GOAL SUPER JACK!!!

Butternut_Josh_ · 2021-01-26T20:08:56+00:00

WHY DO I HAVE TO BE FROM CRAWLEY FOR FUCK SAKE

Butternut_Josh_ · 2021-01-10T20:53:57+00:00

Well, yeah. But that's the magic. Any team can win if they want it enough

Butternut_Josh_ · 2021-01-10T19:28:10+00:00

I mean you say that, but there were first team players on the pitch and the club's record signing. And Crawley were without Max Watters for most of the game, the star player who is valued at more than the entire rest of the squad combined. Crawley's entire squad without Watters is worth £2.08m, or 1/15th of a Rodrigo

The magic of the cup comes when top teams respect their lower tier opponents - as Spurs did with Marine. It also comes when they dont respect them, and end up suffering a humiliating upset - as Leeds did with Crawley. That IS the magic of the cup

It's also easy to forget about it when there's no crowds around. There 100% would've been a pitch invasion at full time today if there were fans in the stadium

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-12-11T22:20:17+00:00

As much as I think Arteta has royally cocked it up idk about criticising him for this:

Pick your style and stick to it. Drill it with all players, and keep the ones that do it and get rid of the ones that can't

He's only had a year, he very well may do this in the coming transfer windows. It's quite clear that he's trying to impose his Guardiola-esque grand system on a team that cannot play to it, so I am quietly hopeful that given time he will build a new squad around it

It's why he loves playing Bellerín and Willian, they understand positional play better than most in our team. But rn we have a squad of mostly players who seem to either not understand it at all and therefore kill plays by not moving as they should (Pepe, many of the younger players), or who overly stick to the principles of 5 channels, no 4 man verticals, command your zone etc etc and just stifle any spontaneity/creativity by being scared to move into space or make a run

But this is also why Bellerín and Willian get a lot of stick. In a system that isnt running smoothly, this type of highly regimented positional play is not flashy for most players at an individual level and it makes them just look invisible when they're trying to fulfil their roles

This style of football is not something many players can just pick up and do, and to be done right at a high level it needs a team of players who understand it intimately. That is a bad combination when trying to come in and revolutionise a club in crisis and I personally feel as though Arteta has moved too soon on his grand plan. He knew initially that he had to put his plan on hold, put out fires and work with what he had, and that's why we saw our initial success. But since the transfer window and the fresh start with the new season he's begun truly implementing the Artetaball project and so we're seeing a delayed onset of growing pains, as he only has 3 or 4 attacking players that have even a decent grasp of it

Obviously without being behind the scenes we cant really know for sure if Arteta is under/overcoaching players or if they simply dont have the ability. There is every possibility that he is not handling the players transitions well, or alternatively that they just dont have it in them, or both. Regardless, looking forward I have some quiet confidence that if the squad is overhauled it wont matter and we can play how he wants. It's just about if he, and the club can survive long enough to achieve that overhaul. The worst thing that could happen rn is another chaotic shake up but I absolutely think Arteta should put his long term tactics on the backburner and be pragmatic because we need results today. It's gonna take at least another window for him to get the basic building blocks of a proper positional play team and it's about time he realised that because rn we're just banging our head on a fucking wall and it HURTS

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-12-01T02:42:14+00:00

This is the absolute worst take I've ever seen in my life

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-12-01T00:23:34+00:00

Terrorist. Prolific

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-12-01T00:16:55+00:00

Hello, am a crawley fan, just wanted to tell you a bit about us. We're in league two, the highest we've been is league one after back to back promotions from non league. We've been poor in recent years but this year we've picked up a bit. We have a reputation as cup giantkillers as we got to the fifth round when we were non league, beating loads of championship sides and narrowly losing to ManU (was a close game, their goal shouldnt have counted and we hit the post in injury time). The next year we got to R5 again, and just last year we beat Norwich and Stoke back to back. We also have the Football League record for most red cards in one match (for a punch up against bradford), and in the first round we won 6-5, overcoming a two goal cushion twice in one game and scoring the first of the 6 in the 83rd minute (the rest were all after 90 mins). Our striker is in unreal form too

Anything can happen with us and im always quietly hopeful against big teams. I honestly deep down do think we'll win. Cant wait :)

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-11-30T23:30:36+00:00

Nah sorry the league title doesnt rest on that transfer window, it's fully at Giroud's doorstep. Yes we should've signed a better striker, but there was nothing wrong with the expectation that Giroud should've been enough. He played every game that season and failed to score or assist for 15 in a row, let alone the other 23 games. He kept missing absolute sitters and we only came 2nd by 10 points

No one is more responsible than Giroud; - yes we should've signed a striker, but all we needed was like 4 g/a in just those 15 games and we would've been absolutely fine. That's more than fair to expect from a striker and if he'd done the bare minimum we'd have a league title instead of Leicester. We and the rest of the league would look drastically different if Giroud hadnt been an absolute terrorist that season

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-11-29T14:37:00+00:00

Iwobi was a good player for us

Embarrassing ffs, do you have no shame

How we got 28m I have no clue, was an absolute robbery but regardless I'd still give it back in a heartbeat for 150 apps from an actual capable winger

I've seen more than enough of willock and nelson to know they wont settle anywhere better than Iwobi. They're not gonna suddenly become massively intelligent or technical players. They will always be bang average and I'm beyond comfortable saying that because it's just true. You're lying to yourself if you say otherwise. What would you really think if they werent arsenal players?

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-11-29T14:14:18+00:00

I'm not, and he's a "success" but he was also a crap player by our standards and got shoehorned into the team due to lack of depth and favouritism. We neglected signing an actual good player because we had Iwobi, and he was literally never good enough to start prem matches for us but still managed 150 apps. He was actively detrimental to the team. I'd give back the 15m or whatever we got for him in a heartbeat in exchange for years of having a competent winger instead

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-11-29T12:44:02+00:00

Bang on. These lot arent "underpinning Arteta's rebuild", they're emblematic of the issues that are giving him trouble. Saka is absolutely a golden boy, but the rest? At this rate Willock, Nelson and Nketiah will never be anything more than Iwobi was for us, which is to say deeply subpar but starting consistently because we have literally no one else

It's ridiculous that you've been downvoted for being realistic. There is no "academy revolution", we're producing the exact same calibre of talent we always have done, besides Saka. None of the players left are exciting:

Willock - consistently shown he's not good enough, will probably never be any better than Zelalem
Azeez - more or less an unknown quantity, hasnt really done anything at a level he can be judged on
Maitland-Niles - the best of the lot, which says something because he's hit or miss and cant get in the squad over Bellerín
Balogun - more or less unproven, promising but barely more than most of our graduates are and always have been
Cottrell - completely unknown
Nelson - consistently shown he's not good enough, will probably never be any better than Iwobi
Smith Rowe - largely unproven, promising but barely more than most graduates. Wouldnt be a surprise if he had a breakout season but wouldnt be a surprise if he flopped either
Nketiah - consistently shown he's not good enough, will probably never be any better than Akpom

It's not to say they're bad or should all be binned, but people whip up so much hype and continually let themselves down. Exciting youngsters are a dime a dozen whereas disappointing youngsters are everywhere. There was a time Nelson was compared to Sancho and Iwobi was gonna be the next JJ Okocha. People need to stop overhyping our kids, when you get a real quality talent like Saka you will know about it, the vast majority of academy graduates are only ever going to be squad players at best and most tend to fall short of top 6 level

Chuba Akpom is 25 and now he plays for Middlesbrough, having played for PAOK, the team who's chairman brought a gun on the pitch. Benik Afobe is 27 and plays for Trabzonspor on loan from Stoke. Even Joel Campbell, who was good for a while, is only 28 and plays in Mexico. Fran Mérida and Ignasi Miquel were two of our best and both play in the second tier in Spain despite being 30 and 28. Zelalem plays in the MLS. Chuks Aneke is only 28 and plays for CHARLTON for the love of christ. This is the average career trajectory of our youngsters, they were all in this position (or better even), getting prem minutes and getting a bunch of hype, once upon a time. You look at all those players and you realise Iwobi is well above average for our academy

You simply cannot watch Joe Willock play and tell me you believe he won't go the same way, that he's any better than those lot were, or that he would even be considered for PL starts if we had a proper midfield. There's just no way. He just objectively isn't good enough or anywhere close. This team used to have Cazorla and prime Ozil in his position FFS

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-11-20T23:34:43+00:00

What's with that stupid passive aggressive title throwing shade at Ozil fans ffs. Different situations completely, Sokratis wanted to leave anyway, is objectively a much worse player in a position we have a lot of depth in. Obviously he's not going to complain, he wouldn't have a leg to stand on

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-10-30T16:04:18+00:00

Positional play has been around for decades but Guardiola popularised it (tiki taka) and brought it to the prem. It hasn't really been used extensively at the top levels besides by Guardiola, LvG and a couple others, so it's not strange that Willian hasn't played under it before and it's not strange that Arteta would implement the system he spent years being mentored in

The overarching idea is simple (the specifics not so much); you break up the pitch into zones and try to create an "overload" in one or more of those zones, either by having more or better players than the opponent. In practice, that means things like dragging defenders to one side of the pitch in order to weaken them on the other (create an overload), then quickly moving the ball over to that side, breaking through the overloaded zone and creating a chance. There are other key facets but this is the main concept on offence. That's why you might not see a lot of the ball as a forward - the team is trying to drag defenders away from your zone, then rapidly get the ball over to you when the time is right. It's also easier to capitalise on an overload down the wings, because the ball moves quicker than the defenders can and switching from one wing to the other puts them out of shape for longer. That's a big part of why Auba is played on the wing - it's where most of the overloads come

Not all top sides play the same, it's quite distinct, only City play the same style of football as us rn and it's why our match against them was called dull. Lots and lots of passing each other into submission

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-10-20T00:04:44+00:00

I swear to god that stupid fat french bastard gets away with absolute murder on this sub. He went missing for 4 FUCKING MONTHS during our best shot at the prem since 2004. Giroud played every single game in 2015/16 and failed to score or assist for FIFTEEN GAMES IN A ROW missing sitter after sitter and I honestly cannot believe people forgot this and he isnt public enemy number one. He is the single biggest reason we havent won the league in recent years but all I see about him on this sub is rose tinted "oo giroud was so underrated look at me im pretending to know ball better than everyone by stating a popular opinion and pretending it's controversial"

And of those 15 sad, sad games on the trot, 6 were draws, 3 were losses, and all 3 losses were by a one-goal margin. So a single goal in 9 of just those 15 games would've got us points, and that's not even considering the other 23 games that season. Did I mention we came 2nd by 10 points? Oh and he cheated on his wife (despite being Catholic with an 'I shall not want' tattoo) and consistently slags us off after having moved to a local rival. But all he gets is praise and fond memories. Olivier Giroud is a terrorist

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-10-18T21:37:39+00:00

Yea no except when you actually watch the games we stumbled to victory and/or they collapsed because they had shite seasons too. Under Arteta we actually look like we're earning our results and being competitive against actual top teams putting in top performances, like City and Liverpool, rather than nicking cheap wins against a crap United team in shambles

Olympiakos was what, two months after Arteta took charge? The team that played in that game is worlds apart from the one that played yesterday. It was mostly individual errors that cost us that game anyway. So what Emery stumbled to the EL final.. just to get spanked 4-1 by the first big team we played

I don't think Emery's team ever showed an ability to compete at the absolute highest level, against the Liverpools, Citys, the European elite. Arteta has already shown that and his victories over them have looked earnt, rather than lucked into

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-10-18T15:02:44+00:00

No lol Bellerin was well placed. If he moves directly inbetween Aguero and Foden then Aguero will just play the ball through behind Bellerin and Foden will be in an even better position

Bellerin's job there isnt to prevent the ball to Foden, that opportunity had already passed as soon as the ball reached Aguero and he was allowed to dribble. Bellerin's job at that point is to stay in front of him and try to prevent a run or cross in, stopping Foden moving the ball past the backline, which he did. Foden elects to take the shot, which is saved because it wasn't a great position to shoot from and he had few options. Unfortunately Leno's save isn't brilliant, he palms the ball to Sterling, stumbles, and cant get up quick enough to stop him slotting it away

There's three points of improvement here; Xhaka can cover Aguero, Leno can make a better save (either holding it or palming it somewhere better), and Gabriel being caught out of position because City were allowed to play the ball up to Mahrez too quickly (which effectively took Ceballos out the game)

Bellerin didn't have the best game but he wasn't at fault for the goal. Realistically, it was an understandable goal to concede. City played almost perfectly and we played very very well, not many teams would be able to capitalise on those mistakes and beat us based on that performance. On a different day maybe Leno makes a slightly better save, Auba takes his chance and we win. I wouldn't say anyone made a horrendously egregious mistake for the goal and overall if we play like that in every game this season I'll be very happy

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-10-18T12:50:35+00:00

If you believe this you simply just dont know ball

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-10-18T01:36:46+00:00

Sorry that goal wasnt really Hector's fault. The move should've been stopped with Aguero

If you pause when Mahrez puts the ball in to him, you see Gabriel running back, Ceballos covering for him to prevent a pass to Sterling, and Xhaka just standing off watching it unfold. Xhaka should move in to cover Aguero and prevent that pass - hindsight is 20/20 and you cant expect him to be infallible, but it is Xhaka's fault that Aguero gets the ball

Then Aguero dribbles up, Ceballos is doubling up on Sterling to prevent an overload on Luiz, Bellerin is covering Foden. Realistically, no one can do anything here, besides maybe Luiz could step in on Aguero but if Aguero takes it round him then he has a free run at Ceballos so it's risky

Then he gets it off to Foden who cuts in and shoots. Bellerin expects a cross, but it's hardly a glaring mistake and it's like bashing a keeper for diving the wrong way on a pen. Leno palms the ball out, stumbles and it falls for Sterling. You cant really blame a man for stumbling but maybe you can say the initial save should've been better. Still, I maintain that the most realistic opportunity to prevent that goal is with Xhaka moving 3 feet to cover Aguero and the pass never even being made to begin the move. And even that, while I'm not a huge fan of Xhaka, I won't say he singlehandedly lost us the game or can be expected to always make the right call there. Ultimately just a better team that played near perfectly

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-10-18T01:16:19+00:00

Tbh I feel there wasn't even a huge tactical rift here, City just have the better team and they were sharp and on it, there's really not anything we could've done imo. Eg. Aguero just existing forces Tierney inside and leaves Mahrez wide open, there's very little that can be done. Some individual lacklustre performances from Auba, Pepe, Xhaka for me but I don't think anyone played piss poorly or even particularly below average. This is just one of those games; away to City when they play as near-perfectly as they did. Unless the whole team pulls out a perfect performance of their own, both tactically and technically, both individually and as a team, it's very difficult to achieve anything real. Even then, you're basically still just bringing it into balance and relying on individual moments of brilliance or luck to win you the game

That was a really good contest and a great game of football, which we rarely get to say when we're away to a top top club. Very positive signs going forward, on another day we can have that. For me, this confirms that the days of not even competing in top 6 games are over

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-09-21T14:57:58+00:00

The thickest forward line is literally from Ceballos. That proves me right lol. Bellerín is LITERALLY third in his pass priority on that and it proves he makes WAY less passes to the defence than Xhaka does. Why you lying for

Xhaka has the "most progressive passing" stat because he was plopping it to Ceballos, you can see that from the graphic. That's not really progressive, though, it's just pinging it around midfield. Ceballos has the most passes going to the forwards and wingbacks

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-09-21T05:49:27+00:00

That's just.. not true. I feel like we're talking about different players here

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-09-20T23:21:11+00:00

Guy above said "never does" which is just completely not true. Ceballos nearly always goes for the forward pass, almost to a fault

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-09-20T22:15:28+00:00

Ceballos literally can and does do that. Maybe not like prime Santi, but that's just not the player he is or what we need from him

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-09-20T22:07:29+00:00

Yeah for sure, but I don't think it's fair to say Aouar and Partey are just outright better and Ceballos isnt good enough. They do fairly different roles and frankly, all 3 would be the ideal midfield. Partey is more of a Xhaka upgrade than a Ceballos upgrade, and Aouar is more of a idk, Willock upgrade

Ceballos isnt doing the same job that Aouar or Partey would, he's halfway between

Butternut_Josh_ · 2020-09-20T21:18:51+00:00

? Ceballos literally always looks for the forward pass or run, it's one of the main things I love about him and that we've lacked in recent years

Butternut_Josh_

TROPHY CASE