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Good morning folks.
The dust is settling a little bit on the North London derby, and while frustration remains, I’m a little more sanguine about things today. Historically this has often been a fixture which that exists outside the realms of normal analysis, the sheer weight of the tension and expectation does strange things to teams and players.
I still think it’s a game we should have won. The Jesus chance, the Jorginho mistake, moments which could have gone marginally the other way (the shot a touch lower and Jorginho makes a pass) and we’d have been ok. But that’s true of many games, even Fulham – if Zinchenko makes a routine pass that he’s capable of, they don’t get a corner etc etc.
My main takeaway from this game is that while Gabriel Jesus is obviously a very accomplished player with lots of experience playing wide, as much as possible we should keep him at centre-forward. I don’t think it’s entirely coincidental that our best attacking performance of the season came with him there, although I will acknowledge that PSV were very open and we made the most of that. For me though, it’s a LOT from column A (Jesus up top), and a little from column B (PSV being a bit crap).
Hindsight is always 20/20, and on one level I can understand the decision to start Eddie Nketiah in the derby. He has played a lot this season, so he’s match fit in a game that requires real intensity. However, unless you can marry that fitness with a performance befitting of the game itself, it’s not that helpful. I’ve praised him for good performances and contributions this season, but this was a real stinker, and having watched it again, he was quite lucky that he only saw yellow for that late challenge on Guglielmo Vicario. If one of their players had gone in like that on our keeper, we’d have been screaming blue murder.
What Mikel Arteta can take away from this is information. You try something, it doesn’t really work, you think about what can do different…
Source link : https://arseblog.com/2023/09/its-time-for-the-jesus/
Author : arseblog
Publish date : 2023-09-26 06:44:38
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