Via our pal Arsenalist, here are the manager’s thoughts on the 4-1 win over Hull City today.
He seems pretty happy, as you’d expect, but good to hear him express some concern about not putting the game to bed earlier.
https://youtu.be/EYlpHjQ0Vp4
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Friday, December 20, 2024
I saw Coq was more involved in the build up. I don’t know how I feel about it, good or bad?
Do what?
Good, he impressed me. To be honest, i think he is not as one dimensional as people would usually believe. It is just that he is so much stronger in defensive tasks, while he is surrounded with technically very proficient footballers. At the start of his rise he was a bit more involved in general buildup, he was passing long and forward, but later on he was clearly under instruction to keep it simple and pass it to Santi. I am glad to see that Wenger encourages him to have a more active role in attack, and I am sure… Read more »
Coquelin has always been a bit creative way from his youth team days. Not ozil level creative, but he’s not flamini.
Yes, he actually started his career as a winger, so he’s got it in him and i think Arsene is just encouraging him to express himself more on the ball rather than play as a pure ‘destroyer’, like he used to……he has done well so far in my books.
We went third? I didn’t see it.
Tough crowd!! 🙂
To be clear I am happy we have gone into third position in the Premier League.
I am sorry that people want to thumb that down.
2nd actually! …
To Wenger’s defence he may be right about playing Alexis as a striker. If Arsenal are to get a world class striker the only way atm is to develop one by themselves and Alexis is one of the few current “world class” players in the squad. He obviously needs games to adapt to the position and looks better every game (apart from the PSG game where everyone played badly). One must remember that he wasn’t playing to well on the wing last season and had his only good games from the right in the end of the season. He was… Read more »
The issue isn’t that Alexis is a bad central striker it’s that he’s a much better wide forward. By putting him in the middle you lose your best wide forward option. So even if you gain something marginal in the central forward position, what you lose out wide is greater than what you gain.
If we had another Alexis-level wide player I’d say go for it, play Alexis in the middle. But we don’t.
Xhaka’s got to get more playing time. Even before the wonder strike, his passing was so accurate and fast allowing us to play with a greater tempo.
Expect we will see the starting lineup evolve over the next few weeks.
Perez and Xhaka to start against Forest I’d wager.
Coquelin deserves to start if he keeps playing well.
We went to almost a 4-4-2 at the end. Ozil was pushed wide, Alexis and Lucas (or Walcott) up top. But Walcott/Lucas tend to be too short to influence in congestion. It worked when HUll opened up because at 1-2 they thought they could nick it. Still think Alexis is better wide (and Walcott. If you want to play either centrally pair them up with Giroud or at least try Lucas. I don’t think the gaffer should simply persist with Coquelin/Santi either. Granit is clearly an option with either player (or even with Elneny). Left side of our defense is… Read more »
He won’t “simply persist with Coquelin/Santi”.
He’s just easing Xhaka in slowly and not ‘dumping’ a player that had a good game.
Xhaka will be the 1st choice soon enough.