You are beating most teams.

I was an advocate of wanting to see Rice, Partey and Odegaard in midfield but I'm not sure that's gonna be possible in this setup. You could see Rice's quality as soon as he moved back to DM if that's the case where do you put Partey certainly not at right back. If you play the pair of them you need to stop playing the inverted full back. Ramsdale should be definately back in the team and if he ain't you have got to ask questions of Arteta and what is going on behind the scenes.

Unless Partey can play the AM role there is absolutely no way he and Rice should play together.
Havertz was a bad signing. People want to trust and hide that by playing Rice out of position - meaning two big money signings are awful.

Havertz is the big howler. A massive downgrade on Xhaka.

That's the issue here

Should really have gone for Szoboszlai should have been alot cheaper and better and left a bit of change in the bank for another signing.

I personally would have gone for - Szoboszlai / Rice / Maddinson and Timber as our summer signings.

Hell even that Gravenberch looks very decent.

Starting to look like Arteta and Edu fecked up the summer transfer. Wasn’t exactly the most difficult thing to mess up on either. At least Raya is a loan signing. Ramsdale has to be bought back in purely because how out of form Raya is.

comment by D'Jeezus Mackaroni (U1137)
posted 40 minutes ago
Unless Partey can play the AM role there is absolutely no way he and Rice should play together.
Havertz was a bad signing. People want to trust and hide that by playing Rice out of position - meaning two big money signings are awful.
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You are overthinking things just like Arteta.

Best midfielders on the pitch, simple. It will be more effective to have control of the midfield. Also just look back at last season, Xhaka was playing that role. You seriously think Rice who is a more talented player can't do something similar? Can't evolve? Frankly, you're talking BULLS|-|IT and are so desperate to cling on to this line of thinking.

You think Rice can't play a hybrid role and adapt his positioning to the match situation? The issue today was not him, it was the player behind him who can't be left exposed on his own. That's not the same with Partey.

The other option if you want to be more attacking is giving ESR a run of games in the 8 because the other options, Havertz & Vieira have show themselves to be woefully inadequate there, something most of us knew before the former signed and after watching the latter for just a few games.

Getting really bored with the whole inverted full backs.

There is no fluidity in the way we are playing and in terms of going forward, well we create near to nothing.

The issue was the midfield was disjointed, Rice was totally awful and Odegaard completely out of the game as a direct result.
You are underthinking things, thinking put the "best 11" on the pitch regardless of positions. Your thinking is akin to having two great #9s and playing one on the wing because they are the second best player you have.
Rice has been excellent all season in the DM role. Move him into an advanced role and he is absolute shiiite. And that affects the other players in the team and sees a performance like today.
Have a formation, have a system and play the players who best fit and perform that system. Don't try and shoehorn players in.

Based on what you wrote in that match thread, it feels more like you just hate Partey.

I hate an excellent DM being played in AM. City wouldn't do it with Rodri, Barca wouldn't have done it with Busquets and Real wouldn't have done it with Casemiro.
Ridiculous we did it with a £105m DM who has excelled in the DM role this season. Massive mistake.

I'm not saying they should start every game together, there are games where Rice should hold, Partey should hold bench and ESR or perhaps Trossard should be given an opportunity there. But away at Stamford Bridge after a longish international break against a resurgent Chelsea and in most other tough fixtures, they should. Gotta place value on controlling the midfield.

If you're going to pick Jorginho & Rice then it's very stoopid to not pick Partey & Rice with both available for this type of game.

comment by D'Jeezus Mackaroni (U1137)
posted 3 minutes ago
I hate an excellent DM being played in AM. City wouldn't do it with Rodri, Barca wouldn't have done it with Busquets and Real wouldn't have done it with Casemiro.
Ridiculous we did it with a £105m DM who has excelled in the DM role this season. Massive mistake.
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I understand that but sometimes you have to make the best of a bad bunch right?

Right now our bad bunch is Havertz, Jorginho & Vieira. Meaning we don't have a natural proven 8. Partey has proven, up until the end of last season (when he suddenly was given Rob Holding behind him in place of Saliba) that he is good in that position.

I don't consider that position/role to be an AM in this type of fixture either. It's a hybrid DM/CM/AM, needs to do a bit of everything.

AM when we are very strong favourites to dominate possession and the game in which case Rice should be in DM and a more creative/attacking talent in the 8.

Final thing I will say on this, clearly neither of us are going to talk the other round, that's fine, no issue there, opinions are opinions.

However, one thing I believe we can agree on is that Arteta has gotten this totally wrong. So wrong in fact that the berk is not doing what either of us want, his choice is the worst of all 3 options.

He didn't play Rice in DM where you wanted him and he didn't play Partey in place of Jorginho which is what I want IF he wants to play Rice in the 8 role.

I'm not actually desperate to see Rice in that role but I just want him to have a good DM behind him that can cover for him if he is being tried there...

I would also much rather see Rice in DM and ESR/Trossard given a chance in the 8 than Jorginho playing with Rice ahead of him.

Arteta is just stoopid sometimes, picks the worst of the three.

I think he will try Vieira again in that 8 position

comment by D'Jeezus Mackaroni (U1137)
posted 5 hours, 1 minute ago
Unless Partey can play the AM role there is absolutely no way he and Rice should play together.
Havertz was a bad signing. People want to trust and hide that by playing Rice out of position - meaning two big money signings are awful.
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I don't think people wanna hide it by playing Rice there, I think in bigger games we've seen it can be a successful way of allowing more control, but in this instance either Arteta didn't wanna change the midfield after a good win or he gave Chelsea too much respect.

I think most people would pick a midfield of

ESR/Vieira--Ode
---Rice/Partey

For about 80% of our games. So I wouldn't say it's about wanting to hide Havertz being a bad signing (and while it's looking like he might be, I also wouldn't make that judgement just yet personally)

comment by D'Jeezus Mackaroni (U1137)
posted 8 hours, 52 minutes ago
I hate an excellent DM being played in AM. City wouldn't do it with Rodri, Barca wouldn't have done it with Busquets and Real wouldn't have done it with Casemiro.
Ridiculous we did it with a £105m DM who has excelled in the DM role this season. Massive mistake.
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Very rare moment I agree with DJ. You can either play Rice or Partey CDM, neither of them can play Xhaka's position. I'd rather see Havertz in that position than Partey or Rice

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