I'm ready for Mount to have a successful career here but his two performances so far have not been good.
Speaking of stats. Heard an interesting one about Havertz. Apparently last season he was was the second worst player in the whole of Premier League in terms of converting xG to G (568th out of 569) The worst? Eddie Nketiah.
They definitely weren't bad, and were promising in terms of what they showed is possible with him tactically. Out of possession, he was probably our best player in both those games.
His off the ball movement was okay in those two games, but he simply didnt receive the ball much. When Eriksen replaced him he was far more involved and fitted way better.
He's shit if you expect hero football from your midfielder
How does that work for United if I may ask?Sancho'd.
Yea, there are many players just within the Bundesliga who struggled after a big move and never regained the ability they had prior to the move. Werner doesn't start anymore for Leipzig after being their best player when he left, Kagawa struggled to start at Dortmund when he returned after United and similarly Sahin too didn't play with the same ability.
It’s a bit painful to watch, at times. It’s got to the point where I’m looking ahead to our first game against a newly promoted side (Oct 28th) in the hopes he can do a bit of flat-track bullying. I’ve never seen a player at Arsenal so in need of a goal.
Arteta should stick him up front. I don’t know why he hasn’t done this yet, even if it’s just a mid game position change. He knows the false 9 role. He’s pretty comfortable in it and he’ll get goals there. Not a huge amount but he was usually good for 8-11 goals per season playing there for us.
We won the Charity Shield with him up top. We also close out games with him there fairly often. It's weird how much better he is at keeping the ball when playing CF. Maybe it's because with his back to goal he can focus on shielding it and laying it off, so while difficult, a lot of the decision-making is eliminated. Unfortunately, his finishing has been way off and we've already got Jesus and Nketiah wasting chances as it is.
It's not, both sides wasted money a player from chelsea that is awkward to shoe horn into the first 11 and that money for both teams would have been better served going towards buying a world class striker
Arteta plays Havertz in the same position as Bosz, though? Even the team setup is very similar both to Leverkusen under Bosz and Chelsea under Tuchel (to a lesser extent). Possession oriented system, box midfield, agile striker that leavs spaces open for Havertz to ghost into.
I do not think it is just the mental strength. When you look at his values at understat - he was never in that world class category to begin with. The year he scored the 17 goals (14 without penalties) he was performing his xG with 5 or 6. Last season he was underperforming in the other directions. Sometimes you are lucky - some years you are not.
Didn't Brandt play in a deeper position with Havertz further forward? I don't remember Havertz playing as a CM but mostly as a furthest midfielder.
He just seems quite phlegmatic, like he's created a zone of comfort around his current struggles.
They played as two advanced midfielders before one or two CMs (Baumgartlinger and Aranguiz). Also found themselves on the wings quite a lot during build up. I think there are clear patterns for when he works best. He has an agile striker in front of him who makes many supporting ones ans drags out defensers (Volland, Werner) and CAM/CM partner besides him who is great at linking up and good at dribbling in tight spaces (Brandt, to a lesser extent Mount). On paper, he's got that at Arsenal now as well with Ödegaard and Gabriel Jesus. I think Arteta's plan is very good. Which doesn't mean it will work because as you say he seems shot of confidence. But on paper, Arsenal's idea with Havertz seems to be more thought through than United's with Mount.
You talk so much about mentality, you could be a Doppelpass pundit. Or Edin Terzic.
27 passes in the first half, only Jorginho and the defenders have more, but others in the team are very close (1 or 2 pass difference).
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He is actually a good penalty taker actually.
For sure, he’s good. He was our main pen taker after we sold Jorginho. It was just reference to him being treated like a make a wish kid charity case
I was thinking the same thing, "He's low on confidence" "This will kick start his Arsenal career".For sure, he’s good. He was our main pen taker after we sold Jorginho. It was just reference to him being treated like a make a wish kid charity case
I don’t think the tweet was about the quality of the penalty
For me it's the trust in Arteta. He hasn't really put a foot wrong in transfers and I don't think he'd spend so much in Kai if he didn't think he would fit into his vision. By the same token, he is due a blunder so maybe Havertz is it. At least Havertz's underwhelming start isn't costing us and we've started the season well. I have faith (or am delusional) that Arteta will figure it out.
Rooney
miss those daysGood thing is the team is so good that we seem to be getting favourable results playing with 10 men if you go by the opinions of many.
Even Pep, Sir Alex, etc. make mistakes with signings so I don't think its necessarily a terrible reflection on Arteta either way.
He has dropped him in a couple of games and started Vieira (against Everton and Spurs) and has said he should have scored by now (before Bournemouth game). So Arteta does want more from him and will drop him if required. Yeh everyone is baffled we signed him for that price.
Three. He was very good against Palace in the cup.
Havertz doesn't have the attributes to change anything. 4th season in England i struggle to give you any good on the ball attributes he has.
Interestingly, with his goal today - and that video above is both hilarious and savage - Havertz does have more EPL goals in the month of September than the entire Chelsea squad.
WTF... I didn't follow them closely, is it really that bad?
To be fair, I have the same number of EPL goals as Chelsea in September.
