Why does Martinelli get singled out?
On a night where Martinelli was one of the better performers, it leaves me feeling puzzled
I have been getting better at ignoring the noise of social media during a match, if I do spend time in an online communal place, that place is the Cannon Stats Discord (you should join, it’s free). This often means that I don’t have my finger on the living breathing zeitgeist of the match that is formed through the interaction of all the different voices and commentary of the match.
This can make for a bit of a jarring experience when I do come back on to social media after a match and what you experienced is so incongruous to the “narrative” that had formed.
I had this experience with regards to Gabriel Martinelli against Leverkusen.
I don’t think that this was a sparkling performance from Arsenal’s left winger by any stretch of my imagination, but that he came away as the player that was drawing the most attention and criticism left me feeling confused. That was compounded by the comments post-match where Arteta singled out his chance where he hit the cross bar:
We started the game quite well, had a massive chance with Gabriel Martinelli hitting the crossbar. You score, the game changes completely.
I get that these are coming right after a match and they can be a bit emotional and this isn’t always going to be the cold rational analysis. He is right that if Arsenal score that chance that almost certainly something that alters the game. I think that he is wrong with his assessment that this was a massive chance, however.
This is definitely a good scoring chance, but this is far from gimmie type of scoring opportunity. There is still a defender pressuring him and a goalkeeper in a good position to cover up a good portion of the goal.
On my expected goals model, this rated as a 14% chance, on the Opta model they have it as a 31% chance. Regardless of which you look at, this is missed more often than it is scored and that shouldn’t be an outcome that surprises us.
Even beyond that he was the player that got into position to take the shot, this was a generally positive performance from Martinelli.
He was the only Arsenal player to take more than 1 shot (that’s a problem right there), he assisted the biggest non-penalty chance of the night (Timber’s 84th minute header) and led the team in progressive passes. This is especially clear compared to his starting peers in the forward line who were off of it, especially after the bright opening period.
This isn’t the be all, end all of things but goal probability added, is my metric that tries to tie what a player does to the team’s chances of scoring or conceding. This is generally (but not always perfectly) associated with playing well or poorly. On this he was Arsenal’s second-best player behind Noni Madueke who came on and looked exceptionally bright.
His 0.25 figure here isn’t an amazing total for the stat but it is solidly in the good range and again, it stands out for how much better it is than everyone else (bar Madueke) in the squad here.
Part of a trend
If this was a one-off comment from Arteta, I would probably let it go and not have felt the need to write this up, however this is developing into a clear pattern. There are now several matches where Arsenal struggle to create many good opportunities to score and there is one that falls to/is created by Martinelli and that is singled out for comment.
This is especially noticeable because Arteta will be reluctant to single out others in similar situations (notice he didn’t call out the Timber miss here) or make it about the collective where the team didn’t create enough chances that one or two misses are the difference in a match.
There is a nice thread on Twitter by 1_2spaces that saved me the work of digging up the examples where this has happened to Martinelli.
I wonder why this is? Does Arteta believe that this brings out the best in him, that the public call out motivates him? Or is it more of a frustration factor than a motivation factor? Is it a deflection tactic? These comments almost always come after the team as a whole fails to create enough chances and maybe doing this moves the spotlight from that on to a specific moment?
Whichever that it is so often this specific player, and it is so different than how other players are treated makes me curious and wonder if that is something that a reporter could bring up with him.
Martinelli has developed into a bit of a flashpoint within the fanbase and that’s not in my opinion totally fair but it is the reality. When I looked into his data at the start of the season you can see that he hasn’t turned into a superstar that we had hoped for but he is not the level of player his harshest critics try to say he is either.
I don’t really have an answer here to this, but I can’t help but notice the pattern and wonder why. I think that this is also something where when the team struggles, we as fans (and perhaps as a manager too) fall back on to our hobby horse problem.
Maybe for some it is Viktor Gyökeres, he wasn’t good and had another match with no shots taken. After a bright opening period he seemed to disappear from the match.
Maybe for some it is Eberechi Eze, he also didn’t manage a shot in this match and ended up creating just one chance for a teammate and was not much of a factor for Arsenal in the final third.
Maybe for others it is Bukayo Saka. He is now Arsenal’s highest paid player, and he’s played well but hasn’t had the end product lately that you expect with this status in the squad. This was a match where he got pulled early with Arsenal down a goal and it was deserved.
Regardless of who is the main person to blame for it or really the why it happened, Arsenal didn’t play well here in this match. They ended up leaving with a draw that still leaves them in a good position to advance to the quarterfinals here, but it is not nearly as comfortable as we would have liked or expected coming into the match.
The pressure on the team has really ramped up as we have gotten to the business end of the season and the team is not hitting the heights that we want from them. I don’t have a good reason for the dip in form, nor do I have a way that I can really change of affect this, but I will continue to support the best I can and hope for the best.
indeed, both those chances are in the 'and Smith must score' category.
He's been unfortunate, that those misses have been 'perceived' as costing points, ignoring the general 'malaise of the previous 90 mins, but it's also a frustration in that he hasn't perhaps 'kicked on, although 12 goals is nothing to be sniffed at....
Martinelli, like most of our players is just in a finishing slump, i don't think it helps that he had presentable chances to win the games late on vs Forest & Brentford, which, if taken, would've seen us win the league by now. Sadly though, we always seem to need a 'boo boy' to pick on, even in the good times, and no matter how self defeating it is......