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*** OMT Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal FC ***

We do. They built up our finances so we can build a project without being beholden to CL qualification. If Arse could do it with lesser finances than us and no CL for 6 years, I'm pretty sure we can.
History suggests they won’t stick with it. It also suggests they won’t go out and spend £100 million on a transformative player (e.g. Rice).
 
I agree with the need to have Richy in the middle and Johnson seems the most effective from the right.

I'd have Son on the left still though. Even when he has a stinker like today, we're no worse off than with Werner out there. And often, Son doesn't have a stinker and scores.

He needs someone else to take the captaincy though. Give him the club captain role where he can do all the nice guy stuff. Make Romero or someone with a bit more fight in him the captain.

Agree completely with this. I think Ange has dropped the ball massively with the allocation of rolls in the front 3. It seems really simple for me. Richy has to play - he was flying post injury - and now we’re only seeing him in fits and starts.

Son is and will always be better than Werner on the left, mainly because he does actually score, whereas Werner doesn’t.

Johnson should never be seen on the left again. So fights with Kulu for the role on the right.

As soon as Werner was injured today, Richy should have been on and Son should have been moved back to the left.

We’re continually playing large parts of the games with 2 out of 3 players not in their best positions.

Also - I made a point to my mates pre game that Sarr had to start today - he’s the only one of our midfield that covers ground quickly when we lose possession - those breaks that led to the 2 corners and the Saka goal could have easily been stopped at source.
 
I despise conspiracy theories. However, I cannot avoid the seeming inevitability that there is something odd going on in the refereeing and VAR world. Every single week there are unexplainable decisions that affect key games. Every week. And every week the system that has been put in place to correct them, fails.

On a macro level, I can only surmise that giant, powerful and influential betting syndicates are at play.

On a micro level, I can only only assume that absolutely everyone (except us) is sick of City winning the league every year and wants to try to manufacture an alternative.

I know: it’s very weak and I’m embarrassed to even be thinking it. But I’m fresh out of ‘sane’ answers to explain what the PL has become. How else can the staggeringly low quality of decisions made by officials - as beautifully personified by Oliver yesterday - be explained? Surely it’s impossible to be that inept?

As an aside, the BBC match reports have all failed to mention Oliver’s performance yesterday. Although they have rightly mentioned our abysmal defending of set pieces, I’d like to think that - in the interests of objective journalism - they may at least manage a passing mention that he failed to spot one of the clearest penalties ever seen in the history of football, despite it occurring 3 yards in front of him, when he was looking directly at it… It’s time for clubs to call these clowns out. Could it drive people like him out of the game? Yes. Would that be a loss? No.
 
Why’d you quote me on that one?

I'm right behind ange, but this is on him.
To have two weeks off and still look like an under 8s team every time we defend a st piece and is not good enough.
It's been our biggest weakness for months, there has been plenty of time between games and it's not getting better.
That needs sorting, and quick.

Because you said the problem is we aren't scoring, when actually the problem is we cannot defend set pieces, and it's been going on too long for it not to have been a addressed.
 
History suggests they won’t stick with it. It also suggests they won’t go out and spend £100 million on a transformative player (e.g. Rice).
We don’t need to do that yet
That’s in another seasons time when the squad is properly set up
Then we may well do that
We may not of course
But the fee is IMO always irrelevant. It should never be about the fee and should always be about the right player
 
We do. They built up our finances so we can build a project without being beholden to CL qualification. If Arse could do it with lesser finances than us and no CL for 6 years, I'm pretty sure we can.

Wasn’t their stadium paid off by then? Different scenario to us who still have to pay ours off.

I think get CL qualification every year and you have a job for life at Spurs, even if you don’t win anything or challenge for anything.
 
Wasn’t their stadium paid off by then? Different scenario to us who still have to pay ours off.

I think get CL qualification every year and you have a job for life at Spurs, even if you don’t win anything or challenge for anything.
No
Their owner took on the debt direct and loaned the club the money to pay off the loan. But they owe much much much less than us on it if anything now. Our payments are also very low. The stadium financing is a risk but minor

Our killer is how much we owe now on transfers. It’s one of the highest in the league and that has to be factored into everything

What’s key is said building. It takes time

Pool built over 3 years before making the BIG buys that changed them. Arsenal 4 years.
City… well we know
We need to address depth and quality but you can’t do it all at once unless you do a Chelsea and then cause yourself other issues

What worries me is the lack of youth integration. We have an amazing youth team. As good as we have ever had yet we’re seeing Gil on the bench
 
Because you said the problem is we aren't scoring, when actually the problem is we cannot defend set pieces, and it's been going on too long for it not to have been a addressed.

I didn't say the problem is we aren't scoring. I said it's that we're not punishing teams when we're on top. Most of our goals come after we've conceded. It's also possible for more than 1 thing to be an issue. I completely agree on our set piece defending. Here are 3 posts from this very thread where I mentioned them.

Pre-match:

I really don’t enjoy these games. Far too stressful. Three things scare me today:

1. We let Odegaard run the show — I’d be happy to see PEH or Bentancur do a bit of a man-marking job on him
2. Defensive set pieces — hopefully they’ve worked on them in the last two weeks, but please avoid giving away corners where possible
3. Romero trying to prove a point to Jesus or Martinelli

Post-match:

You're not going to get any arguments from me there. Our set piece defending is woeful. I don't know what happened, because like you said it was so good at the beginning of the season.

The one thing I would say is Vicario is too naive. Why doesn't he go down for the 3rd goal??

And even in the post you quoted:

I could be wrong but I cannot believe Kulusevski didn't get a penalty. From there it got bad...terrible to be that exposed, and absolutely criminal from the corner. Truly pathetic that Havertz scored from that.
 
It has taken time, and it has taken a lot of back and forth, but the straw that broke the camels back finally came yesterday.

Now, many may think that it was the Kulu-pen not given or the Van de Ven-offsidegoal that was the straw? No, not alone.

But yesterday summarized both everything VAR was supposed to fix, but has not, _and_ the new issues it has created.

1. Not a level playing field: At one point in the game, the norwegian commentators claimed that Michael Oliver had been good, he had been "very close to every and all big situation where he had to make a call". True. He was close to the situations. But each and every one of them up untill the VAR penalty went Arsenals way.
In a thightly contested game like yesterday you would expect these to be more equally distributed. Not neccessarily 50/50, but closer. I can't remember a single one prior to the VAR penalty going against Arsenal.
So has VAR leveled the playing field? Nope. If anything, it has made it _easier_ for the ref to just take the route of least resistance.

2. The offside goal: One of the main arguments used about VAR was to remove the "endless discussion" about was it/was it not offside. As yesterday (and many many other days) show, we're _still_ discussing was it/was it not, _and_ we're discussing VAR itself. So we've not removed anything, we've just added yet another stupid distraction point.

3. Absurd situations: Arsenal are deadly on corner/free kicks. In about the 53th minute Vicario made a brilliant save, and the ball went out to a corner. In the situation leading up to the corner, the Arsenal-player may/may not have been equally much offside as VdV was. However, since Vicario saved, no VAR check. If Arsenal had scored on the resulting corner, we would have been better off if he had just let the ball go past him on the first attempt, for VAR to go back and remove it. Of course, no sane person would do that, but it just shows that VAR has leveled nothing, solved nothing.

4. The Kulu-pen: For as long as I can remember, the mantra about clipping heels by accident has been that it is the player crossing behind who is "responsible" for not causing the player in front to clip his heel. However, yesterday, it was more a "OH, but he didn't really mean it, and he _barely_ touched him. The ref clearly thought it was not enough." So a subjective decision made by the onfield ref, not overturned by VAR because it was not "big enough" an error. Arsenal scored on the breakaway instead. If that is not a "big enough" error, nothing ever is.

VAR has to die. In it's present form, it has got to die. Violently, and in flames. It has brought the game ZERO gain, but plenty pain.

I'm a tech guy. I love technological solutions to all problems, even those where you'd think tech had no right to even think about the problem.
But in this matter the tech is wrong.

Scrap it in its present form. Go back to the drawing board, bring back a new, improved, shiny VAR 2.5, where the tech is removed from the onfield ref. Give each team two or three challenges they can use in each game. If you challenge a decision on the pitch, the VAR steps in, and gives a verdict within 2 minutes. If it can't, the onfield decision stand. If the challenge is successful, the team keeps all three challenges. If it is unsuccessful, it "costs" you the challenge.

No more 8 minute waits for a decision, no more "delayed decision, since VAR will check it anyway." and no more armpit offsides.

I think the main problem is that the cost of developing VAR makes it more or less imperative that it is "visible" in the game. The system above would not be visible to the viewers, thus not create any publicity.
 
Totally agree. When Werner came off it was screaming for Rich and Son to the left. Arsenal are normally a lot more open and it might suit Son but they packed the box and that's when he's no good as the centre forward.

A proper DM and a clinical striker will change this team. I understand you could probably say that about any team...but with us it has the potential to propel us to a title challenge within 2/3 years.
I’m starting to think that a new keeper might be more transformative for us. We are giving away numerous chances and pretty much a goal a game due to Vicario being absolutely awful dealing with inswingers directly into the 6 yard box. It is impossible to win competitions when giving the opponent a cheap goal a game in this way.
 
I’m starting to think that a new keeper might be more transformative for us. We are giving away numerous chances and pretty much a goal a game due to Vicario being absolutely awful dealing with inswingers directly into the 6 yard box. It is impossible to win competitions when giving the opponent a cheap goal a game in this way.

It's probably partly a coaching issue.

I think it's also partly a squad buildup issue. We're a bit short and not a lot of our players are aggressive in how they deal with stuff in the air from set pieces. Think some of them can improve, but we're still a bit short even if they do.

Doubt we'll go for a new goalkeeper. Dominant in the box keepers are rare, finding one that's also good enough at all the other stuff is very difficult.

But I think it may impact our transfer activity elsewhere. A DM that's also fairly tall and a bit of a unit perhaps? A striker with real height and power?
 
I’m starting to think that a new keeper might be more transformative for us. We are giving away numerous chances and pretty much a goal a game due to Vicario being absolutely awful dealing with inswingers directly into the 6 yard box. It is impossible to win competitions when giving the opponent a cheap goal a game in this way.
I’m wondering about that too.

We certainly need someone to really challenge Vic next season - and we need to then be dropping him if he does not improve his game.

He’s undoubtedly a great shot-stopper, but teams have quickly seized on his weaknesses. We’re seeing why he’s not Italy’s first choice.
 
This is the point

Arsenal were in complete cruise control because of the same errors we've seen all season and no sign of a fix, they didn't need to come out and play.

Ange and his team have had 2 weeks to sort this mess out and they haven't even begun to look like they have addressed the issues.

How about putting a defender on the man marking Vacario? Or telling him to stop being weak and take command of the area.

His idea to beat Arsenal today was starting Hojberg and Davies V Saka.

Davies V Saka was always going to end the same way and Hojberg should never be the answer.

Play a youngster, o right.... he doesn't give them any minutes.

We are on course to concede more goals than last season, we could realistically beat our 38 season record.

No one expects all the issues to be fixed, but we've looked worse as the seasons gone on

This is with one game a week, it's only going to get tougher if we get into Europe
It might not get worse with us having added European games. It means the squad will need to be used more and young players will also have to get a chance away from the ultra high pressure spotlight of the PL.
 
I agree with the need to have Richy in the middle and Johnson seems the most effective from the right.

I'd have Son on the left still though. Even when he has a stinker like today, we're no worse off than with Werner out there. And often, Son doesn't have a stinker and scores.

He needs someone else to take the captaincy though. Give him the club captain role where he can do all the nice guy stuff. Make Romero or someone with a bit more fight in him the captain.
I’m not convinced that Romero’s English is good enough for that role. I agree though that we need a captain who will be in the ref’s ear a lot more. The whole team also need to be far more streetwise, Arsenal schooled us in that respect yesterday.
 
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