Gabby Injury Concern and a Neutral View of Arsenal’s Title Bid

48:17So when there's a hilarious meme or a great video or match reviews of the day show or just the football is on in another region and you can't browse there, boom, you click, you browse, you watch. That's it. That's it. When I go over to England to see the Arsenal, which is my favorite thing to do every time I do it, but I want to watch some of the other games, like that time we were at the pub and we wanted to watch United lose to Fulham, simply click, browse back in the U.S., watch my football in the pub. Everybody watch. Alex will be beat United that one time. It was a lot of fun. So I can't recommend it highly enough.

48:46It also has threat protection. We have a great value for bonus months plus a discount off your regular plan. And you can do it at nordvpn.com slash arsenalvision. That's nordvpn.com slash arsenalvision. nordvpn.com slash arsenalvision. Is that enough of that? Indeed. Nailed it. Here comes the chat with me and Adam Clary. And without further ado, it is now my pleasure to introduce Adam. Hello, Adam. Hello, how's it going? Yeah, not bad. I want to say it's always interesting when you put out a call to the community and say, who's someone you respect? Who's someone you want to hear from? And apart from the obvious, like Les Elliott would be good.

49:18There was a lot of calls for you to be on the pod. So really appreciate you taking the time to do it. Anything you want to just tell people about sort of your YouTube channel and the videos you make? Because I think the way you break down the game and the way you make it understandable and obviously with a dash of humor is really unique and special. Yeah, if people aren't familiar, I'm Adam Cleary. I run the Adam Cleary Football Channel, which is a fun little project we have here at The Independent, which is a formerly newspaper based in the UK. And yeah, we basically just break down games of football.

49:49We look at the stuff people are talking about. We try and make it more digestible. We try and make it more accessible. We come from a position of, yeah, it is really complicated, and it can be really boring and granular and database and stuff. but there is also a lot of, you can't enjoy it at the same time. You don't need to know every single stat and point of data to understand what's going on. So we try and sort of bridge that gap between how data heavy and sort of like mathematical football is, but also the fact that you're supposed to actually enjoy watching this stuff. So yeah, that's sort of where we try and position ourselves.

50:21And we've been doing this here for eight or nine months now, coming up to the end of our first year. And yeah, we ended up talking about Arsenal a lot because they are possibly the most sort of tactically interesting team in English football over the last two years, I'd say. So, yeah, I'm glad to be here. Yeah, well, it's great stuff that you do. And for anyone who doesn't know what a newspaper is, ask your father or mother. So I think a good place to start, and it's like we had John McKenzie on, and he and Clive talked about this a bit, but I'd love to get your take on it too. is just, I think Mikel Arteta has been really good about trying to look at the reasons why he's come up short in previous seasons and trying to use that information to inform the decisions he makes for the following season.

51:07And that can come in two forms. One is in the transfer market, and we'll come onto that in a little bit. But the other is tactically. And I'm curious if there's anything that really stands out for you, or not, by the way, in terms of what Arsenal are doing tactically this season that you think looks like a substantial change or a noteworthy change in the approach? This season, it sort of always had to represent, and I'm sure you'll have talked about this, it's great depth yourself. This had to be that last step into getting, you know, something shiny, some sort of trinket to show for sort of the last couple of years for this era of the team.

51:44And almost every season, while Arsenal have been sniffing around the top of the league, it's come down to squad depth. It's come down to real crucial injuries at a crucial time and just not being able to navigate that. You know, last season, Saka missed a whole chunk of the season. Odegaard was in and out. If you remember the season before when you were leading all the way up to the end and then you simply ran out of steam. And the reality is it's not really that they don't play well enough. It's not even necessarily that the players below the first team are that bad. It's just you look at any sport in the world, it doesn't matter what it is, every single expert will tell you for all the incremental gains you can get from doing things right, You look at that wage bill at the start of the season, and more often than not, that tells you where everyone's going to finish.

52:27And if anybody finishes notably above that, they've overachieved. Notably below that, they've underachieved. And Arsenal have always had, over the last couple of years, a steadily increasing. They're going up that league table as they've stayed around second. So to finish second the first time was a huge overachievement. But now, finally, the depth they've added, the quality they've added, the players they've gone and gotten, those extra transfers, They weren't about raising the floor of the team to make sure that they had this consistent level of quality. It was about actually making sure throughout the squad that ceiling was as high as it could be in every single position.

53:03So this hasn't even really done anything drastically different tactically this season. It's been more about we know what we want to do. We know how we want to play, but we know the situations that frustrate us. Let's go get an option for that. We know the areas of the pitch where if we take an injury, we're weaker. Let's go get an option for that. So really, the hard work on Arteta's part was done in the summer, I think. And now it's just sort of a case of making sure that the standards are kept high, making sure that the small tweaks they have to make between games to solve certain problems, they're done really effectively, which Arteta has always been one of the best in the league at doing.

53:38And also, just finally, as the season goes on and the things they're doing become, not figured out, but certainly more part of the furniture and teams have systems and strategies to deal with them, finding those small innovations that will get you that extra 5 % or 10 % back. So this is sort of, I think it's important not to think about this season for Arsenal as just a season, but it's sort of like the fourth year of this project, which is supposed to end in winning the Premier League or possibly even the Champions League or both, you know. Why not both? There's no reason not. yeah it's only an extra 25 games or something with the depth of the squad I think there will be some expectation that hell there may be some people that expect us to do the league cup too why not uh I think it it may seem reductive and obvious but I think it's worth discussing that the tip of the spear is a little different this season with Jokras's um profile and I obviously Arsenal spent more time than they'd care to last season and again this season already with Mikel Marino up front.

54:43And while his goals have been valuable, whether it's him or Kai Havertz, the ability to collapse the central defense and push the central defenders back closer to their own goal, creating space for other players is a dynamic that Arsenal haven't always had. I think there's going to be split opinions on Jokras, but do you want to maybe weigh in, not necessarily just on he's good or he's not good, but what his style of play is doing for the space around the box at Arsenal and the attacking dynamic overall? So I think genuinely, I can't remember which pundit said it at the start of the season, but I think had Havertz been fit every game and Jokeres been fit every game, I think you would have seen a good degree of interchange between the two.

55:21I think you would have seen, because they're very, very, very different players, both in terms of the spaces they attack, what they offer their teammates, what it is they're looking to do on the ball and off the ball, very, very different players. So I think you would have seen Arteta really sort of flexing his tactical muscles and being like, well, in this game, I'm really going to want to push them back. Let's get Jokeres in. But in this game, let's see if we can draw them out. Let's get Havertz in. I really like Victor Jokeres. I liked him at Sporting Lisbon. And my worry was that he would come to the Premier League, whatever team he ended up going to.

55:53And there just wouldn't be enough goals. And people would write him off and say it had been a bad season and really became incredibly fun to watch. And the reason I was pleased he went to Arsenal was we did an analysis video on him making the transfer. And I basically sort of explained, well, this is how he scores all his goals. and maybe it's not necessarily the best fit in terms of how Arsenal create, but certainly, you know, he's got, at least he's got those instincts. But there was a moment last season, I'm not sure how many of your dear listeners will remember this specifically, but it's home to Everton.

56:21It's either 1-1 or 0-0, right? The game was winding down to a draw. It was more points lost at home. Terrible result. And they've thrown bodies forward. They've got loads of players in the final third. Defenders are up there. It's like six in the attacking line. So on the face of it, you're attacking. You're really going for it. There's a bad pass, and it loops up into the air, and it drops into the box, and nobody's going to get it. And all of them slump their shoulders, turn around, and go get back in position. And nobody realizes the ball hasn't gone out of play. And Jordan Pickford just sort of kneels next to it, doesn't touch it, doesn't pick it up.

56:55There's no clock on what he's doing. He just sits there waiting for somebody to notice. And I think we timed it. It was like 11 seconds. Kai Osaka realizes what's going on, and he sort of jogs over to force him to pick up the ball and restart play. And I remember seeing that going, if they had a center forward, even a bad one, even Eddie Nketiah, somebody like that, they would have been alive to that straight away. They would have put them under pressure. They would have saved them 20 or 30 seconds. Now, you know, 20, 30 seconds doesn't necessarily get you a goal, but it just showed like there's nobody in this squad of that profile with that mindset whose brain is constantly like, I'm going after that ball.

57:31I'm going to make them work for it. I'm going to put them under pressure. I'm going to not let the defense rest. I'm not going to give them an easy time of it. and I think for me the Jokovic transfer more than the amount of goals he ends up scoring that was the important bit because if nobody's going to do that if nobody's thinking like that when they get on the pitch if nobody's thinking like that in the last minute of the match then you're a very different proposition to defend against games where it's not quite clicking where it's not quite working where the defense are very well set against you and you're not finding a way through all of a sudden someone's just going to try and find like a little crack someone's going to try and force a small mistake and that might be the thing that gets one win here, one win there and those are the four points that end up being enough to see you over that finish line.

58:15I've really enjoyed Jokeres so far. I do think he will need to add more goals to his game if he doesn't want to constantly be getting asked why isn't he scoring enough goals but he might not be bothered about that. He might just revel in a job well done. That's a brilliant point and obviously you're going to have to deal with the Enkedia hive coming for you with the even Eddie Nketiah comment, but that's one for the comments section. I was like, clarify, I like Eddie Nketiah, but he was deemed not good enough to be at this team. He was not good enough. He would have been making those runs. No explanation needed, trust me.

58:48Yeah, well, and so this, I think, leads to a question about style and how you leverage that different approach with your striker. One thing that I wanted to ask you about that I'm still struggling with a little bit. My sort of fundamental understanding of football has always been that the team that wins has the best 11, that understands how it wants to play, that has a clear approach and a clear style and just practices that and repeats that until they get so good at it that they can't be stopped. And that's not really the approach Arsenal have taken. They've gone for squad depth. There's a lot of different profiles.

59:27Kai Havertz is not Victor Jokeres. Ebrecha Eze is not Gabriel Martinelli, right? There's a lot of different styles in the way that Arsenal can play. And I think Arsenal have shown different approaches. We've already had a game this season where William Saliba stepped into midfield in what people called more of a John Stones role. We've seen when Norgard plays, it's not the same as Zubimendi, although I don't think that's the plan. But obviously Calafiore is going to invert in a way that Incappier won't. So before we get into the specifics of those players and those capabilities, what's your theory on trying to win without a settled 11 and a regular style and going horses for courses?

1:00:03Do you think you can ever get to be your best over the course of a season if you're not doing like what PSG did last season where the last three months everyone can pick your 11 with their eyes closed and you're just playing the same way? Well, you sort of touched on there, the fundamental argument that every single, that constantly happens between every single tactics nerd and every single normal person. I'm in the nerd community. All right. Yeah, so am I, but most of my friends are not. So I've kind of got to understand that there's a balance. What you want, you want to always have the ability and the option to go horses for courses.

1:00:37You want that to be a constant, like never stopping thought process of analysis and understanding the data. But at the same time, you want that sort of preparation work to tell you that your best 11 is the right 11 at the same time. It's a difficult thing to get your head around because it's sort of like you want to be able to make the most minute changes game to game. But you also, you want to have the data and the understanding and the depth of squad and the variety of profile as well to make the most drastic change you possibly can. you obviously want to set your team up in a way that you can pick it with your eyes closed that you can just for anyone who plays football manager you can forget to make the changes just skip to the game and actually you'll be fine there because you've actually done all the hard work a long time before that but what Arsenal have done I think with their squad building is they understand that if you stand still in the Premier League you go backwards and a lot of this squad have been key components of three or four different title races, three or four unsuccessful title races now.

1:01:45Saka, Erdegaard, the two centre-backs, David Reier, obviously, he came in after a season of Ramsdale. They've freshened up as best as they possibly can. But you can't just keep doing the same thing over and over. You need to be able to make those adaptations. And by having a really deep squad full of lots of different players, what you're effectively doing is ensuring that whatever that small change is, you're going to be good at making it. You know, whether you might find, they might want to go to sort of a double-ten situation. They might want to bring, they might want to start playing three at the back with winbacks.

1:02:20They might want to go two at print. I would argue there's not a single sort of tactical change Arteta could want to make that he actually wouldn't have a really capable squad of making. He's got really good natural wide players now, but he's also got players that like playing in the centre. He's got one centre-forward who wants to run in behind, one who likes to come short. He's got Zubimendi, who can play in the sixth now, who just makes games so much easier to control. But he's also got Declan Rice, if you want to have a little less control and instead push everybody forward. I think whatever change they're going to need to make as the season goes on, they've got the players to do.

1:02:56And I think that's the perfect balance to have. He will know what he wants his best 11 to be, but that will change gradually, I think, as the season goes on. Yeah, I mean, the unfortunate thing, Stoppy, if you've heard this before, injuries are making it difficult to evaluate what the right partnerships are and who will thrive. He's got a lot of options, obviously, now. But a player that I really loved at Crystal Palace is Ebrecha Eza, and I wanted him at Arsenal for a long time. And he finally arrived at Arsenal. And I kind of thought he would be starting for us off the left and kind of play in the way Leo Troussard is playing.

1:03:28And by the way, Leo has been playing brilliantly, obviously scored a sensational goal against Sunderland in the last game. but that that would give us more access to play inside the block that his ability to sort of play in really tight spaces to pick up intelligent positions and and turn and face even under pressure would really help us eliminate that horseshoe of death that sometimes you'd see develop in terms of sterile domination right you've got the field tilt but you're not creating threat unfortunately because Odegaard's been out we don't really know what the plan is for as a necessarily, but he's been playing the Odegaard role, but not really, right?

1:04:05Because he's playing it more like a 10, one line higher up. He's not going to drop and collect it off the center backs. And as a result, I think he hasn't been as involved in Arsenal's games as I would have expected. And I don't think he, well, I like him and I think he's doing well. I don't think his influence has been felt as keenly. And he goes from being a very high usage player at Palace to now part of a very talented collective at Arsenal. What's your evaluation of how you get the most out of a player like that. And if he's suited to, you know, if that mercurial talent archetype is going to work in Arsenal's system, what do you think the best use for him is?

1:04:39Or are we already seeing his impact more than maybe people understand? I think the best possible thing you can say about Eze at Arsenal right now is he has played nine Premier League games. Not all of them starts either. The Odegaard injury. And I mean, to be honest, I watched the Arsenal-Sundling game and I looked at the starting 11 and I was like, oh yeah, yeah, they've probably got enough to get a result here if they're right. But then they showed the bench and it was like, oh, okay, they want to make any attacking changes whatsoever. They've got two children. Those are their options. They're not two senior pros.

1:05:13They've got two players who are still developing their game, still finding their feet who've never been in an atmosphere like that before. That could be a bit of a problem. I would say the best thing about Eze right now is you have no idea as an Arsenal fan how your manager really wants to use him. Nope. You have no idea. Because, I mean, again, we did a video about him signing and how he might be used. I said in all likelihood they would usually deploy him off the left, but the benefit to him is he can play in one of those inside eight positions. You can't even play maybe potentially even a center forward if you want to, or if you wanted to, for some reason, change the shape, he fits very nicely in his U10.

1:05:51At the minute, nobody knows. Nobody knows what they want to do, And you're currently top of the league, heading into the midpoint of November. And your marquee signing has been good. Nobody's got any complaints. He's certainly contributing with the appearances he's made. But they don't know what the best role for him is yet because the other players haven't been there to put together, you know, all things being equal, that kind of starting XI. And I actually see that as a massive, massive positive because it's allowed him to sort of bed into the team to show he can contribute to build patterns of familiarity with those players around him.

1:06:28But the best is yet to come. Like the way they've envisaged buying him, the things they were dreaming of when they signed that check to bring him over, they haven't had a chance to really do those yet. So I think his early performances have been really good. I think there's loads of levels he can still go up. But as other players come back and as we see exactly how they want to use him, that's when it's really going to tell. And if I was an Arsenal fan, I'd be incredibly excited about that. Yeah, it just breaks up certain partnerships and certain ball progression dynamics, right? I mean, Odegaard is a cheat code for ball progression.

1:07:01Well, instead, Zubomendi and Rice are doing a lot of that heavy lifting now, and Eze is able to stay a little higher up the pitch. I also think Odegaard's partnership with Saka is really strong. He likes to occupy the right half space. Eze, given the opportunity, I think would prefer to be on the left half space and left side of the pitch. So a little bit of different dynamics to adjust to there. it's kind of impossible to talk to you about Arsenal and what we're doing this season though without bringing up the set piece situation and look I think second half against Sunderland is a great example I still think we are better from open play than people give us credit for I think one thing though a big big weapon for Arsenal the last few seasons has been our pressing structure and the way we win the ball high up the pitch and I do think the loss of Odegaard and Kai has meant that our press has had to evolve a little bit and is taking time.

1:07:48Jokeres was starting to get really good at pressing, and then we lose him to injury. Ezzel tried really hard against Sunderland, manfully did the job, but he's not the pressing trigger that Odegaard is, and that's just simply not who he's going to be. So I think losing some of those high turnovers hurts, because as you saw against Sunderland, our first goal comes from Declan Rice being the Terminator and basically tracking down Enzo Lafie, who desperately tried to get away from him, couldn't get away from him, then it's a goal. But the set pieces have been a critical part of the story, and everybody has an opinion about that.

1:08:15I'm curious what yours is. Well, first on the high-pressing thing. Yeah, please. We're sort of in... I'm trying to think when the term first became popularized, but it's been a few years now since these high-pressing teams started being really eye-catching, and they started being, every season, the most reliable over-performers in the league, especially relative to wage bill. It was the teams that pressed you really high. Maybe Klopp with the gig and press, certainly. Yeah, I think, yeah, probably could. But I think it was sort of it becoming a popular thing in the league. Like Bournemouth are a great example of it.

1:08:47Like they have one of the lowest wage bills in the country, but they've been overperforming for a number of years now because they are without question the most well-drilled, coordinated and aggressive high-pressing side in the league, I think. Even when Eddie Howe first came in at Newcastle, you know, they went from being relegation survivors that season to jumping straight into the Champions League with only two or three signings because he got them into this really good high-pressing situation. Now, that was a good couple of years ago, all of this. And I think teams are getting a lot wiser and a lot more aware of the risks of high-pressing.

1:09:19I think what was remarkable about the Arsenal goal against Sunderland was that you have not seen Sunderland get caught out like that at any point this season. It was a really rare moment for them of hanging onto it for slightly too long. So I think it was naturally, especially for the top teams, going to be a move away from this sort of relentless high pressing. And I think as well, a lot of them have noticing the injuries catching up with it as well. A lot of the teams that play in three or four competitions, they are decimated for bodies by the festive period because asking players to sprint around and chase after the opposition when they haven't got the ball almost all the time is simply too big a physical ask.

1:09:56You've seen a lot of teams now wanting to be better at controlling the play, better at sort of knowing when to speed up, when to slow down, which is, I think, the main idea behind the purchase of Zubamendi. He controls the tempo better than anybody in the Premier League at the minute, I think. So Arsenal moving away from high pressing, which is not necessarily accurate to say they've moved away from it, but certainly the focus has been less on can we get right down the other team's throat in their own half and score goals like the Declan Rice situation at Sunderland and move towards set pieces.

1:10:28I don't see the two as any different. if high pressing is a system that's becoming popular and teams are finding ways to do it and other teams are struggling to defend against it to the point where it becomes almost a cheat code for teams in the league. If we can do that well, then we can overachieve. I don't see any difference between high pressing as a popularity, high pressing as a trend versus set pieces as a trend. And Arsenal basically being, let's call them early adopters of that really. The number of set-piece goals they were getting last season and into this has vastly outstripped all of the other teams.

1:11:05And if that's something they're reliably able to do, if that's something they're able to coach, able to train, able to do well, it's not scruffy. It's not happening by accident. It's doing it because they're sitting down and are thinking about this and they're finding ways to make it work. And if it's ultimately a set-piece goal, some deflected header at the back post after a flick on from a long throw, is anybody of an awful situation going to be even remotely bothered? No, I won't be. That's for sure. Do you think also that we underestimate the importance of talent when it comes to set pieces?

1:11:41They're regarded almost somehow as being outside of football from a talent standpoint, that they're just about planning and preparation and physicality. But Declan Rice's delivery, Paikio Saka's delivery, when we didn't have Saka, when Odegaard was out and we were giving out swingers for the first time or having to make Rice take him from the right. Their delivery, what Gabriel Magalias is able to do in terms of his courage and physicality, sure, but his talent rising to meet the ball. Of course, the coordination and the planning and the physicality matters. But do you think there's been a dismissal of these moments of football where technique is still absolutely at a premium?

1:12:20Oh, a thousand percent. Like anybody, especially in this country, will tell you like any sort of underdog situation, any clear mismatch in talent in a game of football. The assumption was that the smaller team would target set pieces, would always try and make the most of their set pieces. Sort of the Allardyce era, the Tony Pulis era. You know, Allardyce had Bolton massively overachieving in the Premier League. Tony Pulis had Stoke massively overachieving in the Premier League. And people were sniffy about it because a lot of that came down to how well they both attacked and defended their set pieces because these were a leveler.

1:12:56They didn't have to go out and spend huge sums of money on players who can reliably deliver a ball, who can head well or can do a long throw because those weren't players that were prized necessarily by the clubs who did have the money. So it's always been in this country, basically, the preserve of the underdog, the preserve of the less talented, something that's important on really muddy pitches because you're not able to pass it there. You can't show how good you are at football on Sunday League when the rain is lashing down and it's full of potholes. So just stick it in the mixer. Make sure we don't waste any corners, stuff like that.

1:13:29And it's ridiculous, really, because, you know, we've come a long way since then. Players are now prized for their consistency with delivery for these extra little bits of skill set. If you can win a high percentage of the balls in the air when you're a centre-back, you are purchased on that reason. Now, normally that is to defend balls into your own box, but if it can be used to score goals and to create chances, there's absolutely no difference in that whatsoever. I just, there's always been this idea of how football should be played and it's technical, it's on the deck, it's short passes. We've almost like, we've almost got a huge chip on our shoulder, especially in England about this notion of kick and rush.

1:14:07Because the Europeans used to think we were very uncultured for decades and decades. So now it's really important that we show that we actually understand how football is supposed to be played when in reality, football is just football. It doesn't, I don't think, make any difference whatsoever how your goals come about, how you create your chances. If you're working on it and it's deliberate and that's your game plan, there's nothing unknowable. Ignoble? Unknowable. Ignoble? Ignoble. There we go. Thanks. Yeah, and look, as you said about with pressing, it's cyclical. So teams will find ways to turn defending set-piece moments into counterattack opportunities, and teams will start to feel that they're too vulnerable to those counterattack opportunities and commit fewer resources to set-pieces, and suddenly set-pieces will be de-emphasized.

1:14:51there will be some counter skinny jeans, flare jeans, skinny jeans, flare jeans as Sean Dyche would say skinny jeans was never for me I can tell you that was not cyclical in my life experience for good reasons well so just a couple of things here I think that we can touch on before we wrap it up and one of them is I think it's always interesting to get an outside perspective to the extent that obviously you're not an Arsenal supporter so the objectivity that might be there that may not otherwise be available to us if you were to look at Arsenal falling short of the title this season are there things you're seeing in the style of play or in what Arsenal are trying to do that you still regard as potential vulnerabilities or areas of weakness that could be the reason for Arsenal not achieving their ultimate goals I've got to tell you every single Arsenal fan I know at some point in the last two months has very gently come up to me and in a hushed voice said, do you think we're winning the league?

1:15:54We want validation. Because we're starting to think maybe we're going to win the league, but do you? Because you don't you're not in here, your brain is not doing the insane thing. Do you think you're going to win the league? And to every single one of them I've said, yes, almost certainly. The problems Arsenal are going to potentially have this season are the same problems they were going to have last season and the season before. They're never stylistic. Cards on the table, right? As a non-Arsenal fan, my Newcastle supporting stance on Mikel Arteta is that he's a weird little freak with no mates, right?

1:16:32But my professional opinion on him as someone who covers football is that he may be, he may now have already overtaken Pep in terms of the manager whose influence you can most see in terms of how teams set up and how they adapt in-game. I think he might be like the best pure manager in the Premier League right now. And the problem he's had in winning the league is that the squad just hasn't been on the same level as a Liverpool or as a Manchester City. But this season for the first time, you look at like Liverpool having their drop off. You look at Man City having to try a number of different things.

1:17:03And some weeks they look great and some weeks they don't quite. It is all there. This is, they should not walk to this title, but the way this early part of the season has gone so far. Arsenal should quite comfortably maintain the levels they're at right now. They control games in their own third. They're very good at controlling games in the middle third. We saw them horseshoeing against Sunderland, but they never looked in danger of being counter-attacked on, which is something that used to be the case. You sort of felt there was a vulnerability. If they couldn't find a way through, the longer that went on, the more the sort of system was creaking and all of a sudden someone would break.

1:17:38They are the most in-control team I have seen in a very, very long time. So the pitfalls, the potential problems they have are not systemic, I don't think. They're not part of the system. They're not part of how they'll set up. Because even if teams do start to figure them out slightly, as we've already discussed, Arteta has the profiles. He has the know-how. He has the backroom staff to figure those out, I think, relatively quickly. The problems are, again, if they're hit by an extraordinary wave of injuries. Like we said before, that would never happen. That would never happen. I saw the bench for the Sunderland game and I was like, wow, Jesus, like, no Havits, no Jochores, no Martinelli.

1:18:17Nani Madueke. No Madueke, yeah. Like, all these players are already missing and we're in November. And yeah, the 11 he put out, I think they were maybe a little bit unlucky not to go on and win the game. But if they had got those three points, that would have been very, very narrow, very narrow margin. That wasn't a comfortable game for them. One or two more injuries to that and all of a sudden, you know, You're asking who goes up front? Who can we play in these positions? So they've got to keep everybody fit because you can have the best squad and the best manager going. You've still got to have to have them out on the field in relatively good condition to make that work.

1:18:53When you see a team with that many injuries, do you tend to think someone must be doing something wrong, by the way, or do you fall more into the category of injuries are going to happen with the kind of fixture congestion that exists today and you can't really point a finger or blame anywhere? Yeah, I think teams that have a very good run of injuries will pat themselves on the back for doing something right and teams that have bad runs of injuries will start questioning what it is they're doing wrong when in reality that is kind of just how it is. I think Liverpool last season were remarkably well organised in terms of how they kept their players fit.

1:19:30But to have players like Salah and like Van Dijk go on, to play almost every single game in the Premier League and the Champions League. They had deep runs in the Carabao Cup. I know, I was there when they went out. And the FA Cup. And to not pick up even small strains to miss two or three games as a precaution is so improbable. I think if you look at them this season, they're paying the price for that now. That's too much football they ended up playing last season. And even if it's not an injury, it's certainly a huge sort of physical toll it's taken. I think it's simply fate. It's simply, it's in the hands of somebody else right now.

1:20:10I think you've seen this, by the way, with teams that challenge for the big trophies year in, year out. So under Klopp, if I remember correctly, Liverpool would have seasons where they had 70 games and everybody was fit. The next season, they'd be racked with injuries and they'd fall away. And then the season after, they'd be back challenging again. Slott, you're seeing a little of it this season. But with Arsenal, you could look at it too. Two seasons ago when we went down to the wire, 89 points, and didn't win the title against City, we stayed remarkably fit all season long and then paid for it last season.

1:20:39Now, how do you explain paying for it again this season? That's another story. Too much football. That's how you explain it. Yeah, well, it is too much football, right? And you're not going to hear me spill any tears for Chelsea or Manchester City, but with the FIFA Club World Cup, I do wonder for City, could this be a... Because Pep has been renowned for City fumbling their way through first halves of the season and then turning into the T-1000 at the end of seasons and finishing on a run, as we know all too well from a couple of seasons ago. I do wonder though, if the Club World Cup having happened this summer might just be the straw that breaks the camels back on that trend for them this season, which would be great.

1:21:15So looking at the competition, look, I think Arsenal have everything it takes to win the league, obviously. The squad building approach this summer reflects what happened last season and the depth has already paid dividends because we picked up points there's no way we would have had we gone for another approach the things that i see standing in our way liverpool are fading away from that we'll touch on them in a moment but manchester city are doing it's such lazy analysis but it's hard to get away from they're doing a bit of what liverpool did last season which is hey we have this one incredible player maybe he's enough to win it all for us is erling holland enough if he's scoring every single game to make City unbeatable by dint of his own individual brilliance?

1:22:00That's a great question. It depends who he's going up against in terms of winning the league. Haaland scoring every single game, which is not ridiculous to say he's pretty much doing that this season, is I think enough to get you enough points that you could potentially win the Premier League, which is an absurd sort of statistic. The players behind them are good enough they can just make things happen for them. They'll defend fairly resolutely. But like you say, this is not an Arsenal side that is really struggling for world-class players. It's not an Arsenal side that's one or two injuries away from being torpedoed.

1:22:40This is, I think, the most controlled team we've had in the Premier League for a very, very long time. Man City, I know they've closed the gap the weekend just gone, but they are having blips. They're not just having games where they turn up and they don't get the result. They've had so far this season a number of actually quite underwhelming performances where it just hasn't worked. They haven't been able to get going. They haven't been able to find Haaland particularly well, and they've got nothing to show for it at the end of it. And I think as the season goes on, you've mentioned the Club World Cup.

1:23:11That could start to catch up with them. I know they didn't go as far in it as Chelsea did, but that's still a fairly... When you'd like to be doing your main resting period of the season, to be in 30, 40-degree heat running around after other footballers is not ideal. To be continued this summer, by the way. It's a whole other thing. I think it doesn't matter what Erling Haaland is doing necessarily. I think Arsenal have it all in their own hands. Again, I think the drop-off it would take from Arsenal, maybe necessarily in terms of injuries maybe it all just falls hey they may all fall out you never know what's going to happen with a group of 25 lads who all have to hang out every day there may be some horrible team division that happens but writing that off for a second as absurd I think Harlan scoring every game for Manchester City is enough to keep you honest and to keep Arsenal having to work all the way until the end of the season but that does not put Manchester City in a million miles in as strong a position as Arsenal find themselves.

1:24:17My evaluation of City has stayed the same basically since the start of the season, which is if Rodri finds a way to get fit and be at his best level, that changes the calculus for me. But if he doesn't, which I don't believe he has left in him, then I don't think they can control the midfield enough to play the way Pep wants to consistently enough to win the games they'd need to to win the league. And I could look stupid with that, but that's sort of where I'm at with it. Last thing then, Liverpool, I can't fathom what the plan was with their summer um it's it's really incredible it's like the guy who skipped leg day just deciding that the right approach would be to continue to skip leg day um and you know like just to have the biggest biceps in the world you got Eketike you got Verts and you got Izak and you go for these flying wing backs and just ignore the inability to control the middle of the pitch and that you have aging center backs and no one behind them.

1:25:15And I know they wanted to get Gehi and they ultimately didn't. And that's a big, big miss for them, especially given the form of Kanate. I think it's easy to point to the manager and I have some questions about what Slott's trying to do, but fundamentally, Adam, I don't understand their squad building. Now, some people I know have said it's for when Salagos are going to play a back three and it's going to be Eketike and Izak up front and then Kerkhezin from Ponga make a lot more sense and who knows I don't know but do you find their approach as perplexing as as I do and do you have a better explanation for what they think they are trying to do uh are the only people who know exactly what Liverpool were trying to do with the people at the very very top of the club the thing is every single one of those signings in isolation made a lot of sense in isolation.

1:26:06Robertson had had a lot of criticism last season. He was getting on to a certain age. It was questions about whether or not he still had it at the top level. It was certainly a player they were going to have to do something with this season, even if it was just to bring in a backup. Kirk as being available for a relatively decent fee for someone going to a club that stature, that made a lot of sense. He was familiar with the Premier League. He was great going forward, but he had proven really robust for Bournemouth when they had had to defend because they certainly don't spend as much time on the front foot as Liverpool did.

1:26:38Alexander-Arnold leaving meant they had to go and get somebody who could play it right back. And obviously, with Salah going to AFCON, the idea of getting someone who was comfortable in a back four and also was comfortable playing forward as well seemed like a great idea. Frimpong's young enough and was cheap enough as well. If he'd been a disaster, the sell-on fee would have been really good. And they've also got Joe Gomez if they want to be a lot more solid, although they probably weren't expecting him again to have the sort of injuries he had. and then Florian Wirtz I called him in a video as close to an open goal of a signing as close to a sure thing as you are ever going to get but I think what's caught Liverpool out is actually similar to where a lot of Newcastle's problems have come from this season the league over the last two years very quietly has trended upwards in such a more physical direction the average strength and speed and endurance and just intensity of the league as a whole really feels like it's crept up quite significantly over the last two years.

1:27:38And you can see in Florian Vert, he's really struggling with the physical side of the step up. He releases the ball so early now because he does not trust himself to keep a hold of it if there's any contact and he's constantly expecting contact. So that's a coaching issue they'll have to work through. And then when it comes to the two up front, I think Ekotiki has actually been quite a good sign and he's looked very promising. He's somebody who I think they will coach into a really good position. And they certainly weren't expecting Isak to be coming in as undercooked as he was for not having a proper preseason and then to immediately get injured.

1:28:13So it's been a lot of bad luck, but bad luck almost exclusively caused by bad decisions, I would say. All of them, though, in isolation, look like very smart, very sensible transfers. I think a lot of the blame lies with Slott for not having... And, you know, this is, again, this is something we simply won't know unless you go and ask everybody at Liverpool, but whether or not he didn't have the courage to leave a lot of them out at the start and then gradually start trying to bed them in. Like, I would not want necessarily to be trying to have Hugo Ekitike and Florian Virta both get up to speed in the same attack at the very start of the season because they like occupying a lot of the same spaces.

1:28:55You would like them to have the right support around them and they can just focus on what they're doing. but instead I think they both started you know the first games of the season they were both thrown right in there and also you've got to remember the club didn't really do many favours because they in order to afford this they did get rid of every player they were replacing there's nobody currently sitting on a bench who's missing out Diaz went even Darwin Nunes went there was talk about Gakpo going as well towards the end of the window all these players who came in who they were there to replace they're gone they had no other option really he had to just try and do what he could with them.

1:29:30And look, I think as the season goes on, they'll obviously start picking up. There's too much talent in that squad to be this bad for this long, but the problems are all of their own making. And I think it's a far bigger challenge of slot now to fix this mess he sort of got them in than it is to just come in and pick up the pieces after Jurgen Klopp. I will say though, and I don't know whether Arsenal fans will agree with me on this, I'm actually really enjoying that. That's great schadenfreude for somebody who lost one of his favorite players to this whole project. We do a schadenfreude pod anytime there's cause for it.

1:30:04Usually Spurs embarrassing themselves. United embarrassing themselves has been a great value for money recently. So if it's Liverpool, all the better. I do wonder what Slott's future looks like as crazy as it sounds because there are some people that question his tactical approach. I just think, look, to your point, with the talent they have, there's going to be a period of this season, maybe the upcoming period, if you look at their fixtures, they've got a very straightforward run coming. There's going to be a two or three game period where they win 7-0, 6-0, 5-0, and people are going to say they're back.

1:30:35They're what they are. But I do think that the problems they have defensively, defending the wide areas, defending long balls into the channels, the inability to contest the midfield against big physical midfields, I think it's a problem for them. And to your point about physicality, there's so much data out there on the number of sprints increasing in the Premier League. It's not the distance covered. It's the amount of sprints and the intensity of those sprints. It's gone massively up. You know, you start to look at the data side of things and say, well, why did Arsenal sign the guy who had the most intense sprints per 90 in top five leagues in Europe?

1:31:07Because the Premier League is a league that requires the most intense sprinting. I think it also explains why you see things like set pieces happening and horseshoe of death, because if you're going to sprint that much, you also need periods of rest in a game, right? You cannot go a thousand miles an hour the whole game. I mean, you look at the kind of things Ang tried to do and how that didn't work. So it's all very fascinating. It's all changing. But I think for someone like Florian Vertz, to your point, that might be part of the problem is just the lack of high sprint repeatability and getting bossed out of games by more physical players who are up to that sprinting capacity.

1:31:43you know Declan Rice I think has had some poor first halves this season but look at how he finishes games his engine his capacity to run yeah is unrivaled so um well look I think we've covered all the ground we wanted to Adam and at this point what we can just do is say you've told us we're going to win the league so we either will and thank you for that or if we don't we'll simply blame you for it does that sound fair that sounds fair if it makes you feel any better I went on a Spurs podcast at the very start of the season and said I could not be more excited for you my Tottenham friends for forgetting Thomas Frank.

1:32:14I think he's a great manager and it's all going to go swimmingly well. So my prediction track record is not watertight, let's say, but I certainly believe all my own guff. So that might be something for you. Yeah. I mean, it is always a safer bet to assume the worst possible outcome for Tottenham Hotspur. I think that you're on safe ground when you do that. But for us, yeah, we're all going to be clinging to the predictions you've made here. And, you know, maybe as we get late in the season, we can have you back on and revisit some of the things we discussed. And I think it's going to be a really interesting time after the international break for Arsenal fans because we will get the chance to finally maybe get some players back and see what Mikel thinks the plan is.

1:32:54And I don't think there'll just be one plan, but I still don't think we know as much about this Arsenal as we think we do. And I think we're about to learn it. So that'll be exciting. Look, I hope everybody listening who hasn't already checked out the work you and the Independent are doing on YouTube should because the analysis you're doing is top notch. What I love about it, it's extremely intelligent, but it's accessible. You know, you go on Twitter now and you see some tacticals who are like, can I write the most opaque, inaccessible thread possible using the most words that no one can understand?

1:33:20And it's like, there is that belief, right? Like the way you know someone's smart is if they can explain something at a fifth grade level. I think you do a great job of explaining complex concepts in a very accessible way. And I need that. So I appreciate it. So thanks for that. Well, thank you very much. That's what we aim to do. So I always love hearing that. And I have seen those exact threads you're referring to. And I've got no issue with the people who do those. They are making content for a very certain audience that they are part of. And I'm glad that stuff exists. And I enjoy reading the parts of it, I understand.

1:33:51But just having learned my lesson from hanging out with far more, what's the word I want? Not fifth graders, but people who want that stuff explained at fifth grade level, bringing that sort of thing to the pub and then trying to repeat it and then getting told, what are you on about? I made the mistake on a podcast of using the phrase angle bias and Clive laughed me off the podcast and I promised never to say it again. I don't even know what angle bias is. I've got no idea what angle bias is. No, tried to use it, don't know what it means. Okay, well, we will leave it there. Adam, thank you very much.

1:34:22All right, that's going to do it. Hope you enjoyed that one. I did, but we always love to hear what you thought. And we'll have more stuff like that either here or on the Patreon or both. So wherever you are, whatever you're doing, we love you. We're glad you're here. We hope you'll stay here. and we will talk to you after Arsenal 10's personal.