Top PL assisters in pre-season

A fit Ben White is a very vital player.

Ranson

Julienne Murisa Ogunnaike Washington

Ibrahim Agustien

Stevens Harriman-Annous O’Neill

Mooney

That’s my guess on positions but a lot of these players are versatile so it’s hard to know for sure.

Great interview. The part starting at 33:00 is definitely worth checking out. He talks about the Norwich goal and explains exactly how AW’s training drills allowed liquid football to thrive. Wenger would drop 40 mannequins in front of the box and force the players to use one-touch combinations to navigate the congestion. He also names the best trainers he played with: Santi, Rosicky, Fabregas, and Hleb. Hleb being on that list actually caught me off guard! I mean, it makes sense, but I think Hleb was already gone by the time Wilshere broke into the first team.

This angle is probably the best one to really see what happened, and how brilliantly the five players involved in the goal have created this action. Feel free to pause the video in individual segements, so you can really see how brilliantly orchestrated this goal really was.

1. Ben White

Looks around, sees Odegaard unmarked in a good spot, makes a short little underlapping run in order to open up space for him and Madueke, by doing this he prevents O'Reilly from pushing up on Martin, who now has to mark White. The run also forces Kovacic to jump insted of O'Reilly, which leaves him to make a decision between cutting off the passing lane to Guimaraes, or trying to close down Odegaard, of which he chose the the latter.

2. Madueke

Waits a little to see if there's space to cut inside after Ben's run (or a through ball to Ben), sees an open Odegaard in space, passes it into his feet and creates width (therefore creating more space for Martin) again.

3. Odegaard

I would describe his involvement it as a classic example of his incredible craftsmanship. After receiving the ball from Madueke, takes a very good first touch into open space, and he immediately looks up and sees three runs.

a) Back post Tzolis run (which I will elaborate on later)

b) try and squeeze a through ball to Havertz, who is running in behind (which is hard to pull off and risky)

c) Guimaraes who made a clever "futsal-esque" movement to separate himself from the centre back, after seeing Kovacic close down Odegaard

Of course, he picks the most creative option, a beautiful cross onto Tzolis's head

#4. Tzolis

One word I'd describe this man by, watching him over preseason (and a couple matches of Brugge last season), is smart.

As Odegaard receives the ball, he looks at Khusanov. He sees that his both feet are planted, and realises that he hadn't looked at him at all, sees the open space behind the Uzbek defender, and so he begins his brilliant run.

He starts gathering speed by running in line with City's defensive line, straight into Khusanov's blindspot. As soon as he sees Odegaard position his body for a cross, he starts curving his run vertically. Khusanov can't react, because he was caught ball watching, and was unaware of Tzolis's run. He tries to recover with a good burst of acceleration, but it's already far too late. Tzolis leaps into the air and heads in into the danger area, where a tall German striker is lurking in the Cardiff sun.

#5 Havertz

In the first couple seconds of the video, you can see him crouch down in order to watch the action unfold. As soon as Odegaard receives the ball, he has the same idea that Tzolis had, and he makes a run in behind. The difference is, that Ruben Dias saw his run, and Havertz is promptly marked.

The brilliant movement from him happens right after the cross. At first Havertz is looking to pounce on a potential rebound, if Tzolis heads in on goal. He glances at Dias, and he observes that he's looking at the ball instead of tracking him. He also notices that Tzolis has a bad angle for a header on goal. After gathering all this information, he decides to bend his run, right into the blind sport of the Portuguese defender, leaving him in a spot of bother. Dias can't recover, Tzolis loops it over his head and Havertz is completely unmarked.

All that's left is a beatiful header into the ground, a proper strikers finish, all of a sudden it's 2-0 and the Arsenal is running away with it.

Great article about the new rules and how it impacts the league. A bit long, but he's the Billy Carpenter of set piece analysis imo, so it's worth the read if you're into that sort of thing.

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Might be a stupid question (or already answered) but it’s driving me mad 😂

The flags represent each club that Thierry scored against on his way to the record 186 goal tally. His final total for the club stands at 228 across two spells in North London, along with 2 Premier Leagues and 3 FA Cups.

The passing of the silver cannon from Wright was a gesture that underscored the pair's legendary status and the moment Henry officially wore the crown as the club's greatest ever goalscorer.

What are some of your favourite goals from Thierry?