g88ner wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 2:56 pm
augie wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:10 am
3. This is a biggie for me ......... arteta doesnt seem to want a youth progression - with the exception of the ozil situation (which has only happened post covid btw), everything arteta is doing is driving towards building a team around older players. This morning's papers are putting out the belief that the club are confident that willian will be signing for us at the transfer window (this has long been rumoured) - IF TRUE it would again go against any notion that we are going to build around young players, especially when you factor that we have a lot of young players that play in his position. For me willian is a player that on occasions can be unstoppable but has more average days than good days, and I would be absolutely against signing another old player and committing a big wedge to his back account.
Your third point is an interesting one. I think Martenelli was criminally underused (but I also read he might have been carrying a Knock after lockdown) but I don’t think you can accuse Arteta of being against youth progression.
Nketiah has played a lot of games (too many!) ahead of Lacazette.
Saka has played loads under Arteta at left midfield, right midfield and even centrally.
Ceballos is now a regular at centre midfield.
Tierney has played a lot at left back and centre back!
Willock must be the most used substitute under Arteta too.
I suppose maintland-Niles doesn’t play much but many on here wanted him out of the team under Emery so it’s not like he’s pulling up trees.
Then there’s Guendouzi who has been frozen out for non-Football reasons along with Ozil. It’s shit but I doubt it’s all Arteta’s fault?
Everything is about perception I know that, but I have a slightly different view -
1. Mustafi and kolasniac ahead of holding and sokratis makes zero sense to me - people can point to holding's performance v villa as a justification for it, but the reality is that players rarely come into a team seamlessly if they hadnt been playing for a while, and holding has been out of the time for a while. I will also add that, if we are to judge a player based on only 1 or 2 games, then neither mustafi nor kolasniac would ever be seen again.
2. xhaka ahead of torreira and guendouzi is another shocker for me. Again people can point to guendouzi's off pitch issues as a reason to freeze him out, but prior to the covid lockdown guendouzi had started in only 2 of the 11 league games played under arteta, so he already knew that arteta didnt rate him. Torreira was injured for a while I know, but there is no way in the world any right minded person would start a fit xhaka ahead of a fit torreira, and yet that is what we are seeing all the time
3. I am a fan of sokratis but there can be no defense of starting him right back ahead of maitland niles, and yet it happened on a few occasions. It is only recently that amn has got back into the thoughts of the manager and that never pleased me. I know a lof of Gooners dont rate/like AMN (I am not one of them) but playing sokratis at right back ahead of him is taking the absolute piss
4. I am one of those that believe martinelli's subsequent injury has been a convenient deflection/excuse for why arteta didnt use him against brighton or citeeh - IF he was carrying a knock then why put him on the bench ? If you say that you need him there to risk him if we desperately need a goal, then I will say to you that we desperately needed a goal against brighton and he didnt use him
His non use of martinelli in those games (especially against brighton) was disgraceful imo