that last season.

Since scoring three against a woeful Fulham on the opening day, they have struggled to find threatening positions consistently. That is particularly a problem when, as Arteta has pointed out on a number of occasions, opponents increasingly set up with a “low block”: in layman’s terms, sitting deep. Leicester uncharacteristically opted to try that at the Emirates last Sunday and survived in comfort.

Arsenal keep possession assiduously and figures from Opta show their average passing sequence lasts longer – 13.33 seconds – than all 19 of their rivals’. So far, so good, especially when the highlights of Arteta’s tenure have been a clutch marvelous back-to-front goals that illuminated occasions such as, most significantly, the FA Cup semi-final against Manchester City.

But Arsenal are 13th in the ranking for “progress”, which measures the distance moved upfield per sequence, and rock bottom when it comes to the speed at which those moves carry them up the pitch. For a side who forced high-profile errors with their off-the ball efforts in the summer they have been conservative on that front too, sitting among this season’s bottom four in measures of pressing intensity.

Opponents have largely cottoned on that, late last season, Arsenal inflicted significant damage by playing through the press and then going through the gears. When teams sit off, they seem unable to pick up the pace. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has cut an isolated figure out wide in the past five top-flight games; he has not scored in any of them, or come especially close, and it amounts to his worst league run since joining in 2018. Without space to run into it has been too easy to shepherd Aubameyang away from goal and too hard for those charged with feeding him to find him in dangerous areas.

Arteta has hinted he may yet move Aubameyang to the center-forward position, perhaps even for the duel with United. But that, on its own, would not loosen the shackles. If one takes at face value the suggestion that Mesut Özil does not fit Arteta’s blueprint, to some extent the manager appears cursed by his personnel.

A flat central midfield is a hindrance, with Granit Xhaka and the never-quite-convincing Dani Ceballos an unnecessarily safe pair to work alongside Thomas Partey. It was a breath of fresh air to see Joe Willock, overdue a strong performance, bursting between the lines to excellent effect against Dundalk.

Bukayo Saka has the quality to add intent and movement to the three if allowed to graduate full-time from his upbringing on the wing. Perhaps it does not help that Arteta holds little trust in his other wide options, pointing out again on Thursday that Nicolas Pépé’s flair as a risk-taker needs to be better accompanied by sound decisions.

Arsenal are crying out for a player like Houssem Aouar, but their summer-long pursuit ran aground before the transfer deadline. Arteta knows that and it is too early to decry him as a pragmatist, if that term has to be used pejoratively, even though Arsenal are hardly gung-ho.

He has had to reshape the outlook of a lop-sided squad that is, for the most part, not plucked from the top bracket and the propensity to keep half an eye on the wing mirror is little surprise.

That will probably not change against United, who Arsenal have not beaten in the league at Old Trafford since 2006. Arteta’s obsessive planning has ensured they do, at least, stay in games against the established top six and fare akin to the grind of United’s draw with Chelsea last Saturday looks possible. That would be no disaster but the overriding questions will remain.

“When you go into the game you have the same picture you had from the training session and that helps you a lot,” Mustafi said.

Arteta must decide how, and when, he can let his players loose with the palette.

(The Guardian)



Father and Son Ashley and Tyler Young Could Face Each other in the FA Cup

Everton’s Ashley Young runs into position during the English Premier League soccer match between Southampton and Everton, at the St Marys Stadium in Southampton, Saturday, Nov 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Dave Shopland,File)
Everton’s Ashley Young runs into position during the English Premier League soccer match between Southampton and Everton, at the St Marys Stadium in Southampton, Saturday, Nov 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Dave Shopland,File)
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Father and Son Ashley and Tyler Young Could Face Each other in the FA Cup

Everton’s Ashley Young runs into position during the English Premier League soccer match between Southampton and Everton, at the St Marys Stadium in Southampton, Saturday, Nov 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Dave Shopland,File)
Everton’s Ashley Young runs into position during the English Premier League soccer match between Southampton and Everton, at the St Marys Stadium in Southampton, Saturday, Nov 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Dave Shopland,File)

Former England international Ashley Young could face his 18-year-old son Tyler when Everton hosts Peterborough in the third round of the FA Cup on Thursday.

Ashley Young won the FA Cup in 2016 with Manchester United as well as league titles in England and Italy. But he said the chance to share the field with his son would be bigger than any trophy he has lifted.

“I’ve said it for (a) numerous amount of years that if there was a possibility that we was able to play with each other or play against each other, it tops everything I’ve done in my career,” he told Everton's website. “It’s going to be incredible if it happens and hopefully, fingers crossed, it does.”

The 39-year-old Ashley Young said there would be no danger of split loyalties in the game, The AP reported.

“That just wouldn’t happen ... as soon as the game comes, as soon as the whistle blows, it’s just another opponent, another enemy and we’ll be both be looking to go out and win the game."

Midfielder Tyler spent time at Arsenal, Queens Park Rangers and MK Dons before joining third division Peterborough last year.

He has played only one senior game for Peterborough when he debuted as a substitute in October.

“I wouldn’t say it’s been an easy journey, it’s been a bumpy road but having him (Ashley) is always a good thing to be able to go to if I need help,” Tyler said.

Ashley is in the latter stages of a career that has seen him represent England at the World Cup and play for storied clubs such as United, Inter Milan and Aston Villa.

Among other instances of fathers and sons in the same game, World Cup winner Rivaldo played and scored in the same game as his son Rivaldinho in a Brazilian second division match in 2015.

In October, Lebron and Bronny James made history by becoming the first father and son to play together in the NBA.

In 1990, Ken Griffey Jr. and Ken Griffey Sr. hit back-to-back home runs in Major League Baseball.