Unrecognizable Arsenal Suffers Painful Defeat

35:05They have so much running power too. That's the thing. They can win in transition because of the running power that they have in that team. And I just don't think the setup and the out-of-possession play was sufficient to cope with it. Now, I want to be clear. I mentioned this in this reaction. I watched Villa. They should have knocked PSG out of the Champions League last season. They ran right through PSG at Villa Park last season. And by the way, for the people who are saying, well, this is evidence we're not going to win the title. If losing at Villa Park is evidence we're not going to win the title.

35:34I've got news for you. City aren't either because they lost at Villa Park too. Okay, we need 17 more wins. 17 more wins and a draw here or there gets us to 86, 87 points, and that's going to be enough. So there's going to be five or six more games we draw or lose, and we're going to have to find ways to cope with it, but we're going to lose more than that if we play like this. So Paul, for me, again, we have to understand, and I'm sure Mikel will understand it better than we'll ever get access to it, outside of just Saliba and Gabby fix this, which is the most obvious answer, the the extent to which villa found it too easy to get at us and our out of possession shape wasn't right is the problem for me do you think it's fair for ezza to be taking a big chunk of that blame because the goal goals decide games but is you know how do you think about him getting hooked at halftime and the the way he was beaten for the goal um so let me take it back one step further which is we clearly gave them the game they wanted right you by the way you said this about chelsea too and that's why i'm a little worried that's two games in a short span of time when i think we allowed teams to bait us into these kind of games i mean talking about baiting us into a game uh hang on i'm not going to go the direction you think i am elliot i'm going to go they are masters at it paul letting all that go it's a new me i've turned over a new leaf okay uh a kinder gentler uh me um emmy martinez has has the ball uh right at the start of the game he has it at his feet he has it on the ground and he's literally uh inviting us to come and go for him to press their back line and we don't and we stand there and we stand there and then we do and i'm like for fuck's sake guys don't do what they want you to do he do you remember that moment the referee is watching i'm like he might get called for wasting time emmy martinez he's just standing with the ball is at his feet does this ring a bell with you elliot do you remember that moment it's really really exaggerated he puts the ball at his feet he's in his box his his players are around him positioned to get a pass when we press him we don't press him and time goes by and like you feel like taking out your watch it's like 10 seconds 12 seconds it doesn't jump out to me but i'm sure it happened it's it's weird because it's so exaggerated and then we decide all right if that's what you want we'll put and marino charges towards him and he plays it to the other side and they start to play it i'm like that for me was the more like it pissed me off but maybe maybe okay maybe we decided to play our to press them and obviously we clearly planned to press them but it was almost a signal to me that they have a way they want us to play and from that moment on we played that way and they wanted chaos in the middle they wanted the ball bouncing around sometimes we'd get it sometimes they'd get it that was the game they wanted they had the you know they had their four two two two or whatever it is down the middle they were packing that area they were okay for some ping pong the ball is squared out the side side sometimes we'd get it sometimes they get it but that's their game they wanted chaos they wanted end to end they got end to end and so you come back to the as a decision again i don't know that artetta felt he he had a huge a lot of personnel to choose from who could play 70 or so minutes um and it might be martinelli versus eza or uh you know i think he had to go with marino and maybe he had to go with eza but i don't think as an odegaard is what you want in a basketball game and uh they wanted the wings and they certainly had the matt cash wing and califiori is going to tend to head forward and we just if you step back and don't worry too much about the tactics you'd say this is a game they love right we might score they might score but they fancy this for 90 something minutes and i don't think it was about fatigue either i agree with you on that we actually played a full game of football here with attacking football all the way through had we been a little bit more conservative been a little bit more about controlling the game shape giving them a bit more of the ball in areas they aren't very good at it passing it around the back kind of moving it to side to side um ironically we've become a team that everybody said was too conservative how we approach games this was a maybe a point in the season which arteta thought this is big boy football this is how champions play you don't come to their place and dial it back a bit but i was like he was managing to the reaction to some other big away games like i'll show you i'm not conservative yeah now i don't think that was that that's that's certainly the narrative right but i think it might just be he thinks that this is a team growing into who they are in a champions this is what champions should do like that's his own authentic voice and this was a game that very quickly uh i i feared it beforehand and very quickly in this game i'm like this is the game they want and I don't think you should do something different don't play the game they want and maybe that is allow them to have more possession and make sure the possession we have is more controlled yeah it's so hard because I have so many conclusions I want to jump to about certain things in this game that I just worry if Saliba and and Gabby had been there those conclusions might look really stupid like for example I feel like Odegaard and Zubamendi He felt very redundant in certain ways in this game.

41:19And I almost feel like you'd be fine with Rice at the base and Odegaard and Eze. Then you have someone to go stand in the middle and you can have Martinelli running the touchline and defending his fullback. The whole balance just felt weird. And Clive, one thing we were doing that was really weird, and maybe it's because they're more comfortable in that space, we were splitting in Cappier and Timber really wide and having Zuby and Rice stand between them in the first phase of buildup.

41:43Elliot:um so yeah we did that second half we did that second half at chelsea as well we put rice in between them and they were more comfortable as wide center backs where i personally feel when i've said this before i think he and cap is more of a fullback and i and i think ben white's more of a center back and i just think with my old-fashioned eye i think that would work very nicely but we haven't seen it before so he's not going to try it and so so we've changed how we look right if we're if we're making tackles edge of our box it's all something's already gone wrong yeah something's gone wrong so something's gone wrong i mean we've got too many people ahead of the ball too early standing in spaces right so so that's it so look at just look at the look at the film just see people running back when have we seen that this season no no never yeah yeah they're not and you see people on their backsides right and sliding in and last ditch tack like that tells it's structural it's structural and it's structural out of possession and it's structural in possession that was different now different led us to 15 shots and eight or nine on target and you know opportunities to score the first goal before they scored an opportunity to score the second goal after they've equalized so this is not we're not rubbish do you see what I mean this is not rubbish I'm just fearful of rocking up and doing what we did buying Munich away a couple of years ago and everyone knows where we're going to that right hand side and then getting stopped you know what's the point of buying eight players if we're going to do what we always did you know and that's my that's my worry it doesn't mean we didn't play well it doesn't mean that you know there were there were obvious things that were wrong on the left hand side in particular and at center forward and paul said it marino marino in the last game which i saw live against brentford was man of the match by a clear distance and he was dropping into that position where odegaard stands and he was turning around he was solidifying our middle he was making tackles in there and he was turning around to people running into spaces right so we changed that there so he's now thinking i better go to left hand side a little bit try and combine over there and he it's not natural for him to be a continuity player he tried but he couldn't do it and obviously then he becomes now we're using him as a true center forward because he's now isolated he's not playing in twos so what happens then when he's isolated elliot will call him a converted midfielder where some people last week were saying is it about time we stopped calling him a converted midfielder he's actually our best center forward that was a conversation last week yeah he'd been involved in 25 goals and assists this kind of year something like that and you get the balance wrong and the conversation changes yeah then you ask yourself what's changed and this is the thing that people we should be able to ask these questions about what's changed say we're doing well say players are doing really well i had really good games but we should challenge that this was not the best version of arsenal no it wasn't well just to put draw a line into that do you remember the city game last season where we got sent down to 10 men and held on and they got the 2-2 at the death we spent the second half and we were criticized for it which still makes me angry defending in our box literally right for an entire half football they had 55 touches in our box in that game villa had 43 in this game wow it just cannot happen and i look in my mind if i close my eyes and i think about arsenal i picture saliva and gabby standing on the halfway line which means rice and zuby are higher which means odegaard and neza and marino are higher and there's more compactness and the lines are tighter and maybe there's more dominance there is more dominance but like the way you exert control is you squeeze them so that they cannot get out because then when you lose the ball, you only have to run one yard to get back to it.

45:32When the lines get spread out, a loss of possession means that they can play. And there's a great video Kimo, I think, on Twitter put out showing how when they won the ball back, their midfielders were standing in space where they could be given the ball easily and run at us. And that's because the distances are too stretched out, Clark.

45:49Elliot:Yeah. And what they were doing in it, they were, and this is something that tim pointed out before before she reminded me actually because i'd forgotten and sometimes they play rogers as a white or sometimes they play him as a 10 and they vary in this game they played him out wide and begin out wide and they roll off the sides and what they're trying to do is attract us inside and then have the fullbacks run beyond yep so we had to decide how we would counter that and for me we've got to have sprinters on the outside to say yeah go on then go on then You go and empty those spaces and we'll run into them.

46:25Elliot:What do we present them with? We present them with a Bob Marliese standing on left-hand side who's not going to sprint in behind anybody because that's not his game. He's a positional player that sees paths, shots, how to receive it. He wants to be in crowd scenes because he can read them. He can create avenues. When he's on the outside, now he's thinking, I better run up and down. I've got to run up and down because I can see what they're doing. This is not me, but I've got to do it. He's not suited to that role. And he encouraged him on. You know, if I'm the manager, I'm saying to Matt Cass, go, go, go.

46:59Elliot:Keep running him. Keep running him. He doesn't want to do it. He doesn't want to do the shift. It's not his game, is it? That's on us, by the way. That's on us. That's a misuse of resources. You know, and go ahead, mate. Sorry. Point blank, Clive. Do you worry? I hate using the word worry because, first of all, I'm a worrier. That's why my friend called me whiskers. But like, do you think that a performance like this with Eza getting ghosted by Matty Cash and losing his man and the goals coming from that side and him having 13 touches in the half is going to fundamentally influence Mikel's attitude towards using him in that role?

47:34And like, there are certain moments in a player's time at a club that have an impact on how their manager sees them and thinks they can deploy them. I mean, there's so many reasons why it may not have worked, but it really didn't work. And he gets hooked at halftime. I mean, like Marino getting hooked at halftime, you could tell yourself a story about he's been played a lot. It wasn't a game for his style of player, blah, blah, blah. Ezzet getting hooked at halftime, it's a clear response to how they've scored plus his lack of involvement. I get that. But to bring on a not fit Leo for Ezzo, who is, we think, a pretty close analog stylistically, it's an uncomfortable look.

48:09And I'm just wondering what you think, if any, there are sort of ramifications for that.

48:13Elliot:Well, fortunately, my memory is not too short. I'm getting older. It's getting shorter. but one of the best attacking performances i've seen this season was not in the forest at home and they played wide left and he was brilliant right so and madameke played on wide right and he was brilliant and we destroyed them right so so he can play that role the difference is is for this game where aston villa wanted that space they wanted to challenge us in that space but this game it was the wrong pick and he can play left i've seen play left for england i've seen play left 10 for years for palace he played left for us i've done reasonably well by the way he's played ted and i felt he hasn't been high touch enough but then once i realized he's not cut and paste to odegaard and i realized what he's doing as a shot totals was going up i'm thinking okay now i know what he's doing he's working with his partner and i think okay that's that's what he's to do so i had to you have to rewire your analysis sort of thing for this game mate honestly we'd have been better off and by the way martin nearly had a shocker against chelsea by the way when he came on yeah and and if he'd have picked martin to start this game i'd have been concerned but he was the right player to play in this game you know but again he's not fit so we have a situation where we have fitness causing structural changes to our team returning players who are not quite fit and then you got a few players that are tired because they've been overplayed due to the injuries that we've had yeah you put all that together and you're going to ask them to be at the top of the form table and we still batted them and got 15 shots and i'm and i'm having a moan up about structural issues when really if we're a bit more efficient in the goal it'd be a nice conversation to have if we'd have just some of the long shots we're in yeah etc etc the problem i have is with any analysis like oh marino could have played saka in that one time but the ball was too heavy or saka had the cut back to white but the shot was too straight or odegaard had that great shot but it was just tipped over there's so many little moments we could have scored again but if you're going to tell me that we're going to concede 2.1 xg and 43 touches in our box every game i don't want to talk about the chances we missed we're going to lose more than we win and we're not going to win anything.

50:29So fundamentally, this game for me, if you want to access it by looking at the moments we could have scored goals, that's certainly the more interesting part of football, but it's not the recipe for us winning anything. And yeah, there was execution on the last ball and the last action in their box, around their box, when we could have scored. Obviously, Declan Rice puts the ball across the box in the 90th plus four, and Nani Buduike can't wrap his foot around it. And if he does, Jokras is standing there waiting for the rebound, or the ball goes back to the other side to be tapped in where maybe it finds its way past emmy but instead it hits the side netting even if he just gets it on target and it's saved and it goes out for a corner the game ends and you have a 1-1 but but also they had loads of those moments that's my but that's my point paul they could they could have won this 4-1 you know so i mean like it's silly to say we missed our moments yeah they loved this game they absolutely before they got to beating us 2-1 at the end and giving us a giant swing in the pebbles.

51:30Before that moment, they loved this game. This was the game they were crying out for. And I'm like, why are we playing the game they want? And the fact that we had good attacking moments is great. They were fine with that too. That was the game they wanted. They thought, we'll attack, they'll attack. Like, look, they've seen this movie before against many, many teams. If they're playing PSG or City or Arsenal at home, this is their dream game, and they win more than they lose. Clip?

52:04Elliot:I think this is the sort of game that you could pick so many threads on if you choose to. It's interesting Arteta spoke about the giveaways. That's what really hurt him, the giveaways. And by the way, the Eze sub, which I felt was an angry sub, I felt he subbed him. he didn't care mate also because he knew how many minutes trust i'd had in him yeah but i wasn't fit to play a half but i'm gonna because because of those standards were nowhere near our standards on defending and he hooked him mate and he told everybody why he hooked him yep right so and so that's an angry substitution right so so he was also angry with what transpired how we looked probably he recognized that we didn't have enough um continuity from the left and by the way i never thought i'd say but trossard's a better defender than than ese and martinelli and trossard we used to say well he's playing martinelli because martinelli's a better defender than trossard but trossard's improved over time and he knows what to do and now we feel more secure with him there right so um they took a bit of time so i felt it was a an angry thing and arteta spoke about the giveaways if you watch the giveaways again they led to big chances really big chances so from his perspective he's walked away with that from my perspective i've walked away with structural issues caused by absentees and introduction of my old guard that's changed how we build and change where we stand which for me has led to out position problems right so that's how i viewed the game right so and it made those 10 look like luxury players as we were being transitioned for for me it's all about starting positions and making sure we build as a group build compact and then we don't have those gaps and don't occupy space too early because you it better work you best not give it away if you do that you know because our ability to counter press isn't there because we're already there we're already high and that that's my issue but hey look the way i'd like to see football doesn't mean everyone else has got to agree with it if we want to stand our fullbacks saying and Califiori nodding across from the back post, you won't find me complaining.

54:08Elliot:Do you see what I mean? But on this day, it cost us, I felt. I want to talk about Saka a bit, Jokras for sure, some individual analysis that we haven't done. I think we've kind of talked Odegaard to death without invoking his name so much really, just by expressing that there were some structural issues, despite the fact that he also influenced the game in a lot of positive ways. So there may be a little more access there. I will mention, by the way, Califiori will miss the Wolves game with a suspension and it was the best possible time for him to get a yellow card so that's i guess a silver lining in a way because he was one yellow away from the suspension if he was going to get it the wolves game at home would certainly be the one you'd look for so the subs will be one we want to talk about you know how we're thinking about the title race i have thoughts um and and maybe a little bit about how we manage this week with games that will be regarded as quote unquote easier but still need to be one it's 53 minutes into the podcast and you have no idea which brands to give your business.

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57:38Okay. Okay. Paul, just can you quickly tell me your thoughts on the Bakayo Saka performance? So I think when I look at my notes, every note is Saka does this, Saka did this, Saka near, oh, close for Saka, Saka did this. I think it felt to me like Saka, it feels to me, not felt to me, like Saka's really playing with a chip on his shoulder. He's playing angry. He's playing with an urgency to take more responsibility on. Sometimes really to his credit, by the way, he creates the goal that we score. Sometimes to his detriment where I thought he actually shot in situations where keeping the ball and finding better options might have worked.

58:18But to win anything, your best players have to take on responsibility. He feels like he's taking on responsibility. He had the yellow card for dissent where he just was really uncharacteristically fiery. Bukhasekka clearly wants it. They all want it. You can see that from the reaction when the winning goal was scored but what do you think of his performance and the extent to which sack is maybe even pressing to do more than usual uh it was really good um look everybody took a lot of flack you had your intro which talked about kind of you know how we react when we lose and people go in different directions it reminds me of the Tolstoy quote you will remember it Elliot about uh all of his quotes so you have to tell me which one you're talking about in this particular What about the happy families one?

59:02All happy families are alike. All unhappy families are unhappy in their way. And like, we lost. So everybody's guilty for different people. And no supporter likes another supporter's view of why we lost. It's very much the witches of Salem. You know, it's only a question of how many witches and who we start with. Yep. but we can't none of us can agree who's the biggest witch and who we should start with and so losing is not pretty it doesn't bring out our best side we go looking to make sure it never happens again by addressing all the problems and so players like Saka got quite a lot of criticism at the end of the game I gotta say I think he was very good he could have been better he could have his end product on a number of occasions his passes in critical areas at critical moments could have been tightened up somewhat but by and large that was Bakaya Saka the Bakaya Saka we know and love yes he made that goal but some notable mentions along the way Rice forcing the turnover which was clearly part of our game given the amount of pressing we did up that end of the pitch Odegaard with the reviving the the the triangle on the right puts Saka into the killer position and Trossard sweeps up at the far post fantastic goal but it's absolutely Bukaya Saka at his best ghosting in reading the situation and turning them inside out by getting the other side of them he's in the house so to speak and behind them and turning them around and he did plenty of good stuff To your point on the taking the leadership, I think he gets quite a bit of air time from folks like, I'm just going to make up some names.

1:00:59I don't know if this is a fact, but Thierry Henry, even Harry Kane. These kinds of players who say, this is your team. It's your franchise. You got to step up. You got to be the man. People love the franchise reference. It was a very American reference. Well, I know some Americans. I've been here some time. Some of my best friends have Americans as friends. So I haven't made that mistake myself. Look, I think if you look at a football match as just whether the last action came off, you're going to have a very specific perspective. But first of all, he makes the goal, obviously. He had four shots.

1:01:43He created multiple chances. He was tied with Odegaard for eight shot creating actions. He had 0.5 XG, 0.5 expected assisted goals. So one expected goal or assist, which is obviously an elite output. And I look at my notes from the game, and it's just a highlight reel of Saka doing things, some of which came off and some of which didn't. But I'll tell you this much. I didn't want him to come off for Nani. I really didn't. I just felt, first of all, you know, Nani Meduake is such a threat 1v1. But I don't have the confidence in him getting the last action right just yet. And the thing about Saka is if the ball's at his feet with the game on the line, I still just feel a little better about it.

1:02:33And look, he may have been totally shagged out, and you don't want to risk for the 10 extra minutes, You don't want to risk losing him for six games or something. So I get it. But I thought anything good we were going to do in the game was going to come from him. And in part, some of that's just due to the fact that like that's the side of the pitch that the ball was building. You know, I mentioned this on a Friday night show. One big difference in Martin Odegaard is when Martin Odegaard is on the pitch, the extent to which Rice and Zubamendi are influencing buildup matters. And one thing Odegaard does a lot is he comes and gets the ball and carries it.

1:03:05we did not see that in the in the Zubomendi Rice as a midfields there was not that same carrying dynamic and you look at this game again and Martin Odegaard had 50 carries of the ball 13 more than the next closest guy who's Declan Rice and 17 more than Zubomendi 16 more than Saka so that getting the ball and bringing it forward and I just think that is a that is a change in dynamic now Clive a performance that I think we also probably should spend a little time I'm on is Victor Yorchores. And you know, it's look at, it's not one of these things where we just want to find the players who played poorly and stick the boot in, but it, it wasn't a good performance.

1:03:45And a lot of people I think are really on tilt about it. I don't think you need to be that way because before he was injured, we saw him rounding into the kind of form where we were devastated to be losing him. The Burnley game, the Newcastle game, those were really good data points at Letty. He had two goals. I mean, they were a little bit scrappy, but that's great. You want a guy in the box scoring scrappy goals. This was just a nothing performance. And I don't know how you want to analyze it because to me, just he came in, he wasn't involved, he didn't influence the game. But the thing that was really standing out to me also is it wasn't sticking.

1:04:20You know, there were some long balls that went to him and it just wasn't sticking. So is there much to say about this Jokre's performance at all?

1:04:27Elliot:Yeah, so I was talking to Tom about this over the weekend And he's had a few concerns. I wouldn't mind me saying that, Tom. But I sort of allayed those concerns. And I said, you look at a set of forward market that was out there this year. Obviously, Eketike was snapped up by Liverpool. There was Sesco and there was Jokeres, right? So Sesco, Jokeres, I was in Sesco land because basically I thought, oh, he's like, can I have us? We get two of them. Great. And I thought about it a bit more wide since actually the difference in profile is important. to have somebody who's a true nine stays in between the sticks and runs the sides runs the channels is great that's what we needed because we've got merino we've got kai havertz that could be quite similar kai's got a bit more speed about him to add those sesgo with duplication right redundancy that's my word of the weekend redundancy so i saw the reasons for yorker when he came in obviously he wasn't quite fit enough but got better and better and better Newcastle, great.

1:05:29Elliot:Some nice, easy home games where he's done well in patches. The Burnley game, which I didn't see live, but I heard he was really, really good. And so I expect him to come back and do well in this game. And to be honest, Elliot, at the start of the second half, he was on the pitch, occupying people, and we had our best part of the game. Odegaard got space, got shots. So structurally, again, he provides something that you can't ignore. If you look at his individual actions, they were poor. In fact, we were on top in the second half, and he played the ball out for throwing on our right-hand side.

1:06:01Elliot:And after that, we lost control of the game for about 10 minutes. Do you know what I mean? It was a real blow. And they got back into it again. But he does, I'm not trying to make excuses for him, but he does play centre-forward, which stops their centre-backs coming out and pressing into our midfielders and doing things because they've got nothing to do. He does play centre-forward. And I think we missed that aspect. But he's got to be better than this. And my worry is, to my eye, the things that he did at the start of the season, which I sort of explained away while he adapted, that he actually got better at, he went back to being almost worse than before.

1:06:42Elliot:And then I've got to say, well, actually, mate, you were holding up okay on some occasions. You were linking okay. You were getting down the sides and winning some of the races. In this game, nothing. Do you know? And I saw a tweet with someone today, and it also really makes you think how defined the lines are. If Timber doesn't head that ball away from him at Chelsea, his confidence could go through the roof because he scores that goal. We win last minute at Chelsea, and we're still singing his name. And he's bouncing around the pitch. You know, sometimes I don't think back too often, but I always think back to the Nicolas Anelco in the FA Cup same final in 1999 against Manchester United.

1:07:22Elliot:He had a goal disallowed, and he was a young lad and he was, I'm going to know whether about staying or not and he ended up going. Goal to style. We'd have won that semifinal and I always think it's a turning point in his career and sometimes it's a turning point to go your way. That's what Jokeres needs. A big goal and that Chelsea goal was one he needed to go his way and I think he needs that to find himself because I don't think he's belligerent enough. I think he's deferring to other people. I think he's looking to knock it off. Mate, just get the ball at your feet, turn and hit. Don't worry about the outcome.

1:07:53Elliot:but ragdoll people around turn and hit it be aggressive don't worry about a bad touch or looking ugly on the ball you need to make people make changes in their defensive line to come and deal with you if you're going to be passive we might as well keep marino on is better better technically better connecting and more intelligent standing in spaces you know that's the truth be aggressive run run run be relentless that's what he needs to do and he's just lost a little bit of his way so i'm not prepared to give up on him yet earlier because i've seen the good jokeres live and i've not forgotten but mate he could do a big game i hope he starts against bruise and he could do the big game yeah yeah i think it's it's that simple he he needs to play himself back into form and we need to play ourselves back into playing with him i mean one thing that's hard is when you go from playing marino at center forward to jokeres at center forward it's just a totally different dynamic and i think your structure has to support yeah it should be different but it wasn't in this case was it really no it wasn't really so yeah no um and that by the way that was a talking point in the summer we're going to play differently with the old crest up front right well are we we went right back to marino up front and that worked for a while playing the way we were used to i i think paul one thing that was really weird too is just we were on top after halftime we looked really good we got the goal and then we went to pieces and there was a period where we were really bad and we could have conceded multiple times after we scored the goal and Mikel spoke about that um you know the second half quote the second half we started really well much more positive we generated chances scored the goal and my feeling was that we were going to go on and win the game that was mine too we could have lost it before again with two very dangerous individual giveaways and we didn't we had two chances to score the last one with the ball across to Declan and we didn't capitalize on that I think he means the ball across from Declan the next goal kick went long it goes there second ball we put it away for a throw in they play fast a lot of chaos in the box and they managed to put the ball top corner which is the quality of the league so that's the summary um that's pretty succinct summary it matches my notes but anything you observed in the period after we scored that they did that caused us to lose control this was definitely a game for me where mikhail made the subs that you might expect to make under the circumstances i just don't think they did much to help us control a game that we never got any control of uh i didn't see anything substantially different uh later on in the game i think they just fed look they took what they had and they fed off that additional energy um i'm with you in that i don't think you can just write the game off as fatigue from our side i think we had the energy to play this game but hey like if they don't have extra energy i mean they win it in the last moment and you could say they wanted it more in the last moment but look at what our players did to to hold them off in that final moment that final play and what had preceded that was deck and rice charging up the pitch and putting in an unbelievable ball across the face of their goal that if somebody had gambled if somebody had had that moment like maybe if that's Martinelli there Martinelli does a Martinelli thing and thinks i'm faster than anybody else i'm going to make sure if the ball comes in i'm going to be there for it it's the easiest goal this is the one like i get it because in the heat of the moment and all the things that's going on there's a lot going but like if you're going to play for the simplest goal in the world it's if he puts it in here and if i make the run i have a much easier shot than if i wait for a cutback and i have three defenders who've gathered in front of me so in that moment it switches from them uh attacking their goal to to them attacking our goal and it's a mad scramble we're throwing bodies everywhere the amount of chaos per chaos density in that particular goal um is kind of feeds into my overall chaos theory i don't think the final part of the game is that different we brought on martinelli instead of um trossard and trossard has a couple of give giveaways too it should be noted for the all the technical security he plays us into at least one serious counter that they don't score from um but like just like as a just like quite a few other players and that tells you he's not he's not fully dialed in he He wasn't fully fit and he gets yanked before the end.

1:12:24Probably Arteta had the same vibe of, oh shit, dagger through the chest again in terms of giveaways and he started feeling it was coming down that side again. I don't think there's anything hugely different apart from they have the energy of the crowd and the swell of that energy helps them in the last five minutes more than it helps us. And yeah, you can get time. At some stage, energy matters. the old Trafford kind of Alex Ferguson on the touchline with the crowd behind him. Yeah, yeah. Claib?

1:13:01Elliot:Yeah, I think this is where we need to read the room. Read the room. Halftime beers has gone in, and it was getting lively in there, and he had to read the room, and we kept going for it, mate. I mean, look what Declan Rice was in 92nd minute on the left wing. We kept going for it, mate. just keep your eyes if you want to watch this game keep your eyes on califiori and ben white just keep your eyes on them to know our intention but when they got back in sometimes we make big runs and you get back in you're standing there but you're thinking please don't pass it to my man because i'm blowing and for those who played you know what i mean i spent last 10 years of my career blowing in the wrong place and um and when carrie got passed on the inside you think that doesn't happen if he's if he's sharp right because he's just stuck in the mud right and they're going behind him and we're slow to get out to people and just little things where you start to stand in spaces you know and um and they brought on a couple of forwards they brought on Buendia, he's a 10, they brought on Sancho, he's a 10-stroke winger, and these boys can handle the ball, you know, and they start to manipulate the ball, and when you see people can handle the ball, you know what you do?

1:14:21Elliot:You sit, you sit a little bit, but then we don't, then we go, then we commit to it. I mean, I'm not sure what you can say, really, we really, really tried, we really, really tried, we did some really good things. If you want to look at the game as a whole, when I did the rewatch I was more upset that we didn't get that first goal do you know what I mean I think and when they got that first goal they could they could settle into their game plan so then we equalized which upset them and if we're at home we win that game just to momentum and the crowd noise etc and we were due we were just going to win it and then it sort of stopped and then they they made offensive changes and I'm not sure we could do much more with our changes.

1:15:06Elliot:I just don't think a couple of our changes were dulled enough on all sides of the game. I thought Nani was a little bit off on the defensive side of the game. I thought Jocares was okay, but just going through the motions. I don't think they connected to the game in a positive way. You know, and whereas Asimilas substitutes had a slightly better, not much better, Elliot. Not much better, seriously, not much better, but just a little bit better than ours and um and and it just swung the momentum slightly and i do think fatigue played a part because it's not just about villa being you know they're playing young boys we're playing fire munich at the number you know top three in the world and well you know after spurs then going to chelsea who ganged up and waited for us right and um and so the level of intensity of the recent gains that we've had it caught us out with the injuries that we've had but that you know what Paul did, he said something on Saturday that really made me sort of calm myself.

1:16:08Elliot:Even though it didn't sound too calming to reaction. It's one point. It's one point. It's one point. It's one point. And I never worry about that as long as we learn the lessons. And that's where my sort of frustration came in. Are we going to learn the lessons of what we've done before and not let this continue? You know, and that's the key for me. So how we introduce these players going forward is important. because we got a really good squad and a really good team. Look, I mean, the Sunderland game was annoying, and the way they got a lady equalizer and the way we were unable to win was annoying.

1:16:45Okay? It annoyed me. But the Sunderland game in and of itself was not reflective of any particular issue in my mind in the sense that I thought we played like Arsenal. you know okay so they scored a goal that was uncharacteristic you know gabby getting beaten beaten ahead or some things you don't expect but it was 1.91 expected goals to 0.4 we outshot them 17 to 6 okay like they they had seven touches in our penalty box okay so i'm not trying to say that was a perfect game but my point is that i don't think that game is indicative of anything about Arsenal playing in a way and other than what I expect of them, which is a way that's good enough to win the title.

1:17:32The reason this game is worrying to me is not because we didn't clear the ball out of our box late when there was chaos. We should have. If Encappier makes good contact, if Jokras finds a way to get in front of the ball, I don't know what he's doing there. Like, we get the ball out of our box. It's a draw. Fine. But to your point, it's one point versus zero points. We want three. It is the 43 touches. It is the 2.1 XG. It is the 15 shots or whatever it was. Like, it is that that situation, the extent to which we did not look like Arsenal, that is going to stick in my until I watch us play another game or two where we look like Arsenal again.

1:18:09And it may be until Gabby or Saliba or both are back that we fully have that. It may be readjusting to the dynamics of having a Zubamendi-Rice-Odegaard midfield. Those are all possibilities. I think there's some big decisions for Mikel to make, but look, he doesn't throw players under the bus, and that's something I really like about him. This is as close as he's going to come to throwing a player under the bus, right? He said, quote, we're going to have to learn from it the way we conceded the first goal as well, very far from our standards. So they are learnings that we can take for ourselves and then give credit to the opponent as well because I think they're a really good side.

1:18:45That's as close as he comes to throwing a player under the bus. That's a message. In a week where Ruben Amarin was asked about Kobe Mainu and laughed at his name being invoked, laughed. In a week where Mareska said Tosin was bad, basically he was asked, why didn't you use more senior players? He said one of the oldest players on the pitch was Tosin. How do you think he did? Not a great look, right? In a week where Liverpool are melting down over a poorly managed relationship with Mohamed Salah, who they're trying to engineer a sale for, I'm sure. Like, I think we manage, I think Mikel is a good man manager, but that's as close as he comes to calling someone out.

1:19:20so it'd be interesting to keep an eye on that situation i do just want to kind of zoom out and by the way we haven't really talked about our goal i don't think we need to declan rice obviously does an amazing job there were chances for us to win it there were chances for us to lose it i don't think us winning this game would have been reflective of what we deserve but football isn't really about what you deserve right so it could have gone either way i would just say this we have to look at the title race big picture for a second here first of all city lost at villa park so if your whole thing is you know title winners don't lose these games well they lost this game are they going to win the title my feeling paul is that the premier league is changing and i'm not going to sit here and pretend there's parody there's not parody but there is a level of competitiveness in the premier league that is pretty different from the way it used to be i mean liverpool won the league last season with 84 points no one was close we were the closest 10 points behind but this season i mean you look at it look at the compression in the league look at the point totals.

1:20:18Manchester United are on 22. Chelsea are on 25. Three points separate them. Right? Bournemouth on 20. Palace on 26. That's fourth to 13th. I mean, it is incredibly compressed and there's points being dropped here and there. Chelsea were title contenders a week ago. they're eight points back now Liverpool had won the title in September they're ten points back now right? City are only two back of us but City had just lost to Newcastle and Bayer Leverkusen and were the crisis club just two weeks ago after we had beaten Bayern and Spurs I look at it this way I think we need to hit 85 points to win the title 17 wins will do it you get a draw here that you know 17 wins will do it I'm curious how you're thinking about this title race Paul because I don't think we should have in our mind the title races of years gone by when if you draw one or two, your title chances are gone.

1:21:22I think there's just going to be more spills and slip-ups and we have to manage our emotion as a club, as a fan base through this title race. I think with the paradigm of a lower point total title race now than what was the case in the past. Do you agree with that? Or do you think someone, probably City, has that 90-point season still in them and we have to be thinking that way. Well, I'm not seeing it so far from City. I mean, that is one of the reassuring aspects. They concede a lot of goals and they can be got at, and unless they change something, they can have a better second half of the season, but that's normally built on a team that's pretty robust from the previous season.

1:22:06They've got everything to prove. you can't just say oh here goes city again coming into the second half of the season you can't say that with these guys we've got to assume they're going to be better but why wouldn't we be better as long as we can get our defensive line back to having key personnel available for most games we've got to where we've got so far this season still working on getting our attack taking our defense has been really good our midfield has been strong um we've got a whole bunch of players coming back on the attacking end that you would say uh ignoring this result and you know it's been a rough few games where we've we've scrambled results and held it together but um you could say we're coming into the part of the season where we can actually start to show the attack and we've done that in recent games our attack has begun to light things up uh i don't know if the narrative in the media has caught up to it fully it's beginning to they're beginning to get away from from set piece fc fc and starting to talk about our open play play it'll be missed for this game because there's a bigger story to look at but the attacking end of the pitch is starting to really have some options some flair so there's every reason to think we can go into the second half of the season a stronger team than the first half so if people are worried oh city may may come strong or outside of city who is there like do we really think Aston Villa is winning this I don't think so is Crystal Palace no does Chelsea see how what it takes i think they've gone out of their way to prove that they do not so it's us and city and for those who are worried about you know our there's also the narrative oh mentally we always have a 10 tendency to but that's a different arsenal that is not this arsenal these guys have broad shoulders they they believe they're ready like they really believe it will it get will it get nervy towards the end yeah but for both sides yeah i think we can be the stronger team in this if we can if we can keep our spine largely fit um for the rest of the running which is an if but it shouldn't be a huge if but it might be because it's arsenal uh then uh we shouldn't to your point we shouldn't fall into the mode of nervous ninnies who are like losing our shit that's not where we should be we can be stronger we can get better we need a little bit we need a little bit of non-bad luck in terms of fitness that's it yep and it's on right and it's going to be a great run-in and a great battle and we shouldn't have thought it was going to be anything else i think anybody who has any thoughts on this that that they want to address needs to first make sure they take a deep breath and remember this.

1:25:13We are first in the Premier League and first in the Champions League. We lost at Villa Park and that sucks and it was gutting and it's horrible and it makes the title race closer than we wanted it to be. We are first in the league, rightfully, through the hardest fixture list so far. We've looked at the away games we've played. We played at Villa Park now. We played at Newcastle. We played at Anfield. we played at Chelsea right? those are out of the way we're first in the league and first in the Champions League doesn't mean everything's perfect doesn't mean we're going to win the league but we have to address the title race from the standpoint that we are currently atop it okay?

1:25:52Mikel said the following on coping with the ups and downs in the Premier League quote it's five months into the competition and so far we've coped but we're going to have to prove that we can cope again and again and again and again for another six months that's the level if we think we are going to be in this moment with 10 points clear, I think we're living in a different world. And that's it. Everybody wants it to be easy so we don't have to be stressed, but it's not going to be easy. So, Clive, I think the one thing that gives me pause, so I'm going to say one thing that people won't like, but I'm just going to tell you so you know how this turns out.

1:26:22If our injury situation stays as it is now, we will not win the title or the Champions League. So I'm sorry to spoil that for you. I have said this from day one. You can talk squad depth all you want. It sounds great. It's lovely. Squad depth has helped us stay top so far this season. But you win things with your stars. And if Gabby and Saliba aren't fit, if Saka isn't fit, if Rice isn't fit, we're not going to win the title. So that part has to work out. The other thing I will say is our identity is our defense. And the one thing I want to ask you about, Clive, as it pertains to the future in our title race, I think one of the reasons our defense is the best in the world is because you can pick our best back five in your sleep.

1:27:04Raya, Timber, Gabby, Saliba, Calafiori. That's our back five. You put in front of that Zubamendi and Rice, boom. There's our identity. There's our control. There's our out-of-possession shape. Boom, you can pick it. It's easy. Sack on the right. I think there's a lot of questions about what goes on in front of that now and how Mikel wants to pick that. Now, maybe you say, well, with the rest of that, you can mix and match and play around. But what do you think of that idea? The idea that Mikel's still integrating. Let's not forget a lot of new parts and pieces. and I don't think we've fully integrated them.

1:27:33It has to come back. So how important is it, if at all, for Mikel to start to really land on a solution ahead of that back five I named, or even back seven, if you want to say, with Zuby and Rice, that he feels is his lineup for his life because when we go into these big games, he's going to want to know who his team is, I think, for these big fixtures the rest of the way.

1:27:57Elliot:Yeah, he's got time to arrive at the 11, Haley. but I must admit, we've been spoken about, we've been crowned world and European and Premier League champions by November. And why was that? Because of how the team looked. And with key people there, this is even when Big Gabby wasn't there. And so we've done some things with some key people missing, but you can't do both your centre-backs doing it, right? But the reason why is that people can see what's on the pitch, the balance, and they can see what's on the bench. And they think, whoa, what happens when Arsenal don't get all these players back?

1:28:42Elliot:They're going to be brilliant. But that's my worry, right? When we get, when we, that integration, that final, the words I used was final form. when we found our final form, is it going to be as effective as it has been over the last 18 games where we've had to do some mismatching around? But actually, we found a balance that has really worked. And now we've flipped to a different balance, and I'm not sure it's working the same. But I really mean that. I'm not sure it's working the same. You see what I mean? Right, you're not saying it's not working the same. You're saying you're not sure. Yeah, I'm not sure.

1:29:21Elliot:That's pretty straightforward, yeah. But, you know, I've got some thoughts. And one of our good friends sent me a message on Saturday and he sort of said, you know what? Ole Gunn sort of come in and we're sort of like, and he's unbelievable. He's the leader of the orchestra. But he did sort of step into areas of other people that lead the orchestra. And I wonder if he told them he was going to do it. And I thought that was so interesting, you know? So when you have a situation where you have people that have coped and have led, and we have been a team that lost its way when he came out, and we found other ways, and I think we've got to make sure we don't lose the stuff that we've gained while introducing key people.

1:30:07Elliot:When Kai comes back, what's he going to do? Stand on the right-hand side as well? Do you know what I mean? The pitch might have a sinkhole on the right-hand side. you got Kai you got Odegaard you got Ez you've got Marino you got Saka you got Madweke all want to be there and I talk to Liverpool people and I sort of say mate you brought in all these players they really all want to stand on your left Gakpo Burtz Eketike Izak all like the left channel they all like it and you've unbalanced your team I'm laughing and giggling you've unbalanced your team hold on are we doing the same thing let's not do that let's not do that you know let's let's reduce the span of control of certain people say no you work with him the center forward not get timber back because timber and saka are the best in europe soon as we can get them back together again don't stand in his way those two are dominating everybody you know and um the left is still up for debate for me still you know what that looks like i've got thoughts but i'm not ready to go with them yet center backs no worries and the center to midfield two are so good that the guy beneath them in nor guard i feel sorry for because he can't get close to them however i do feel there have been game states in the last 50 minutes of games where he could have got his boots dirty yeah even in this game but we ran out of some but he could have got his boots dirty right so so we just gotta make sure that we keep people active on the pitch sharing the responsibility to allow us to be more diversified in attack but also protect ourselves off the ball if we get back to that that game won't happen again and just like that it won't happen again you know so that's that's my hope anyway paul i i hear where clive's going i do think that the first experiment you try again with martin odegaard on the pitch is califiori Trossard and Rice on the left-hand side and let that do its thing.

1:32:14With Victor Jokeres on the pitch, hopefully in form, he certainly can have a tendency to go to the left, to peel off to the left, that he doesn't have to run into that same space that Odegaard trammels. And there is a balance that can come. We've really yet to see it this season, but that could be i'm not like clive it's uh i'm i don't know what i'm sure of but that could work we've seen those three yeah and it hasn't needed a center forward coming to that side to make it work though in fact the space on that side the dominance to the right can work for the space on the left rice and califiori both want to gallop into space or to run beyond uh to meet whatever comes in from the right hand side trossard likes to meet whatever comes in from the right hand side so i'm hopeful but the problem is if it's not trossard on the left um then you start to run into trouble i think in terms of what those options might be martinelli still a super sub for me and maybe it can be as a if we have behind him this like rice can cover that side of the pitch but not when he has to do too many other things which he did in this game had we got a a back line that had structure a midfield and back line that were integrated maybe rice can allow for Calafiore and Eza on that left-hand side but but it does need to be built on the cover that that back line and and uh our midfield can provide I think yeah yeah well I mean we've got more immediate issues you know Ben White I think did as well as you can ask him to do in this game I mean he's back to now having to play a ton in high energy games when he was only just back fit we did give Raya stock rising in the instant reaction by the way didn't come up in this podcast but like obviously had a couple critical interventions yeah that one where he came out to get the ball off the toes of uh Rodgers which was great this week is a weird one because I think everybody's like good we've made it to the point where we can rest everybody now I don't think that's how you want to approach this first of all I think this team needs two four one four nil victories where the opposition doesn't get a sniff and we get some players firing and as it gets a goal and jokeres gets a goal and everyone feels connected again and we we we need these next two games to be nice confident victories we need the wolves game to be the eight nil and not just because i'm going to be there want to see goals like we i mean maybe some of that but like we we need that and you could say well that's not going to feel great if then they're all shagged out and they drop points in the next game at everton or whatever anyway but clive what do you think of of approaching this week because to me rotating the hell out of it makes a lot of sense until you have another accident and suddenly you've got broken cannons on back pages you know what i mean yeah yeah i think

1:35:20Elliot:um yeah we just need to deal with the next couple of games and keep people healthy and get people back to to fitness because although they're on the pitch they can't last right so um they're struggling and and ben why i don't know how he's done what he's done seriously what's how's he do that just comes back in and maybe tries even too hard you know so on occasions to try to make an impact and so um so yeah incredible so just keep people ticking over and hopefully win the next couple you know if we don't win in bruise not the end of the world um hopefully we win but if we don't as long as we don't lose that's really important and then um but then obviously wolves need to get back on the run again and we do have a set of home fixes that we can really do well with and as you will see at the weekend earlier at home we're quite good and the atmosphere is really good and teams they're too lucky to get neil out of there you know so um so yeah it's it's a problem it's it's a it's it's a small problem should i say it's a small problem something that's bothering me a little bit is uh as we've been crowned the world champions people are playing us hey whoa chelsea just sent you a cease and desist they are world yeah as we've crown of Premier League champions and European Cup winners and double um people are tuning turning up and they're playing us like that so the last three away games this is their major day this is it was Chelsea it was Chelsea's cup final look what's happened to them since right yeah and Villa you know they they want it they want it with us so this comes back to my circumspection at the start of games particularly away games we have to be a bit more simplistic a little bit more combative, a little bit more direct, to really make sure that we don't sort of fall away.

1:37:18Elliot:We've drawn those three away games. Well, sorry, we've drawn two and lost one. We were heading towards a draw. To win, we need to be more efficient in the top end of the pitch, really make those moments matter. If we are going to say we're going to empty midfield and have Declan Rice go and press the ball, which led to our goal, which could have led to other goals, if we do that we've got to score do you see what i mean we've got to score otherwise why are we doing it do you see what i mean we've got to score we've got to make it count and the gamble didn't quite work and but like i say i cannot say we're playing bad i just need to keep working at this we've had a really tough schedule but also from a timing point of view we seem to play all the teams in their best form like sundown top of the you know four obviously chelsea were really flying after Barcelona and obviously Aston Villa, who hadn't really beaten much in their run, but given me enough.

1:38:12Elliot:And they had the game plan, which I don't think we read, to really give us a bloody nose, right? So, strangely enough, Bruges, let's go and perform. Wolves, I expect us to perform, but my eyes are on Everton already because we can't get to a situation on our fourth away game in the league in a row that we don't get a win. you know so my eyes are on that game they're playing great particular they're in great form and they've had a great form every single team we play is in the top four when we play them it's like the weirdest thing and they're look and they're looking forward for arsenal yeah because we've been crowned right so and so again someone said this to me they said it's really strange it's almost like we're the defending champions because the defending champions are all over the front and back pages right and they're all over the place right so um whereas we're the team so it's like your plan but we haven't got the medals yet does that mean we haven't got anything and it's really strange the position that we've been placed in by the media reaction to us to our efficiencies and to our structure and to the things that we've done so well we now have to play like we're carrying the weight of winners and we haven't won so we need to be more combative, get after these teams a lot more and make sure we're more efficient top end of the pitch.

1:39:29We have a full week rest before Everton. So it's a chance to get fit. They go to Chelsea a week before they play us, so maybe they get the shit kicked out of them. We hope for the best. But for this week, yes, there's going to be some rest and rotation needed, but I think there is a return to... We need this to feel very much in the rearview mirror by the time we get through Wolves. feel like we're back on track and by the way City go to Palace next weekend and like everything could feel flipped again I just think there's going to be a lot of that dynamic in this title race and we have to have the bottle for it just take a look at the table for a second that will remind you if I offered you to be at the top of the table or somewhere else you'd say top so we'll take it there's a lot of things to figure out this was not an Arsenal game look some boxers clutch and they hold and they work the ropes and they sneak in a body blow and you may not like watching them, but they can win a lot of boxing matches.

1:40:24And that's who we are. We stood at the center of the ring and just traded punches. And that that's never going to work for us. We have to stop doing that. So we'll see how that turns out. This has been a marathon, but you know, it's always said there's more to diagnose when it's going wrong. I have a friend who's a, who's a surgeon. We were talking the other day and he's like, look, I like the podcast more when there's problems because there's more to diagnose. He's like, as a doctor, you hope to see a patient and just go, you're doing great. You're really healthy. See you next time but the doctor appointments that go longer when there are other things you got to dig into so this is a bit of a diagnosis session but hopefully not many more of these needed paul thank you very much woohoo thanks lab thank you very much as a content note i fly out tonight uh so i'll be over there there'll still be all our usual stuff uh instant reactions and all that hopefully some fun travelog stuff that we'll put out over on the patreon and then um we'll we'll keep content flowing just got to figure out what we want to put out what makes sense to put out as the week goes on, but we won't leave you to stew in the Villa Lost by yourself.

1:41:24There'll be stuff to consume and hopefully a fun win on Wednesday. Okay, we'll leave it there. We love you, and we will talk to you after Arsenal 10. Bruce Newell.

1:41:49Thank you.