Billy Carpenter
Write about Arsenal. I also write for SCOUTED. Here's my newsletter:
billycarpenter.substack.com
- Why don't teams come out and play against Arsenal?
- Oh, I'm not supposed to value the Carabao? In English, 'Carabao,' if you split the word, it's Care About. And that's what we're doing here. We're caring about.
- Without Kai, there are tradeoffs. *This* lineup has no galloping outlet. *That* one has no connector. *This* one is vulnerable OOP + set pieces. *That* one has no big box presence. With Kai, the only tradeoff is that he used to miss shots sometimes. And I don’t give a fuck.
- My fondness for Kai Havertz has no limits.
- Why does this look potentially good for Timber? — Noni frees him from touchline responsibilities — Eze floats and frees up the inside pocket so he can drive, combine, etc — Important Jenga block of back-threes is getting those wide CBs to jump out too far
- How I'd play it. Eze floating central/SS and a little left to give a dribbler/creator to the left, Timber in the half-space, Rice deep, Zubi helping pocket play on the right. Tricky part is whether Gyök is ready to press on the right. Conditions are good for Timber in attack. 👍
- With Ø off his best (especially physically), we can start rotating in looks like this. — Double-pivot with Rice RCM, doing Henderson runs around the right — Eze/Kai front-two in the press — Swap in Timber+Trossard depending on the opponent. But I like giving Eze someone to release.
- That Kairat game was hilarious. Every player was playing like an exaggerated slapstick impression of themselves. Except Kai, who was doing an impression of prime Müller.
- Calafiori filling in for Gabriel at LCB.
- I'm writing more, and will post when I'm done, but: One thing that doesn't neatly fit with the narrative flow: Arsenal weren't being cagey or conservative in the period after the first goal. If anything, they were going too impulsively for a second, and losing it while doing so.
- Think people would be surprised at just how many Eze moments there are for Arsenal already. I started listing them off from memory, and it became too big for a tweet. Let's play him, shall we?
- I have completed my monthslong investigation into Bukayo Saka’s form. Here it is in its entirety: He’s playing quite well, but missing shots. Bit annoying. Thank you for reading.
- EXPECTED ASSISTS • Bruno Fernandes: 5.6 • Bukayo Saka: 5.1 ASSISTS • Bruno Fernandes: 10 • Bukayo Saka: 3 (data: opta)
- In retrospect, the Havertz cameo at Portsmouth was kinda cruel.
- Vibes are sufficiently bad for me to post this now. I think Arsenal have the best crossing CM (Rice) and winger (Saka) in the league. Arsenal full-backs are 9 for 75 (12%) on crosses this season. Timber: 2/32 Calafori: 3/20 White: 2/13 Hincapie: 2/10 Lewis-Skelly: 0/0
- Against Newcastle, Gabriel lost touch-distance with Woltemade while barking instructions to others. I don’t think anybody doubts if given a simple mandate (“win this duel”) he’d prevail. There are downsides to everyone feeling maximally responsible for everything at all times.
- Today's game is requiring so much mopup running duty from your Álvarezes, Szoboszlais, Valverdes, Fernandeses that you can't help but think it's zapping their own goal-scoring potential.
- One thing on Julián Álvarez: he's one of the more risk-mitigated signings around. Right age, PL proven, everywhere proven, football completer, flexible & tactically experienced, intense, healthy, great OOP, incapable of putting in below a 6.5/10 performance. Just a question of peak.
- Riccardo Calafiori has Arsenal's highest completion percentage in the final third (84.5%).
- What topics would you like me to explore in the newsletter?
- My kids like watching combat robots. Some of the really destructive ones need a few seconds to spin up their weapons. So opponents box-rush them, because they’re most vulnerable before they get going. Give them space, and the weapon whirrs. This is a post about Viktor Gyökeres.
- Two easy ways to grow the game: let clips and comps proliferate, and ensure broad access to stats
- Really seeing how much is gone from fbref. Not just green bars and xG. Can’t even get aerials, recoveries, shot creation, pass types, number of touches, GK distribution, etc. Match logs are almost empty. Just brutal. Pour one out.
- San Siro is why you sign Merino and not some FM wonderkid. Big boy shit. You must be this tall to ride.
- It’s really nice that we’re switching sides for Eze. Merino/Zubimendi/Eze has a good balance for certain matchups. It’ll come a little more alive with more legs around him, but Palace/Portsmouth/Inter all have promising contours for him. He's in the right places.
- Was happy with some of the subtext of the Arteta conference. Didn’t feel like they xG-hand-waved the Forest result, and he called out the setup on the left unprompted. I wasn’t frustrated in an existential way. It's just the exact kind of configuration we should be past by now
- No more half measures. 🤪
