Thread by @nonewthing

I used Arsenal's ailments as a chance to explain some basic football concepts/theory with the knowledge that Arsenal will fix these issues under Arteta and those explanations would get even more relevant with time.

One of the reasons many knowledgeable guys got Arteta's Arsenal

https://twitter.com/nonewthing/status/1434477641357217794

rebuild wrong was that they either failed to

—Know these things.

Or

—Understand how important they were to what Arteta is trying to do.

Ramsdale yesterday was picking out runners with 60-yard passes. That was a dynamic Arsenal didn't have last season.

Tomiyasu and Tavares are both ambipedal and both can go inside or outside against a press. That's a dynamic Arsenal did not have last season.

Both Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli can beat their markers from a standing start and find men in the box. That's a dynamic Arsenal

did not have until December, last season.

Ben White is extremely comfortable/efficient in engaging in proactive defensive actions high up the pitch. That's a dynamic Arsenal had sporadically last season.

Arteta's approach to a team in possession is similar to Guardiola's. It is

a complete game model WHICH REQUIRES many little things to work consecutively and reliably, such as your goalkeeper being able to play a straight hard pass across the ground, splitting opposition lines and the receiver of that pass to receive well and capitalize.

It is a system of many little things going right and snowballing into one big thing. Arteta's Arsenal before this season lacked a lot of those little things.

These little things were what the other football experts did not know, or could not understand their importance in

what Arteta was trying to do or refused to cut Arteta some kind of slack for not having these things.

We are not perfect, yet, but we have a lot of what we did not have now and these things mean Arteta's ideas (which are similar to Pep's) work better and we have a better team.

Arteta's Arsenal will probably, like Pep's City, continue to improve every season as Arteta collects more of the things his team lacks and adds them to the dynamic.

Right now, we do not have a central outlet or decisiveness in attacking play or physical fitness to press or depth

but every single week that passes by, these issues will ease as the team grows more intelligent and better adapted to the ideas of what we're trying to do.

Yesterday, for the first time, we had an extremely FLEXIBLE pressing scheme which we kept up for extended periods.

Most of the people who analyse Arteta's Arsenal simply do not have a great idea of how teams grow into a Juego De Posicion philosophy. They do not realize that basic things are needed to make it work. And so they look at the data to tell them what is wrong and just repeat that.

This is why I could tell that we did not have creativity issues, even when the data said otherwise.

This is why I seem like a know-it-all who's always right at the end of the day. It's not my fault. I do not know much. It's just that there's a general lack of football knowledge

here, even among tactical and data analysts. Everything I say is based on basic football theory/conceptions. Many people have not studied that even if they are already working adjacent in football.

It was easy to see that Arsenal will be a pressing side under Arteta. The data is

not the only way to tell, because, normally, Pep's game model contains pressing and Arteta has deployed effective pressing before.

There was some other factors at work as to why Arsenal don't/didn't press. Chalk it down to our poor physical state or poor quality or whatever.

If Arsenal do not press high, the game model would be incomplete.

Coaching in real life is not FM where you just click on "Press high" and a team full of sluggards who do not understand body orientation and cover shadows and pressing triggers will automatically become Liverpool.

I'm pretty sure that Arsenal will rank up there in the data metrics when it comes to pressuring with Chelsea/City/Liverpool/Leeds next season.

Pressing is a mental and physical thing.

In this way, I have insight into Arteta's Arsenal that an ordinary analyst doesn't and this

is the source of why I sound so confident and get so many predictions right.

People do not listen on Twitter unless you shout it at them, even the industry professionals.

My Liverpool thread for example is the product of 4 seasons of watching them with increasing regularity.

I can tell that Liverpool are in trouble, and this will be more apparent from next season.

On the day that it becomes very obvious, I will go back to my Liverpool thread and give a long deep sigh. All the abuse and heat for speaking the truth with some poetry.

I do not want 'a job in football' because I know I'm not good enough and I'm still at a basic level compared to professional coaches at the highest level of the game. I do not know how to organize or come up with training exercises, maintain group sessions, or the many little

things that go into implementing an back-up-through move in the 89th minute of a match.

I do not know these things and I must! I cannot even coach kids or I do not believe myself good enough to.

But everything is going to be mine one day. All that knowledge.

The best I can do is evaluate talent ID profiles within minutes. I know nothing yet even though I know the game.

Like I once tweeted, my goal one day is to become the sporting director of a club. This will happen if life continues. Nothing can stop that.

This is the beginning.