"I know he's a good general, but is he lucky?"
Napoleon Bonaparte
We like to think that football at the highest level is about precision, motivation, tactical genius, and taking mayonnaise out of the canteen as a first port of call. I can’t deny that some of those things are really important, but when you get to the very top end of football, and there are a lot of very good managers with money doing those things… luck becomes a factor.
No one wants to hear that. But the same could be said of many things. TikTok will have you believe that the only way to become rich is to wake up at 4 a.m. every day, cut all joy from your life, reimagine 24 hours as 72 hours, and drink the blood of a goat… but when you speak to most successful people, the folk that don’t have TikTok accounts, they’ll tell you straight up that luck played a huge role in their success.
Arsene Wenger was not a lucky manager. He was a great, but moments of luck, in key moments, lightened his final trophy haul. Jurgen Klopp, for all his greatness, was not a lucky manager, with just one Premier League to his name. Imagine losing the Premier League with 97 points? By 1 point? And thinking that there was genius in getting that 1 extra. Zinedine Zidane was a lucky manager, just look at his record, 3 Champions League wins in 5 attempts. That’s madness. Pep Guardiola has been a lucky manager, but in Champions League, anything but!
What defines luck as a manager? Your best players staying fit consistently. Bicycle kicks in the Champions League finals. Good refereeing decisions. Suspensions falling your way. Bench players stepping in and going on mad runs of form. VAR missing things it should see. Other teams getting injuries at good times.
Mikel Arteta, for all the talent, all the mind games, all the tactical wizardry, has so far proven to be a general who lacks luck.
Arsenal dropped two points against a Fulham side that scored one goal from two shots on target. That one shot was worth 0.04 xG. It was a worldie from a player who won’t do that again this season.
Arsenal had four big chances, created 2 xG, and dominated the game. Saliba clawed a goal back with an opportune tap-in from a back-post Kai header into his feet. As the game slogged on, Martinelli picked the ball up on the left, cut back as Fulham retreated, and bent a beautiful ball into the back post where Saka was there to find a win in a moment that would have been one of the most extraordinary of the season for Arsenal.
But Jarred Gillett, back on another Arsenal game, went back on the video, found that Martinelli had somehow not managed to hold the line, and it was chalked off.
VAR missed VVD shoving over a Newcastle player last week, but when they have that Liverpool fan in the booth against Arsenal, he’s always going to be on his game.
There are areas of attack I am going to explore now – but if you’re criticizing the performance or the tactical setup, you’re off base.
Fulham is a good side this season. They sat in a really deep block, which shut off central entry to their defense. Our main plan of attack was to exploit weaknesses from set pieces, and we did that time and time again. I’m not buying ‘too reliant,’ because we created enough good chances to win that. That was a good away performance, but it didn’t deliver the points we wanted.
If I were to go studs in on some problems:
Back-up Players on the Left
Yeah, I’m just gonna be really honest here. Trossard and Gabi J are back-up players. They aren’t the main course. I love both of them for different reasons. But that Fulham game kind of showed the limitations of both. Trossard didn’t really want to take on his fullback, managing just one attempt. He had one shot all game, had two attempts at a cross with only one finding a player. It wasn’t good enough. Martinelli came on and gave a tour de force of all his problems. He looked enthusiastic, which is a very lame plus at this point. He didn’t create a single chance, he made five crosses that all failed, and attempted three take-ons that all failed because he spent too much time looking at his feet. A dreadful cameo capped by not being able to stay onside in a zero-pressure situation. We need something new on the left.
Back-up Kai Issue
Kai has nine goals and one assist in 18. I don’t think he’s a problem. But he’s not feeling like a menace right now, and that happens to the best strikers in the league (ask Mr Humble). The problem is we don’t have a threat to bring on. We don’t have a counterpoint to the German. Arsenal need someone in that 9 position who wants to be a 9. Gabi Jesus is not it. The man is finished. He knows it. That little appearance was one of his worst in a season of blandness in the extreme. He hides in midfield, so there’s no threat that he might be presented the chance to score. We can’t have that. Arsenal need a pace merchant, a long-shot specialist, someone who occupies defenders in an utterly hateful way… we need some magic from the bench. We don’t have it right now. That has to be addressed.
Defender Injury List
If BIG Gabi is fit, we don’t concede that first goal, and we win the game.
If Calafiori is fit, we don’t see Kiwior on the pitch.
Zinchenko, arrived with calf issues.
Tomi, arrived with calf issue.
Tierney, not even worth talking about.
Calafiori arrived with an injury history
Ben White, out long term
Why are our defenders always unfit?
We seem to always be two defenders down, and it consistently costs us in games. This might be a judgment thing, this might be a luck thing—whatever it is, it’s a major problem we shouldn’t be having when you look at the outlay on defenders.
Green Shoots
Listen. I’m not going to greenwash you out here. We needed a perfect record in December, and it’s already fallen. But let’s not lose our minds yet. If we rack up big points in our next four games, we’ll be in very good shape.
We are not chasing perfection. Liverpool has finished twice as many times as Arsenal in the last ten years. They are a very inconsistent group of players, and they are more than capable of losing steam or entering a nightmare run.
We just have to be there, within spitting distance. It’s a long shot, it’ll be hard, but we showed last season we’re capable of a long run of emotionless victories.
Bad luck usually runs out. Arsenal are where we are mostly because of three horrible refereeing decisions at the start of the season. At some point, the worm will turn, and things will start rolling our way.
Arsenal are playing well. We look very good defensively. Arsenal are a 90-goal-a-season team. We just need more players to step up and be heroes.
All to play for. Don’t give up. Ignore people telling you to do so. Wipe those eyes, turn off Twitter, and get back on the hype train. It’s the only way to exist. x
