The Arsenal Tactics Summit - With Clive Palmer and Jon MacKenzie

27:56I think if you watch those games, Marino's role wasn't a cautious role per se. What's your thought of the dynamic of that midfield? And do you agree that it might be too functional or do you see something in Mikel's approach there that might point to what he wants to achieve when he rolls out that trio.

28:13Jon Mackenzie:Yeah. I mean, from memory, I think there was reasons why he had to run with that midfield, right? Just availability. Yeah, availability. So I think with that in mind, you sort of are more forgiving of the setup at the beginning. But yeah, I mean, you want players between the lines. You need to have a midfielder between the line. If you're going to play this more direct football where you're creating space between the lines, you need to have the players you can receive back to goal, receive on the half turn and manipulate the space and are good in tight spaces, right? And I think Marino is, you know, I think he's okay in those situations.

28:47Jon Mackenzie:He's not Eze, he's not Odegaard. And, you know, it's sort of comparing apples with oranges to then say, well, why is Marino not doing what these guys are doing? So, yeah, I would always be wanting to have, I mean, you know, one, if not two, more creative players in that space. And I think the test this season is going to be how many times do we see maybe Zubimendi being played with an Eze and an Odegaard as an option in front of him. Or a Rice in that role, maybe? Yeah, sure, sure. And we saw that against Olympiacos, right? And against Newcastle late. Yeah, yeah. With him sort of playing almost as the left eight, like he was doing more last season, I think.

29:31Jon Mackenzie:but I think yeah I certainly think that that as you said the the recruitment this season has been towards getting more of those players in in who are you know good back to goal technical players types based players and I think that Arteta will want to get those players into the starting a lineup when he can so in many respects I guess the Marino Rice Zubamendi point is maybe a bit moot I do feel as though sometimes so for example the Newcastle game I feel as though sometimes the midfield has to fit around Rice's weaknesses a little bit more. I'm very aware of the fact that I'm on an Arsenal podcast.

30:08Jon Mackenzie:I don't want to dig too deep into this.

30:10Elliot:Our audience are very polite, John. Don't worry about it.

30:13Jon Mackenzie:That's very good of them. Not been my experience, but Clive says different stuff than I do, so he may have a different experience. Yeah. Well, always thankful of nice audiences. But I do think that some of the issues that you have have often come from having to fit Rice in in certain ways and then having other players sort of mitigate some of his weaknesses and he does have weaknesses I know that the temptation is not to talk about them but for example in the game against Newcastle it felt as though Zubimendi was having to do a lot of the between the lines stuff which I think reduces some of his strengths which I would see as being like the tempo setter at the base of the of the midfield who is dictating the play and then having Rice doing that as well maybe starting out dropping out into the first line of build-up either between the two centre-backs or as a almost just like a left-sided centre-back and then stepping forward.

31:03Jon Mackenzie:And I think there's a few areas like that where I'm a little bit sceptical about how things are. But again, against Newcastle, I think the primary objective with Rice was to get him into good spaces to be able to defend transitions. And I think if you do that, you have to introduce him into the build-up in some way. So yeah, the moments where I think Arsenal have been best this season in build-up have been when they've used either Myles Lewis-Skelly or Calafuri as inverted fullbacks. But you couldn't do that against Newcastle because you had the box midfield that Clive's talking about. So you need your fullbacks to be going up and down.

31:39Jon Mackenzie:And that means then that you need to have Rice involved in the centre a little bit more. And you want to have him in a deeper position because you want him to be able to do those transition moments like the one he had with Jacob Murphy. So again, this is like the pickiest of tactical problems to have, right? Because essentially what you've got is a lot of very good players who you're trying to fit in in different ways to fix tactical problems that opponents are giving you. And you definitely have the players to do that now. And you mentioned there's even players that we've not seen this season.

32:12Jon Mackenzie:Kai Havertz, a fantastic player, a much maligned player in my opinion. But the perfect counterfoil to someone like Victor Jokeres. You now have two strikers who are, But regardless of what your opinion on Jokeres is, you have two strikers who are easily like Premier League starting level players with completely different skill sets. The ability to be able to rotate two strikers like that is remarkable. And again, it gives you something else. In games where maybe you want to go direct and you want to win second balls in the spaces that we're talking about between the midfield and the defensive line of the opponent, Havertz is a great player to have as a backboard player to knock it back into those spaces and then to move from there.

32:52Jon Mackenzie:Jokeres is great if you want to run channel balls from your strike. And we saw what he can do in the Leeds game. He scored that goal that was, you know, classic Jokeres. So again, the way to think about Arsenal this season is to think about it in terms of tactical diversity. I think a lot of fans want to think of football in terms of like, this is our incredible starting XI and we play these players as our starting XI and that's what the best teams always have. But in the Premier League right now, Yeah, with the Premier League right now, it is all about tactical diversity. Everyone can beat you.

33:27Jon Mackenzie:And if you have the ability to have like a rolling cast of players who can solve different problems, that is going to make you so much more dangerous as a prospect in the league than just starting the same 11 of players week in, week out.

33:40Elliot:See, well, Johnny, I get a lot of stick for saying the starting 11s don't bother me much. What does bother me is the game plan and how we adapt to something changes. It does bother me. If we pick 15 left-backs, of course it bothers me. But within that context, it's more or less understanding why we pick certain people. Don't tempt Mikel. He will go buy 15 left-backs. There's always space for another left-back, let's be honest. Just like there's always a space for me to have another donut, there's always space for him to have another left-back. There's some interesting points. Honestly, as fans mostly, what we try to do, try to think what went wrong last year, what we need to get better at.

34:16Elliot:Everyone's thinking, when we have too many touches, we don't want that. We need to go quicker, quicker, quicker. So funny enough, Mosquera, I thought, did a brilliant job against Forrest. There were some grumbles in the crowd when he held that ball job. You know what I mean? Because people are thinking, why is he doing that? Why is he doing that? It takes a bit of time for the education to seep in, to sort of say, okay, now I know what he's doing. So that was quite interesting. And actually, I think on Marino, I think you actually helped me realize why he was starting. Because of that whole drop people in and then exit, he's better at pinning and holding the ball on that first receiver than Jokereza.

34:50Elliot:Jokic hasn't quite worked out yet how to buy fouls of Premier League referees. He's too muscle, he's too big, and the referee's just saying, get up, mate. So he's not getting the foul, or he's not able to get the layoffs all the time. So I think Miguel wanted Reno there to almost be like a nine and a half next to him to sort of help retain the ball once he'd gone over. I think once the game plan changed, we needed someone between the lines. Sorry, once they scored, he needed someone between the lines to create the wrong player, wrong time. And so he had to come out of there. So I do think the fans are getting quite smart now and wise about what we need to change.

35:24Elliot:But they have to realize that they can't see it all the time. We have to work to that phase of the game that we want to deliver that in. I'm a big believer in five subs rule is now really starting to have an impact in the game. And it was always said when it came in, it would suit the bigger clubs. Well, actually, we're now that bigger club with people who are in street clothes that look like really good players that can't actually get into the squad or injured at the moment. And I think it's going to be a significant advantage for Arsenal to be able to make the right changes. But also, I think it's been a significant stick to beat Mikel with because now he has options.

36:02Elliot:You better pick the ones I want, mate. You better pick the ones I want. Well, Elliot wants 22 number 10s in the team. And I'm a bit more pragmatic. So you're getting that balance between what the expectations are on the sideline versus um keeping the handbrake on per se you know it's tricky as well to if you if what you're

36:21Jon Mackenzie:doing is constantly reading opponents and trying to find upside and this is why pep guardiola has been the greatest manager probably ever because he he treats the game as a relative game it's always it's never just what a man city doing it's what a man city doing against our opponent um and i think in those in those situations you're always having to make tactical gambles to an extent because you're having to guess what the opponent is doing and you're having to find then solutions in your own setup to some of those issues. Now, if the opponent comes out and does something completely different, you're in a scenario where you will have to change things up mid-game.

36:55Jon Mackenzie:And this is something that, for example, I think Arna Slott is pretty good at. He's pretty good at making the changes at half-time to fix the problems that have opened up in the first half. And I think sometimes fans are critical of coaches when they are slow to make changes like that. When often, I think the reality is that you make your tactical bed and you have to lie on it for the first half for a lot of the time. And the fact of the matter is, you know, whatever else you can complain about with Nicola Teta, I think he's one of the few managers who is very good at making these sort of upfront plans, which generally work out.

37:34Jon Mackenzie:You can argue with the selection. Sometimes, as we've said, it's to do with availability. But I do see Arteta as a student of Pep in that respect, that he reads the game really well. He prepares, he has his plan and acts it. Sometimes he may get that wrong, but he has the ability to fix it as well. And it's kind of my argument with all football fans would be, what do you want from your manager? I mean, for me, Pep is the second best manager in the league, comfortably, I would say. And, you know, we all know that Guardiola right now is like shaking a little bit in terms of like having to deal with the new metas that we're seeing.

38:11Jon Mackenzie:There's a world where Pep was also, sorry, that Arteta was also struggling in the same situation, but he hasn't, right? Why? Because he made that evolution towards physicality ahead of Pep Guardiola, right? So I think that you've got to have a certain amount of faith in your coach when he has shown himself to be, one, adaptable, two, ahead of the curve and three seemingly willing to be diverse in terms of his approach. I think with Arteta, you get all three of those things and there's not many coaches in world football who have those things as well. So I'm hugely positive about Arteta. I think sometimes he overcorrects one way or the other, but he always changes again in the future and you just have to wait for that next swing of the cycle, right?

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40:11Whether you're a small business or managing a large operation, Odoo gives you one flexible platform built to grow with you. Learn more at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. yeah see that that is that is the thing the point you made about overcorrecting i mean michelle arteta you know that everybody says oh you learn mistakes are great because they're an opportunity to learn learn from your mistakes every failure is the mother of future success i don't know some there's some you you know what what's the word i'm looking for aphorism or something yeah something like that but like michelle has definitely taken the scars of past failures and corrected and some might say overcorrecting right so that game at the etihad had where we got run through what did he do we beefed up he added a lot of strength he had a lot of solidity we had an injury season last season he went out he bought a billion players this season so we won't be hurt by that right he he's he's definitely made the corrections you know i think about chess a lot which is because i was um a globally ranked chess player once and uh he says lying but chess is an interesting thing because i think chess like football you have players you have positions on the chess board right chess pieces they're called in the game for those who are not familiar, that have very specific and clear roles.

41:26And then you have pieces that are a little more complicated, like the knight. And anybody who's played chess knows the knight moves in a very weird and interesting way, and it can be deployed in weird and interesting ways. And I think the knight of current football is the fullback, because there's so many different ways these clubs are using them, and they have so many different roles. Look at what PSG do with their fullbacks. Is Hakimi a fullback? Is Nuno Mendes a fullback? Where do they go? What do they do. You know, what is Guardiola for Pep? Look at Liverpool struggling to try to figure out what their identity is going to be at fullback.

41:54Look at us with Miles Lewis-Skelly tucking in or Califiori going and roaming all over the place. Ben White can overlap. Timber can shut everything down. And Clive, I think this is such an interesting part of a tactical evolution too, how you manipulate space and create opportunity with fullbacks. And this is why your rest defense is so important because if you're going to give your fullbacks these interesting roles, your shape out of possession better be good enough to support it. Mikel is doing such interesting things with that position. Liverpool struggling a bit with theirs. So I think that's an area we could just zero in on for a second.

42:25So do you have thoughts on how we're using fullbacks and the various fullback profiles? Because we haven't even seen Incappier yet, who's a totally different one, who could give us that overlapping back in a more direct way. So what do you think of that?

42:40Elliot:Yeah, so I have some weird views about fullbacks and shapes of pictures. Careful what you share on the internet. People are going to jump on you when you share weird views on the internet. You see, it's interesting because when Liverpool bought the two fullbacks, I sort of smiled to myself because I see fullbacks as almost like stabilizers and balance creators, right? So if you're on a bike, your fullback stabilizers, if you can't ride it, keep your balance, right? So I see fullbacks that way. If you look at a picture in my own head, it's almost like two circles, one inside the other with a line going down the middle the outside circles your exterior and your entire circles your interior the different skill sets of players on the interior to the exterior you want your exterior protected maybe some more athletic players out there that can travel both ways and the distances are bigger and I look at Liverpool's fullbacks and I don't see them protecting the team I don't think they're strong enough to hold the exterior and I don't think they're dynamic enough to really be an attacking balance Croatia and I think going forward, Liverpool maybe have not improved as much as they thought they would do at this point in time.

43:47Elliot:And so for Arsenal now, I think we are adding layers to our full, but I think it helps have Califuri fit because he's so all court. You can do so many things and arrive in different areas. He's not scared. When I used to play football mate, there were certain zones. If I went in there, I would just, I'd be petrified. These players today just go anywhere they like and they look like that player, like the shirt number changes, you know, and it's just fantastic to see. So I think we've got a level of variation, diversity, and physicality in those spaces. I think that's really important. We tend to do one big fullback, one little one.

44:23Elliot:So we have Ben White and Louis Skelly this week, Califiori and Timberman. Timber's 5 '10 with muscles, but he's seen as a smaller one in our team. And I think that's really important to have three strong players that can help defend set pieces, but also attack set pieces as well. And so, yeah, he's got it right. he's got the balance right for me and i i do think it's a key part of the team i did read something i heard something the other day that the way newcastle used dan burn was really really interesting so they wanted him there obviously for the physicality for the size they're probably the only team in the premier league bigger than us and so they wanted to compete with us in both boxes but from a on the ball point of view arsehole sort of let him have the ball and they stayed narrow and i allowed them to stay narrow longer so when the ball goes out That's him.

45:11Elliot:We just jog out there and go and get you when we're ready because you'll take 15 touches, get it under control sort of thing. And so by then wanting the physicality, they actually weakened themselves from a build-up perspective. And then eventually, as the game went on, I thought they felt comfortable in their physicality and they dropped away too early. And as John said, if they had kept going at us and put Rice's build-up under more pressure, they may have got some joy, but they didn't. And this is it. That's the game plan, isn't it? eddie probably dropped off too soon and he knew it odegaard comes on and punishes him for dropping off too soon michael atter brings on odegaard says you've dropped off mate i'm gonna put odegaard in six now what you're gonna do and this is this is what's so important hence why i don't worry about the team that starts i just worry about the game the game that's on offer as long as you make the changes quickly enough and respond to the game on offer quickly enough i totally agree i think there There have been games, maybe the Liverpool game, a good example, where Mikel waited just that bit too long.

46:12After that, the changes Liverpool made to bring on what's-his-name in midfield, and he was finding pockets of space in behind, and we needed to reconfigure a little bit that what's-his-name. Good player, by the way. John. That is Jones. Do you want to just weigh in on the fullback concept, and you can feel free to phrase your answer in the form of praise for my chess analogy if you want.

46:34Jon Mackenzie:Yeah. Yeah, I think the fullback situation, again, it's about flexibility, right? You have the ability to do whatever you want in the wide areas, really. And we've seen games where Calafiore has played on the left and floated everywhere. Actually, those were the games where I thought Arsenal's build-up was probably the best, when it was sort of Calafiore and then Rice filling in the spaces where Calafiore left and making sure that you just had the benefits of flexibility and fluidity, which I think we should mention that that's super important in build-up these days because teams are man-oriented for the most part.

47:15Jon Mackenzie:And as Clive said, the way that space opens out now is completely different, not least in the fact that teams used to play in these zonal systems where the space was between the lines in a way, whereas now the players are oriented to individuals. and so you have to create space by generating separation between uh your your man marker and yourself and i think califuri is absolutely fantastic for that in that he makes it very hard for opponents to press high against you if he's going to be floating everywhere um the worry about the the flexibility is always well that weakens our rest defense structure but then if you've got rice there it solves that problem and i think uh the the games where i i think arsenal have been at their best this season in terms of the build-up have been when they've been able to used that dynamic of Calafiore moving around in between different zones and and right almost like fitting in the opposite spaces that he's leaving open and and that's been great but like you say the ability to have you know Julian Timber who's come in and been a fantastic player particularly this season but then have Ben White coming in off the bench and doing the stuff that we've seen you know the wide triangle stuff where you get Saka Odegaard and White rotating and and teams just picking apart the edge of opposition blocks, which is such an important thing to do when you are up against a low block.

48:32Jon Mackenzie:The ability to have those two types of different players and, you know, Myles Lewis-Gellie, who you can play essentially as a central midfielder, dropping out into a fullback area. The ability to use him as a midfielder if you want in the future. So again, more tactical flexibility. And we've not, yeah, we've not even talked about Hinkapie, who I think offers a bit more of like an outside center back profile. If you want to just sit someone next to the two center backs and push both of your fullbacks on, um, sorry, push one of your fullbacks on, um, on the other side, these are, again, this is what it comes down to the ability that Arteta can, can use because as you, as you, as we started off this whole conversation with, uh, profiles make tactics and you have so many profiles available to you.

49:13Jon Mackenzie:It gives you the ability to make a lot of tactics. Yeah. And I'm going to invoke the word relationalism, relationism. And as you can tell just by even me trying to say it i don't know what it means i will say even just the little bits of odegaard and saka we've seen they're drifting to the left they're finding the spots where they can create little overloads and opportunities for each other saka seems like he has a little bit more license to get out of that fully right-sided role and again we got to be careful because small sample sizes produce bad analysis and saka's played very little and odegaard's played very little but we've seen little bits of it you need to just look at the goal against Olympiacos the other night and it's Odegaard in the left half space playing the ball through to sack on the left wing um sometimes this stuff happens because you're resetting from a set piece and people just are out of position but I'll be curious to see if there's more of that I want to get just a quick bit on set pieces here Clive you mind if I stay with John just

50:06Elliot:for a second here because I think it gets me and we're here to listen to him we've we I have I have no doubt we will hear more from you I do apologize for everybody that wanted a Friday night Clive but I'm flying to Chicago. And so we've got a Friday afternoon, Clive and John, which I think is just that, that much, that much better. But John, in terms of the set piece thing, it's funny because Mikel Arteta and Arsenal have been somewhat ridiculed at times for where's the open play chances. Where's the open play chances and why all the set pieces. And then, you know, PGMOL decides that their big rule adjustment for the summer is going to be holding on set pieces.

50:37And it's like, why always me, you know, feel like Mario Balotelli of, of football clubs, but well, now they got something to answer for because you're going to Juergen slot. But Juergen Slott has just said in his latest press conference, Arna Slott, that one of the critical ways you can help break down a low block is through set pieces and that they need to be better at that and that they will be better at that. So there's an acknowledgement that there's only so much you can do to move around a low block that's really compact, congesting central areas that's really well organized. You don't have the days now of part-timers in the Premier League or guys that have no business being in professional football defending.

51:09The defenders are international class. The goalkeepers, except at Chelsea, are international class. you know the the organization and the tactical management aside from ang is is international class so set pieces have become a way to do it and when you have the delivery that rice and saka have and you have a player like gabby who's willing to put his head into those dangerous spaces and has that physicality it's a clear advantage so your thoughts on set pieces and and and actually i i'm just gonna add one thing to this do arsenal overdo it at times in being prepared for every situation because I know Billy Carpenter has said, if you're the dominant team talent-wise and in possession, more ball-in play time helps you have more opportunities to create chances.

51:50And we take a lot of time over every free kick, every corner, every throw-in. Is there a balance to be struck between keep doing the corner stuff, mate, because it's working, but also maybe get the ball thrown in faster, get some of those set-piece or free kicks going faster? Are we too focused on stoppage as a play i think i hope that when people come away from listening to this the the thing

52:14Jon Mackenzie:they have ringing in their head is tactical diversity that's that's what i've found on about the only thing they're going to have in their head is that you think declan rice is an inferior player is the only thing they're going to have in their head but please care and it's gone so after yeah after you've got out of your head the the fact that i hate declan rice um the next thing that should come into your head should be this concept of tactical diversity. And the reason why diversity is so important from a tactical point of view is it just gives you different angles. It gives you different strengths.

52:47Jon Mackenzie:It gives you the ability to do things well. And if the opponent does something that stops one of the things you're good at, then you have another alternative solution to that problem. And that's exactly how I feel about Arsenal set pieces. The fact that Arsenal were good at set pieces was never an issue. The issue that Arsenal had was that they were probably not good enough from open play in the last couple of seasons. So to come away from that thinking the issue with Arsenal as set pieces is completely misunderstanding the situation. And everything I've said today, if Arsenal come out and they become worse at set pieces but improve slightly at open play, I still would consider that to be a failure.

53:28Jon Mackenzie:And that's why I'm constantly talking about Arsenal as not going through a revolution but through an evolution, they're adding more strings to their bow rather than you sort of making a pick of trade-offs that they think are more or less important at any one point in time. So absolutely, my colleague Mark Carey at The Athletic has just put out a piece about set pieces and essentially making the point that there's a correlation between field tilt and shots from set pieces. And it's, you know, it makes, if you tease out the logic, it's very obvious right the more time and and possession you have on the ball higher up the pitch the more likely you are to generate set pieces the more likely you are to generate set pieces the more likely you are to have shots from set pieces and the more shots you have from set pieces the more goals you're likely to have from set pieces um and so every team who is operating within that elite elite paradigm of um territorial dominance should be focusing on set pieces as a completely legitimate form of scoring goals.

54:28Jon Mackenzie:And on top of that, the fact that Arsenal leant into the physicality aspect of it, it was a no-brainer that they should lean into those things because they have the profile of players who can cause problems for them. And the reality is, every team in the world, if they had Gabriel on their team, it's just a cheat code. You have Rice and Saka, the ability to put those balls in. Even Odegaard did it against Newcastle, just a fantastic ball into the box. You have those two things. That is the most basic thing about set pieces, right? You have good ball strikers. You have good finishers. That equals set piece goals.

55:06Jon Mackenzie:On top of that, you add all of the other stuff, which is generating chances in more creative ways. So either by creating space around your good ball strikers, sorry, around your good receivers in the box, but also doing the thing that Nicolas Jova has done really well, which I think is finding space for players who might not be being as closely marked because they're not considered to be set piece threats but if you give them space they will be dangerous right so the fact that Martinelli for example often gets like back post chances is is maximizing your utility from set pieces right so add all of that stuff together and what you do is you generate a way of of generating more and more and dangerous set more dangerous set pieces um I don't think that Arsenal fans should ever be apologetic about that um at all but I do what I do think is that again you you have to maybe the issue there was that that Arsenal had lent so far into this like territorial dominance approach that the only opportunities you were really getting were either set pieces or were open play chances that look very much like set pieces and I think what then starts happening is you become too predictable and you reduce the the overall quality of your play because opponents, I remember the game against Manchester United last season where they went down to 10 men and it just felt like you had all the possibility in the world to generate stuff through the centre, but you didn't.

56:25Jon Mackenzie:You just kept going down the wide areas, throwing the ball in and United, it meant that United could just sit their centre backs in the box, clear everything out and you looked a little bit toothless. That's why tactical diversity is important because if that isn't working and you have something else that you can do to an elite level, then suddenly the opposition is like, what can we do? we we stop them doing one thing and they come around the other side and do it do it the other way so yeah i think that my my position on the set pieces as a school is like go ahead do it be the best set piece team in the world but also find other ways of being more dangerous that's exactly what they're doing this season so yeah yeah yeah clive yeah i'm just listening and nodding away

56:58Elliot:because i i do think we've got a lot of answers now in this group and there's some there's some things we've not tried yet and i have to be honest i didn't think we'd get this far this quickly with just a few signings. It's about the approach has changed. I think teams have recognised that we are the field tilt world champions and they've decided to come on to us a bit more. So what do we do? We recognise it and go and hit them early and be more direct. And we've got a player that does it. So suddenly, some of our strengths are now working for us. People are thinking, I don't want to be near my goal with Arsenal.

57:28Elliot:Why would I do that? They're going to score. They're going to put pressure on me. And so it becomes much more of an all-round game and it's far better to watch. I'm walking out of the stadium going, And what have I just seen there? You know, it's far better to watch. And I'll be honest with you, I never expected it. I was starting to wonder, even though we've been through different iterations of this team, you know, the Tienchenko iteration, and then the Kai Havertz-Rice and Timber year, and then David Rea coming in. I'm thinking, okay, last year was just a miss. You know, we were just a miss.

57:59Elliot:Forget it. We never had the right players on the pitch long enough to recognize any sort of style. But then we go to this year. I'm thinking, what are we going to do? okay we're gonna get center forward it runs a bit okay let's see what happens you know but it's just transformed it's absolutely transformed to beyond my wildest dreams it's like oh my goodness we can do everything i think um i think on set pieces i think we are almost setting a trend a little bit there now you know um and i think people are starting to recognize you don't get half a goal for a set piece you get a full goal you know and um and i think we're starting to really make that work to our advantage but yeah the thing for me is is the variation of play you know and so now the measure for me now is okay what's game on offer what is it can you take it straight away can your players see it number one player for that in our team for me is martin odegaard i think he sees the game really quick and then he applies it so if i need to come out and drop in and ease pressure from the first phase of build-up he does that if i need to be in the middle to connect he does that if i need to be up top for the final pass he does that it's like and we haven't had him from almost a season really you know then when you see him appear you think oh crikey he's quite good isn't he you know when he's on it and so it's gonna be interesting to see now how we cope with um teams that we struggle with in the next phase of games teams that maybe take points off us and had draws etc but everyone thinks we're just gonna win i think it's gonna be interesting to see what we do for them but i think we're ready whatever they bring to the party all right let's shift gears to the last two topics and we can take this one kind of quickly but i mean look there's nothing more cliche than an arsenal podcast saying let's talk about what's wrong with liverpool when they're sitting above us in the table and avoiding us right so let's let's root this in reality let's let's root this in reality a little bit but to my eye there are cracks that that have appeared there and they much like us are going through a bit of an overhaul in terms of what they brought in in the summer.

1:00:02They lost Trent, and I just don't think there's been an appreciation of how important he was to begin with. I think they're trying a different tactical approach with a more deliberate buildup, and suddenly Mohamed Salah, who had a lot of space to run into last season, is living that Pakaio Saka life of getting the ball when he's twos and 2v1 and 3v1 against him, and it's not so easy when you're doing that. But in a way, I almost feel like our clubs had opposite summers, and we could have swapped summers and been just as good in the sense that Liverpool could have used a Zubamendi. Liverpool could have used a Mascara.

1:00:32They could have used an Incappie. You know, they could have used some more defensive solidity, some more, I think, midfield control. I think Graven Burch is a great player, but to my eye, that midfield can still be run through a bit. The fullbacks have not hit the way they expected. Karakas has had a rough start to life at Liverpool. Frimpong is playing right wide forward in the Champions League and not playing fullbacks. Sobosla is their best fullback, but how long can that sustain? So maybe some cracks beginning to show. And if you don't just look at results and look at the goals they've conceded and the difficulty they've had holding on the leads, John, it's not to say that Liverpool aren't very good because they are.

1:01:06But I'm curious what you think of what Slott's trying to do. What is he trying to do and how is it maybe working in ways we as Arsenal fans may not be seeing or not working as well as he'd like yet? What's the goal of what he's trying to do?

1:01:21Jon Mackenzie:yeah this is a really interesting topic because i was thinking about this the other day um people love to talk about freedom in football right um and there's never really a clear indication of what they mean by it and i think generally speaking and and i think this is true philosophically there's a couple of different definitions you could call one negative concepts of freedom and a negative concept for freedom of freedom for me would be something like freedom is when we're we have no constraints on us we're just able to do what we want right and a lot of the discussions about positional play and relationism fall into this kind of concept of like, what does freedom look like?

1:01:56Jon Mackenzie:Are you free if you have to do certain things, if you're constrained by certain things, if you have to stay in a position to make sure that your rest defense doesn't collapse? I would call that a negative concept of freedom. It's just sort of freedom from all constraint, and you can just do what you want. But there's also, I think, positive conceptions of freedom as well, whereby you are, and this would be the argument of someone like Pep Guardiola, and I know Maresca made this argument midweek, that actually providing players with structure and giving them constraint actually allows them a more sort of directed idea of what their freedom can be, how it can be enacted essentially.

1:02:31Jon Mackenzie:And the reason I mention this is because last season it felt as though Slott was very much the victim of this more positive concept of freedom, right? There were lots of constraints on him. He came into a team that he'd not coached before. He'd had a dynastic coach before him who was doing certain things that would have been different to what he wanted to do. They didn't sign anyone really that was going to play with any sort of regularity. He was coming into a new league. All of these things were sort of constraints on him. And actually, I think he succeeded in the Premier League last season with all of those constraints on him.

1:03:04Jon Mackenzie:He made a tactical form of football available to his team that allowed them to win the league, essentially. And it balanced off maybe the chaotic excesses of Jurgen Klopp with some of the ideas that Arna Slott himself wanted to bring in. And it was that perfect balance of, we're going to keep the Klopp direct chaotic attacking. We're going to balance it off with a bit of control. and that control isn't going to be trying to hold the ball high up the pitch like the elite paradigm has been. It was more sitting deeper, moving the ball around your back line and choosing the moments when you're going to go more direct.

1:03:44Jon Mackenzie:And it's getting the balance right, saying we're not going to go at every moment. We're going to defend with the ball deep in our half. But when the moments arise, when the other team over commits, we're going to find those spaces and go along. And the balance worked out perfectly for them last season. And then what we have is this summer where it's almost like you go from that positive concept of freedom to this negative one where he's almost freed from constraints, right? He's given an incredible amount of money to spend. He's able to bring in some of the best players in the world, start building the team in his image.

1:04:12Jon Mackenzie:And it seems to, that sort of lack of constraint for him seems to have gone in the wrong direction. And it feels as though there's a bit more confusion about what it is that Liverpool are doing. And that's sort of represented for me in sort of the key signings. You mentioned Trent Alexander-Arnold moving to Real Madrid and then the creative fulcrum being brought in to replace him is Florian Viet so you're taking a guy who's playing for a team who are doing a lot of deep build-up who want to find these moments of tempo shift and Trent Alexander-Arnold is the perfect player for that suddenly you're replacing him with a guy who previously had been like a high volume final third touch guy who's a facilitator who wants to just get lots of touches in the final third for teams who are doing this territorial dominance and he's not doing that anymore so you're already starting to question, well, how does this really fit in with what you were doing last season?

1:05:00Jon Mackenzie:Again, the fullbacks that they brought in, they brought in Frimpong, who seems to be sort of a replacement for Salah during AFCON, but also who can play as a fullback. And then on the other side, we've got Kerkes, who is like a up and down, long-busting run fullback. And Kerkes is being used essentially as an outside centre-back in possession a lot of the time, not doing the stuff that he's best at. And then, yeah, with Frimpong, is both of these fullbacks seem to be sort of like ball carrier types rather than you know possess and pass types which is seemingly what they would need from their from their system and then you look you look everywhere on the on the pitch and you start saying well surely this you know you bring in two absolutely fantastic like two of the best strikers in the world fantastic it's great to have that um that kind of ability to switch between those two as and when you want but because you've brought those players in for a lot of money you have to start tweaking a tactical system to try and get the most out of them.

1:05:54Jon Mackenzie:And then what does this do? Well, it starts having a negative impact on Salah's usage, which is fine, right? That's eventually what you want to happen because he's going to go at some point. But at the same time, it feels like it's happened too quickly and they've lost the benefit of that. And then with the Vietz thing, you have to fit Vietz in somewhere. And so that's meant, you know, you use Curtis Jones on the left wing like they did against Galatasaray. You play Soberslai as a right back and suddenly you're taking players who worked very well in the system last season and then playing them out of position.

1:06:20Jon Mackenzie:So you're getting a double whammy of maybe someone coming in and not fitting in so well, and then they're having a negative impact on some of the players around them. So I think the reality is that Liverpool have got a lot of tactical problems to fix, and I think their season is going to depend on how well Arna Slott can fix those. And from where I'm sitting, it looks like a very difficult prospect to get those things right. Yeah, I mean, at least until January, I think, and whether they'd go again in January, given what they did in the summer, I'm not even sure, but they're going to have to make it work with those pieces.

1:06:52And John, as you just outlined it, I think that's as clearly as it's been explained to me where the challenges are. So Clive, I mean, any disagreement on that?

1:07:03Elliot:No, not in a way. No disagreement. I think just to add one other layer, I think, and Slott said it beautifully, I have to say, when he explains football, I really like how he does it. How he explained the Liverpool Arsenal game, he explained it away perfectly at the end after the game. eight times is to draw one time each we win and i thought that's such a calm way to explain it i think he said something he said one of the greatest things that that klopp gave me was they came fifth and then they came was it third and so teams maybe didn't see us in the same way didn't maybe respect us you know paraphrasing but then from the second half of last season the team started to respect them and they didn't accumulate points in the same way and that maybe continue into this year, ally to all that you said, John, all the changes that they've had, teams that respect them in different ways.

1:07:54Elliot:And so I kept wondering, why do they get a chance to run through the pitch and we can't? And that's suddenly gone, isn't it? The transitional nature of the team doesn't look the same. They're still great athletes and they still generate that momentum at home. And so it is so interesting. And he gets it. He recognizes it. Again, I wasn't sure how Arteta would evolve again this season. I am so interested to see how he does it. with the pieces that he has. I can't see a path at the moment, but they've got a forward up there that could mask a lot of issues if he gets fit and start hitting the back of the net.

1:08:26Elliot:And we won't even be looking at their system if he starts scoring, you know? And I think maybe those first five wins did sort of mask where they actually were. But some smart people, including Jamie Carragher, worked out that this transitional nature of their team and how teams were getting at them was not sustainable. And I think it's going to be an interesting watch, an interesting watch, who can retain their stability going forward. Yeah, well, and we want to be level-headed on a pod like this and be analytical, so I will simply add that I hope it goes terribly for them. Their season collapses and they finish in the relegation places, along with Manchester United.

1:09:04Let's wrap with this. John, we live in a blessed era of endless choice in some of the worst online tacticals you could possibly hope to choose from. If you want to hear and read some big words that no one knows what they mean, man, you are spoiled for choice. When it comes to people who can explain the complexity of football in a way that it's easy to digest, that's in much shorter supply. And I think the really brilliant minds in football, Clive, of course, among them, I think can articulate those complex concepts in ways that are very accessible. I happen to really like Billy Carpenter, for example, because I think Billy, no, to be fair, you better have a lot of time on your hands to read Billy's stuff.

1:09:46He's got some digest he's putting out now, but Billy takes these complex concepts and distills them into language that is accessible. And I think you are absolutely sensational at that, if you don't mind some of the navel gazing that we'll do here for a moment. So kudos to you, because I think your videos are brilliant. And I think obviously you're able to analyze football at a high level, but make the analysis accessible to people who may not have the time or the interest in learning, getting their UEFA A license. Okay. So I'm just curious for people that want to be better at watching football.

1:10:14I mean, my process I think is pretty effective. I'll just give it to you for a second. Then you can give me your, so like when I'm watching football, I try to be on discord and Twitter as much as possible, staring at my phone intently. If I hear the commentator raises voice, I'll look up and whatever's just happened. I'll assume whether that player made an error or did something well, that they've been the best or worst player in the game. And then note that. So is that your process or do you do something different? How do you analyze a game and then distill that into the great videos that you create?

1:10:42Jon Mackenzie:No, it's exactly the same as what you do. Yeah, that's what I do. No, no, it's 10 out of 10. It's funny, I get asked this a lot. What I would say is that I don't think there's almost certainly no commonality between all of the people who do a good job of analyzing football. There's not like a magic bullet that's going to allow you to do it. um apart from one thing i think i would say which is put a lot of effort in like every everyone that you've mentioned in in in in passing there in terms of good analysis those guys have to put the work in like i i put i put hundreds and hundreds of hours into what i do i watch a lot of tape um i try and watch widely and and broadly and keep up with with what's going on around the Europe.

1:11:29Jon Mackenzie:And I think that's, that's the bedrock of it. It's people always come to me and expecting me to just sort of say, yeah, you know, read this book and then suddenly you'll become a genius. It's just not, or, or, you know, watch this guy's video or read all of these articles and spiel for Lagerung. That's not how it happens. If you want to be good at this, you have to put the hard yards in and people, you know, on Twitter, how does AI fix that? On Twitter, you don't see that, right? You don't see, people don't see the, the sort of me loading up a third or fourth game after having watched the previous two and not wanting to, quite frankly.

1:12:03Jon Mackenzie:And it does become boring and it does become hard work. If you want to get to the level, you've simply got to do it. And especially for me working as a general analyst for a media company, I always feel out of my depth coming on shows like this because you guys absolutely live and breathe Arsenal Football Club, right? And for me, I'm having to do it amongst covering a lot of other teams at the same time, right? So again, if you want to be able to shed any sort of insight into what's going on in the game, you need to have that bedrock of just watching the games, learning what's happening. I see so many kids now on Twitter who feel the need to sort of commentate on every little moment of every little game.

1:12:46Jon Mackenzie:And that's fine. If that's how you want to engage with the game, that's very much the case. but I do feel as though sometimes we need to spend a little bit of time just sitting back and being like okay wait wait for my takes to come um the takes shouldn't come every every five minutes in a football game if they are you're having too many uh for me a lot of these I feel as though sometimes my takes take forever to come by and you know I make I make a video every Monday morning that is it's 60 seconds long um it's probably one of the most difficult things I do to to distill something from football that is interesting enough into that amount of time but also I watched I watched the game I analyzed basically three times in order to decide what those what those things are so again I think that the the the the percentage of time spent working on something to what you actually get out of it is is also a little bit misleading as well so it less people think I just sit down and I just like trot these things out you know while I'm I don't know scrolling through Twitter that's definitely not the case so hard work is hard work is the answer there and um I guess maybe one I was going to say one more thing but I can't oh yeah the the thing I was going to end on is I maybe I'm biased in saying this but I think that the best people in terms of uh of of distilling tactical ideas are always the ones who are the best communicators um and I think there's often in football Twitter there and social media spaces there's sometimes sometimes a lack of realization that if people sound as though what they're talking about is more complicated, then often the things that they are talking about are more simple or can be expressed in a more simple way.

1:14:28Jon Mackenzie:And I don't know, sometimes I beat myself up because I feel as though, you know, I spend my life wanting to communicate to just normal people, the people who watch football. And sometimes I feel as though that sort of puts me on the back foot or maybe a little bit pushes me out of the tactical sphere because I think, oh, it's just this guy doing his simple short videos here and there. But I remind myself that if people aren't watching your stuff and learning from it, then there's absolutely no point doing it. Any sort of tactical content is always going to be educational. It's always going to be communication.

1:15:03Jon Mackenzie:And those are the two things that you really have to get down. By the way, that's true in management too. I think Unai Emery understands football and probably understands tactics. I think where Unai Emery falls down is I don't think he's a great communicator. And you hear stories of him exposing his players to five and six hour video sessions. And so eventually what happens with Unai, he comes in, he makes a big impact, but soon his message is lost because players don't want to sit there and listen to dense tactical instruction and five hour video sessions. And I, you know, I think the same goes for us as consumers of football.

1:15:34You don't need to read a PhD dissertation to understand football. You just need to consume intelligent analysis that It's articulated in a way that you have access to it. And I think to your point, John, we do an instant reaction at full time of every game. And I love it. It's one of my favorite things to do because emotion is part of football. And if you don't get a chance to deliver the emotion, if it's just cold analytical takes, that's not football. So we give that. But I watch the game a second time before we do our main pod. And a lot of times I find myself thinking, boy, I got it wrong on the instant reaction.

1:16:04Because the emotion of the moment can steal from you the ability to objectively analyze what happened on the pitch. But there's room for both of those things as long as you communicate them articulately. So Clive, your thoughts on that, the analytical process, and not divorcing yourself from the emotion of it, but also not getting caught up in a lot of jargon, which I think is not meant to educate, but actually meant to exclude. And I hate that about it.

1:16:28Elliot:Yeah, well, we don't do that, do we? So we try not to. I don't even know the jargon, so I can't. I think he's in... Relationalism. I really like John's last video. And the reason why I liked it, because it was also expanded across a couple of games. But also it was the connection to those games was pure. I've come out of a situation where I felt some of the narrative around us, I didn't think it was pure. I didn't think it was wholly fair. I thought it was influence and nuance against us to highlight weaknesses in certain individuals in our club. And I thought, oh, I don't like that. And I saw John, I thought, okay, this is pure.

1:17:07Elliot:this is a connection to the actual game this is how something's evolved and i thought it was so well timed and something i always talk to anyone who's people come up to me john and they say how do you do it how do you do this and i always say the same thing protect your connection to the game it's individual to you it's how you connect to football it's no one else now they connect to it it's your connection and if your way don't let other people influence you so you parrot them protect your collection some some things i do i mean i go and watch other levels of football i watch a lot of non-league football to remind myself of what it's like real football i watch rugby again against a territory game and i remind myself of things like this i watch a bit of nba because how they manipulate space in nba move the ball in triangles things like that and all these influences sort of help me build a picture for football and that's how i do it i don't expect other people to be at my non-league club watching the things like that but that connection i need to own it you know even when i was doing coaching baddies i almost stopped because i thought i'm starting to sound like a an fa coach and i don't want to use that terminology i want to sound like the north london bloke i am right so i think that's really important so owning that connection for me is key and it's yours and it doesn't matter what you know it's your connection and how you're building and i just thought your last one in particular i've obviously watched all your work um was really timely and really pure and i really really appreciate it i think it's so important

1:18:39Jon Mackenzie:that you say that i think because at the end of the day i'm just a bloke who watches football and says what i what i see um i've i've i've been lucky enough to make it into the mainstream media by like focusing on things like out of possession the out of possession side of the game right which most people don't care about um but i got into it i i loved it and i've been lucky enough to be able to share my love of the out of possession side of the game to people and i feel like now the the general populace is better educated on the out of possession side of the game and i think that's for me that's the that's exactly what you're talking about like for me i just was authentic about the things that i cared about in football i talked about why i cared about them and why i thought they were important and as a result other people found those things important and worth caring about.

1:19:21Jon Mackenzie:And I think if you're not doing that, if you're just trying to, and I understand, look, I'm so privileged to have the platform that I have. I can say things and people will listen, or I can not say things for a long time, come back and people will still be there to listen to me. And I understand that the people on Twitter who want to make a name for themselves feel the need to be constantly first and constantly put stuff out there. But I love that point that you've made, Clive, because what it is saying is if you do what you do well and you care about it enough, and that probably means you will do it well, then other people will listen and they will find it interesting and they will want to hear what you've got to say.

1:19:57Yeah, that's a great stopping point. I think it's very well said. And I just want to say, in terms of understanding what it is to be privileged with the platform that you have and the community you have, it goes without saying that I think we are incredibly fortunate that people are patient with us, that they see the best in what we're trying to say, that they help drive the conversation with us in a way where we learn that they not just respond in a positive way, but they also respond to things like the fundraiser when we raise money, the Saturday camp and the Arsenal Foundation, things that we're able to do.

1:20:26So I'd be remiss if I didn't say that your point on feeling privileged to have the platform you have goes very much for us as well. And we want to thank everyone who's listened to this and who's part of this community for being as sensational as you are. And we appreciate you. So I've enjoyed this immensely. I hope you guys both feel that you learned a lot from me today yeah um thank you Elliot you know and I would say that there are a couple things I picked up too along those textbooks out again John there you go there you go if you need me in order to find me but no all kidding aside

1:20:56Jon Mackenzie:absolutely brilliant stuff so Clive thanks man thank you very much John an absolute pleasure thank you yeah thank you so much for having me on yeah it's it's been brilliant now I'm in a bit of a sticky spot because we're going to put this out ahead of the West Ham game but then we're going to put it out wide um after that so i have to know which outro i'm going to do which puts me in a weird spot but i'm going to do the regular outro for the time that i'm doing it so thanks everybody we love you and we will talk to you after arsenal 10 west ham nil

1:21:41We'll be right back.