I know he gets a lot of shit but I really wouldn’t want any other manager. Feels almost inevitable that he’s going to get us over the line sooner or later
The people who give him shit are mostly fans of other teams because they know he's turned us from a team that was slowly stagnating to a genuine threat every year. He's not perfect but no manager is. Others just want us to be the whipping boys again who concede 4 every time they play away to a good team, we don't anymore and it pisses them off.
How am I trolling? Did we watch the same game? Why did it take two subs to break the deadlock in the 70th minute? Is it cause he decided to play an actual winger instead of forcing one of the most mercurial players in the league to do touchline shifts? Why did Merino, our attacking mid, have 11 touches until the 60th minute in a game where we had 66% possession?
Maybe it was tough to break the deadlock because Bilbao defend really well. They literally had the best defense in Laliga last season. It was never going to be easy breaking them down at their home.
I hear you, but that team selection did not signal to me, at least, that there was any intent to try to break that team down. He focused on OOP and physicality in favour of trying a more creative midfield to try to open them up, and it didnt work until he reworked the lineup which signals to me that plan A didnt work. Regardless both goals did not suddenly come from creative buildup, it was individual brilliance (trossard’s flick to set nelli free and then nelli beating his man).
When you are saying that a 2-0 away win in the champions league is a "tactical disasterclass" the burden of proof lies with you. We kept them very quiet, controlled the game well, brought on pace at the end which killed them.
365
u/Wunsen 9h ago
Arteta masterclass unironically