Late Sucker-Punch Denies Massive Win

0:27This podcast is brought to you by the Clive. Back to 1-0. Unbelievable. Arsenal somehow conceded two goals on Saturday. Or as Liverpool call it, the best defensive performance ever. This is the Arsenal Vision Postmatch Podcast. My name's Alex Fiddy. That's right. Liverpool watched that. They thought they only conceded two goals. How is that possible? Because they would kill to only concede two goals. They're constantly conceding three or more. We had a weekend that could have been very, very funny. We had Richarlison celebrating his World Cup winner that turned out to just be a draw against United.

0:58That was very funny. We had Liverpool getting absolutely embarrassed as much as I didn't want City to win. That was very funny. And we had the emotional lift of a huge win in the context of this season. But it was stripped away from us late. And I think sometimes you have to play the blame game. It's not what we usually do on the pod. But sometimes you have to put blame and assign it where it belongs. And I know that's not necessarily what you come here for, but we're going to do it. And so I'll just start it off right now. the blame belongs with Paul. And I think that's clear because as we were getting ready to celebrate this massive victory, we're going to do an instant reaction with all four, Clive and Tim and Paul and me, all of us, ebullient as we stretch our lead at the top of the table.

1:45And I messaged all of us question mark in the WhatsApp and Paul messaged yes, period, unless we concede a goal. and that was roughly one minute before we conceded a goal so again just to be clear we have to blame sometimes and the blame belongs with Paul now that doesn't mean you're not gonna have fun this next two weeks is gonna be your most fun time ever listening to podcasts because we have a blockbuster set of stuff coming we've got a special pod about Martin Odegaard who will be returning not too distant future deep diving on his profile how he's different from the likes of for example in Eberachia Eze and what he really gives us and what we will get back when he returns Scott's gonna have the data to that I expect and hope that Clive will also participate in that so we can have some qualitative analysis as well that'll be coming next week this week we have potentially a rewatch of the second half of Sunderland trying to tee that up Adam Cleary who does some really good statistical uh not statistical tactical analysis uh on his YouTube channel he's gonna come on for patrons as well so Adam Cleary will be on Patreon something that a A lot of people have requested, so very excited to have that going on.

2:51So there'll be a lot of content. Plus, the 1994 Cup Winners Cup series will be back and better than ever. And that is going to be concluding this week and next week. So I'm very excited to have all that come out and just keep us ticking over as we try to get through what is the last international break for a long time and then a very, very hectic period of the season. And if you give us a five-star review, we'd absolutely love it. It helps people find the pod as more and more people flee social media. We are going to try to do more stuff in person, as I always say, but we would love to have your five-star review so that people can find the pod.

3:28It would mean a lot to us and you mean a lot to us. And as I've always said, if that's not the kind of review you want to leave and you have criticism, I can give you Paul's email and you can send it to him. Last but not least, if you want to join the Patreon, code is AVP50. It's a couple of bucks, a couple of quid, a couple of euros, whatever money you use. there is an Apple subscription by the way if you feel better just having it with Apple you can do that the only thing I'll tell you is that Apple takes a big wedge okay so you're going to be giving the Apple Corporation money which is good because we want to see plucky underdogs like Apple thriving but you can subscribe either place either way you'll get the pods right in your Apple player or your Spotify player wherever you normally get the pods so we'd love for you to do that three and a half minutes sorry but a little of that was banter about Paul and that's always acceptable because and this is important we love Paul and he is here hello Paul Woohoo!

4:14I do have one question for you. Is that the real reason I got cut out of the instant reaction at the weekend? Or is it because I shared with you my planned headline, which was fecking brilliant? Yeah, I mean, both are good reasons. I think both. You causing us to drop points and you coming on after that draw and your headline was going to be fecking brilliant. My head was already on Mars, Paul. It can only go so far out into the universe. That perspective of what a great occasion was, even if it didn't turn, like, just to zoom out, guys. For those who don't know, the last time Paul's headline was, that was fecking brilliant, I think was after we lost to Brentford in their promotion season to start the season when the Sky Sports guys were dancing with Brentford fans.

4:56Yes, after the COVID season, and my take was, look, this is just the start. Football's back, I'm alive. It hurts. You were ahead of the curve. I was, yeah. You were ahead of the curve because that was really the start of us being good again. Okay, enough of that nonsense. Here with me now is Tim. Hello, Tim. Hello. And Clive. Hello, Clive. Hello, hello. The full house, all four of us. The fantastic four, no one has ever said. But, you know, it's fine. The adequate four is here to talk about an adequate result. And to contextualize it, it's tough because it's a draw that's probably handy in the context of the run that we just had and the players that were missing.

5:37It's a win we had, and it was snatched away, so it hurts emotionally. I found it difficult. And so, Tim, I'll start with you just there. Mikel was very clear that this was painful, that the players felt it like a loss. It's the context of being a couple minutes away from stretching that lead. It's the context of having the chance then late again to win it and it not going. It's the first real sucker punch we've had in a while. I think we talked about this. The last one was probably City away last season. Maybe Liverpool away, sub-artialized free kick. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is actually a bit of a – I mean, although, what was it, about 74th minute?

6:14No, it was like 85th.

6:16Elliot:82nd. All right, yeah, so maybe, yeah. Yeah, okay, that's a fair point. I guess it felt earlier somehow. But they're not relevant, so it doesn't matter. So, yeah, just emotionally, can you contextualize for me how now with the dust settling, City pounding Liverpool, the way it was snatched away, how you're just feeling about the way the weekend and the game played out yeah i i felt okay about as okay as you can feel um about it at the time because i felt like the outcome was bad but the process i mean we can argue a little bit about bits and pieces of the process but i wasn't sitting there thinking oh my god we've got a massive problem here i was sitting there like the the thing is once we went to one up once it got to about 85 86 minutes i could see they had nothing left and i got nervous and i was comparing it earlier to how i felt for example seeing out the fulham game where that could just just as easily have happened at craven cottage but i never thought it would and i wasn't you know i was like look someone could smash him from 30 yards but i don't feel like that's going to happen whereas the last few minutes of the sunderland game I was nervous because I thought I can see we've got nothing left we've got nothing really to bring off the bench although I'm sure we'll debate that and we're trying to sit on it and we're trying to see it out and and I did feel that Sunderland potentially looked dangerous you know like in and I felt if the goal was going to come it was going to come in the exact manner it did which is like ball into a box knock down and all of that so you know I didn't feel calm in those last few minutes i was just like please like please just get over the line please see it out we couldn't quite but i i felt process wise if if there's a way to drop points that's kind of it where it's very explicable very explainable three away games in a week you know 700 attacking injuries etc etc like you can explain it away and ultimately we weren't going to win every game we had left right we were going to drop points somewhere and like i said if you're going to drop them doing it in this kind of manner is is you you know i guess how you choose to do it in terms of your kind of long-term sanity and and i just think get three or four of those players back and we'll be fine which it looks like we will so i you know i'm not massively worried long-term as much as obviously it was an emotional sucker punch this is a game with a lot to digest and a lot to break down.

8:47So I don't want to do too much throat clearing beforehand, but it's such a big weekend, Clyde, that I think we have to do a little bit more of it. Having watched City really embarrass a Liverpool team that wasn't up for the challenge at all in any way, having seen some of the other results and then knowing what we've had to do in this run, I think it is important to add some context. I'll give you this. Before the October international break, we had a one-point lead over Liverpool, a three-point lead over City and a five-point lead over Chelsea. After the international break, we have a four-point lead over City, a six-point lead over Chelsea, and an eight-point lead over Liverpool.

9:26So we stretch the lead over Liverpool by seven, stretch the lead over City by one, and stretch the lead over Chelsea by one if you think Chelsea are relevant in this at all. The only caveat I'd add to that, though, is if you look at seasons in terms of runs, before the season kicked off, you would have circled this run and said, we got to accumulate points in that run. now to be fair we have it's it's all wins in one draw so it's it's a pretty good accumulation of points but in the context of what you saw this weekend how do you evaluate the title race right now and and any movement in your expectations based on what you saw this weekend yeah so

10:00Elliot:when you walk into certain crowds it reminds me of when we walked into brentford that year when carrigan co were in the crowd and maybe we went to london's in the first european game for london's you walk into some grounds at the wrong time, right? And this was one of them. But in both of those games, we lost. In this one, I think we performed really, really well and the circumstances nearly won it. So as for the title race, I think, you know how I look at things. It tends to be we're in the points accumulation phase right now, which we have done. I didn't think we would be where we were before the last international break, whereas this run, we all had circled and we probably had this amount of points in our mind.

10:42Elliot:Yeah. This would have been okay. But then when you're winning in the 90th minute, you're thinking, okay, you have a little gut punch that we didn't quite manage to get over the line. But we can talk about that in more detail. But as for the title race, I think it's coming out to how we expect. I mean, we've looked at Liverpool. I felt, and I've said it a million times, I felt the game against them was misread by everybody. What was on offer, I thought, two cautious teams that weren't sure what to do. Liverpool had a purple 10-minute score within it, and it was just a bit late for us to respond.

11:13Elliot:They walk away with applaudings. We walk away with the questions, and I thought the questions against us were too harsh. I really did. Both teams weren't ready. Both squads weren't ready. Players just arrived. People weren't fit. The game came too soon. Whereas this weekend's game, City against Liverpool, that came at the right time. Both those teams were nearly at full strength. They're fit. They're sharp. They're ready to go. They're a bit more settled in a pattern to play. is a far better barometer for where both teams are. And okay, Liverpool could have equalised and maybe should have equalised, but I think we can all say that City were superior and many of us have been looking at City and saying, you are better than Liverpool at the moment because your style is being developed on and you know who you are.

11:55Elliot:You've worked out who your key people are. You are playing to them in the guy up front. You've added a goalkeeper to stabilise. They start the season with James Trafford. If he was in their net, there'd still be a problem. you know and that nico gonzalez has settled a little bit they found two fullbacks and suddenly they look a bit more physical they're rotating john stones in and out you know for european games versus league games playing ds in the other games they have a strategy they have a plan they recognize they haven't got roger so they're blocking the middle they have it sorted you know so they have it sorted and they have the medals so city is the one lilpool will no doubt find their feet but they mean they need to find defensive stability and i can't see it in kirkhead canate i even conor bradley's done really well he when he has the ball at his feet i don't know where it's gonna go you know and so and andy robertson he can't play all the time anymore and so i do think city are the ones and i think we're in a good place but wouldn't love two more points yeah and we were so close to it right just just so we're clear right a draw in the context isn't terrible a draw after this run isn't terrible it's simply that you're two minutes away and the way it happens and i'm gonna do something silly paul i'm gonna do the end first because it's such a big moment it feels like doing that 90 minutes into the pod buries a lead let's just talk about the way that happens because look if you told me that we if leo's goal if leo's goal came at 90 plus four we'd be fist pumping the air and saying we showed a lot of character to get something from that game when we were down very few players but it's it's the manner of the defeat and mikhail spoke on it a number of times right um the last feeling is disappointment and frustration because we wanted the three points we had to navigate through a really tough game we knew that it was very disruptive we have to deal with situations that are difficult to deal with they did really well and we conceded a goal that is not in our standards i think that is sort of the the thing that he he underlines there it's not in our standards and on his emotions after the equalizer mckel said again unsatisfied because i want to win in the game was almost there but you know this is the premier league in the manner they play they're going to harm you in their way it's just one goal difference there i'm frustrated because it's an action we can defend better but you have to give credit to the opposition for what they've done to put the ball there to head the ball the way they've done it and then the striker to do it in that action and put the ball in the net sometimes you have to recognize that as well i have this as a raya error primarily i've seen people frustrated with saliba i've seen people frustrated with not pressuring the the ball being delivered i've seen people upset with gabby so paul you got lots to choose from what's your analysis of the goal that ultimately snatches two of the points away from us uh yeah shit happens basically a little bit um you know they they try and pump across in it gets deflected i think off sacca's boot which squirts it to the middle of the pitch jacka moves it to the right uh quickly and they ping in kind of a nothing ball with a bit of it is a nothing ball yeah it's not a good ball no but some guy nods it into an area we would normally clear but we're scrambling they have a couple of bruisers are always managed to have a bruiser right in the spot for the first goal like Ballard he's a he's a man mountain right um probably here is just one big solid lump um and you know yeah fair enough on Raya he does a bit like we won our invincible season with Jens layman if you ever watch any tape on him um he makes the odd crazy run out to a situation or first of all you have to find tape that's getting harder and harder but if you find some tape then you can yeah well that's actually the only way to watch jens layman because it was back in 2004 did he ever charge out in a critical situation that cost him in the club in a major way no no not that i know of no um so like i feel like something paris but anyway anyway carry on so like yeah i think look raya gets this one slightly wrong but it's uh he probably felt the same way we did in that moment now he he's paid to feel it a little differently but like it's not completely ridiculous that he comes out he's smothered many many shots uh probably does brilliant to get like unfortunately somehow to squirt that uh in the right direction he's been muscled he's being wrangled we got footballed i think is really my analysis of that shouldn't happen normally didn't happen now to be fair i'll say this they had other situations like 2-2 i don't think anybody looks at that game and say that's that you know sunderland got away with one they they had enough situations in the game that 2-2 is probably an a reasonable reflection of the game but we had it we had xg xg doesn't really tell the story here to your point paul because it is a it is a 2.4 xg game or something like that one point 1.91 to 0.44 but i think first of all there's score effects and if people don't know what score effects are just really quickly it's the effect of one team as the lead and the other team is having to chase the game and so you tend to rack up you know just some shots here and there but the other thing is they did have balls in the box and and paul to your point do you think raya comes for that because he's in that mindset two previous times earlier in the prior 10 minutes he'd come and scrambled away balls heroically now one i think was called offside but i think var would have overturned that the other one he had to intervene from a ball that kind of fell at the feet of the striker and so if you're the keeper and you've had to make these front-footed interventions do you think that influences his decision to think i need to be the guy i gotta come clean this up but if he does I also want to ask you quickly as we finish on this moment why arms low he it's almost like he doesn't know probably he's going to there there he thinks he's just going to catch it and I'm wondering why he doesn't go big with the arms up to really block off all the all the position yeah so you joined the dots for me uh artfully that's what I was trying to get to in in terms of this was like a set of three this was the third time he'd come out to smother it um and like he was in that mode it was last ditch and it saved us twice the arms that look i'm not a great uh goal uh goalkeeping uh critic what would you say you are a great no i'm just kidding i i occasionally look for the opportunity to try and say something that i think's funny that's about it well occasionally it lands usually it doesn't um carry on you're good yeah so like he comes out are his arms wrong maybe but at that stage you're pure instinct so i'm gonna have to go with him he like the one thing he is doing he may be getting there late but he's reading the fact that he's like i'm gonna assume rye has his arms in a better position than like i for one can pick out um i think it's just one of those things we leaned into our strength here we're really good at defending a lead and you're not going to win them all and this was the one we didn't win so yeah sometimes it's that it's that simple and i'll say two things on that moment clive just super quick to get your your thoughts on it because one braby kicks it with his wrong foot it's really clever it's not the foot you think he's going to kick it with two i think it takes a deflection off gabby's shoulder his head or something that takes it past raya so it is a bit unfortunate obviously gabby gets beaten to the ball by braby but saliba's also in no man's land so club do you have any other any other angles on this that aren't just a raya howler because obviously if he stays on his line he catches it but that's easy to say in hindsight yeah i think you described it there i think right just be honest if it didn't hit gabby's head it hits raya in the face and goes out yeah so it's just one of those situations in football and i didn't realize see that deflection until yesterday and so but yeah you can we can all spot this mistake in a goal when it's when it goes in should ray have come um i think he could see his defense was a little bit flagging and he was trying to support them yeah that's exactly what he should be doing so i would encourage him to be front footed like that because he saved us so many times by being alert and if you want to look at our defenders in this game i think we could all see they were flagging a little bit and what they are really good at that word alert i think this season across the team we've been quite mistake free and when we make a mistake our alertness to cover has been significant i think it's been the big change in how stable we look you know and sometimes when in the evening of games in the in the league cup games and european games when the non-first team defenders come on and we make a mistake you can see how we used to lack control last year and maybe bring some indiscipline and decisions to referees to make with challenges that's gone we're so mistake free we are so alert to mistakes that we make and you could see in this game the alertness to challenge for the first ball to challenge for the second ball it would it It wasn't quite there consistently.

21:26Elliot:And so we tucked in a bit on occasions. We gave wingers a chance to put the ball in the box. We dropped off a bit. We were just flagging, trying to get through it the best way possible. The best way to do that was with proximity of people and then to challenge for things. And they won a couple of first balls and got a second ball and got two goals for it. I think if you were rewriting this, and when you see the two goals again, and knowing that Dan Ballard is the guy they're going to aim for, I don't see why we don't just mark Dan Ballard with Gabriel and let everyone else take care of himself.

22:00Elliot:Do you know what I mean? And on the second go, that was harder to do because it was in free play and it was a reverse cross and Sliber was there, just didn't get off the ground. But on the first one, I felt we should have dealt with that much better. If you look for the rest of the game, we did deal with the first balls much better. That was the only mistake we sort of made. And I thought we were so well prepared in Prague for the guys that came in, that big, tall striker that came in. And I felt we should have been more prepared, particularly on the first goal, funny enough. Second one happens.

22:30Elliot:The first goal, I thought we could have been better prepared for that free kick. Yeah, well, let's do that then, Tim. Just quick, since we're on it, let's bounce back to the first goal we conceded. And we're on this run of clean sheets. So it was this weird feeling to concede. Like, oh, what's that? And by the way, credit to Dan Ballard. Like sometimes you got to praise the opposition. Sunderland were good. They were physical. But this guy, Dan Ballard, who was an Arsenal Academy kid, who spoke about his love for the club and that everything he is as a player, he owes to Arsenal Football Club.

22:59He was at that level you go to sometimes when you're very motivated. And he was very motivated. Not that he isn't in other games. His finish for the first goal, left foot, right foot, roofs it. Beautiful finish. Strikers finish. His block on Marino at the death, maybe even better i mean that is absolute hero shit um just sensational so kudos to him you know sometimes you have to tip your cap but for the first goal i think it's just the thing you don't see very often and i i have to say i felt in this game and maybe not just in this game but maybe at other times i'm not sure we always deal with long straight balls very well now someone had said to me recently who does deal with long straight balls well it's blowing it's you know it's it's hard to tell where it's going to land and you've got a big physical team contesting it when it it could drop anywhere but rice doesn't really contest the first ball gabby gets beaten on the second one rice doesn't follow his man it's it's very uncharacteristic from two of our absolute leaders and two players you expect to clear danger so you have an analysis of of maybe our challenge with long straight balls in this game in general in the first goal how it goes in yeah i i think we're gonna we're gonna see more of this and not just against arsenal as well i think there's a guy called john muller he used to write for the athletic i don't think he does anymore but does like really good analysis stuff and i saw like a little thread he'd done on blue sky where a few weeks ago he was saying like he was talking about he called it the dice zone um you know because like typically under sean dyche everton anytime everton get a free kick within like 70 yards of the goal it's Jordan Pickford launching it long and high because he's got a great long kick on him and he was saying like he thinks that's going to be the next thing that everyone does that every time they get a free kick in their own half like if you're doing long throws which to be honest with the exception of Brentford I can't really see anyone that looks particularly dangerous from long throws certainly not in terms of creating chances if you're going to do long throws you might as well to like get your goalkeeper to boot the ball into the area as often as possible and play for the percentages and Sunderland certainly did that and they did it very well they've certainly want the players to do it as well yeah I think like both Rice and Gabriel probably don't cover themselves in glory at the same time I think to your point it's been so long since we've conceded a goal that everything that is not perfect looks weird that's true yeah and I think obviously the other thing about launching the ball into the box is once once Ballard gets on to the knockdown the second contact you can't touch him like rice can't do anything at that point otherwise it's a penalty if he's outside the area i'm sure rice just leans across him you know eases him over and we have a free kick to defend at the edge of the box but you can't do that once the ball is in the area which is why more and more teams will do this it's the same principle as a corner isn't it like you can't touch anyone look at well unless you elbow them in the face that's okay we're coming to that yeah well you know what you mentioned it have your go on this tim because i know you're animated about it there's there's the moment where marino gets elbowed in the head in the box and i think this is one of those really tough things where i don't know that i want it to be a penalty but then i see what's given as a penalty in other games and i say what why don't i want that to be a penalty it's a thrown elbow it impedes marino's ability to head the ball i like let me preface this by saying nobody gets that as a penalty that's that's not given and that's actually the subject of my annoyance because i don't understand why i don't understand why tickling someone's shoelace or like accidentally grabbing a bit of the ticket out of their shorts you know look at doku yesterday like the contact is so slight that you you know you need go go gadget eyes to see it and that's a penalty but like sticking your elbow out inside of someone's head isn't and it's the same with i i feel the same about it with violent conduct as well I feel like it's quite easy to get a red card for a misplaced tackle but if you smash someone in the side of the head it's somehow fine um he stops him from getting the ball by elbowing him in the side of the head I don't think it's like a violent like swung elbow like I don't think it's like a violent conduct thing I think Marino stopped from getting to the ball by an elbow in the side of the head and I don't understand why it doesn't follow like if ballard had accidentally clipped marino's leg that would be given as a penalty i don't on it to me this just feels like one of those weird things we all accept that football has decided on that to me makes zero sense whatsoever and i've always had a bee in my bonnet bonnet about it i think there are loads of things like that in football where it's like why has everyone's just decided this completely illogical thing is okay so i i think it absolutely should be a penalty but i also understand that like i don't think that's like any great conspiracy i don't think anyone gets that penalty and i just don't understand why no one can make me understand the logic of that this is one of those things too clive in football and this is where i want to get to the first half in general when a ref knows that a game is going to be physical it feels like physical play becomes more permitted that wouldn't otherwise be but this was a game where i felt and again i am not making this wherever each at I will simply say I felt Sunderland were permitted to play in the physical way they wanted in a way that we weren't and the best example of that ironically is on their first goal because while Rice makes an error and Gabby makes an error and we shouldn't concede there that shouldn't be a free kick and it shouldn't be a yellow for Zubamendi he gets the ball it's a good clean tackle so I don't think it should be a free kick but it was just a very physical half and this is this is something that I I'm curious about your take about how the half went and our ability to sort of puzzle it out and figure out what to do.

28:56So a few things that I'll tell you, you know, the game winds up looking okay statistically for us, but in the first half, five shots for Arsenal to three for them, 0.47 expected goals to 0.18 for them. We had 12 touches in their box to seven for them. It was a bitty game. And one of the stats that jumped out to me, the ball was in play for 13 of the first 34 minutes it was exactly the kind of game that porto wanted when they played us recently it's the exact kind of game sunderland would have wanted um and and i just wonder clive what you think if anything we can do to puzzle out how to avoid that happening or how you how you compete with that because i do think we'll see more and more long straight balls fouls teams trying to be more direct with free kicks and unfortunately i think the better you are the more you see teams wanting to disrupt games in this way

29:49Elliot:yeah i think um i'm i'm fine with direct play doesn't bother me i think we're well equipped to deal with it we are one of the best teams to deal with it and soon as we start dealing with it and start turning around and and going back at teams even more they'll stop doing that right so the the ball in play time i think we had two sets of bandages coming on nearly didn't we we had two issues and they were down for a long time it's seven or nine minutes injury time in the first half on which one but those i want to say nine yeah yeah those injuries allowed the game to be a bit more the sun and could manage from from an effort perspective you know and it sort of made the first half nothing void i i don't mind this i i said this yesterday i said it somewhere in my head maybe it's all about how you like your steak right and i think we should be we should be allowed to have whatever we like and they should be allowed to play however they want to play i am absolutely fine with it and we are we need to contend with it i think there was a feeling i did feeling all weekend this is my feeling so i've got to get it out right so we're reading the um the carragher article on friday when i talk about the wonderful city and liverpool era the highest level of premiership play ever and we're playing each other on Sunday and those those pesky southerners are playing their game on Saturday night and basically then the game starts and then the commentators say the ball's only been playing a long time I thought we've been set up here to be the ugly ducklings we're we're the ugly ducklings that are brought in long throws brought in set piece playing but Liverpool and City are going to show us the light on Sunday so when I heard that stat come out earlier about balling play 30 minutes I thought I was angry straight away I was angry but then the second half started right and then we started to show people that we can play football and that was shut up and this whole game as a game was a wonderful piece of steak well it was a wonderful advertiser for the English game and something that you couldn't put in a corner and Sonnenberg representing their club in the best way they can they paid with bravery and courage and they put it on us and they're not going to sit there and let these elite clubs not defend their area.

31:59Elliot:And I think it's about time. I felt in recent years, I felt teens haven't played City when they were vulnerable. They didn't play Liverpool hard enough when they were vulnerable. And now they're getting played and they don't look so stable. I think it's important that the lower teens say, no, we're not accepting that you're better than us. We're going for you. And I thought it was excellent from Sunderland. I thought we responded in a way which I never felt was in us. you know and i i was massively encouraged by how we responded similar to the newcastle and i just thought it's magnificent so i'm not sure i've answered your question but that's how i feel about this game at the weekend i thought it was a wonderful example can i can i ask you a tactical question quickly and you can laugh at me because every time i try to talk tactics everybody laughs at me but i observed something and i think it was leading to us having a little bit of a hard time playing in the right areas they were in a 5-4-1 out of possession class and Isidore was marking highest up.

33:00They weren't pressing. They were kind of in a mid block and Isidore was marking. Rice and Zubamendi were very close to each other and Isidore was able to go mark both. So the ball would go to Rice and he'd go stand in front of Rice and they passed to Zubamendi and he'd go stand in front of Zubamendi and I was hoping for them to split a little more so that Isidore had to make a choice but it just seemed like he was able to mark both of them and it was kind of impeding us from getting the ball forward and I was kind of curious about that. I thought that was, maybe that was by design so we'd get other people in a position.

33:25What did you think just about their shape out of possession? And again, another first half where it felt to me like we needed a lot of time to figure out how to get the ball up the pitch.

33:35Elliot:Well, see, I have a different view. I'd love to hear it. I felt all season. When you're going into these big games with so much at stake, there is no problem to looking at the game. There isn't a problem to look at it and see what the other team are doing to work out what you need to do. right so we start up in a stable way then we expand when we see where the vulnerabilities are i thought we did that anfield i thought we did that against city but they stabbed us in the mouth i think we did it quite a lot of times this season i haven't seen us tear into a team and impose our attacking game with them from minute one all of the time i think the forest home game was excellent and these took a while to get going so i think tactically now managers are looking at each other say okay what are we doing what we're here let's make an adjustment so we have multiple plans for a game so i know everyone's talking about we keep throwing away first halves but to me that's part of the game is part of how we get on top of teams we understand them look at the prague game they tore into us we knew it was coming we fought them off saw them off and then dealt with them i i just i just think i i'm fine with it earlier if i was ever set up a team this is what i would do i would set up my stable system i would have a look at them and i would go from there so that's how i feel about it pop yeah i think this is a fascinating question i think of course in every game there's something tactical that you can tweak from the first half so yeah i'm sure your eyes go to a few things and i'm sure when the manager gets them in at halftime that's exactly what he's talking to them about and kind of clive alluded to that looking at the first half to work out what you but i also think you say oh well the second half was so much better why didn't we do that in the first half well because the other team isn't tired yet what are you doing in the first half you're trying to score you're trying to move them around you're also trying to exhaust them and like i think the little adjustment we need to make not that you can't tactic it not that you can't spot well maybe we need to move it to that guy fast or that guy needs but we're going to have those games because game because teams sit in we had that game against burnley we had it against crystal palace atletico madrid the first half was hard work and like we should analyze it but we shouldn't overanalyze it i don't think there's anything we need to do apart from in each game there's something to learn a tweak to make and to understand that But the second half is when we get our payoff from what we do in the first half.

36:08The first half is not going to look that great when they sit in. It's just not. We'll unlock it with the set piece or we won't. Or maybe we'll get that goal. But we probably are going to have to wait till the second half. And the second half, we're going to be great. And it's like, oh, why didn't we do that in the first half? So it's just that there's a degree of how hard you lean into that. And what do we need to learn? Patience and trust, right? This team delivers and delivers in the starting delivery in the second half and really did deliver in this game. The surprise was we dropped our guard for a moment or two.

36:49Yep. We've been very fortunate, Tim, to have Mikel Marino chipping in with goals in a role that he never should have had to play. And it's only through massive misfortune again that Mikel Marino was drafted in to be a center forward for us. but I think it's an interesting one to analyze because if you look at our performances in the league when Mikel Moreno has played striker they've they've not been our best now many of those came last season during the period where we were massively injury depleted we are again by the way um but not for long and where we were focused on the Champions League so they kind of went under the radar but that was not a good period of performances for us and I I do think that in the first half, we saw how much we missed Yocres running and forcing the defenders back.

37:37And it's interesting. One of the first fouls that was committed by Arsenal in the game, Granit Xhaka stops his teammate. I'm not sure it was any points up the pitch. Like we're going up there. We're playing it long. And I do wonder how much they'd want to do that if you have Yocres running in behind or Martinelli running in behind, because you do have to trust that if we go up long, they could come right back at us long with someone who can test us but we don't have that testing pace so the miss with Martinelli and Yocres both being out is just that extra couple of yards and it is incumbent upon Marino to try to find a way to occupy center backs and keep that back line push back so in the first half I thought you saw the the lack of a point to the spear but how do you diagnose some of the I mean other than the fact the ball just wasn't in play How do you diagnose some of the challenges in first half and maybe incorporate a little bit the question of using Mikel Marino up front?

38:30Yeah, I felt the thing is about Marino, it works and it doesn't work all at the same time. Basically, I think both of those things are true. The reasons it doesn't work, I think he has very little responsibility for, given the stage of his career that we're asking him to do this for the first time. However, I think James Ben shared not his touch map, but where he won headers. Now, there's something very obvious in that they're all over on the right, basically, nearly all of them. So it's very obvious. Flick it onto Saka. That's what's going on there. I think what happened was he was way too deep, though.

39:10And I kind of get that maybe when David Reyes got the ball, for example. but it felt like he spent a lot of time almost where i'd expect yuri and timber to be and yeah we had as a filling the nine spot on occasion we had saka moving in but it to me like that i i've i've never liked the whole quote-unquote false nine thing um basically i kind of think it's the sort of thing you do when you've got loads of injuries basically i don't think it's anyone's first choice and yeah I felt that he he just wasn't in areas to go and affect the game particularly because he is actually a player who can compete with someone like Dan Ballard and actually in fairness to him where is he when he gets the elbow we talked about earlier he he's where I I'm kind of complaining he wasn't enough and then like it's clear to me that he was told at half time let's have you on the edge of the box a little bit more because look at our equalizer where is he bang he's center for his absolute tip of the diamond center forward when that ball breaks and i yeah i just felt in the first half i can understand some of those things i can understand why he drops deep to connect i can understand what that's why it's his instinct and all of that but really what marino is great at for me and don't get me wrong and stuff like i didn't want him to come off at the end because it's like they're going to launch the ball in the area I want him back competing for some of those headers and he does that quite a lot very very well he did at Everton away last season like I think he played up front in that game but really every time Jordan Pickford had the ball he was like a third centre back and he adds a lot of value that way but I just felt in the first half the balance was way way way off where it needed to be in terms of being a focal point and yeah to your point it's a shame we didn't have some of those in behind threats but then to be honest at the points where we were really attacking when we were one nil down it wasn't an in behind game anyway when we really could have done with a Martinelli or Jokrez or someone like that was actually when we were two one up um and we didn't have that yes and we will come to the subs issue because I absolutely fundamentally agree that the bigger miss was not having the the out ball late rather than the out ball early um 17 touches in the attacking third from reno 18 touches in the middle third maybe a little bit of something there uh before we pivot to the second half and some other performances clive anything on that

41:40Elliot:no i totally agree i think we miss an outball because we've become accustomed to having a running hard-working center forward that wants to fight people and sunday had a very traditional center back that really didn't have anyone to fight against if we'd given him someone to fight against he maybe would have stayed out of our box and so um so i think we just we missed that we've become we've become used to it and i like it and this is part this is part of the course of the season though isn't it having to make do just think we i just think we've seen marino a lot at center forward we've tried to adjust for it we've added the depth and then the depth has got itself all injured and so we're having to watch something which we all know is not optimal you know we all know it the fact he scored the goals he scored this year has just been incredible right so um nearly a winner in this one yeah exactly and he has he's so smart he has the instinct around the box and i think in the first half tim's right he was in some i just looked his heat map man we're doing over there you know so um tim's right but again it's all part of what we do to establish ourselves in games you know we establish ourselves and we have to make sure we control the middle, we control areas.

42:53Elliot:I just feel maybe he's in the wrong areas a little bit too long to offer the forward threat, but I did feel the first half was so bitty. It was hard to really sort of see a plan from either team, really. Yeah, we got to get to Saka's goal, his performance. Leo, heroic performance again. Guys have an amazing season. Rice, Zubamendi, there's a lot to talk about. The end stage, the lack of subs. So still a lot of conversation to go and you're required to stay for all of it. So how about I do something for you so you do something for me. What you'll do for me is you'll stay for the rest of the pod what I will do for you.

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