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R.J.'s avatar

The commentary from people in your replies on Twitter w/ regards to the Rice stuff was absolutely ridiculous. Nowhere had you said he should be shipped off in January or that he was trash, and people freaked out because you noted how many giveaways he had and that that should be cleaned up.

Football commentary from fans is so weird. It's either an extreme overreaction about stuff or "my guy can do no wrong".

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rds's avatar

I personally think that Rice's introduction into midfield instead of Partey is the main reason we're less fluid in build up this year. He usually receives the ball outside their block and is much more conservative when he gets it than Partey or zinchenko. The most beautiful part of our build up last year was watching those two players pass and move through the opposition block, freeing up Odegaard and Xhaka to attack the spaces left in behind. Doesn't feel like that's happening as much this year.

Whether this is a trade off worth making for Rice's superior defensive ability is the question. Probably I think it is, but given the presence of jorginho the last few games, I'm not sure arteta thinks so.

On a side note, this general "safeness" in possession needs a lot of work. The lead up to raya passing it to the Sevilla forward demonstrated that. We had comfortable possession on the halfway line, played 4 or 5 "safe" backwards and sideways passes in a row which left raya with the ball in a situation where he had no safe option left, so either he had to take a risk and play a line breaking pass or lose possession by kicking long. Last season, it probably would never have reached the keeper because one of Partey or zinchenko would have been the one to take that risk and play forwards higher up they pitch, often with the two of them doing it in combination with each other. If we're going to use possession as a form of control, we need to learn to do it without putting ourselves into such dangerous situations.

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