Mikel Arteta plays things a little too safe at Arsenal and Manchester City have their own ‘mentality problem. Both could learn plenty from Liverpool.
Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.
All-time worst pundits
Cracking finish to the United Rangers game last night, but can we please agree that Rio and Ally make the worst punditry team and are the ones most likely to force you to switch off the sound.
Almost no tactical insight (Rio’s only ever insight in every game is “They’re going man-to-man all over the pitch” – well no sh*t Sherlock), highly annoying extreme accents, ridiculous bias throughout and the never-ending repeating of the same tired cliches.
Starting every sentence with “You know what…” well no, I don’t know what you’re gonna say but for Pete’s sake just say it – you don’t need the preface every time. The other most annoying piece is “To be honest” or Allys “I’ve got to be honest with you” – well what the f$&k are you doing the rest of the time – lying?
FFS – can the broadcasters at least invest in some basic elocution and English lessons for their chosen pundits – it won’t cost much and will stop them ruining the sporting spectacle. I understand the desire to dumb down the commentary to appeal to the masses, but this is getting ridiculous.
The Big P
Bah humbug
To gloss over our struggle to victory over mighty Rangers, let’s talk about City instead.
Apparently, having learned nothing from their 130 charges and general rule breaking, they’ve not only tapped up a young player from Spain but, having been knocked back by the club, actually encouraged him to pay the funds to cancel his existing contract so he can join them for free.
So that’s nice.
Btw if we sell Garnacho for £45m we have enough – thanks to the daft way football finances work now – to buy both Dorgu and Alvaro, as well as Edwards, Angel Gomes and Inacio to add depth to defence. We just need to get this done and stop haggling for £5m because without those additions, nothing will improve.
Badwolf
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The big problem for Arsenal
After reading recent mailboxes and seeing the saturation of opinions on Arteta, I thought what was clearly needed was yet another mail on the topic (from an objective fan of a direct rival).
Generalising for a second, I feel that a number of arguments from the ‘Arteta Out’ camp have at their heart a slightly unrealistic comparative stick which they chose to beat him with.
Sure, he may not be Kenny Charisma and can at times come across quite coldly in interviews (as does Pep), and yes, Lego do manufacture his hair. However, I feel it is wrong to frame as complete failure the fact that he hasn’t managed to win the premiership in his 5 years in charge.
What he has managed to do is embed Arsenal in the discussion about who should be the favourites each season and that shouldn’t be sniffed at, particularly when considering where the club had regressed to towards the end of Wenger’s reign. I live within a mile of the Emirates and can count a number of Arsenal fans as close friends and although frustrations are aired, they overwhelmingly appreciate that it’s great to be back in the mix with all the exciting ups and downs that it brings.
Arsenal certainly can’t be accused of being ‘soft’ now and you get the sense that the dressing room are fully on message re what they are trying to do.
Good player purchases have been made – Rice being a prime, if expensive example, alongside Timber and Raya – but I very much recognise the frustration held in some circles of not having an out-and-out goal-scorer up top – I don’t think Havertz is ‘an ashtray’ but nor do I think he is ‘the answer’.
However, any perceived failing to address the goal scorer point should be directed at the club more than the manager – we simply don’t know how much Arteta has been pressing behind the scenes for a top top forward.
But can he get them over the winning line in the prem ?
This is where I can see something that in my mind is holding him / them back.
I’m a believer that in order to walk away with the prem title, you have to go out there and grab it. It has been quite telling to me that when Arsenal were in the early season cycle of finishing games with 10 men, that they weren’t exactly kicking the door down to try to get 3 points. Man City away is a completely acceptable draw – Arsenal were really good that day – but the other games felt like he would have taken the 1 point if immediately offered after the red card. That’s the wrong mindset for me. Also, it didn’t feel that Arsenal were really going for it in Liverpool’s league visit to the Emirates this season (admittedly with a slightly weakened team).
One of the most fascinating and enjoyable games I’ve watched for Liverpool this season was the home draw against Fulham where Robertson was sent off early doors. That is the day Slot went a long way up in my estimations (he was at a pretty decent level in my mind already if the truth be told).
He (and his coaching staff) identified how Liverpool could play the game and create situations that gave us numerical advantages in areas of the pitch, whilst still having cover at the back, all with a man down – so clever. Effectively it boiled down to have 1 in midfield when we had the ball and relying on incisive passing from the back to create overloads up top.
The point is ‘he went for it’.
So the race continues to be the one team to get over the winning line in the title race. (….showing my age here) it’s a bit like the ‘It’s a Knockout’ game where you had a number of giants fighting to get through one small opening in a wall – plenty of jostling, some getting knocked over along the way (“.. and here come the Belgiums !”), but what I don’t recall seeing is anyone win it who was playing it safely.
You get the parallels I’m trying to make here.
There is so far to go in this title race – the most exciting rides have dramatic ups and downs, the faster the better (.. and preferably not bumbling around with the handbrake on).
Regards,
Sparky (LFC) (Random player chants – “Philogene is not my lover….” (…struggling with the second line though if the truth be told))
High over-performance
I saw an interesting snippet from Ian Graham’s (Data geek at Liverpool) book, “How to win the premier league”. It looked at manager over performance.
The thing that stood out was that it said Ancelotti teams never over performed whereas Klopp ones did. That was part of the recruitment analysis that went into us hiring Klopp (and perhaps Slot too).
What I have been wondering as Pep opens the chequebook is do his teams actually over perform? Or is it just a billion pound squad broadly performing as expected? I realise spending money isn’t strictly easy so I’m not denigrating that either; think what Man Utd would give for a manager who spends money with some level of competence.
I’m always drawn to how his transfer dealings at Barcelona actively made them worse. At Bayern he really didn’t achieve anything of note and at Man City he’s spent ludicrous sums to win lots of league titles but very little in Europe. For the money spent is the team over/under performing and if he’s such a good coach why is he spending £100m this January instead of coaching the team better?
I’d love to see what Ian’s model thinks of Pep the manager as opposed to Pep the assembler of expensive football teams.
Minty, LFC
Nobody wins forever
It wasn’t that long ago I wrote a mail arguing that perhaps pep isn’t as good a manager as people believe and that he isn’t the kind of manger who can get a good tune out of a bad violin in the same way that fergie, klopp or Brian Clough could.
Take away his expensive toys and he struggles. He had lost one game at the time when I said it and people (rightly? ) said I was premature in predicting cities struggles. When I said that I didn’t base it on cities results I based it on their performances.
What I said then is still true now, and while he did pick up a couple of big wins he didn’t do it in the trophy that counted (champions league) and saw his side crumble and throw away a lead again. That’s not injuries, when you’re ahead and lose it that’s a mentality problem.
Towards the end of his time with both Bayern and Barca the same thing was happening (particularly in Europe) and he was also falling out with players and staff members (at Bayern the club doctor and Barca the club president).
Someone else a while ago said maybe klopp had the last laugh because he left when he realised his tank was empty and so isn’t suffering the embarrassing fall that guardiola is. There some truth to that but not entirely , for a start I don’t think klopp will ever be laughing at peps trophy cabinet no matter how timely his exit was. Secondly even if pep lost every game and got relegated he’ll leave city as the greatest hero in the clubs history (assuming none of it is stricken from the books )
Every team has their day. Every manager does too. Some know when to get out and retain their dignity. Some hang around too long and become bitter as their success becomes more rare. Pep isn’t there yet, but he seems to be on that path.
Lee
The Spurs dream
Not sure if you didn’t do Spurs because it’s daft to imagine Spurs doing a transfer but here would be my semi realistic hope for a dream window:
Sell/Send Back: Richarlison, Bissouma, Werner….Romero
Bissouma has 18 months remaining and is not good. Richarlison is injured. A lot. And is not very good. The club would have to pay the remainder of Werner’s wages for the season but given he’s also injured, and proper shite, send him back – shouldn’t have ever returned in the first place. A joke that he was.
Romero’s value isn’t increasing, and he’s probably the one player the club could turn into a profit.
Sign: Delap, Dibling, Tomori, and Douglas Luiz.
City signing Marmoush and the contract extension of Haaland means it’s highly unlikely they’ll activate the return clause of Delap. Ipswich would be mad to sell him but equally they’d be mad to not look at, say, a £20m mark up on a player they just bought.
Dibling is perfect to replace the worryingly poor Johnson, who looks better as a replacement rather than starter. Dibling is injured too, so will fit right in. Saints can keep him for the remainder of the season.
Tomori would be ideal in so many ways. Home grown. Londonder. So that won’t happen.
Douglas Luiz – loan to buy. We’ve done this with Juve before, successfully. Luiz is superb, and something just hasn’t clicked at Juve, would be welcome…
Do that, and watch Tottenham secure premier league survival with a whopping three games to spare.
Dan
READ MORE: Tottenham ailments treated if not quite cured by welcome visit to Dr Hoffenheim
Winging it
Oi Daniel of Cambridge! Are you having a laugh?
United are robbing Napoli of 50 million. Garnacho is worth about 15, tops. The guy couldn’t beat an egg. Had a strong start to his career off the bench, a worldie against Everton and that’s about it. You know who else scored a worldie? Tony Yeboah. Was he any good? Not really.
Just thank your lucky stars that Napoli see your rejects and think oh I’ll have some of that crap please. 70 million my arse!!
Alex
Some thoughts
Jason Soutar, F365—that inclusion of Tsimikas in the worst prem players by club seemed harsh and borderline criminal, but I do understand by metric he’s been our lowest rated on the season. I myself don’t particularly rate the Greek scouser, but he’s the only one on your list closer to a 7.0 than 6.0, and he’s probably had his best ever season in red whatever that’s worth.
Rob, South London—cannot envision another Crystanbul with this edition of Liverpool side, but know better than to tempt fate. That Ted Lasso ground does often provide for tough sledding. If you’re doing the Poznan deep into 90′ that day, sadly I’ll probably recollect your email with spite.
Peter G, Pennsylvania—had a good mate (I’ve since lost touch with) who was die-hard LA Rams; when Warner won them that ring with St Louis he was made up nonetheless, geography be damned. Re NFL though, what do you make of a corollary I’ve floated here before, that Tottenham Hotspur = LA Chargers of the prem.
Eden Hazard, somewhere—I do reckon you were a superior footballer to Mo Salah (on pure talent, tekkers, flair, wow factor), but to be fair you probably have higher cholesterol numbers than the Egyptian king don’t you.
Eric, Los Angeles CA
Tickers
Boss/Folks
I have always liked the work of Mr Tickner. His gallows humour as a Spurs fan is entirely understandable and probably mirrored by most of his mates, but on your site we see his very entertaining take on it – a take which I recall was basically plagiarised by Jonathan Liew in the Graun a few weeks ago, discussing the “unseriousness” of Spurs like it was a revelation. I was going to write in to highlight it, but I think I went to the pub instead.
Any which road up, I had always assumed that the 365 team was stacked with high-flying 20- and 30-something journo stars (with the obvious exception of Eeyore’s stunt double, Johnny Nic, who I assumed existed mainly to find a cloud anywhere anybody detected a silver lining. I should also say that is by no means a criticism…).
So by a long roundabout route, I come to the point. I read Mr Tickner’s article tonight and see a reference to Yazz and the Plastic Population and their (her?) hit “The Only Way is Up”, released in 1988 when I was 15 and most contributors to this site were not even glints in their parents eyes, or at best the screaming offspring of a post-pub romantic moment.
So my question is, is Dave Tickner a late 80s/early 90s retro freak, or is he an old bugger like me (and Nicholson) who hides it better than most?
Would be interested to know
Cheers
Andy Cawley
(MC – He just loves Yazz and the Plastic Population. Won’t shut up about them.)
