DJBOB

City and Villa to the finals…we win our end but coefficient FC have bottled it so much that City have to win as Villa have dropped to 5th. 
 
94’ City tied with PSG, KDB crosses and at the back post, Grealish! 

Get sick, celebrate  

Bookmark this. 

Just now, ben1505 said:

Thus

If you still don't think we're going to have to win in Athens to secure the 5th spot, whoever it ends up to, you haven't been paying attention to the plot.

34 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

The US did eventually step in against Milosevic though. There's still hope.

I'm not saying that the US should defend Ukraine like they did Israel (though it would likely save tonnes more lives than what Iran's barrage would kill), I'm saying that they should get some of the thousands of tanks\ifv's\apc\airframes and other military kit going to Ukraine even if it is lend lease or via loans. It just makes the US look silly when they have 400 bradleys and 200 abrams mk1 rusting to hell in a desert while Ukraine have shown extremely capable with both. The US is turning a blind eye to their traditional enemy commiting genocide, kidnap, torture and extreme breaches of rules of war when they could even turn a profit on just helping Ukraine with 80-90's kit they don't use. It's sad as hell. It's even more sad that the US public have let itself slip to a place where they believe in the disinformation Russia is spreading via the MAGA-crew.

I agree, both on supplying Ukraine and the effectiveness of Russian spies in the MAGA crew. 
 
The irony, for all the talk on immigration, is that the red scare has swept over the GOP and is doing Russia’s bidding to the detriment of the US and NATO. 

4 minutes ago, Mazrim said:

I'd keep him as well. He, like Rogers, can play positions Ramsey probably can't, like CF. Gives us plenty of options.

Watkins, Duran, Zaniolo, Buendia, Rogers, Ramsey, Youri, McGinn, Bailey and Diaby all competing for the front 4 positions, with a few of them covering for the double pivots too.

There is a lot sense in holding onto multi-positional players. This is what Pep does so that they can be flexible despite injuries and form. Morgan has already played 2 positions and have no doubt he can play RM too depending on who the RB is. SJM has played every position except GK. Buendia can play everything but Ollie's position and the pivot. Youri has played 3 positions. Diaby in 3 positions as well as Bailey. JJ can play left or right.

I'm not sure Zaniolo will stay for personal reasons - but his multi-positional ability is something we'll probably try to replicate in the summer if  he goes.

The US has had a long history of picking and choosing which battles to fight. Not usually for the "right" reasons but for other geopolitical aims. There are far reaching consequences of Israel/Iran getting into a deadly and most likely nuclear conflict - one that the Biden admin and I'm sure other admins, have weighed into their calculus when deciding to defend from the Iran missile barrage. That other ME countries decided to participate in the defense, in one way or another, is indicative of the potential firestorm should Israel and Iran finally go after each other.

The US did not exercise their aerial defense capabilities to the same extent in the Arab Spring, the Syrian Civil War, the still ongoing Yemeni conflict, and danced around the Balkan massacres in the 90s. Between two Iraqi wars and one Afghanistan war, it has been repeatedly shown that any extended conflict is a bottomless pit of funds, death, and with little defined objective successes.

That they have thrown their resources at Israeli defenses vs Ukraine is more indicative of the risk calculation they are making. It is terrible for Ukraine that they are coming in 2nd to Israel because there will be eventual desperations (mass civilian casualties, dirty bombs/nuclear threats, mass famine and genocide) as either Ukraine loses ground or Russia tires out. This paradigm is being played out in Europe as many countries are increasing their military presence to levels unseen in 30-40 years since the Balkan conflicts.

This idea that the US can defend Israel, defend Ukraine, and somehow placate the sedition occurring domestically is a fantasy. The US is a weakening power, as all empires go, and is having to choose from it's already overextended reach and unfortunately Ukraine is coming second to Israel.

One of the few Twitter tacticos worth a follow and not a blow hard - points out that Arsenal's predictability and imbalance in pressing structure meant that they didn't change their pressing structure to push us towards our right where we are weaker in the build up. This is what United did in their 2nd half away match up to isolate the weaker Diego/Konsa/Dendoncker distribution connection. Konsa - in particular - is very hit or miss when it comes to his distribution.

So while it was still a great win against Arsenal, I would caution against extrapolating too much from our win against Arsenal in that "we can take it to anyone" or "they're just not trying hard enough if they were able to do it against Arsenal."

Arsenal, for as good as they are, have some specific weaknesses that Unai must have spent countless hours reviewing. They lack lots of pace in behind on the wings. They don't have an elite finisher. It says a lot that their top scorer is Saka from the wing. Zinchenko has been torn apart by Arsenal fans. They press in a very specific way. They play in a very similar way except against Pep.

So as good as we were, there are just some clubs we match up better against under Unai - Arsenal, and strangely enough City when we're near full strength. By contrast, we have won once under Unai against United and that had more to do with them still deploying the laziest forward combo in Ronaldo and Rashford. We have drawn once against Liverpool but they have generally had the better of us. Newcastle did the double over us this year. Brentford have given us a torrid time in each match no matter what strength we're at. Clubs with pace in behind and a willingness to sit back continue to give us a difficult time with a combination of our personnel and Unai's tactical style.

So don't be surprised for as elite as we were against Arsenal, that we are somehow confused on how to face Chelsea and Liverpool - teams with dangerous runners in behind and a willingness to play that way.

8 minutes ago, MWARLEY2 said:

Brilliant insight DJ BOB . Thankyou

I think some games have been planned for months in advance.  City at home was so perfectly executed. Yesterday felt the same .  I expect the Liverpool game will be the same when we use another set up . As much as he is humble he also wants desperately to beat the big managers/ previous clubs. 

 

I'm sure he has a game plan for Liverpool, but they are the type of the team that have the personnel to give us problems no matter how much Unai prepares. If they can deliver from deep (Trent or Mac Allister) and have pacey runners in behind (Salah/Diaz/Nunez) then they can punish the mid block and put us behind or launch quick attacks against us. Newcastle and United have very similar profiles.

So despite our dominance against City and Arsenal, we have 0 points from Newcastle/United/Liverpool this year in the league precisely because of the personnel and style of play they have.

Unai cooked Arsenal/Arteta precisely because he has a decade of experience at various levels. Arteta, for all of the dominance shown so far, does not vary his teams. Part of that is that most teams set up a certain way to stop Arsenal in a low block or they rely on their high pressure and counter-press schemes to force mistakes and pile on opponents. But all year - Arteta has only shown "respect" to Pep and to a much lesser extent Klopp - by not pressing too high and forming a formidable low/mid block.

Arteta showed little respect for us, deploying Jesus and Havertz, and as a result - slowly losing the midfield battle as we danced around Havertz. Had he deployed a more defensive minded Jorginho or Partey, perhaps Morgan wouldn't have been so free to run around as he did in the middle. It was also little respect to keep chasing and pressing high as we did - even though it was soon becoming obvious that we had figured out how to play around them. But he reacted too late and his players were on toast in the second half from running too hard in the first. 

Unai knew what Arteta would try to do and anticipated it the entire 90 minute timeline. Whereas Arteta showed us little respect and played as if we were a bottom half team instead of 4th in the league.

Three things with the comp video below with some of our passages of play.

• The first clip shows the commitment we had to this idea of dragging Arsenal as far up the pitch as possible. Look how wide Diego and Pau split, making it difficult to trap us to one half without covering a lot of ground. Emi acts as the 3rd CB in this scenario because Arsenal press with a 442. Since we're 3 vs 2 in the build up - Emi, Diego, and Pau always had a free man. This exercise is simple in execution but is crucial to why Arsenal started flagging in the second half. Arteta must "dominate" and as a result, he instructs the team to press high and run hard. From :06 to :28 - Trossard has to traverse the entire 18 yard box from end to end chasing the ball around while we execute a training ground exercise. It is dangerous - particularly that Tielemans ball to Diego must be spot on - but key to why Arsenal tired as we forced them to chase. Now - most teams don't chase us this far back. They do not want to get pulled apart. But Arsenal "must" as part of their philosophy and a reason why we started tipping them over in the second half
• Starting at 3:17 we do it again, split the CB's wide from outside the 18 - have the fullbacks sideline to sideline and then occupy the middle with three stacks of 2 - McGinn/Tielemans - Rogers/Moreno - Watkins/Bailey - all at varying levels so that they occupy different passing lines to get into. We get the switch through Tielemans and then Bailey does a clever lay off to leave Zinchenko in the dust. Unfortunately, I've got no confidence in Konsa finishing off the move but still great execution
• And when the press was on or from a goal kick, freeze frame at 2:30 - we toyed with this idea away at City as practice but to evade the pressure - we used Zaniolo/Watkins and to a lesser extent Bailey's hold up play direct. Leaving 3 along the line there prevents us from getting pinned back as we started doing from about January onwards. Unai trusted Zaniolo to win his duels against Ben White and Morgan was there for any knockdowns or second balls. Squint and you'll see yet another layer of Unai's tactical plans - that's essentially a 433 or a 4231 (a formation we have only played for about 20 minutes this year) that we were playing at times. So just when you think he's shown all his cards, he saved a special one for Arsenal and Arteta.

20 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

Yeah, I mean they are 2 points behind with 18 on the table. Man City on paper have the easiest run in, but there are some potential banana skins there. Wolves beat them last time out, and they only scraped a win 1-0 at Spurs. Arsenal (or Liverpool) would be mad to just give up now. Loads could still happen in this race.

City don't have nearly as easy of a run in as it looks.

4/6 are away and while City have still been excellent away, they have not been invincible. They have 3 losses away, have a 14 GD differential home and away and a +7 xGD home and away. On top of that, they play 3 of the top 5 teams in terms of being stronger at home vs away. Fulham, in particular, have an astounding +28 GD split home/away but Brighton (+16 GD) and Forest (+16 GD) have significant home/away splits as well. Their home matches (Wolves/West Ham) are both sides that can explicitly hurt City on the counter. Then they also have to play Spurs away, which is no easy match as well.

Would be nice if we could finally get a win over Liverpool at home to secure 4th and then play all the kids away at Palace on a sunny day to end the season.

The good thing about Diego is that he has so much experience that it doesn't matter that he played like James Collins last match, he ends up being Sergio Ramos the next one.

In one ear and out the other.

3 minutes ago, duke313 said:

He's basically a right winger, we need a more traditional RB/CB for that role.

Yeah and we have 2 players (Bailey and Diaby) who play best at RW as well as Zaniolo if he stays and then McGinn on occasion. On Bailey's form and Diaby's price, it doesn't make a lot of sense to then buy an attacking RB to occupy that sideline.

Frimpong is a good player but if we were to be involved in trying to get those Leverkeusen players, Palacios is the one I'd be most interested in as a number 6/8 CM.

Wishlist remains:

RB/CM/Forward that can play all 4 forward positions/LB

2 minutes ago, VillaJ100 said:

Is there any chance of us getting Frimpong?

Even if we could, he doesn't fit the current personnel well enough for me

4 hours ago, villa4europe said:

not sure if it was tielemans or we'd identified something with arsenal's defending but we seemed to aim near post for more or less every corner yesterday

probably the hardest and most frustrating delivery possible

Arsenal are both a tall side and Raya I think has the most cross claims in the league so we likely wanted to keep it away from Raya if at all possible and cause a scrum at the near post. 
 
In fairness, Pau did an excellent job coming across Gabriel at the near post that led to Bailey’s goal. 

Incredible angle. 
 
Shows how much work Ollie still had to do, but baited Raya to come closer when he paused near the top of the box as if to shoot. Credit to ESR for doing everything he could to put him off. Deflection aside, Ollie still meant to dink it past Raya - look how he leans back after the shot.
 
But also - questionable positioning by Raya? Comes out and gives Ollie a bevy of options if he wanted to. Plenty of room at the near post to slot it past him. Especially with ESR covering, don’t think there was any need to be far out as he was.

The away end - class  

Turns out, John can play in the double pivot when needed!

Is there a reason Arsenal fans don’t seem to like Bailey? The fan reaction videos are hilarious but seemed overly angry at Bailey when he scored. 

Between the two - 
 
On performance? City by far. Complete control of the match. Dominated a Pep team that will likely never be replicated. For the 90+ minutes, they had one meaningful 60 second spell but were otherwise second best in all departments.  
 
On importance? I suspect Arsenal. Arresting a flagging momentum. Huge boost on UCL likelihood. Unai exercises his demons by knocking off Arsenal’s title challenge. 
 
It’s easy to play well when everything is going well but took a lot of courage to put out the performance we did today under the gun. 

16 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

I was struggling to work out what the original trajectory was. On one angle it looked like it would have gone in anyway. The deflection did make it look particularly clinical though 

Think he went for a little dink instead of it being a chip. Might have squeezed it past Raya but good control to make the angle regardless.