I kind of covered off my views on the squad Arteta took out to PSV yesterday, so I’ll just mostly bust some myths this afternoon because there’s a section of the fanbase that will happily double down on how Arteta manages his squads, then act shocked when our players crash later in the season.
That game meant nothing.
It was deader than dead. No one could move up or down in the group. It wasn’t even a friendly that had purpose. We earned the privilege of leaving players at home and didn’t take it.
‘Match sharpness needed’
We’ve played 25 games so far this season if you count the Charity Shield. Anyone who works in elite-level fitness in football will tell you it generally takes about 10 games to get to peak fitness. Our squad is match-sharp. We’re top three in the Premier League and we just topped our Champions League group. You do not lose match sharpness in 8 days. 2 weeks? Maybe. But 8 days, it’s not happening. Arteta did not take everyone as a sharpness excercise.
You also don’t chase match sharpness in your busiest month. The job of performance teams during this period is to ensure players aren’t overcooked, especially in a season that has seen way more injuries than normal.
‘Every manager plays his best players’
Statistically, no one played with a more stable starting 11 than Arsenal last season. Manchester City had the second least stable starting 11 last season, and they won the treble.
As you can see from the graph above, City, United and Liverpool all sit short of 80%. The two clubs that sit above 85% stability were Arsenal, Villa, and Newcastle.
Villa and Newcastle didn’t have European football last season, and Arsenal flunked early in the cups and had the ability to go less than full-throttle in Europa League.
Those factors allowed Arsenal to make a run at the league… but even with the reduced load, we fell short the same way we did the season before.
Fatigue hit the squad hard, particularly after the final international break.
Injuries set in on key players and broke the squad.
The link between fatigue and injuries is very clear. The link between stress injuries and player load management is even closer aligned (Saliba).
Even if you don’t believe in these absolute basics, what you might believe in is this: If the best team in the world rotates the most, plays more games, and wins more trophies than you… maybe you should think about player management as a bit more than a marginal gain.
So, let’s refocus on this season… what is different?
Champions League. Better teams, more important games, no rest. Arsenal has been three games a week since September PLUS three international breaks.
What has that resulted in?
We’ve seen Zinchenko out with injury.
We lost Martin Odegaard to a head injury but there were other problems.
We’ve lost Thomas Partey TWICE because of training ground injuries.
Emile Smith Rowe has been out (I mean, maybe we can let his injury pass).
Fabio Vieira is out.
Tomiyasu, a player who always breaks, was given an extended run in the side and we broke him again.
Ben White usually gets issues late in the season, he’s getting them early this year.
We lost Bukayo Saka for a period and we’ve seen him pulling up on the regular.
Martinelli was lost to a hamstring injury.
Trossard has had a hamstring tweak.
How many more soft tissue injuries do I have to list before you start to get the picture?
Arteta likes to train to extremely intense levels and he doesn’t believe top players should cave to the implications of pain.
That’s just how he is.
Fatigue is cumulative, getting on plains is not a plus for fatigue, we did not have to take the whole squad to PSV.
No one was injured, but these missed opportunities add up over the season, and they always bite you in the end.
So when you hear people minimizing the problems, know they are talking objective nonsense, and if they don’t believe you, show them the evidence we’ve seen three seasons running and compare the injury pile-up this season to our injury problems at the start of last season.
Arteta has a weakness, and it’s player load management.
As for the game, it was a bit of a yawn fest. I like their winger Bakayoko. He looked very tasty.
Arteta made 8 changes from the Villa game, my main pain point was risking our two best centre-backs when we’re suffering a shortage like we are right now. Such a silly risk for zero upside out of chest thumping and winnertivity. I’d have taken Kiwior and a donkey as a pairing over the two we chose.
There were some bright sparks. Eddie had a good game and scored a lovely goal. I also thought Reiss Nelson looked promising and troublesome most of the game.
I felt for Mo Elneny, the injury gods fired off some lightning, and they hit him. Part of coming back from a serious injury is the reality that your body breaks down along the way. Hopefully, his issue is minor. I did love his 35 yard strike, he loves those attempts.
The Mo injury led to Arteta bringing on Declan, Martin, Emile, Jesus, Sir Benny Blanco. It felt like Arteta reminding everyone who is boss. Totally pointless unless the goal was to make sure those players didn’t need to warm down after the game.
It was a shame that we didn’t get to see the young players get a runout. Arteta said PSV were too strong to risk fragile minds. He’ll know better than us on that one. Again, it was a dead game, I’m not sure much harm would have been done. If they can’t handle a PSV game, why are they even there? We put Nwaneri on against a much better team in Brentford, but whatever…
We escaped the battle. Blitzed our group. The broader question we’ll find out later is will Arteta’s methods have us win the war. Or will we be looking at Groundhog Day in March.
We shall see. Arteta went all or nothing on a nothing game. I hope he gets away with it.
Right, that’s me done, see you in the comments. x
