The English Football Thread

[Fulham Broadway 16,977]

1 hour ago, Atomiswave said:

Its really out of this world, 2 American owners meeting and deciding the fate, contacts a dodgy former executive and shit gets into motion......WTF man. Maryin Samuel is right, this will will be the end of the underdogs among other things.

Yanks have sniffed out a mega earner, and want to control the game, then throw crumbs at the rest. I hope this is thrown out like for the criminal enterprise it actually is.

Cant believe some dumb fucks want to go along with this Liverpool/Man Utd bollox.

[Atomiswave 6,072]

39 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Yanks have sniffed out a mega earner, and want to control the game, then throw crumbs at the rest. I hope this is thrown out like for the criminal enterprise it actually is.

Cant believe some dumb fucks want to go along with this Liverpool/Man Utd bollox.

You said it man, proper bullshit of a move here. If this goes through you can kiss epl goodbye, its fucked as it is already. Who the fuck are you to propose such a thing?

They think they’re being slick with what their doing, but anyone with a brain can see that this is all just a big underhanded scheme where the so called “big 6” get richer, meanwhile the grass roots football teams get screwed over.

[Fulham Broadway 16,977]

16 minutes ago, Atomiswave said:

You said it man, proper bullshit of a move here. If this goes through you can kiss epl goodbye, its fucked as it is already. Who the fuck are you to propose such a thing?

They think they’re being slick with what their doing, but anyone with a brain can see that this is all just a big underhanded scheme where the so called “big 6” get richer, meanwhile the grass roots football teams get screwed over.

Next thing they'll control the media rights, then they'll fuck with the rules, dividing the game into 'quarters' -fucking touch downs or some such bullshit TV  adverts every 10 minutes (If anyones ever watched US sports on TV . its determined by advertising). 

[Atomiswave 6,072]

26 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Next thing they'll control the media rights, then they'll fuck with the rules, dividing the game into 'quarters' -fucking touch downs or some such bullshit TV  adverts every 10 minutes (If anyones ever watched US sports on TV . its determined by advertising). 

Hey you never know, such a thing is easily possible, potential is there sadly. The nerve of these roaches to plan such a move should receive a backlash imo, this will only make people hate them 2 even more....fucking bums.

[Fulham Broadway 16,977]

36 minutes ago, Atomiswave said:

Hey you never know, such a thing is easily possible, potential is there sadly. The nerve of these roaches to plan such a move should receive a backlash imo, this will only make people hate them 2 even more....fucking bums.

The way I see it, it's all about the big clubs making more money. The owners, in particular the Glazers only care about money and not football.
Don't scrap cups, the big clubs might not care but the other clubs do, especially if lower league clubs get drawn against a big team, its good for their fans and finances.

[Tomo 21,737]

There isn't a hope in hell these changes happen.

[Atomiswave 6,072]

2 hours ago, Fulham Broadway said:

The way I see it, it's all about the big clubs making more money. The owners, in particular the Glazers only care about money and not football.
Don't scrap cups, the big clubs might not care but the other clubs do, especially if lower league clubs get drawn against a big team, its good for their fans and finances.

How very dare you, them american owners are poor as fuck, they are living on the streets, wtf how much money do you need you greedy cunts. Billions aint enough anymore.

1 hour ago, Tomo said:

There isn't a hope in hell these changes happen.

Well the idea has been taken seriously, that in it self is a disgrace.

[Tomo 21,737]

40 minutes ago, Atomiswave said:

Well the idea has been taken seriously, that in it self is a disgrace.

To make changes to the PL you need agreement from atleast 14 clubs (it's why the neutral venue idea for project restart died a quick death). Simply won't happen.

[Atomiswave 6,072]

9 minutes ago, Tomo said:

To make changes to the PL you need agreement from atleast 14 clubs (it's why the neutral venue idea for project restart died a quick death). Simply won't happen.

Lets hope so man

[Fulham Broadway 16,977]

4 hours ago, Tomo said:

There isn't a hope in hell these changes happen.

Admire your optimism, and all fan groups of the Big Six have firmly rejected the idea  -but EFL clubs in the Championship, League One and League Two said there was almost unanimous support for the proposals during individual league meetings on Tuesday. (Today).

 

[Fernando 6,502]

Any one care to explain this new plan for the EFL? 

Seems a bit weird, but according to guardian the lower clubs are accepting because they need the money.

[Fulham Broadway 16,977]

4 hours ago, Fernando said:

Any one care to explain this new plan for the EFL? 

Seems a bit weird, but according to guardian the lower clubs are accepting because they need the money.

Thats true they are in dire need of collapsing. There is plenty of cash to prop up Championship, League 1 and 2 clubs, but the big 6 have scented an opportunity for a power grab. Heres the 'proposals'

The Premier League cut from 20 to 18 clubs, with the Championship, League One and League Two each retaining 24 teams.

The bottom two teams in the Premier League relegated automatically with the 16th-placed team joining the Championship play-offs.

The League Cup and Community Shield abolished.

Parachute payments scrapped.

A £250m rescue fund made immediately available to the EFL and 25% of all future TV deals.

£100m paid to the FA to make up for lost revenue.

Nine clubs given 'special voting rights' on certain issues, based on their extended runs in the Premier League.

[Magic Lamps 11,677]

6 hours ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Thats true they are in dire need of collapsing. There is plenty of cash to prop up Championship, League 1 and 2 clubs, but the big 6 have scented an opportunity for a power grab. Heres the 'proposals'

The Premier League cut from 20 to 18 clubs, with the Championship, League One and League Two each retaining 24 teams.

The bottom two teams in the Premier League relegated automatically with the 16th-placed team joining the Championship play-offs.

The League Cup and Community Shield abolished.

Parachute payments scrapped.

A £250m rescue fund made immediately available to the EFL and 25% of all future TV deals.

£100m paid to the FA to make up for lost revenue.

Nine clubs given 'special voting rights' on certain issues, based on their extended runs in the Premier League.

It’s incredibly favourable for the bit 6 and would make English teams more competitive in Europe while remaining healthy domestic competition 

but it basically recreates aristocracy in footy , a two classes system

PL is so attractive bc all teams are strong anything can happen. The new rules would not eradicate that but certainly set a trend to a more la Liga way . 
 

cutting the league to 18 teams and removing the tin pot cups has my full support tho

[Fulham Broadway 16,977]

1 hour ago, Magic Lamps said:

It’s incredibly favourable for the bit 6 and would make English teams more competitive in Europe while remaining healthy domestic competition 

but it basically recreates aristocracy in footy , a two classes system

PL is so attractive bc all teams are strong anything can happen. The new rules would not eradicate that but certainly set a trend to a more la Liga way . 
 

cutting the league to 18 teams and removing the tin pot cups has my full support tho

Yes I see your point - though the Community Shield to me is a great curtain raiser to the season, and all the money goes to charity. The League Cup is so important to all 92  clubs, as Lampard said, and is a massive source of revenue to lower league clubs. Basically the current proposal is an unashamed power grab by those clubs with the most money, taking advantage of the Covid situation in that so many clubs are struggling, and laughs in the face of democracy.

One solution I would advocate would be  a 10% transfer tax, with money going to EFL clubs that need it the most.

[MoroccanBlue 5,320]

All 20 clubs voted against the new proposal. 

Meaning Liverpool and United voted against their own proposal...

[Vesper 29,225]

Thoughts whirling like so many dervishes in his considerable head

DIRTY HARRY

So nightmarish has Harry Maguire’s start to the current season been, that some media commentators are of a mind he could do with a break from football. Of course it could also be argued that his most recent break from football has almost certainly contributed to the Manchester United and England centre-back’s current slump in form and after all that unpleasantness in Mykonos another holiday is the last thing he needs.

Fiver readers of a certain age will remember that having been found guilty of assault, resisting arrest and attempted bribery by the Greek beaks back in August, Harry immediately appealed and had his conviction quashed pending a retrial some time next year. Perhaps for the best, it was not an avenue open to him after falling foul of football’s legal system against Denmark and as he trudged off the pitch he had the air about him of a man who needed some quiet time alone with the thoughts whirling like so many dervishes in his big Slab Head.

Southgate backs Maguire to shrug off criticism after red card costs England Read more

Due to face Manchester United in the Premier League on Saturday, Steve Bruce, his players and the fans of Newcastle will almost certainly agree with Gareth Southgate’s post-match view that the best place for Maguire at the moment “is on the pitch”, but the England manager’s staunch defence of a player whose form has plummeted lemming-like off a cliff in recent months is increasingly being used to beat him in the wake of England’s latest defeat. Even before Wednesday’s game started, “Southgate out” was trending on social media disgrace Twitter, his managerial heroics in only losing three matches out of seven at the last World Cup were apparently a fading memory in the minds of some. The kind of fairweather England fans who’d like to see him replaced by Arséne Wenger, Richard Osman, Ian McEwan or any other authors currently doing the rounds hawking new books. While a couple of ropy performances, negative tactics and an apparent reluctance to pick somebody who played well for 76 minutes in a friendly against the Wales B team are hardly sackable offences, there remains a nagging concern that Southgate might not be the right man for the job and his opportunity for glory came and went at the 2018 World Cup. It was not the first famously glorious opportunity he passed up while representing England and a consensus is growing that it won’t be the last.

[Vesper 29,225]

Ollie Watkins: the rise of ‘the machine’

https://theathletic.com/2137196/2020/10/15/ollie-watkins-aston-villa-the-machine/

In Ollie Watkins’ first training session at Aston Villa those around him immediately recognised a player ready for the step up to the Premier League.

His hard, unselfish running was not lost on the defenders who came up against pace and power of a different kind. Captain Jack Grealish was licking his lips with anticipation after watching Watkins’ early movement both in and out of possession, while on the sidelines manager Dean Smith and his long-term assistant, Richard O’Kelly, could see a different beast to the one they previously had at Brentford.

“He looked like a more mature and confident player right from the start,” Smith tells The Athletic. “He scored 26 goals last season and he believed he should have scored 36 as well which just shows he is not one who is going to rest on his laurels.”

Watkins, who sang Luther Vandross’s Never Too Much as his initiation song, backed up those early impressions in training by getting off to a flying start at Villa. After scoring in a pre-season friendly against Manchester United and then following it up with a goal on his debut against Burton Albion in the Carabao Cup, his perfect hat-trick in the 7-2 win over Liverpool in the last Premier League outing took his early tally to five goals in six games in all competitions.

Little over three weeks after that first training session, there was Watkins, standing under the Villa Park lights clutching onto the match ball for dear life. The chief executive Christian Purslow, the man who negotiated the record-breaking deal to bring him to the club for £28 million rising to a possible £33 million, was wrapping his arms around the striker as a global media scrum gathered.

His first words in reply to one question about his hat-trick was that he “should have had five goals rather than three”. There was nothing cocky or arrogant about his tone. He is down to earth. This was an in-form Premier League striker living in the moment.

It wasn’t always like this, though.

---

Ripping into the usually rock-solid defensive pairing of Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez and announcing himself on the global stage was the product of years of hard work.

That he recognises his previous times of struggle, and still has a never-ending desire to improve, will also keep him grounded.

In Watkins’ late teenage years at Exeter City, his game was in such a state that he still hadn’t nailed down a position of preference or strength. He could play down the middle or out wide, but wasn’t making any great gains. Those close to him speak about a defining period that helped shape his future, and also cement an early steeliness in his mindset.

Aged 18, he ditched the comfort of under-21 football at Exeter for a loan spell at Weston-super-Mare AFC, six divisions deep in the league pyramid.

Ryan Northmore, his manager at Weston, told The Times: “When I had him, he had real superpowers, but he was too predictable to play against.”

Yet that loan spell, where he scored ten goals in 24 games, was the making of him. He returned to Exeter with a purpose and was rough and ready.  Not only had he shown courage to go and mix it with battled-hardened men, he also had the bumps and bruises to prove that he was up for the fight and worthy of consideration for the first-team.

After scraping onto a pre-season tour to Scotland in 2015 as the 24th man and the final pick, he didn’t look back.

Kevin Nicholson, his under-18 coach at Exeter tells The Athletic: “The potential was always there for Ollie. However, he needed support, guidance and good coaching from the people at the club at that time to help him on his way to fulfilling that potential. His technical and physical attributes were impressive from day one of working with him but he needed help to improve his general game understanding at that time.

“Credit should go to Paul Tisdale (manager) and Steve Perryman (director of football) for the work they did with Ollie at Exeter once he became a young professional with the first team.”

Tisdale worked tirelessly with Watkins, initially asking him to hustle more when playing in a wide position rather than simply waiting for the ball to come to him.

A slight tweak to his position at the back end of 2015 paid dividends. During his time at centre-forward he scored 25 goals in 74 games, earning him a move to Brentford.

It was here, in the Championship, where he took his game to a new level. None of it was left to chance, though, as one former staff member explained: “Ollie always wanted to know the areas where he could improve. He was a constant learner; always searching for ways he could better himself.”

Nicholson echoes such thoughts from his earlier years, adding: “Through the ups and downs, he never stopped believing in himself and his ability. He was prepared to work hard and he demanded honesty and feedback. He wanted to know what he was doing well and how he could build on it.”

Under Smith and O’Kelly in his first season at Brentford, Watkins scored ten league goals and missed just one game. He chalked up another ten strikes in the following season but the majority of the goals came from cutting in from the flank or playing as a supporting striker.

Pre-season training would often make for interesting viewing when Watkins was involved as he consistently topped the charts for speed, stamina, high-intensity sprints and a stack of other metrics.

Brentford’s programme editor, Chris Deacon, tells The Athletic: “Ollie transformed himself into a physical specimen. We’d call him a machine because it looked like he would set himself into third gear and then cruise along at the front while everyone else was blowing.”

It’s his blend of technical and physical attributes that have helped him settle into the Premier League with ease, but the 24-year-old’s sky-high confidence stems back to the start of last season.

It was when Brentford’s recognised No 9 Neal Maupay left for Brighton & Hove Albion that summer that those around Watkins sensed a coming of age. He took on the responsibility of becoming Brentford’s main source of goals and his hard work was rewarded with 26 strikes in return.

Coaching staff remember the early stages of that campaign where he asked for individual sessions to work on his movement and finishing to help him adjust to the change.

Watkins also dedicated time to improving his heading and the rewards could be seen in his performance for Villa against Fulham earlier this season where he dominated the defence.

It will come as a surprise to many that, among Premier League forwards, only Oli McBurnie (22) Andy Carroll (22) Dominic Calvert-Lewin (17) and Chris Wood (16) have won more headers then Watkins (15) this season. Maybe more telling is that, of those strikers, recognised for their aerial dominance, only Carroll (22 won, 10 lost) has a better win-to-lose ratio in headed duels.

Unwittingly, Watkins finds himself once again in a comparison contest with Fulham’s Aleksandar Mitrovic, the man who beat him to the top goalscorer award by a single goal last season, as both players have won and lost 15 headers a piece so far for their respective clubs and are seen as among the best in that particular category.

But such individuals battles are of little relevance to Watkins as one source said: ”He had no interest in what Mitrovic was doing last season,  it was more about how he could get the better of the defender he came up against.”

It’s that attention to detail before a match day that is maybe giving him an edge.

He studies forthcoming opponents religiously before games and knows exactly the type of defenders he is coming up against. Pre-match analysis is, of course, common across every professional league in the country, but Watkins’ preparation is as detailed and thorough as you can get.

If a defender has slipped up in the past, or made a mistake that could be repeated, Watkins will try to expose that weakness himself. The way he hassles defenders and stretches the backline with his clever and unselfish runs into the channels that create space for his team-mates also helps.

He will also know exactly how the opponents like to play, as well as their strengths and weaknesses, as he asks for additional clips from analysts to aid his preparation.

It was clear that Watkins had done his homework on Liverpool. Immediately after the win he told Sky Sports how the team as a collective targeted their opponent’s high line. Deep down, he’d have also planned ways to unsettle Van Dijk and Gomez, although he remained respectful and humble enough to keep it private.

On top of his on-field qualities, there’s a likeable lad who receives glowing references from every club he has been at.

At Exeter his legacy lives on as they still show videos of their academy graduate to young players before training. A £4 million windfall from the deal that took him to Villa has also been well received.

Along with his goals, Brentford miss his cheeky smile, as well as his honesty and generosity as he always helped with charity events. The boy who parked himself in a modest apartment on the River Thames and shirked the lavish lifestyle of London after moving up from Devon will always be welcomed back with open arms.

There was never a change in his behaviour either as five clubs battled for his signature this summer. Watkins never let his standards drop. He was consistently friendly and engaging around the training ground right up until the day he cleared his locker to head up to Birmingham and complete his late-night move.

But it’s at Villa where he is progressing now and there’s a belief that the record-signing is very much the real deal.

Watkins’ consistency in front of goal is special. It’s over 18 months since he went longer than three games without scoring a league goal and Smith confidently revealed his thoughts about the man he has now signed twice.

“I have no doubts he will score goals for us this season and be a very much loved Aston Villa centre-forward,” he said.

The players feel the same too, and have noticed how he demands more from them in a measured but encouraging way.

He sets high standards and wants those around him to match up, but that’s nothing new; it has been the case since day one.

[Vesper 29,225]

How is Arteta different to Guardiola?

https://theathletic.com/2128061/2020/10/14/arteta-different-to-guardiola-arsenal-manchester-city/

Since Mikel Arteta took charge at Arsenal, the comparisons with Pep Guardiola have been as constant as they have been inevitable. For some, they remain master and apprentice, guru and devotee.

However, Arteta is already showing himself to be more than a mere clone. Guardiola helped open the door to a coaching career, but the younger man is now finding his own path.

Drawing parallels is understandable: there are undoubtedly similarities in the two men. For starters, they are both sharp thinkers — and sharp dressers. They share an intensity, a magnetic charisma that makes them natural leaders. They are products of the Barcelona system and their teams share certain key tactical points: they both attack in five channels, and frequently defend in five channels too. Arteta has recently made use of a back three and Guardiola deployed a similar system in his early days at Manchester City. He has returned to it several times since, most recently for the Champions League tie against Lyon.

But if there is a clue as to how the two men differ, it can be seen in the role Arteta assumed while working alongside Guardiola at City. With Guardiola looking after the big picture, Arteta was charged principally with working with individual players: improving Raheem Sterling’s movement, Fabian Delph’s positioning or Leroy Sane’s end product.

And so it was: Guardiola the ideologue; Arteta the problem-solver. Guardiola’s brilliance speaks for itself, but his rapid ascension through the coaching ranks meant he never served as an assistant. He has always had to consider the next game, the grand plan, the vision. Arteta has enjoyed the freedom and opportunity to focus on the tiniest details. It’s there that he excelled. “People always ask me about training under Pep, but the things I’ve learnt from Mikel Arteta…” Sane once marvelled.

Asked about his then-assistant in September 2019, Guardiola told the Telegraph that Arteta “has an incredible work ethic, and he has a special talent to analyse what happens, and to find the solutions”. And find solutions is precisely what he has done in his short time at Arsenal.

It should be no great surprise that there are differences between Arteta and Guardiola, given the considerable discrepancies in their respective playing careers. Although Arteta followed Guardiola through Barcelona’s La Masia academy system, he never broke into the first team. Despite being promoted to train with the first-team squad at 16, the pathway to senior football was blocked. “Pep was 29 and captain,” Arteta said in Lu Martin and Pol Ballus’ book, Pep’s City. “Then there was Xavi queuing up behind him. Imagine! I knew that if I wanted to get any game time, I’d be better off developing my career elsewhere.”

 

Arteta was only 18 when he joined Paris Saint-Germain on loan. When he impressed during a UEFA Cup tie against Rangers, the Scottish club began negotiations to sign the young midfielder. Arteta spent two seasons in Glasgow, winning the Scottish Premier League title and the Scottish League Cup. After a brief spell with Real Sociedad, he returned to Britain, spending six seasons with Everton and a further five with Arsenal.

It left him with a deep appreciation for British football — at one point, Arteta was even prepared to “half go to war” to fight a FIFA rule that prevented him from accepting an approach from Fabio Capello to represent for England at international level. “I’d say Pep definitely has a healthy respect for English football,” says one Arsenal staff member. “But Arteta really loves it. It’s where he spent most of his playing career. It’s part of who he is.”

When Guardiola first brought his vision of football to the Premier League, he had the feel of a missionary attempting an unwelcome conversion process. He had, of course, gained experience outside of Spain as a manager in Bayern Munich with Germany, but the nature of the physicality is different in that league. “In Germany the players run with the ball much more, there’s a lot of racing up and down the pitch with and without the ball,” explains City fitness coach Lorenzo Buenaventura. “Here in England, there’s more physical contact.”

Arteta knows that from first-hand experience. Perhaps that has played into his choice of defensive midfielders. In the summer of 2018, when Manchester City were seeking a new holding midfield player, their primary targets were Jorginho and Frenkie de Jong. The aim was to acquire someone even more adept on the ball than Fernandinho, to further emphasise City’s strength in possession. Over the course of the next 12 months, those top targets joined Chelsea and Barcelona respectively. Ultimately, City and Guardiola went for Rodri — a player who is better at resisting the press than instigating it. Guardiola’s focus was resolutely on what his team would be capable of in possession.

Meanwhile, Arsenal’s new midfielder, Thomas Partey, is a more natural defender — stronger in the air and the tackle. In Rodri’s final season at Atletico Madrid, he was averaging 56.7 passes per game with a pass completion rate of 91.1 per cent. In 2019-20’s Atletico side, Partey averaged 46.8 passes per game with a success rate of 83.4 per cent. Although Arteta maintained an interest in Chelsea’s Jorginho, Partey was his first choice to play at the base of Arsenal’s midfield as much because of what he does off the ball as on it. There is a stylistic difference between these two players that illustrates Arteta and Guardiola’s diverging attitudes to the physical nature of the Premier League.

---

Guardiola does not take kindly to the suggestion he lacks pragmatism. In December 2016, he insisted during a press conference that he is “so pragmatic”, in the sense that while the common definition of the term involves giving the opposition the ball, sitting deep and inviting pressure, his idea of playing it safe is to have the ball and keep it as far away from your goal as possible, which certainly makes sense.

So it’s a question of semantics, but it’s fair to say that Arteta’s approach at Arsenal so far has been more in keeping with the traditional English definition of pragmatism. That’s in part down to resource: it’s easier to play the football you aspire to when the owners give you such extraordinary support. It is perhaps not so much about pragmatism as about flexibility; from day one at City, there has been a dogmatic adherence to Guardiola’s footballing ideals, with only a handful of occasions where they have not dominated possession.

For his part, Arteta has been clear in the past about his preferred way to play. In his final season as a player, Arsenal’s website asked him how a Mikel Arteta team might line up. “My philosophy will be clear,” Arteta said. “I want the football to be expressive, entertaining. I cannot have a concept of football where everything is based on the opposition. We have to dictate the game, we have to be the ones taking the initiative, and we have to entertain the people coming to watch us.”

It’s difficult to argue that Arteta’s old vision has been realised at the Emirates Stadium. Understandably so: Arteta inherited a team in 10th position. Most of the Spaniard’s landmark victories have come when his team has set up in a relatively deep block, playing on the counter-attack. At the back end of last season, Arteta’s Arsenal beat Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea in quick succession, all while never having more than 40 per cent possession.

Guardiola has never taken charge of a team languishing in mid-table. The problems Arteta has faced — and the pragmatism required to work through them — would be new to him.

As Arteta put it in September before the match against Liverpool at Anfield: “Sometimes it’s what you want to do as a coach, and sometimes it’s what you are allowed to do with the levels of players and performance that top teams can do against you.”

“Mikel knows the ultimate plan for this team, he knows where he wants to end up,” suggests an Arsenal staff member familiar with the Spaniard’s plans. “That doesn’t mean you walk in on day one and immediately make that happen. If you look at what was inherited, there were a lot of things Arsenal weren’t doing right — basics. A sign of a good coach is someone who can separate what they want from what the team needs.”

Arteta has nevertheless sought to instil some fundamentals. In fact, one difference between the way the two teams play is that Arteta’s Arsenal seem even more wedded to playing out from the back than Guardiola’s City. It’s early days in the 2020-21 Premier League season, but Arsenal currently have 32 per cent of their possession inside their own defensive third. City have just 17 per cent — and the numbers bear out over the previous campaign too.

There are multiple reasons for this. The main one is that Arteta is still in the process of implementing playing out from the back — by enforcing it, he is attempting to make it second nature for his players. He is creating habits.

Guardiola’s City are not always as consistent in applying this short-passing strategy. In their title-winning campaigns of 2017-18 and 2018-19, City occasionally took advantage of the fact players cannot be offside at goal kicks by deliberately positioning their front three behind the opposition defence. With Ederson’s superb long passing, and astonishing 80-yard range, he was frequently able to find them. The tactic served various purposes, enabling City to stretch the play, bypass the opposition press and sometimes even create scoring chances. Arsenal fans will have painful memories of Claudio Bravo employing the tactic to release Sergio Aguero in the 2018 League Cup final.

The divergence in strategy is also explained by the fact that the two teams are at different points in their development. City’s evolution provides evidence that if you become good enough at playing out from the back, teams will stop pressing you, granting you more possession higher up the pitch. After Leicester City’s recent win at the Etihad, Brendan Rodgers admitted he had asked his side to concede ground “We are normally a high-pressing team but against a team of this quality, we wanted to deny them space,” he said. “We knew we had the players to break out and exploit the spaces.” It may seem counter-intuitive, but the time Arteta is spending developing Arsenal’s ability to play out from goal kicks may ultimately help grant them more territory.

---

This weekend, Arteta’s Arsenal will travel to the Etihad to face Guardiola’s Manchester City. Arteta’s pragmatic approach will surely be in evidence again. These are two sides at different stages in their different evolution, with very different expectations — and with two different men on the sidelines.

Guardiola and Arteta’s experience and records are incomparable, so perhaps it’s time to ease off the comparisons. With the work he’s doing at Arsenal, the younger coach is swiftly establishing his own identity. Arteta is steadily emerging from the shadow of his mentor.