Arsenal battered in harsh Liverpool correction

by .


Unai Emery dealt with his first major humiliation at Arsenal in a game that was of no surprise to anyone paying attention to what’s been going on over the past few months. We sent out a group with sticks and stones to respond to players with nuclear weapons. There was never a chance. It was an obliteration. The spanking was so hard, there wasn’t even a bloodbath, because we’d been vaporised.

Fans had to have seen that coming, we’ve been getting away with a lot of average over the past 5 months. There was always going to be a correction. The defence has been incredibly porous, but we’ve rode our luck. Our strikers have been outrageously efficient in every game. Our style of play has yet to be defined. This result was always on the cards, but we hoped the slap back to reality wouldn’t be so brutal.

There are two conflicting issues we’re running up against here that could cause challenges as we look to progress from 14 years of squad and backroom neglect.

The coach has to get a free pass is the first.

It’s very difficult to apportion too much blame on the manager. We don’t live in a world where there’s one man who makes all the decisions. There’s now three. No man, woman or child can look at the squad Emery has and say that he’s been given anywhere near the right tools to do a good job at Arsenal. We are woefully short across the board. Our keeper looks fragile, our defence is old, our star midfielder is slow and ponderous, and we have no wide players of note. That is not the work of Emery alone. That’s the remnants of Arsene Wenger and some teething problems with Sven Mislintat.

As a friend pointed out to me. Klopp finished 8th in his first season with Liverpool, the Poch dropped fewer points than Tim Sherwood in his debut with Spurs. You don’t build an elite side in a season unless the owners invest properly, or you get very, very lucky.

The concern I have is what comes after we invest?

As much as I want to believe in the current man in charge, I’m struggling to see what the offering is at the moment. This feels like a transition moment. Like the club is upgrading the gym, injecting some energy, and fixing the basics. We’re 6 months into this project and I can’t see what the plan is. What’s the style? How are we solving the defensive issues? Things have been so rough that we’ve only led once at halftime in half a season. That says the coach doesn’t know how to pick a good starting 11 and he doesn’t know how to fix the defence.

This is the conundrum the club is in. We have made our bed and the only way to give Emery a fair crack is to supply him with a shit tonne of money we know almost certainly isn’t coming.

So we are in a stasis situation. We’re exacerbating our problems by funnelling resource into someone who is unlikely to take us to the next level, which is probably going to put us further back. I don’t think Arsenal can absorb the cost of a transition coach like United have been able to. There’s too little interest from the owner to be able to afford that.

That’s the brutality of elite sport. Bad decision after bad decision puts you further and further out. I’m sure we’ll be in a better place by the end of the season. Things won’t be that bad. However, I don’t think the coach we have in at the minute is better than any of the coaches above us. If you want to find the next level, you have to find someone with new and original ideas. Someone who can extract more out of less. I just don’t think we have that, and unfortunately, it’s going to take us 2 years to come to this exact conclusion, because no exec team is going to own up to a mistake this early on.

So what do we have to look forward to?

Well, the club can certainly make some aggressive moves in January. We need to clear out the players that can’t help us moving forward. Say what you will about Emery, the biggest challenge he’s had to deal with is having his two best players in conflict with his vision. Aaron Ramsey has been deemed not good enough which is the correct decision. He needs to be shipped off. Mesut Ozil is a broken player who hasn’t given a fuck for 3 years, let’s do whatever we can to clear him from the wage bill.

Then we need to sign in better. We need the cream of the 22-year-old’s so we can elevate our play.

We also need to move on the players that are clearly too old or too weak for where we need to go. Mo Elneny shouldn’t be with us if he has no use outside league cup games. Lichtsteiner has been a miserable experiment. You can’t adapt to the Premier League at his age. Koscielny is finished. Love him, but it’s over. Granit Xhaka is never going to hit the level, it doesn’t matter how many passes he sprays around, he’s too slow and prone to bouts of dimness.

The squad needs to be aggressively shaken up, because everyone around us it getting better, and that’s before United find another 100m to spend with a proper manager.

The biggest concern for Emery right now though is to inject some belief into the squad. Those players will switch off from him very quickly if he doesn’t get them firing very quickly. He’s made some bold decisions, but they’re not paying off. He needs to get everyone back on side and he needs to rally those troops fast. We cannot afford to have a Wenger like flop in January and February, there’s too much riding on this season for it to be over now.

Just before I go, the absolute atrocity of the exAKB ghouls who came bounding online yesterday like they’d just won the lottery was truly shameful. If you can’t piece together the direct implication of Wenger in our current mess, you truly have no place commenting on football. Taking joy in a loss because you think your average opinions of Wenger having a rough ride over the past 14 years is the height of shit fandom. And yes, there was a lot of that yesterday. Utterly pathetic.

We are paying the direct consequence of not firing Arsene Wenger 8 years ago when it was clear we were on the slide. We let everything fail, from top to bottom. We let good people rot, we passed on innovation, we didn’t bring in great players and we failed to maintain a grip on an elite mentality. That’ll take any coach longer than 6 months to fix.

Right, that’s me done, see you babes in the comments.

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Un na naai

Apparently the deal is done

Negation

Pierre
“Do you not think it would have been advisable for our new manager to address our long term weakness ……defence.”

I do. But how else could he have done it? He bought Sokratis, Torreira, Lichtsteiner & Leno – minus Torreira, that’s 3 defensive players. He tried to address the problems. Just last month people were attributing the defensive improvement to Emery. Now, it’s non existent.

Up 4 grabs now

Upstate
We were also chasing the game at 2-2 when Leno went walk about for the third goal.
I actually think emery at 2-2 should have shut up shop and settled for the point.
The Chelsea game as well.

Up 4 grabs now

Nice chatting to you guys but I’m off to bed work in the morning, cheers.

Alex James

People can argue the whys and wherefors forever, the fact is that yesterday’s thumping was shameful and ranks with the hammering at Old Toilet. Only a similar belting by the Totts to go, and my 65 plus years of supporting and watching the club would count for nothing as I released my mortal coil.

Upstate Gooner

Up4grabs
Monreal Guendo Torreira Bellerin
Xhaka Koscielny Lichsteiner

That’s how Emery set us up in the back against Soton. I would get rid of Lichsteiner and go for traditional 4-2 instead

Xhaka Torreira
AMN Monreal Kosc Bellerin

Upstate Gooner

Up4grabs
It’s only 4:30pm ☺. Cheers, mate.

Un na naai

Yeah we didn’t need to play so tight against Southampton and Brighton

We should have played like that against Liverpool
He got it the wrong way round
Played an attacking formation at the worst possible time against the worst possible team and drops Lacazette to boot

Pierre

Negation Emery should have made it a priority… Any improvement has been negligible but I would say we were showing slight signs of improving when we played the wing back system … I thought it suited Kolasinac and Bellerin much better than a back 4 plus holding coming into the side was a positive. However, I feel Emery mismanaged our injury situation and by breaking up our midfield and putting xhaka at the back , it affected the balance of the team and Torriera has not been the same player without xhaka alongside him . I still can’t get my… Read more »

Upstate Gooner

Un
No wonder. The guy still doesn’t have a preferred formation nor does he know his best starting XI. Constantly tinkering, constantly making changes at halftime. That’s not genius as some say. That’s been clueless to start with. Wouldn’t need all that if we led any of the games at the half (except for one). Ozil out, Ramsey out, Lacazette maybe next. Banega in? That’s not making a stamp, that’s weakening the team while pissing a lot of people off in the process.

Marko

Emery should have made it a priority…

True. Though Arsene should have also made the defence a priority too over the last 10 years. Might have kept him in a job

Un na naai

Man this new black mirror is a bit freaky
Anyone else watched it? The interactive one??

Programme and control

Pendrey

Emery inherited a team that finished 6th in the league with one away win all season! (thanks)

Shades of Wenger here. Arsenal go to Anfield and play their usual game. Napoli nearly undid Liverpool by adopting tactics to nullify Liverpool’s pace, deeper defence, slow the game down, Fulham did better than us.

How is it Arsenal wind up with a bunch of overpaid under achievers ! Look at Wolves, limited budget but players who never stop, stick to the plan, and keep it simple.

London gunner

Pierre

Let’s just sack emery mid season? And bring in Arteta? Sounds sensible right

Marko

Bring back Wenger he’ll sort out the defence

Dissenter

Add Gazidis to the mix as well.

…and someone needs to give gambon and his ilk some chill pills to calm the f*ck up.

A new manager every six months. We will keep £15 million handy every year to keep paying them off.

englandsbest

People who defend Kroenke astonish me. They list sums paid for Ozil, Auba, etc as evidence of his generosity, a benevolent owner. They simply fail to understand how he operates. It’s the bottom line which counts with him. And his golden rule is never to put any of his own money into the Club, and to ensure that any money he spent buying the Club is loaded onto the Club. Thus Club revenue is paying off the Stadium debt. A good deal for him because he paid £450 m to gain control of the Club, and the stadium debt exceeded… Read more »

David Smith

If a team looks like a Wenger team, plays like a Wenger team, unfortunately, until Emery clears things, it is , essentially, still a Wenger team

Marko

So Arsene’s back and he’s told his net spend has to be zero…job done

seniorgooner

John Cross in mondays mirror says no money available for transfes this window.

Charlie Nick

GOH:
Answer A.
Wenger dismantling the invincibles too quickly and embarking on his project youth ego trip. We have lost to minnows before and came back from it (Swindon to the double in 2 years) Eduardo wasn’t a Messi or Ronaldo so shouldn’t be held up as a turning point. I’m not sure Suarez was ever coming tbh. Dein’s departure was more damaging than the three factors above. I think RVP leaving was a huge error on Wenger part too.

Valentin

Let’s be honest, with Emery a Europa League manager Arsenal are not going to finish in the top 4. I will even say with a revived ManUtd and a Chelsea ready to spend this transfer window we will finish 6th. For those who keep arguing that we need to spend an ridiculous amount of money to improve, I would say that better coaching and better scouting are better solution. Better coaching especially tactical and positional defending is not being too demanding. Wenger used to let Steve Bould prepare defensive work only during pre season and during the season only for… Read more »

jasongms

Negation,

Post of the year

Upstate Gooner

Valentin
Well said. Always thought myself there’s a lot of quality near by aka Championship league as opposed to overseas when it comes to tough as nails defenders.

PS. Russian name. Just curious what your background is. Born and raised in good ‘ole USSR myself.

Upstate Gooner

Negation Read your post again. Almost believed it… almost. If I hadn’t seen what transpired in the last few weeks myself. Yes, we beat Spurs in one of the best games I have ever seen. Weren’t we ahead of them in the table then in 3rd place? Fast forward less than a month and we’re 7 points behind in 5th. Whose fault is it? I have seen every minute of every game and I can tell you but you probably won’t believe me. It’s Emery. Just like he should take some credit for our 22 game unbeaten streak (lucky, Vorskla,… Read more »

Dark Hei

Lets not be too harsh on Emery.

This collapsed happen only because he still can’t get his preferred playing style up.

The grind the results approach can’t work against a rampant Liverpool.

But this AKB will give Unai a chance, until the next season to get his style up.

Thought “chance” is a funny word since the one that doles out the chance is Stan, not me!

azed

Valentin
“For those who keep arguing that we need to spend an ridiculous amount of money to improve, I would say that better coaching and better scouting are better solution.”

How much coaching do you think Iwobi needs to get to Mane or Sane’s level?

Also how much coaching do you think Mustafi needs to get to Virgil Van Dyke’s level?

Tony

GOH

“The Egyptians built pyramids that far exceed acceptable tolerances considered totally fine, now!..with little more than a drawing device and mathematics. ”

(Ah but with help from aliens, right? How else did they manage to move such huge stones? Haven’t you read Charriots of the Gods?)

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q%3Dtbn:ANd9GcRSN2KG6o42o_QvYcO96BH9cs-tYrfwLhU0V4Yazq76h2dLKCim&imgrefurl=https://books.google.com/books/about/Chariots_of_the_Gods.html?id%3Do0WL_-RN-xQC%26source%3Dkp_cover&h=1080&w=656&tbnid=GfZkJ64aS2GZqM:&q=chariots+of+the+gods&tbnh=160&tbnw=97&usg=AI4_-kQ9jhy8JznT-2rUETi4lJvik3m2cQ&vet=12ahUKEwj_7rbNiMnfAhWMqI8KHYJkDy8Q_B0wG3oECAIQEQ..i&docid=KmbD6xzEsUlFAM&itg=1&client=safari&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj_7rbNiMnfAhWMqI8KHYJkDy8Q_B0wG3oECAIQEQ
If Emery or his team cannot get professional defenders to, um…defend, then something is amiss.

(Surely we need to have professional defenders first, do we not?)

Sheeeesh mark 2

bennydevito

I see the cult of Wenger and Uncle Tony are out in force again tonight.

Where were you when Wenger was shafting us for 10 years?

You were on Untold and on here blindly defending your Lord Wenger and his “art”.

How do you know it was Emery who signed Lichsteiner and Sokratis And not the DOF and the scout?

You don’t.

Absolute charlatans.

Tony

Graham62 Good morning I trust your New Year festivities boast more than tea and toast. Loved the “I’m not drinking….honest I’m not” post Good to see there’s humour around after our unfortunate blip against Liverpool. With regards to Bould and or Emery’s defensive coach I think both should be let go looking at this season’s goals against tally. Agreed, we don’t have quality defensive players except possibly Holding and the improving Bellerin. Mustafi and his past-their-sell-by date defensive partners are more Championship or lower PL defenders. To All Reading the posts from last night (for me) it’s variations of the… Read more »

kc

Stan’s a fucking idiot if he allows Chelsea to sign Pulisic without a fight. He’s not just a brilliant young player that could help us instantly, he’s an American cash cow waiting to be milked. If Kroenke is half the business man he thinks he is, he’d put in his own money for this type of move seeing the huge returns in the future. But alas I have zero faith he does.

Unai

Love how people are saying better coaching and scouting are the answer, like it’s a secret weapon. So I guess none of the other 5 are doing this? I was no fan of Wenger but can’t expect too much more from Emery with this squad. It needs investment and many of our assets need writing off. Truth is, the club have no intention of backing any manager, better managers won’t come without money and we can’t really improve our squad without it either. Get used to it guys, were a 5/6 place club and if clubs like Everton continue to… Read more »

Unai

Tony – Emery needs so many players all over the park; it’s like a pantomine of a squad.

Basically sums it up.

It makes pretty grim reading whoever the coach is.

China1

Tony I’m not entirely sure one way or the other about Sven and Raul. Like you said it’s not been an earth shattering start from them but it’s been ‘reasonable’ so far overall from my perspective What will really be telling though will be this window and the summer. If they come out of both of these windows with underwhelming results then that’s probably enough evidence to lay some proper blame at their feet We have to admit they handled our business quickly and efficiency in the summer, and the transfer fees were all cheap except perhaps Sok could’ve been… Read more »

China1

KC I’ve not been following pullisic and I don’t know how good he is or how much he’d cost, but if he is all thatvtheres certaibly a case to be made for marketing a cash cow American to the swelling American audience as you said

So long as the benefits outweigh the costs, he should be looked at, but I’ve no personal opinion on the player so far

Receding Hairline

In Summary Gambon’s stand is that we have awesome players, better than Liverpool in fact, and that with the right manager we should be topping the table with a 70m spend.

Good Talk, sounds reasonable.

Emery out.

Waldo

Almost everyone here are fricking comedians (at lest I hope they are trying to be funny). What do you think emery was thinking after the first couple of weeksof the season? “Holy crap, wtf am I going to do with Ozil and the defense???” Well like any quality manager, you get better players. Oh… but wait… by then the transfer window was closed??? Oh crap!! What to do???? What to do? I know, let’s all call him out for being a failure even though he has has only ONE transfer window (prior to knowing the true garbage left behind –… Read more »

gonsterous

if we can’t get pepe, I think the cheaper alternative would be David Neres.. Guys 21 and playing very well for Ajax. It’s only the Dutch league but he looks like a good player. Pacy, and loads of dribbling tricks up his sleeves.

gonsterous

RH

actually in summary, gambon lives in a fantasy world with barbie and ken

GuNZ

Getting on for 8:30 pm here in NZ and am about to take a good run at midnight and start drinking in earnest, so I’ll take this opportunity to wish you all a happy and safe crossover into 2019.

To The Basque, I ask for good times. I’m realistic enough to understand it’s not going to happen overnight,but in the words of the lovely Rachel Hunter, hopefully it WILL happen.

gonsterous

of all our signings, licht has been the failure. Which isn’t bad considering, he was a freebie. we do need a winger with pace, goals and tricks in Jan. Maybe then we can just about nick top 4. If not, we will be playing Thursday night footie next season.

Receding Hairline

Apart from getting into people’s faces and starting unnecessary skirmishes Stephan has been pretty much useless which is not surprising considering he is 35 or so and spent the last year on the fringes of Juve’s first team. Leno has been ok, it’s pretty harsh judging a goal keeper with no defense in front of him, you can also see how tough Courtouis is finding it at Madrid. The two other guys are pretty young and can become very very good players. Sokratis is a stop gap in all honesty but can be solid. So screaming Emery has wasted 70m,… Read more »

Tony

China1
Totally agree with you.

The clocks ticking and all eyes are on Sven & Raul

Ishola70

Valentin

“WestHam bought the young defender of the French league for less than Sokratis and now he is talked as on the reserve list of the French squad”

Issa Diop. I highlighted him on here as a potential signing in the summer. He shows very good leadership for one so young.

Pierre

Negation “The truth is, the shittiest part of Arsenal is – and has been for a long time -its fanbase. We are the virus, the clowns, the schizophrenic moaners. Yes, we pay high ticket costs – that’s something. But we are still shit. Shit shit shit. And we have the shitty players we deserve.” Obviously you must have been looking in the mirror when you made this comment . We know who are “. the virus, the clowns, the schizophrenic moaners” don’t we. We have had ten years+ of negativity from theses people who would shout ” spend some fucking… Read more »

Pierre

As of daily mail December 2108……Tottenham do have a lower net spend .

net spend since 2006-07:

Arsenal: £109.2m

Chelsea: £343m

Liverpool: £235.5m

Man Utd: £445.2m

Man City: £826m

Tottenham: £59.3m

R.S.P.C.Arsenal

Pierre

That was a good angry post.

I remember going to games in the 70sand 80s coating the players off in the ground , like they do in this blog so nothing is new….
Just the platform to do it on

Pierre

Money spent on signing players since 2006-07:

Arsenal: £384.6m

Chelsea: £733.1m

Liverpool: £675.3m

Man Utd: £746.1m

Man City: £1080.3m

Tottenham: £518m

These figures show how poor we have been in selling players

Pierre

R.s.p.c.arsenal

I hope I am wrong but I’m worried about where the club is going ..I am normally quite positive about the club but it won’t take much for the fan base to turn and that is not what I want to see.

I think they will go after kronke big time if results and performances take a turn for the worse .
The only positive is, it may unite the fan base but the problem is kronke will be very difficult to move ,maybe impossible.

Valentin

Azed, stop expecting academy players to be fully formed. IMHO Iwobi has more talent as Mane. He can dribble, he is fast and strong. He just needs a proper coach to teach him when to release the ball and when to make his run. Sterling at Liverpool was just a speed merchant, suddenly at ManCity with a proper coach he is a deadly midfielder. For years our defense was ridiculous. The fact that it was extremely poor was hidden by our attack. Every time we faced a well organised attack with a quick passing game plan, it got found out.… Read more »

Graham62

Pierre As it’s the festive season and a New Year is fast approaching, I will not respond as I normally would to your perceptions of where all the problems originated from and why so many of our fanbase reacted to what was happening at the club. Nevertheless…….. The negativity that built over the years was brought about by numerous things and had nothing to do with not being happy with top 4 and winning a few “shitty” FA Cups. It was the fact that the ethos and culture of the club was being systematically destroyed by a mindset geared to… Read more »

Pierre

Happy New year to you Graham,have a good one….

Teeing off 11.45 …weather not too bad …very little wind ….soft greens …perfect scoring conditions, which means I will probably have a nightmare.

englandsbest

Pierre

Absolutely wrong to say getting rid of Kroenke is difficult. On the contrary, it’s easy-peasy. Stay away.

Or better still, form an Association of Season Ticket Holders. That’s approx. two-thirds of the seats. The mere THREAT of a boycott will have him throwing cash around like confetti, or off like a shot.

arsene's used sock

Pedro, I am but a humble sock, a used one no less.
am I still in moderation

Dissenter

The quality of discourse on this blog plunged off the cliff in Saturday. I’ve never read more babble.
Let’s hire and fire a manager every six months, that will fix all our problems.

Dissenter

Pierce is hurting really badly and cannot come to terms with Wenger”s sacking.
His Emery bashing posts are all laced with Wenger nostalgia.

Nelson

@englandsbest
“form an Association of Season Ticket Holders.”

There is a difference between pool’s fan and Arsenal fan. When the new pool owner wanted to raise the ticket price, the pool fan were so united and walked out of the stadium during the game. The owner complied to the fan’s wish.
Just look at this blog, there is so much division among the Arsenal fans. They seems to enjoy blaming each other’s favorites. You want to form an Association, good luck!

On the other hand, the pool fans deserve their success because they are united.

Un na naai

Used sock What did you do?? Wether emery has another £70m worth of talent come in next month or not, he shouldn’t rest on that basis. The defence needs work on the training ground. Our attack is disjointed too but we have enough going forward to ensure that we have always a goal or two in us at any ground. The defence needs special attention and if the whole team is geared towards that at the moment then so be it Lacazette has to start league games from now on and wether he starts Aubameyang from the bench or the… Read more »

Un na naai

Sky sports As well as highlighting the gulf that still exists between Arsenal and the elite, the result threw their debilitating defensive issues into sharp focus. Arsenal have shipped more goals after 20 games (30) than in any previous Premier League campaign. They occupy fifth place in the table but only seven Premier League sides have worse defensive record It’s just not good enough. We have pretty much the same defence we’ve had for 3 years so why is it now so much worse when we had the most non existent defence coach in the league for the past 12… Read more »

Un na naai

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11670/11594583/arsenals-defensive-shortcomings-brutally-exposed-against-liverpool

Sky sports agrees

These are not wenger signings causing the issue this season

I’ve said all along that Leno should not be starting premier league games for us right now if ever. It’s got to be cech. We need a commanding voice, a leader

Un na naai

According to Opta, Arsenal have made more errors leading directly to opposition shots (17) than any other Premier League side this season. Unsurprisingly, they also rank top for errors leading to opposition goals, with six. They have conceded the most penalties in the division (five) and only kept three clean sheets in 20 games.

Valentin

Anybody who had followed French football knew that Unaï Emery was not the right man. Here is a list of things that he was accused in Ligue 1: – Starts season with substitution that will look brilliant but then be revealed to be lack of proper planning – regularly get his tactics wrong when facing quick pressing organising team that results in big humiliating spanking – get out of jail against second tier team because of better players – Bore to death half the squad with video without ever resulting in better organisation – Upset some important members of the… Read more »

Jaffa

Happy new year to all my fellow gooners, may the debate continue in 2019 x

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