Adapting

Morning.

A quick Saturday round-up for you, ahead of tomorrow’s game against Man City. Mikel Arteta did a sit down with the Premier League’s media team rather than a pre-game press conference, and I thought this bit was kinda interesting. Asked about the schedule, with the trip to the Et115had coming after away games in the North London derby and Atalanta, he said:

We’ve been preparing for this since pre-season. Obviously, we knew the schedule and we knew that it’s extremely rare to play in these conditions with three massive away games in six days, but it was what it was so we have prepared for that, both physically, mentally and tactically. We’re making sure that everyone is ready for it, because we’re going to need them, especially with the injuries that we had from the international break.

Sometimes I wonder about team selections, I wonder about the demands we put on certain players, but I also understand that what we think about this stuff is a very external view of the reality. There is so much information we don’t have, and all of that factors into the manager’s decisions. I’m sure their preparations for this week, starting as they did back in July/early August, didn’t have an injury to Martin Odegaard, or the midfield signing we pursued all summer, but this is where we have to adapt.

I’m guessing, but my suspicion is that the plan – all things going well, of course – was that Arsenal’s midfield would take the shape of a Rice, Odegaard, Merino trio and develop over the course of the season. Unfortunately, it’s going to be some time before we see that in action, and a bit more again before they become properly comfortable with each other. It can take a bit of time to develop on-pitch relationships as we know. That said, Merino’s age and experience should make him a quick study, and we’ve got that as something to look forward as the season goes on.

I’ve seen some chatter about last season’s game there, accusations that we didn’t show enough ambition to go and win the game, and that was why we didn’t win the title. I’ve always found this a somewhat fatuous argument. Sure, we didn’t cause them as many problems from an attacking perspective as we would have liked, but I don’t think the plan was to go there and just play for a draw.

Sometimes it just goes a different way from your pre-game preparations and, as we will have to do with our team tomorrow because of injuries, you have to adapt. That’s what we did last season. We couldn’t get an attacking foothold, so we made sure we didn’t lose. When you consider our record there in the previous five seasons (Played 5, won 0, conceded 16 goals, scored 2), that seemed eminently sensible to me. It was, to my mind at least, a sign of this team’s progression and maturity, far more than any lack of ambition.

If we’d opened up, taken risks, and fallen victim to City’s incredible depth and quality because we made it easier for them, we’d have heard all the stuff about how Arsenal just haven’t learned and blah blah fuckitybollox blah. Even typing that I heard it in Gary Neville’s voice and it made me cross. We took 4 points from our two games against City last season. It wasn’t those fixtures that cost us the title, it was the other ones I don’t need to mention that made the difference in the end.

Which is to say that while I’d love a win there, because it’s so overdue and it would be great to get some payback on previous painful experiences there, if we have to dig in and take a point, I’d be absolutely fine with that. Anyway, more on that game tomorrow. For some extra reading today, here’s Barney Ronay in The Guardian on the Man City case.

Stand by for a preview podcast over on Patreon a bit later on, for now, enjoy your Saturday.

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