FanSided Premier League roundtable
The Premier League is back. The opening weekend was highlighted by Liverpool’s absurd 4-3 win against Arsenal at the Emirates and Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City debut, a less absurd 2-1 home win against Sunderland. In a new weekly roundtable, FanSided’s soccer staff share their reactions.
The revolution will take time
Matthew Miranda, @MMiranda613
“This is not the serene path to victory that maybe Manchester City fans expected,” said NBC’s Jon Champion in stoppage time of City’s 2-1 opening day win over Sunderland. I was reminded of NBA games where a team up 20 has its lead cut in half: the winning team is ripped for letting its foot off the gas, the losing team praised for making a run. In truth, any team would be happy to see a double-digit lead cut in half. A win is still a win. If City repeat this performance every game for the next nine months, they’ll be champions of England with a plus-38 goal differential. Unrealistic? Perhaps no more so than the hype around these early days of Pep Guardiola’s much-anticipated sky blue revolution.
City took the lead in the fourth minute thanks to a Sergio Aguero penalty kick won by Raheem Sterling, led for over an hour, lost the lead for 20 minutes after a Jermain Defoe equalizer, then recaptured it for good when Paddy McNair turned a Jesus Navas cross into his own net. Last Boxing Day when these teams met, City were up 3-0 after 22 minutes. Yesterday, they dominated possession (77 percent) yet generally failed to create good chances, and mustered just four shots on target. Their opening goal was not the greatest advert for tiki taka: Willy Caballero played the ball out from a goal kick, City moved the ball from one sideline to another, before a failed pass from Fernandinho to Sterling led to a successful midfield-to-box header from Fernandinho to Sterling, who was brought down for the penalty.
The Etihad was noticeably subdued throughout the game, the announcers sounded befuddled — a far cry from the Pep rally staged before the game. Wherever was the genius of Guardiola? City’s win was more reminiscent of Sunderland manager David Moyes’ time at Everton than Pep the Great. But all revolutions begin with the quiet before the storm, the breath before the boom. And there was plenty of evidence that City’s new tactical mastermind is having an influence.
The most high-profile adjustment from Guardiola came in net, where Joe Hart was surprisingly benched in favor of Caballero. The talk since last season is that Hart may not be Guardiola’s cup of tea as a goalkeeper, but it’s not like they’ve signed Claudio Bravo to replace him (not yet, anyway). While Hart suffered a disappointing Euros, Caballero doesn’t do anything better than him. After the game, asked why he’d opted for the Argentine, Guardiola praised him for, among other things, his “personality.” However, the City manager is renowned for his unorthodox thinking, which could explain why his goalkeepers have dominated the early headlines.
City gave up the fewest (or joint fewest) goals in the league from 2011-2013, and gave up the second fewest in 2014, the last year they won the title. In two years since, they’ve finished fifth and tied for fifth in goals allowed. Their numbers in those six seasons? 33, 29, 34, 37, 38, 41. One way to reverse that trend is to hope a defense that’s struggled with injury and inconsistency avoids both. Another is to hope your goalkeeper turns things around.
Guardiola believes that the best way to defend is to prevent your opponent from ever having the ball, and having a keeper that his adept with his feet is central to that. While City never approached the champagne football seen at the high points of the Manuel Pellegrini years, there was a brutal efficiency to their vice-like, ever-tightening possession over the course of the match. In the first half, they held the ball 74 percent of the time; in the second half, the figure hovered around 80 percent. Turning that dominance into more consistent opportunities on goal will come with time and familiarity, but the defensive benefits of the tactic were evident on day one.
The most interesting tactical tidbit was Guardiola’s use of his full-backs. Gael Clichy and Bacary Sagna spent much of their time forward in a central midfield role, leaving Fernandinho to drop between John Stones and Aleksandr Koralov at center back. Much of City’s thrusts came centrally, and they generally struggled to generate offense out wide — not necessarily a bad thing for a team that in the recent past has struggled to deliver or finish crosses.
Interestingly, overloading the midfield could end up benefiting the wingers. Raheem Sterling was arguably the man of the match; not only did he win the penalty kick, his strong run in the 65th minute was only stopped thanks to a great tackle by Lamine Kone, and he also drilled a lovely cross in the 85th minute that Aguero almost latched onto. Navas, meanwhile, one of the bigger disappointments under Pellegrini, beautifully read a Wahbi Kazri header back toward Sunderland keeper Vito Mannone, nearly netting City a second goal just before Defoe’s equalizer. It was a perfectly-placed Navas cross that forced McNair’s own goal for the decider.
Guardiola’s first substitution, up 1-0 in the 64th minute, was Fabian Delph for David Silva — not exactly an exciting switch, but the excitement will perhaps have to wait. Before the revolution comes, if it does, there will be more games like this. Before any marvel is built, first comes the foundation.
The Arsenal Experience 10.0
Michael Harshbarger, @timhalpert
Arsenal and Liverpool played the most ridiculous game of the opening weekend of the 2016-17 Premier League season on Sunday. The Premier League is back, baby, and it’s just as maddening and exhilarating as ever.
Maddening and exhilarating are, incidentally, good ways to describe life as an Arsenal fan these days. I am far from an expert on The Arsenal Experience — in fact, my view is probably more dim than the lifers: my fandom has essentially encompassed the nine-year trophy-less run from 2006-2014 — but even so, the game against Liverpool was both as good and bad as it gets.
I have grown accustomed to a steady diet of crushing late-season collapses, untimely injuries, ludicrous expectations that will never be met and a sociopathic commitment to never spending money. Arsenal are always good. The problem is they are never good enough.
And yet, there I was on the couch Sunday morning, simultaneously excited and on-guard. Sure, Mesut Ozil, Olivier Giroud, Per Mertesacker, Laurent Koscielny, Gabriel, Jack Wilshere and Danny Welbeck were all unavailable, and the opponents were Liverpool, but the boys were playing at home. It was the first game of the season. It couldn’t be that bad, right?
RIGHT?
The latest edition of The Arsenal Experience was bookended by two of the most profound Arsenalisms I can remember.
The first began when Theo Walcott — who is essentially The Arsenal Experience in human form — was taken down inside the box by Liverpool defender and man bun aficionado Alberto Moreno. The winger-forward-whatever stepped up to take the penalty himself and hit a tame, side-footed shot to the left of Liverpool keeper Simon Mignolet at just the height keepers love. Saved. It was an atrocious penalty.
69 seconds later Walcott was played through on goal by a sublime diagonal ball from Alex Iwobi and finished with a low, inch-perfect strike to the bottom left corner. Because, hell, why not?
Mind-boggling beauty on either side of mind-numbingly poor decision-making is a hallmark of Arsene Wenger’s recent teams.
The second great Arsenalism of this game took place after the Gunners clawed their way back from a 4-1 deficit to get within one goal of an unlikely draw — I say “unlikely” not only because coming back from three goals down is rare, but because it is the most Arsenal thing in the world to get within striking distance of a wonderful result, and then blow it.
Arsenal’s final chance, deep into extra time, started with a wonderful pass and ended with a wonderful block. The problem was that Arsenal players were responsible for both of those things.
Arsenal had Liverpool pinned into their defensive third. The Gunners were passing the ball around outside of the box, poking and prodding for an opening. Santi Cazorla, in the 95th minute, found himself with some space just outside the left side of the penalty box. He got by his marker and moved towards the end line.
You could practically see the Arsenal attackers drooling as they awaited the pass. Nacho Monreal, who was near the ball as Cazorla made his move, cut towards the center of the box, presumably to give his teammate another option.
As Cazorla swung in what looked like a dangerous cross, the ball struck Monreal directly on the left side of his ass and went caroming out past the end line for a Liverpool goal kick. That was it, the game was over. Arsenal 3, Liverpool 4. I wish I had the creativity and imagination to make up something that dumb.
In between these twin pillars of stupidity, the Gunners gave up four goals (Sadio Mane’s effort was breathtaking). That may seem surprising until you remember that Wenger started four full-backs in his back four (he didn’t have much choice, in his defense).
Arsenal also scored a couple of really nice goals. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain scored a highlight reel solo goal, skinning a couple of defenders just minutes after entering the game (maybe get him on the pitch more, huh Arsene?), while Calum Chambers’ well-taken glancing header (off an excellent Cazorla free-kick) gave Arsenal fans misplaced hope of a draw late in the game.
So there you have it: excitement shot through with dread. Disappointment suspended for a few minutes by a hope you never really trusted in the first place. And that’s just the first game of the season!
Who knows what other delights and horrors the 2016-17 Premier League campaign holds for Arsenal. But it can’t get much more ridiculous than this, can it?
Alexis Sanchez is not a center forward
James Dudko, @JamesDudko
A day before Arsenal’s opening-day 4-3 defeat at home to Liverpool, Arsene Wenger played down the obvious shortage of strikers in his squad during an interview with the Guardian’s Amy Lawrence: “We have Sanchez. We have Walcott.”
Well, if Wenger learns anything from his latest humiliating start to a new season it’s that Sanchez, for all the good things he can be, is no center-forward.
Watching the Chilean sleepwalk through proceedings at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday was a strange, annoying experience. Moving Sanchez off the flank to play through the middle took away everything that makes him a threat.
Usually a menacing bundle of energy, a Tasmanian devil with a focus for his whirling rage, Sanchez the center-forward was an altogether tamer animal. There was no vibrancy or perception in his movement, or what passed for his movement.
Sanchez was static and easy to defend when asked to lead the line rather than add its flourish. He came short when he should have spun behind Liverpool’s defense. He dropped deep when the man in possession needed a roving target ahead of him.
If all of this looked familiar to Wenger, it should have. It’s what he saw last season when he misguidedly indulged Walcott’s ill-judged desire to play as a center-forward rather than as the nifty winger he’s always been.
Sanchez was a non-entity in front of Liverpool’s defense, and his bland display blunted Arsenal’s attack. Lacking a natural focus, the Gunners were reduced to praying for individual brilliance from wide areas, something a scurrying Walcott and an imaginative Alex Iwobi tried to provide. The latter’s assist for Walcott’s goal, the first of this seven-goal thriller, showcased the class Arsenal boast in the final third. But that effectiveness is based on free-styling fluency where positions are never fixed and movement is never one-dimensional.
Walcott and Iwobi’s performances were promising, but without a target to play off through the middle, they were ultimately merely window dressing, simply a shallow bonus for an attack missing a true identity.
Sanchez lost his mojo the moment he was asked to play as a No. 9. If you want to offer Wenger an olive branch — and he’ll need to stockpile those this season — he’s far from the first to believe Sanchez can play center-forward. Pep Guardiola tried it at Barcelona. It’s even been tried with Chile at international level.
Sanchez has pace, physical power and can finish, so making him the focal point in attack makes sense in theory. But when the end result in practice consistently looks like it and smells like it, it’s time to call it what it is …
Of course, recognizing the problem is only half the job. There’s enough woe-is-me around Arsenal for the club to be remade as a Greek tragedy and taken on tour. Solutions are needed, and Wenger must decide exactly what he wants at the forward position.
If it’s a target man for a platoon of playmakers to play off, then he needs to rush Olivier Giroud back into the fold and add a second towering frontman to the mix to give the Frenchman a rest when he needs it. Alternatively, if Wenger wants pace and more perceptive movement up top — and summer moves for Jamie Vardy and Alexandre Lacazette indicate he does — he’s got to narrow his scouting to those strikers slighter in build but swift of foot. Better still, he could back up the Brink’s truck for Antoine Griezmann.
There’s also not-so secret option No. 3, an option likely to appeal to a manager often accused of being spendthrift. Wenger could reject the central striker market altogether and instead sign yet another winger/inside forward to chip in with a few goals to go along the crumbs coming from other areas of the team in what has become a truly socialist approach to scoring.
Perhaps this explains the ongoing links to Leicester winger Riyad Mahrez. Like Sanchez, Mahrez was another star who looked as if he’d had a mojo bypass during the season’s first weekend.
Mahrez wasn’t the little boy lost in Leicester’s 2-1 defeat to Hull, a limp start to the most improbable title defense in, well, ever. Mahrez instead resembled a man who is no longer happy in his work. Gone was the impish spark so obvious when he tied defenders in knots for fun last season.
Mahrez will get his groove back if he moves to north London, while moving from the middle to the left flank is the band-aid for Sanchez’s pain.