Morning. A quick recap of Saturday for you.
Last night I played 5 a side for the first time in a couple of months. The pain this morning is extremely real, and I admit there were times in the game where I thought ‘I might be too old for this,’ but then I fired a shot into the bottom corner. The kind where you make such good contact with the ball that you barely feel it and it shoots past the goalie.
So today I could go buy some new Astro boots.
Before Liverpool, there’s a snippet of an interview with BT Sport’s Gabriel Jesus that I saw on Reddit (warning, it also includes Rio Ferdinand). He talks about his own personal ambitions and how he wants to score 1, 2, 3 goals in every game, but if you gave him a choice between the Golden Boot and the League title, he would take the title. Which sounds obvious, but I think his team-focused ethic is a big part of why Mikel Arteta and Edu hired him.
It’s not the first time he’s shown that there is a very entrenched guy there, despite the profile, despite the transfer fee and everything else. And I think it’s something that runs through the team. Comments after Thursday’s Bodo/Glimt game from Takehiro Tomiyasu fueled that.
I will first say that while others focused more on what they did on the other end of the field, I watched Tomi very closely and every time I do I am so impressed by the way he plays. In this team, the full-backs play a very important role when we go forward. We’ve discussed at length the way the role of left-back has changed this particular season, and it was clear the other night that Kieran Tierney was ‘doing the Zinchenko’ in terms of where he was positioned on the pitch during our preparation. .
The right side isn’t as specific as that, because part of the reason we do it is to allow Granit Xhaka to move forward. On the right, Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka tend to mix well, and when teams double up on Saka, as they do all the time, space is created elsewhere. Thomas Partey’s goal in the derby was an illustration of this.
But Tomiyasu is a consummate defender wherever he plays. I thought he was very good against Bodo/Glimt without being under too much pressure, but regardless of who we play against, when he is in a duel, I feel very confident that he will win it. Which must be very pleasing for Mikel Arteta who, as we know, really doesn’t like that his players don’t win their duels. He makes him angry with a high-pitched voice.
When Tierney left and Ben White came on, Tomiyasu moved to the left back, and not only did an almost perfect job as a defender, but he also slid into those central areas during possession. I just realized that while you might expect it from Tierney and Zinchenko, you wouldn’t necessarily expect it from a player who is essentially the third option at that position, and I think that says a lot about the way Arteta trains his players, but also the quality. from Tomiyasu to just go and do it without much fuss. You can always see when a player is not 100% comfortable with something, and there was none of that with him.
After the game he said:
Today was not my best performance, so I am not satisfied with my performance.
If you play for a big club, like Arsenal, there is always competition with the other players. Competition makes me much better. To be fair, he (Ben White) is doing very well, he is doing fantastic. I need to learn a lot of things from him also during the training sessions.
I’ve written about Ben White more than once this season and how good I think he’s been, but perhaps another measure of how consistent his performances have been is the fact that he’s keeping Tomiyasu off the team. Having struggled with right-back problems for quite some time, the difference he made after his arrival from Bologna was really important, and maybe he didn’t get the recognition he deserved.
Part of that might have been the fact that he spent most of the second half of the season injured, but until Christmas, I think a case could be made that he was as good as anyone. However, few people wave flags for the right backs. How Aaron Ramsdale made miraculous saves and won people over with his personality; while Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe clicked up front; and how center-forward themes dominated the conversation; Tomiyasu was a bit overlooked in my opinion.
This is going to be a long season, with strange and difficult physical things for the players to deal with, whether they go to the World Cup or not. Tomiyasu will be there for Japan, it looks like Ben White won’t be going for England (which seems crazy considering their form), but to have two guys as good as them competing and pushing each other throughout the season seems really positive to me.
Ok, I’ll leave it there for now. We’ll have a Liverpool preview podcast for you on Patreon around noon, and we’ll see the Mugsmashers properly on tomorrow’s blog.
Have a good.
