Chelsea Win Isn’t Pretty But The Points Matter Most

44:49He kept what – it was like he was shooting. And I was just like, why are you walloping the ball so hard at everyone? Like it did feel like quite a lot of passes went astray, but I definitely – like I understood. And you're right. Like who else are you going to pick to do that? Like you say, maybe Ezra could. Well, Ezra probably could, but you're definitely going to pick Trossard for that role. I think what we'll do here, because I did have this discussion down on my running list, on my running order. No, no, no, no, it's great. I wanted to have this discussion. I didn't want to interrupt the flow of it either.

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48:11Okay, welcome back to part two of the Austin Vision podcast with me, your host, Tim Stillman. And we had that trossard discussion, which I think was something I really, really kind of had had pinned and I think there are a few other performances I'd like to get to in a bit I think in Capier for example I think that deserves a discussion I think Ezra and Jokerez we didn't really discuss the lineup per se but we kept the same lineup and I think it's kind of worth talking about them however before we do that let's talk more generally about the start of the second half and this is um clive if i come to you first this is where i did start to get quite antsy like i said like the zubomendy usually in the ground i like when someone does what zubomendy did and trossard does usually like i feel that annoyance that everyone else feels but i swallow it you know it's just like right i you know this will all become like a brain tumor or a heart attack one day but like I keep it inside whereas on Sunday I didn't like I shouted at both of them and and I felt I think for the first time this season I felt that like yeah I feel antsy and I'm beginning to shout and get annoyed and the start of the second half was pretty nervy again Ryan makes a good say from Enzo Fernandez felt to me like Chelsea were traveling through our middle too easily again and like you say like declan rice was was doing some yoga in the second half like every time the play went dead and it went dead quite a lot as well um and then you know ryan makes another amazing save where they get that front post flick on and joel pedro has got almost the whole goal to aim at and um i saw joe hart talk about it on match of the day and And actually, he wasn't doing, other than the last Raya save, he didn't do a big technical breakdown like he usually did.

50:09But when he talked about this save from Joao Pedro and the one from Declan Rice's elbow, he was saying, look how much effort he is making to get that ball. And we'll talk about Raya later, because I think there's a bit of a climax there with a good save at the end. But how did you see that first kind of, maybe up until the second goal, the second half, or do you think obviously the stadium was very nervy i felt the team looked pretty nervy and and a bit lost and i was surprised by that because usually my thinking is i back arteta to sort stuff out at half time you know yeah so he wasn't the only one people around me were a little bit concerned about the start for the second half i don't know what's wrong with me on this day too i wasn't last time i felt like this was 2005 fa cup final where i thought we battered man united when I got home and rewatched it.

51:00That wasn't the case. And so I'm thinking, I just had this feeling that we would sort it out. But it was a little bit concerning that we weren't in charge. And I wanted us to obviously get in charge again and finish them off. And maybe, maybe for people in the ground, particularly with the Zouk Mending Mistake, that people just suddenly got the Man United home game flood over them. And I think that was the thing that happened. you know? Again, normally I would see that at my end, but I think it was at the other end to me, clock end side, so I didn't get the view, so I didn't have the fear, you know?

51:37And I didn't have the fear that everyone else had. I thought, what's he doing that for? Do we need to do this? We can't be giving this away, you know? Because our mistakes lean to goals. He's getting quite high, that number is, because we barely give anybody anything apart from stuff that we give them. Let's not do that today. And when I saw it close up in detail, a pass that normally goes to a right footer that comes into him and he goes out to his left as he's facing the goal but he took it with his left foot leaning away which is you know bang for an under hit you know off balance and Raya reads it and gets there first and I think people got a bit angry because they thought come on lads you know we're better than this let's not do this again let's not do the main eye again because we're better than them until we gave that goal away you know let's not do this again so there was a slight concerned.

52:25Again, I have to go back to the fact that Rosinha wants to get his stripes against Arteta. He wants to. He lost three games all against Arsenal. And he wants to get his stripes. The last two games he drew and this was his third game. So the last nine points have got two points out of nine. And he wanted to get into us and he wanted to show us different shapes. And I think he pushed on a little bit more at the start of the second half. They got a bit more aggressive. They were looking to jump. I said there was looking to jump he couldn't wait to be way inside and i felt we lacked a bit of bravery inside bit of pass accuracy and they were getting the steps now on yokarez and ese they were running with them and they're a bit more in charge of those races but i didn't feel they were in the first half and suddenly we're looking for exits aren't we joshard's inside so he's not an exit rish james got his number zaka always does well but i even felt that hato did okay against him on occasions, you know, give them the respect.

53:23He wasn't a total domination. He's still a great target for us. So that was the period when I thought we need to do something else. We need another exit. You know, Martin Elio Madweka was my choice. It just took a little while to get there. And we didn't suffer in that period, thankfully, by conceding. And then, of course, we then get the goal and we move on from there. Paul, before we get on to, you know, the second goal, and I guess what happened, you know, the goal and the red card. I mean, we'll come on to it later. I was going to say, like, I wonder, I felt like Arsenal were more streetwise in this game overall, but maybe that's just an outcome bias there.

54:06But I wanted to talk about Ezer and Jokerez because obviously they start this game. I wasn't surprised by that. I have to say one thing I'm glad I didn't shout, I just said to the person next to me, I didn't realise Odegaard wasn't in the squad because every two minutes at the beginning of that second half, I was like, get Odegaard on, get him on, get him on, get him on right now. I want that ball under control. Yeah, so why was that? Because he's come up a lot in people's minds now. So that tells you what we didn't have. So why was that thought in your mind? Because I wanted the ball under control.

54:39I felt like the game was too transitional, it's too chaotic, and I wanted that 300 ,000 passes type thing. and and Ezra's not going to give you that but Ezra and Jokeres Paul I mean obviously like the big kind of debate before this game is have they well Jokeres I think has been turning a corner for a little while for Ezra that's not the case it was the Tottenham game and it's a bit like how much was that Dr Tottenham and actually can we can can they take this on against a proper football team now um rather than spurs i felt in this game poor i felt ezra and jokeres like i felt it was nearly there i felt it was nearly there like i didn't have that feeling of like i can't find them i can't see them i did think it was probably significant that a lot of ezra's kind of shooting opportunities or near shooting opportunities were on his left foot and i do wonder if Chelsea were a bit streetwise about that about not letting him get the ball on his right foot unlike the idiots that Tottenham have in defense and um I just I don't know what did you make of their kind of performance I just had that kind of I can see them I think one of them might score but at the same time I couldn't point to anything tangible there what did you feel about those two yeah I think that's right um they kind of flattered to deceive a little bit maybe that's a little harsh in terms of its framing but they were all i'm with you they were almost there jacques had maybe three one v ones where he kind of ran into a guy lost the ball on the edge of the box he's like ah he just needs a couple more of those and but he got a couple more of those and the same thing happened and as i kind of did a clever pass off to somebody and then the somebody doesn't do that much with it because they're not in the greatest position and like it all kind of fizzled out a bit and my take on it was we need to put a little bit of respect on Chelsea and how they were set up there if they're not making a mistake they're very very good um and when they're big they're physical they're young they're high energy and I think here's where I think Arteta gets a lot of uh should get a lot of credit in this game which was the game we might have liked to have had would have suited Chelsea they would have loved us to kind of build up and they go at us he instead said I'm going to set it up so we can go at them now this part of the second half the start of the second half is not the it fits into the every each team will have a period where it's it's their time and like the start of the second half they were getting more and more of that play it down the right hand side play it down the right hand side which is why eventually Arteta decided the thing to do was to take Trossard off.

57:39I'm not convinced that I can see why he felt that way. I can see that Trossard wasn't having the greatest game. I also think he was probably still the right guy to stick around for a bit, although Clive does not think that. And Martinelli showed why you would want to get Martinelli on the pitch about five minutes after he came on. So I think in the bigger, you've got the big board, and Napoleon's there with the generals and they got the sticks and they're moving the things around. Like, Napoleon gets it right, right? That's the sucker punch move with Martinelli over the top. But the busy stuff in the battle, I think I'm right.

58:16I think you keep Trossard on a bit more because he was doing the things. Clough's shaking his head again. I'm wrong. You're right. I'm right, but in a small way, but in a big way. This is about physicality. Yeah. This was about physicality. I agree. This is all it was. Mate, it's all it is. It's not about the player's performance. It's about, you know what, we needed something more physical in this game to challenge them. That's what it was. Nothing more than that, mate. Nothing more than that. And ultimately, it turns out to be right because there's the Martinelli moment, but there's also, before we get the goal, I notice this a lot from our corners, before we get a goal from a corner, we have a burst of a few minutes of really good play.

58:56And just before the second corner we get a goal off, Rice puts in a great ball and we get the free kick from some good play in midfield breaking through. The number of... There's clever tactical fouls on their side, which were not clever. They just basically took our guys out. If you go back and look at it from that standpoint, how many times did they have to rugby tackle our guys because we were breaking through? And I think some of our best play was lost by the fact that in football, you can take a guy out. Now, in the end, it costs them because their red cards start to mount up, even if Neto's wasn't that kind of a...

59:38His first yellow may not have been that kind of a card, but the second one certainly was. That was a rugby tackle. And they had a lot of rugby tackles in this game. And we might say, well, why weren't we better in that second half? Because you can rugby tackle us. And that's what we were doing. and we were either breaking on the counter or we were getting upfield to force turnovers. That was our game plan. And if you're trying to look back on the game and be more satisfied with our control, this was not a game we tried to control. We didn't want lack of control. We didn't want a full-on basketball match.

1:00:14We wanted to control by getting it up the pitch and force turnovers or hit on the counter when the ball broke our way after they'd run at us at us so it was a bit basketbally but with some level of control in certain zones and our control was get players up in and around the ball and for and that started the second half was a period in which we couldn't quite do that so they were starting to run the show until they weren't yeah i think that's a really good observation as well about um and i know you've made this point before about how arsenal on set pieces they kind of there's a it's like a build-up isn't it like you get a couple i think at fulham i remember you saying that like just before that trossard one it was like that went in there were a couple before and you're like if it's almost like the slow beating of a drum or something or just like seeing the cavalry come over the hill and you're a bit like oh no and i think it's something that lost yeah it's lost in the narrative of oh we're only a set piece team in that i often see some really good play some clever stuff that almost turns into something that earns you that corner yeah absolutely yeah because rice swings one in yeah sanchez comes out i mean he gets his fist to that free kick but i mean he might as well have been playing pin the tail on the donkey he might as well have had a blindfold on um and i think that gave us some encouragement and clive if we do take the lead again via our favorite, our favorite kind of our favorite Avenue.

1:01:52And again, on, on match of the day, Leon Osman was talking about this and it's quite, I think, I think we're quite defensive, aren't we? About like the set piece kind of discussion and is this ruining football and all of that. But actually when you watch, you know, actual like pundits and journalists and not like 12 year olds on the social media like Leon Osman was saying like you know this is this is why they are where they are because they have this weapon and they use it so so well it's the ninth winning goal from a set piece for Arsenal this season that is the most any Premier League team has ever managed in the season and we still got nearly three months left I don't know what Robert Sanchez was complaining about afterwards and and this is where Chelsea lose the game because Arsenal are more streetwise Chelsea had already had Fernandes rather hit they're two players booked for descent in this game so um and so to your point Paul about some of the kind of cynical tackling and you've got like Caicedo's a bit of a shin kicker if you get if you've had nine red cards this season and you get two guys booked for descent in the same game you can kind of see what the problem is and you know and Uri and Timber as well a really good weapon from these set pieces he scored from quite a few but do you think it's hindsight or outcome bias Clive that maybe we were just a bit more street wise and that kind of that couple of minutes where we get the goal and then the red card happens really kind of prove that or do you think just the margins went for us on this occasion?

1:03:36As we walk into the ground I wasn't thinking about set piece goals to be honest with you. And it's quite interesting that's all what we're talking about afterwards you know and because we haven't looked okay recently but I haven't felt that we've done very well with them but in this game it's funny like in some games, I watch rugby as everyone knows and there are games and there are games there are tight games and in tight games people revert to the drop goal for example to keep your scoreboard ticking and in the tightest games these margins around set pieces really matter because basically let's be honest what's happening with the game is everyone understands how to play off the ball everyone understands how to create a block and if they're going to create a low block and you can force set pieces that pieces come into play we all know the strategy now why are we why are we pretending it doesn't exist it's a byproduct of us being much better at defending as a set of coaches and particularly in the premier league we're the most intense physical league and people can win jewels if particularly in small spaces consistently over 90 minutes and when they get tired we've got five substitutes to bring on to keep the energies high and so set pieces are going to be a natural byproduct of this i'm just reading as we're recording the file's going to be introduced soon to make sure that when a corner is given it's a real corner what is that telling you that's telling you that set pieces are really important so important now that we're treating them as something almost akin to a penalty so we've got to make sure it's being given but it's true isn't it who would have thought of that who'd have thought that we care that much about a corner that we're bringing in video assistant referee technology to manage that situation.

1:05:21And that's not an anti-Arsenal rule. We might get a few more corners on the back of it. That is where football is heading. And I think, I just think it's interesting. There's some good data out there saying what the percentage of set pieces are per goal scored, et cetera. And we're there towards the top end. We're not completely a top end. So yeah, these margins are critically important, Tim, and they will become more important as the season goes on. But it's almost as if, it feels to me, as if this is the reason why they're still in the race. This is the reason why they're still there because they're able to score first goals and last goals with this trick.

1:05:59For me, get with the program, mate. Let's not pretend that certain details don't matter in the game. We're not going to ignore them. We're not going to ignore them. Everybody's going to look at every single possible margin to get a result. It's not just us, is it? like you know like liverpool chelsea united they've all got good even spurs yeah decent like set piece record like that that kind of shows you it is a league-wide thing and to be fair i do think it's discussed like that but we probably get a little bit defensive as we're a bit sensitive aren't we because we and sometimes it is don't get me wrong but sometimes i think we see a wider discussion about set pieces and we assume people are having a dig about arsenal um Paul in a minute we're going to talk a little bit about perhaps what happened after we get you know the goal and the red card and maybe what should have happened and what didn't happen um we'll definitely talk about David Ryer at the end because I think he definitely deserves that um but I was saying off mic before we started recording I did listen to the instant reaction but I listened to it on the way home after I'd had five pints or so so I didn't absorb much of it it was it was definitely something i listened to that went into my ears but i don't think it really stayed there however um and i think rightly um i recall you had a lot of good things to say about pierre and in capier in this game who um i i think certainly for me the fur until quite recently i thought he looks okay but do we want to commit a lot of resource to this when we've got two left backs already?

1:07:40Like, does this really raise our ceiling? I think it's fair to say in the last couple of weeks, I'm really beginning to see this player now. And I'm thinking, ah, this is what they saw when they were watching the videos from Leverkusen. And actually, he does show a different face. And the fact is, Calafiore, I think, was one of our best performers in the first half of the season. And we were talking a lot about how we miss him and attack. and unused sub now and we don't and we're not talking about him i think in capier it made me think paul a little bit of ben white in terms of it took me a couple of months to see that player when we bought him but when i saw him i couldn't miss it and i thought in capier was one of our better players on the day do you i i well i know you agree with that yeah yeah um i'm enjoying I'm getting this spot because it's really Clive who spotted the Hincapié development arc here.

1:08:34But, hey, I may have arrived late to it, but I'm going to arrive strong. So I've given him, yeah, he got my stock rising the last two games, which confused people, I think, at least in the Tottenham match, in that there were probably a couple of other candidates who stood out. but he's just screaming to me that he's establishing himself in terms of what he offers this team. And Calafiore, I was describing him as Arteta's new favorite toy. He's that toy you get at Christmas and you've forgotten all your other toys. I'm sure that's still true. I'm sure he still is excited about putting Calafiore in his team and maybe Calafiore still physically he's buying him a little time.

1:09:20if not it's the fact that there are games that really suit hincapié and there's plenty of them and i can see why this would be like calafiore's done really well 1v1 defensively this season really from the get-go which was my concern about him last season and now he's really fixed that but if you look it up who's up against hincapié in this it was their two best players from that standpoint it was netto and it was james like they may have caused trouble from that side but they did not cause trouble for in capier outside of that they caused trouble coming inside yeah not going that he got the nothing out of him yeah and they tried they tried time and they just stopped i mean and netto is so fast uh from a standing like he just loves having his fullback on toast and like he stopped the ball and now he's right he can do you anyway we couldn't do hincapié and like he's just you're not gonna get past him and he's very is he old school i don't know we've been talking about old school yeah he gave me a bit of a when he was kind of particularly because you know to your point clive we swapped sides i don't usually see the left back in the second half i did this time i kept seeing him fly past me yeah and i got a big nigel winterburn vibe actually yes so i i think so paul yeah and he's got he's got that bit of the agricultural about him um like the only critique outside of i think he should have jumped straight up and early on the corner and been and known what was coming is outside of that moment there was a couple of times when we were in the attacking motion and maybe trossard or or yach resh was going to run in behind onto his side and he could have passed the ball in his direction generally his crosses deliveries are into dangerous areas that people can get on the end of he's really developing he probably has that side of the game but he's developing it within the arsenal context to be quite a two-way fullback.

1:11:29And he's not timber. Yeah, a few players are wingback for Xabi Alonso's Bayer Leverkusen. Yeah. I hadn't seen that going forward side. I felt like he was a good defender, but I hadn't really seen much going forward. But I'm beginning to see that now. Lovely. And I like the way you worked in the back three things. So we're taking all of the things that Clive has been well early on and stealing it before he can get in on him. So really enjoying this. But yeah, he's stood out to me. In the definition of a stock rising and falling that we do on the instant reaction, which is not who was the best player, but who has come from kind of furthest down to up or from up to way up, he's just gone on in leaps and strides.

1:12:12When you look at how many games, how many competitions we've got for the rest of the season, if Calafiore is fit and he's fit, that's from Arteta's standpoint, he's like, oh my choices what do i want to hit them with next who who gets 70 minutes and 20 minutes now we haven't done much of that hincapier is so good so good he's getting the 90 minutes basically all the time um but i'm still convinced arteta loves califiori and he's a different kind of weapon and like if you're the opposing manager setting up to play arsenal the one thing you got to say is oh shit whether i got to work out are they playing califiori or hincapier because those are two two really different ways of playing and I need to think about how I'm going to play against those yeah and had Declan Rice not had to come off maybe one of that maybe would have seen either Muscara at right back or Calafiore come on at left back we kind of we we kind of lost the substitution there um because we had we had to take Rice off I mean Clive unless you want to add on Hinkapia I want to talk about what happened after the red card because I'm thinking the goal goes in Chelsea the set again it was down my side the second Martinelli set off for that ball and by the way to get to it in the first place like when you watch the highlights you'll see him beating Neto but to actually initially pick the ball up on the corner of our area my work like I haven't seen anyone go like that since Theo Walcott it was actually took me aback I was like oh he might get oh my god he's got there by about three yards how's he done that it's just like a straight line run And the red card happens, which didn't surprise me because, yep, it's Chelsea's ninth red of the season.

1:13:54They've lost a lot of points as well. They've been in winning positions when they've had red cards. They're clearly too emotional. Pedro Neto's too emotional. Enzo Fernandes is too emotional. Cucurea didn't play in this game. He's too emotional. Look at how they reacted to the goal Robert Sanchez doing his nut. And you look back at it and it's like, what? What do you think happened? like the invisible man like you know like took your gloves off or something but after the red and so I was I wasn't comfortable that would be massively overstating it I thought ah here we go okay after the red card Arsenal had 35 % possession they made 56 passes to Chelsea's 115 do you think that was nerves do you think maybe Arsenal do have a bit of a low technical level perhaps when they don't have Erdegaard?

1:14:46Do you think maybe Rice coming off contributed to that? Not like a massively technical passer, but someone who's on the ball a lot and someone who puts out fires quite a lot. What do you put, I think it's fair to say it was pretty lacklustre after the red card. What did you put that down to?

1:15:08Okay, I'm not sure I've got this one, to be honest. I felt psychologically, when you score and the other team goes down to 10 men very, very quickly, what did we all feel? Game over. Yeah, we all felt it, didn't we? Game over, we've got them now. It's over. It's the end. But actually, the players have actually got to make that happen. They can't link it. and what I started to see a lot more particularly was Saka a lot closer to me than I want to see the North Bank end which means you are no longer pressing higher up you know and that was my first indicator of our position on the pitch was less aggressive so now I'm thinking okay why are we doing that?

1:15:52are we just falling into that? or are we waiting for a counter to free Martinelli getting behind them I wasn't sure what we were doing to him to be honest and but I do know we stopped passing the ball accurately and we had no exit plans and the ball was coming back very very quickly and we were not getting after it and so we in some ways we almost by not playing didn't matter how many men they had because we weren't playing what should happen when you have the one man advised is you keep the ball until you find a spare man but we decided to protect the territory to protect the goal to protect our position in the game.

1:16:33And this is where you have to say, whether I felt it or not, this is where going second after Man City, you've got the result to extend to five points. I don't think you can deny that maybe we played the scoreboard. I think City did that on Saturday, by the way. They did. They did. They know it's about points accumulation. So we've got the points. Let's accumulate them. So what are we doing? we're analysing how we play well actually this ain't about that anymore this is about getting the win by any means necessary it's as simple as that and during that period we can discuss do we need a plan a better plan do we need to play a bit more do we need to go 500 passes who's the best player to have 500 passes who doesn't care where the ball is oh right no to God we missed him you know Eze is much more of a second striker We don't want it to come deep.

1:17:29We want it to go long. We weren't really going long and retaining it in there. We were inaccurate. And so we lost our way a little bit. I need to have a little close look at the sentiment to see what happened. I am feeling, Tim. I don't know what you think. But I look at the back line, and I felt this for a while, so it must be part of our strategy in defending, that our sentiment number six particularly dropped into the back line. and they're there a long time and they do really well. So dual numbers are great, et cetera. And they win the headers, particularly outside the box. But when you're trying to get out, you need three lines.

1:18:08You need four lines almost to pass up the stairs. Do you see what I mean? But if you're reduced to two lines almost, when you win it, where are you going? You know, so you've got to drop away towards your goal to make the pitch bigger. We stayed very good at pressing. I thought Jael Pedro was excellent. You know, in this game, he was the best center forward on the pitch and so we lacked a plan to exit i think maintaining our line depth the depth in our lines allows us to play is really important and don't fall away so there's a byproduct of why we don't play so you imagine you got the goalkeeper center backs that's two lines you sent your mids three lines then you're attacking in four lines we dropped to three lines very very quickly sometimes on occasions to two so we didn't have the depth to expand out you know i think that's behind it so my my feeling is can we maintain our position you know particularly in center mid to be them guys to be the first pass out so we can play the next line then we can control the game a lot more and what odegaard would do in this scenario he would come back into the back line and take the ball to get us a plus one fullbacks go higher we we didn't seem to want to leave our fullback areas we didn't seem to want to come in and then go up so we didn't have the exits why we didn't have the exits through the middle depth and Chelsea did well in that period so I think it's on us I think it's a learning but um it's been there for a little while isn't it in various guises um it's one for us to get right mate it's going to cost otherwise yeah I do think there was an element of fatigue to it and like I said earlier perhaps if we hadn't lost rice we could have subbed one of those fullbacks and we could have got Gallifuri on, you know, or we could have got Mascara on and, you know, someone had the legs to position themselves a little bit higher.

1:19:54But Paul, particularly as we look ahead to Wednesday, I knew this was going to happen because I had an argument on our Discord about, you know, Norgard potentially being a bit redundant as a squad player and now Erdogard's injured. And we don't really, as they said, a knee injury, but I don't think we know much more than that at the moment. Obviously, Mikel Moreno, I think he would have, again, I know it's always like the guy you don't have is the guy that will definitely solve it all, but I felt like Mikel Moreno would have been in this game because Norgold comes on, I think he plays two passes in 20 minutes and he's not like a Jorginho, I don't think, in terms of like just getting the ball under control i mean do you have do you have worries going forwards if like urdegaard's out and rice is out on wednesday um and without merino suddenly it does feel like we're getting a bit thin in there and we're having to play guys like maybe norgaard and eza who have their qualities but perhaps control is not their forte yeah uh though i'd say with uh nor gurgle um i haven't seen yeah i haven't seen anything from zubamendi in recent times that makes me think we'll have less control than zubamendi's quite low touch um i thought he'd be kind of the player that had at least another 20 25 touches i thought he'd be more like Arteta playing the DM.

1:21:39He's not particularly. He doesn't, you know, he does, he has a role. He plays in that area of the pitch, which is handy because that's where he stands. But he's not the guy who demands the ball, moves it around. He's this, you know, this hub and spoke model where everything passes through Zubimendi. You know, Rice isn't exactly that guy. between the two of them they share the the passing or whatever we don't actually i'm surprised i thought that's who zubimendi was he'd be this guy deeper in the midfield the traffic lights pointing moving it around everything goes through him except when it doesn't um and it doesn't that's not quite what he seems to be in this game exacerbated player to pin down isn't he he's a difficult player to like if i if you asked me to describe him to someone who'd never watched him i'm not entirely sure what i'd say yeah he's he's not quite that player and he's given us a lot more in the attacking end or moving into the right eight uh and then attacking the box than i ever expected to see from him in the first season but unfortunately he's either tired and i don't really understand him or he's not quite the player i thought he was where he'd give us this platform and he'd miraculously cover the ground like Arteta did even though he was a guy of smaller stature and less physical he still was always where he wanted Arteta was always where he wanted to be and he always came out with the ball with his small feet uh it didn't matter who he could go in against three big opposing midfielders somehow Arteta came out with the ball and so i'm at an interesting point with zubimendi my journey with him where i'm like i really like him i think he's class and quality but he's not super high touch so who is su when we want that control and i think that's what happened in this game to some degree we set up in a way that was even less controlly it was uh rice was central zubimendi was over to the right so he could press forward and go with Enzo and go wherever he needed to be.

1:23:50And he was very much in the opposing end. He wasn't playing the Odegaard role. He was playing something in between in that space there. And he was pushing and pressing. And it was, again, agricultural. This was not the most sophisticated game of football in terms of our passing and control. But then other games with Zubimendi aren't particularly him pulling all the strings, passing around, people saying, oh, he's so boring, passing right and left. He's not because he doesn't, right? He'll make a pass or two. Mostly it's Lieber and Gabriel playing around the back and then a bit of Zubimendi. So I actually think Norgard might give us more control than what we've seen because he is a bit more that player.

1:24:37It'll be interesting to see how he does. I certainly don't think we'll lose control or lose strings in the midfield. It might be interesting to see a little bit of a different look. I don't know. It's an open book for me that we've got this far in the season. I don't really know what we do in that deeper-lying midfield part of the pitch apart from it's Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori stepping in there, Rice, Bitazuba, Mendy. It's kind of an amorphous blob. isn't that an amoeba? Isn't that the blobby thing from your biology that kind of changes a pseudopod? I don't know what our deeper midfield is, but it's kind of this blobby thing that changes shape.

1:25:22It's not you can't say it's Rodri or it's Arteta. It's not Partey, Rice, Odegaard, which was three very distinct lines. Profiles are not clear to me. Yeah, big time. Go on, Clive. Yeah, we're playing a double pivot. So all roles are shared. Oh, you make it sound so simple. We're playing a double pivot. So we have to almost erase our brains from what we used to see. That's where I'm struggling. Yeah. We used to play a double pivot with Georgina and Rice a lot more. Remember that? Because psychologically, I think they're quite similar in some regards, Zubmendi. But I think what Zubmendi's brought above Georgina and above what others have offered, Odegaard particularly, and maybe parties, brought a lot better defensive ability.

1:26:18Particularly in the air, defensive ability is really, really strong. I actually think he's deferring to it too much. That's my feeling. People have been onto him a little bit lately because they want to see a little bit more control because we're all a bit nervous. He's a byproduct. We're all nervous. We want to see control. Who should be controlling it? That supermandy bloke's not doing much. He needs to control it. Actually, he has less touches of Rice in this game. Does Rice really a controller? Well, he's not really a controller, really. You know, he's an impactor on particular moments that are quite spectacular.

1:26:48And so... He's a take-back control guy. That's who Rice is. Yeah, yeah. He's a momentum changer. Well said. But changing momentum defensively or offensively, because he's a bit more quieter. And he's a bit more of a glue player. And you look at his numbers and tackles, they're always pretty high. but you know i heard others say this last week but he covered the most kilometers in the game versus spurs so he's the hardest working player and you mentioned the name marino let's be honest marino would be sharing minutes with supermendy and rice and we are standing there in the ground watching them supermendy and rice do stretches during the game you know and and so we are missing that player, Marino, very, very badly, in my opinion.

1:27:36Very badly. And that will continue. Because as we're going into this fight or die period of the season, Marino is perfect for this. He's efficient. He's combative. He brings the ball in and changes momentum, buys a foul. He's dangerous in the offensive box and he's brilliant in our box. we are missing him now for this period in particular we don't miss him if it's as August and the sun was shining and the ball zipped around on a perfect pitch which it isn't at the moment this is a time when you need to fight us because everyone wants to take us out and so Zubmendi is playing a lot of that role which is not spectacular Rice is trying to do a lot of that stuff which is not spectacular and we're thinking where's our controllers why aren't we controlling it we got a third midfielder almost a second striker so what we're trying to do is to make trossard almost that extra player to give us control and in this game he got nailed he got nailed on occasion despite none of us wanting him not to start this game does that make sense i was glad he started i'm really glad so he's the guy that he's off for a bit of control on the ball take it in tight areas jink jink get away and then switch the point of the attack as he was jink jinking Reece James was kicking or Kaizela was kicking him and so it just made it a bit more of a challenge or he was under pressure with execution It's kind of interesting as well because we're not inverting like our fullbacks anymore there's not like a Lewis Skelly there Calafiore kind of does that Hincapier as we said is a little bit more old school on the outside and actually Chelsea have stopped doing it really under Resenia as well it's a big change from Maresca where they used to push Enzo Fernandez They'd put Enzo Fernandes in the double pivot, push him up, Kukurea would come in or Rhys James would come in.

1:29:28They don't do that. They brought in Santos and they do proper double pivot football as well, which probably contributed to this being a stodgy game between the penalty areas, to be honest. And Paul, while it was a stodgy game between the penalty areas, in the penalty areas where Arsenal really won the game, we were slightly better at corners than they were. we had a much better goalkeeper than they did and you know Chelsea one of the consequences of their red card is they clearly had their Garnaccio de Lapp subs their kitchen sink subs lined up and they came on 10 minutes later than I think Rosinia would have planned for before the game but they do come on we know Garnaccio came on in the Carabao Cup and gave us problems Liam de Lapp I'm not sure if he gives you actual football problems but you know you might get a black eye and that's that's going to impact the way you play the way you defend um Garnaccio does get the ball on his right foot does get that cross in Raya makes a really good save again Joe Hart on match of the day did a really good analysis of this because he kept freezing it and he kept saying like as this cross comes in you don't realize from behind from the side view both Gabriel and Joel Pedro are so close to touching it which would have completely transformed what you had to do and Joe Hart was talking about Raya's back leg and he was saying look at Raya's back leg like he's on it because he knows he might have to dive in either direction but it also meant that when no one does touch it he kind of slowed it down and pointed to the power to kick off that back leg and make that save which he said is a much better save than it looks but I mean I think it's fair to say you know after perhaps a slightly wobbly game against Wolves David Raya's really he's back yeah this was a big game for David Raya in in the critical moments and that was a critical moment he needed to be able to cover either way it went and it was inch perfect like perfectly shaped um and inch perfect and just the slightest touch and it can go anywhere and yet he's got that he's got the ball the straight through ball covered and he still despite the fact nobody touches he still has to give it everything to get to it um el gato as he's called in spain if it catches on and i say it often enough um he's he's been phenomenal this season and I hope we get good things from this season and he'll be a huge huge part of it he's the best keeper in the league his distribution was frequently interrupted in this game by the referee giving cards but not letting him play you know you and the red card when Martinelli's through you you don't actually have to stop the play to give netto a red card um like the some quite annoying stuff but distribution wise he was actually really on it in this game and it was the kind of game because we weren't playing through midfield we weren't building up that that lightning quick distribution he fully got what what moment we were in in each part of this game um and was doing all the right things he's a really good game um number of the scoop save he makes like he's just all over the place uh one thing i'll say on the garnacho thing is it's it's fascinating to look at these moments you see gabrielle i think it is who's who is it um uh who's attacking is it is it pedro who's going through there or joao pedro who's going through on goal is it the The offside one, you mean?

1:33:24No, the Garnaccio cross that they almost get to. Is that Gerard Petro? Gerard Petro, yeah, yeah. And, like, Gabriel's all over him. And without that, he gets to it. And, like, you lose it in the moment. But, like, the defending there is clutch also from Gabriel. He does so much to occupy the striker in that situation to unbalance him without doing so much. It's right borderline how physical he is with the guy. And it's another, I think, Gabriele had a huge game, apart from scoring off or setting up the goal off the corner, all over defensively and in terms of distribution. And in that clutch moment when Garnaccio does the thing that we were a little bit scarred from, from the previous encounter with Chelsea, he's alive to it and he's wrapped up the attacker.

1:34:20And he makes enough of a difference that we see that out and make it a non-incident. And like, despite all our concerns and anxiety, they didn't actually lay that many gloves on us at the end. They had a lot of possession. We felt uncomfortable. They came at us. Most of it we kept at arm's length, apart from an offside moment, which was clearly offside. And we should, you know, we should throw that away and not be scarred by that. And in that, by the way, when you look back at it, look at Gabriel's step up. Yeah. Because I noticed that on the replay. He's level with him and he sees what's happening and he's up.

1:34:57It's really good defending. And I think, again, if good things happen, this will be a season in which Gabriel was the huge leader in that back line. And mentally, he always seems to be in the right place for these games. So it wasn't just, it was brilliant from Raya. it wasn't just Raya on that moment and in a number of other moments. Clive, I'll let you close on this because Rosinia said afterwards, you know, he felt, I think Rosinia's assessment was very fair. He was saying tactically, this is a very even game. But he said they managed the moments better than us was what he said. And David Raya, I think, was a big part of that.

1:35:40And I think you called it as well with the Spurs game that you felt like, I think you described it as a bit of a comeback performance after what happened at Wolves because he's up there with the two goal scorers in terms of getting us these points. Yeah, Wolves and Brentford, Tim, I thought it was a bit shaky at Brentford and he fixed it. You know, the Wolves game, okay, I'm not over that one yet, mate, but the Wolves game has hopefully led on. Let's talk about the recovery since the Wolves game. We talk about Spurs and Chelsea. They're not easy games for an Arsenal team no matter where they are in their lines and their quality.

1:36:15We've still got to go and deliver. So Ray has stepped up and we had it after the game yesterday. We were doing our sort of talk about the game. I just looked at that back five and thought, you are all excellent. You are all excellent, every one of you. So now we're having a little bit of a chat about Zubmendi and where he is in his spring and health. who were having the very same chat about Julian Timber maybe two weeks ago that looked a bit fatigued and he's had a week off he had some reduced minutes and he's had a week off and he came back yesterday and tore that game to shreds and this is why I'm not jumping to conclusions on certain people we have to squad to keep them healthy and alive we are not getting the time and it's going to become a moment people I'm afraid we may have to choose you know and we may have to choose something here because this will get a lot this will get a lot there's a lot of games it will get a lot and we'll start to see people flatten so this is where we have to change our perspective how we look at the game and say actually we can't expect this to go well we're going to have to maybe do this at 6 out of 10 and who's going to step up while we're doing it 6 out of 10 well Raya stepped up when we did it 6 out of 10 for a period Gabrielle stepped up and they delivered beyond their normal levels and just said, no, it's not happening today.

1:37:41We are not letting them win. You know, while other people were exhausted, stretching their legs, he said, don't worry, lads, we've got you. So when they have a bad day, are our fours going to step up and deliver? You know, when they maybe let a couple in. I think we're going to have to rely on that going forward, that certain areas due to the volume of games just may not look as we expect. But then what happens then? What do we do? Who goes above and beyond? and I thought Ray and Gabriel, particularly in this game, and Saliba, actually, all of their back five were above and beyond. Yeah, definitely.

1:38:15I've enjoyed talking this through, actually, because I've been kind of somewhere between, well, were we just a bit lucky and things went for us or was this like two pretty good teams, but the more streetwise one kind of came out with it on the small details? And I think I've probably gone more towards the latter of those two kind of scenarios. I know Leon Osmond, again, he said that on Match of the Day. He was like, these games are tight. And if you're good at set pieces, then no problem there. I've said before, to me, that's no different than having a really good striker. Does Erling Haaland scoring winning goals for Man City, does that mean they're over-reliant on him or blah, blah, blah?

1:38:53I don't think so. I find some of the discussion around corners and set pieces quite weird. almost like people think that there was like a heyday where corners looked aesthetically beautiful and there was none of this pulling and pushing going on it's like no no corners are the same it's just team score from them more now but anyway um i think that they'll do on this game um and uh we will kind of go a bit more back to normal service once elliot returns uh to the us He's obviously on a flight today, I believe. And we'll get more back towards our scheduled programming. Obviously, we'll have an instant reaction after the game against Brighton on Wednesday night.

1:39:35I'll be there, so you'll probably get one of my moody, stressed voice notes. So if you want to sign up for our Patreon and hear some of that, as well as all of the other absolute millier of content that we do pretty much six days a week. If not, no worries. We'll be back with another pod on Thursday, looking back at the Brighton game. haven't really reviewed that one or sorry previewed that one in this episode because i felt there was a lot to talk about in this game even if it wasn't one for the purists so um big thanks to you paul and a big thanks as ever to you clive thank you very much and elliot will be back in the hosting chair on thursday and we will speak to you after arsenal 10 right and nil

1:40:39Has the news been getting you down? I'm Megan McArdle, and I'm here to help. I'm the host of a new show from Washington Post Opinion called Reasonably Optimistic, and it's an antidote to the pessimism that's riddling America right now. Every Wednesday, I'm going to talk to people who see a path forward. It does seem to me that there is some awakening of a desire to act together, to solve problems where they are. You know, I am a believer in America, and it's worth fighting for. Join me Wednesdays on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.