DISQUS

I think the point about incisiveness is correct, and I think a player like Arshavin is a good use of the transfer funds available. Had it not been for Cesc's injury, then I would think we needed the DM player more. Such a player would have freed Cesc to play a bit further forward, hopefully helping both the attack and defense.

Of course, we don't have Cesc for the rest of the season. In the absence of his kind of creativity and passing skill, you get performances like yesterday's against West Ham. As much as they dominated the ball, they could not apply consistent danger to the West Ham goal. Hopefully we manage to get Arshavin (especially since it looks like he is the only option) and he is able to get up to speed quick enough to help up front.

I guess I'm not sure I understand this. The inference seems to be:

1) Martin O'Neill is a good manager.
2) x, y, z are what ought to be done at Club A.
3) Since Martin O'Neill is a good manager, if he were at A, he would do x, y, z.

That seems a bit heavy handed. There are good managers on these sides already, and they did not do make these moves. Now, I think they can be wrong (I think Wenger was), but that is no reason to think O'Neill wouldn't do the same things.

What strategies for roster construction does he use that you can use to bolster the argument? What specific decisions has he made that would give some (any) reason to believe that Martin O'Neill would make these clubs better? What can we learn from Martin O'Neill's track record? That he is a good manager is obvious, and he joins a set of other good managers in the Premier League. I'm much more interested in what makes him different (and perhaps better), and that is the missing premise from this enthymeme.

I'm not sure I'd pick Wenger either, but I'm not sure how to evaluate a manager based on the current form of his squad. Instead, perhaps one can talk about the season. Otherwise we can talk about individual tactical decisions, and such, but current form fluctuates way too much based on factors beyond the managers control.

Generally, managers should be evaluated over the span of several seasons, that way one can evaluate the long term effectiveness of their roster construction and tactic selection within that roster. Within this model, I think the question of the best manager in the league is between Wenger and Ferguson. I can be swayed either way based on one's selection criteria.

Of course, we cannot do that all the time, as managers get fired too quickly. In that case, we have to settle for as long of a time period as possible. Unfortunately, Premier League clubs (like most professional leagues) tend to drop and pick managers based on small samples, leading to a lack of consistency within the club. This means that roster construction styles and tactics shift far too often. Managers like Wenger and Ferguson are partly (obviously they have tenure because of their success as well) successful because they have been able to construct their clubs with a single plan over long periods of time.

So I would refocus my attention. I couldn't care less about the Burnley loss (or especially the Porto loss in an essentially meaningless game) as indications of Wenger's quality as a manager this season. I do think, however, that he should not be in consideration for manager of the year thus far. The reasons are not individual results, or even the recent run of games, so much as the roster construction decisions he has made - and the effect it has had on Arsenal's season. In particular, his decision/failure to replace Flamini has been costly, as has the lack of depth (now further exacerbated by the devastating Fabregas injury). This Arsenal side has shown that it can play just as well as last season's side, but its inconsistency is due in large part to a couple of curious decisions by Wenger, and he deserves criticism for that.

Note, however, that I still think he is a candidate for best manager in the league. There is an ambiguity in the phrasing "best football manager in the league right now" between a stable talent for managing and the manager who has performed best during some run of games. As to the latter, I think we need to look at the decisions over the whole season thus far, and on those grounds, Wenger's exclusion is reasonable. Were the question the former, then it would not be and so perhaps this is the reason for the disagreement.

Brian,

I think you are on to something important, but that you are being perhaps too pessimistic.

I do think you are right that it is something we "see." We are employing whatever our theory of mind (in the technical, cognitive faculty sense) turns out to be in order to interpret others. I do not have a lot of confidence in this, however, as there is no decision procedure for resolving conflict.

Yet, there are certainly grounds for statistical analysis on the matter. A lot of the advanced work in baseball is done by studies of correlation - by determining how strongly some statistic correlates with another (for example, whether OBP or BA correlates better with winning to take a simple case). You could study teams which started after their rivals, and see if there was any difference. You could establish more stringent conditions on cases in which the earlier game was favorable or unfavorable to the second team, etc. Now, this would only establish correlation, and not causation - but a robust correlation would at least provide evidence in favor of the hypothesis.

If, on the other hand, despite the fact that we "see" it, there is no correlation, then this would falsify the hypothesis. So these sorts of methods could at least determine if the hypothesis was viable, even if (and you are right), actual psychological motivations are too difficult to give a complete account of.

Well said Charles. I share your sentiments exactly.

I'm not sure what you mean by "day of reckoning."

At the top, everybody got a point, except Villa. So, sitting on the same goal differential, Villa is up 1 point in the league over Arsenal. And we've learned who will nab fourth? ;)

Nothing changed this weekend. It was the same problems for the Arsenal side that they've had all season. With those problems, they are neck and neck with Villa for the fourth Champions League spot. I tend to think ultimately Arsenal's ability to spend in January will outstrip Villa's, and they will ultimately last it out for fourth. That's also tainted by my clear bias in favor of Arsenal.

The point, however, is that we've got a great season on our hands. What we learn each week is a little bit more about the nuances of a number of teams all within striking distance, not only of fourth place, but of the title.

To be quite honest, I think the notion that it would take a "miracle" for a team one point off fourth place to win it is, well, an interesting take on what "miracle" means. I'm looking forward (nervously, as an Arsenal fan) to a difficult and tense season. (I do apologize for jumping on the language, but I think the tendency in sports journalism to speak in rampant hyperbole to get in the way of interesting discussion on sports related issues. It's the same thing with the number of times commentators like to call sporting events "must win" for some team.)

A discussion of fourth place is going to have to start with the subtleties and nuances of both clubs, because right now, there is not a whole lot separating them.

I'm not sure I agree with the premise of the article that using one's feet is a novelty to Americans (indeed, your reaction to save the phone seems like the perfectly obvious and natural response to an American like myself). I think it is a novelty within the sporting context, but this is merely a consequence of the fact that soccer is considered a novelty sport.

As a consequence, I'm not sure it is playing much of a causal role in soccer's unpopularity. I'm not sure people are turned off by the fact that people use their feet, but rather they are turned off for other reasons and diagnose it by pointing to obvious features of the game. It seems silly because the game strikes some people as silly, and thus the individual features seem silly.

In support of this interpretation I'd point to the steadily growing youth interest in soccer. It has become a very popular sport for kids, who have no cultural hang ups about the game or using one's feet. It's the older generation, and the kids they directly influence, who dislike the sport for whatever reason that harp on silly accusations like "use their feet" or "it's boring."

I think it is right that Arsenal need a midfield general. It does not necessarily need to be someone who fits the traditional mold and is able to physically dominate the midfield. Yet, what a solid DM can give to the side is to allow Fabregas to play further upfield. Diaby looks like Vieira, but I think he is a better player when he is allowed to roam upfield, rather than bossing the midfield. Denilson plays a bit too much like Cesc and neither are able to really fill that role. A player in that role might also take some of the pressure off the DC's.

I think the need for a leader is a bit overstated. It's been the focus of a lot of the best Arsenal blogs lately, including most of the ones I respect most. I fear that Arsenal fans like myself are pinning our hopes for a quick fix on an intangible quality. I agree that Gallas doesn't *seem* like an adequate leader for the side (I'll only ever say "seem" since we don't really know what goes on behind closed doors). Better leadership might help a bit, but I think the problems are more readily identifiable things on the pitch.

Besides a better DM, we could really use a commanding central defender. Sagna and Clichy are excellent full backs, and they fit their attacking role in Arsenal's system perfectly (their attacking role, however, makes the DM even more important). Toure and Gallas are both quality centerbacks, but the partnership isn't there. I'm just joining a veritable chorus on this one, but I think we need a central defender better able to contest for balls in the air, leaving Gallas or Toure to clean up.

With a stronger spine, this team would be vastly improved. The quality is there from a team just four points off the title pace last season. With Nasri and Walcott getting the bulk of the playing time (I am baffled by Arsene's decision to keep them on the bench vs Stoke), this is a team that can and does score goals. What they need is consistency - and I think the inconsistent results have a lot more to do with defensive weakness up the center of the pitch rather than leadership.

The Premier league ought to take Major League Baseball as its model here. They have a unified system which you can purchase through the site of each team. A subscription gives you unlimited access to every game over the course of the season. Not only do you get each game live, but you can watch games from the archive from the entire season.

Obviously there are a lot of legal hurdles that need to be jumped to bring this together, but I can dream!