The manager will be here this summer, of that there is no doubt. My view is things should be improving more rapidly than they are. That view is shared by people who work in and around the club, and those who are paid to write about it on the regular. There is a counter to my view that also makes sense, that is that Emery is grinding out ugly results and we’re in the mixer, which is all anyone ever wanted. His view on taking top 4 is to scrap like a prizefighter and worry about how that looks in the summer.
I just wanted to touch of a few of the arguments. One consistent theme I keep hearing is that the manager doesn’t have the players to affect the performance. I find this view maddening.
Benrd Leno – Internationally capped keeper and a huge upgrade on a declining Cech. The best keeper we’ve had since Lehmann.
Sokratis – Has won titles in Germany, is a natural leader, we all love him because he is mean to other players.
Kola – Bundesliga team of the season. Has 5 assists to his name this year.
Bellerin – Was having a great season. Was tracked by Barca in the summer. One of the best young right backs in the world. Injured, sure, but our defence has been shite all season and he was here for 19 games. Also landed 5 assists.
Koscielny – Would have captained France had he not been injured. Has come back and settled pretty well.
Monreal – Capped for Spain, has been a high performer over the years, even if his pace is in decline.
Torreira – The first proper DM we’ve had since Patrick Vieira, a superb player. Looked off form of late, but that seems more due to fatigue and the box to box rampage he’s on of late.
Matteo G – 19, but one of our best performers this season.
Xhaka – Captain of Switzerland, master of stats, a player the savants adore.
Mikhi – Title winner at Dortmund. Hasn’t been great, but he’s capable and he assisted the assister. I think we missed him.
Auba – The most clinical striker we’ve had since Thierry. 3rd in EPL top scorers
Lacazette – We all love him. What a striker, probably our most valuable player. Hugely effective. Top 10 EPL scorers. Maybe as cool as Bowie himself. Incredible finisher.
Ramsey – So good, Allegri signed him at Juve. Has played 921 EPL minutes this year.
Mesut – Broken for sure, but the closest thing to world class we have.
Please, spare me the ‘ this squad is so shite’ nonsense. It simply doesn’t correlate with reality or our current league position. It’s so subjective and the margins are paper thin. Chelsea finished 5th last year and are 6th this year under a new manager. They’ve not had a striker all year, given the context of what they are trying to do, is their squad so much better than ours? They’re playing Kante in an advanced position, Jorginho is shite, DL has been targeted, Barkley is awful, their defence shipped 6 vs City and 4 vs Bournemouth, their hail mary was signing Higuain who looks more out of shape than the Tango man. That squad didn’t deliver under Conte in season 2 and it’s failing miserably under a manager who can’t convince the players fancy football is the future. Chelsea didn’t invest in Sarri in the same way many think Arsenal didn’t invest in Emery. They swapped like for like with keepers and added Kovacic on loan and Jorginho was their big signing (and he’s tanked). Will he land a season 2? Doubtful if the players go any harder at ending him.
We should be doing better on the pitch. Our lack of pressing is a focus and discipline issue. You can teach it. There’s no magic approach, you just need to enforce it. Mesut Ozil was dropped because he wouldn’t do it, yet here we are, Mesutless and still not doing it? Spurs press. Leipzig press. Dortmund press. Liverpool press. Why do we not press effectively?
Style should be fairly straight-forward to impose. Emery isn’t teaching Stoke players to express themselves without violence. He’s trying to get players who have literally only artistically expressed themselves for ten years to channel the fancy into something more practical. What I don’t expect is the style to work immediately, however, we’re not even seeing a bad version of the vision, unless I’m missing something?
Klopp went into Liverpool with a shite squad, he had his team playing heavy metal football with average bodies and the big thing was: ‘He just needs a good center back’
Pep implemented his expressive brand of football and he hobbled to 4th in the first season. It was clear what the plan was. They were the best team in the league transitioning from midfield to attack, but they couldn’t play out of the back. So he went out and upgraded on Bacary Sagna at center back and invested in fullbacks better than Zabaleta and Clichy.
Wenger came to Arsenal in October from Japan (no pre-season), added Anelka, Paddy, Garde (relative nobodies) and transformed a group of alcoholics (late in their careers) known for shit football into a team that finished 3rd (joint with 2nd/4th on points) in year one. Anyone doubt where the club was heading? Think about what he did for a second, it was unbelievable, and you think Emery has it bad?
Bielsa taught Championship players his ways, they play explosive attacking football with an outrageously aggressive press. Favre has Dortmund back to their best. Even Stevie G has brought some vision to Rangers in Scotland. My point here is these teams all have worse players, but that hasn’t stopped a vision emerging on the pitch. Even Paddy has Nice conceding under a goal game @ 0.96 down from 1.36.
Arsenal don’t have an ‘if you just did this’ list of players. Why? Because no one knows what we’re shooting for. What was the point of Suarez as far as you can tell? Arsenal don’t have a settled formation. Does anyone think a couple of wide players blows this team up next season? Would that solve for the lack of pressing and the porous defence? I’m not so sure.
Signing a keeper good with his feet hasn’t led to us playing out the back more, against Huddersfield Leno went short 7 times (12% of his total passes). We have defenders who can pass, so what’s the excuse for the hoof? Nacho dropped 85% pass completion, Kos was 90%, Mustafi 74% (iffy, but not awful considering how poor he’s been).
The only plan Emery does rigidly stick to is using his fullbacks to transition the ball forward, which was strugglebus.com against Huddersfield. Kola had particularly bad numbers, but nowhere near the as poor as AMN. You’d take him over Lichtsteiner or Jenko, so obviously I can feel for Emery there. The club is going to need to upgrade there this summer for sure.
It’s crazy to think the club saw a presentation last May that basically said it’s all shit and I have nothing to work, but that’s the narrative now.
My worry here is when I think about the type of players Emery REALLY wanted to solve our issues. Banega, Carrasco, Perisic, Nzonzi and Suarez. Are we moving forward with names like this?
A comment from Valentin in the comments:
At PSG Emery got his own players. All of them flopped and failed to adapt for the more aggressive Ligue 1. He got Krychowiak a year later he was on loan at WestmBrom where he helped to get them relegated. He got Jese, six months later he is on loan at Stoke that he helped get relegated.
Emery tends to favour players he is familiar with. Players who will be grateful for the opportunity and will obey diligently his instructions. The problem is that now he is at a higher level of club, being a diligent tidy players is not enough. You need special talent and none of them ever had that.
Ever Banega, Suarez are good decent players but for the sort of money/salary you expect more. None of them look like the kind of talent that will propel Arsenal forward and catch Liverpool or ManCity.
Broader point: The football is subpar and the fans who go to games are not showing up. The atmosphere is totally sterile. There is no excitement around the club.
However, let’s talk about what is incredible, amazing, and positively life-affirming. For all the cries of ‘we are shit’ from the Emery flag wavers, we are actually sitting in 5th, 1 point behind a resurgent United. We have been dire to watch all season, but we are closer than spitting distance to top four, we’re so tight in on them you can smell the Lynx Africa emanating from the sweaty jowels of Phil Jones. United’s next three games are PSG, Chelsea (FA Cup) then Liverpool, then Palace away. All potential bread mops ready to wipe out the OGS gravy train.
Our next two games are against Bate, who have finished their season. We can rest our players weary legs, then go HARD at Southampton and Bournemouth who we welcome at home. Confidence could be SOARING HIGH before we go to Wembley to topple Spurs annoyingly positive season, followed by United (H), and Wolves (A).
The absolute magic of Emery is that we have been dreadful, but we are still more than in it… he has made winning ugly an art form and it’s working… and really, in the Europa League, we only have to worry about Chelsea (who look finished) and Napoli.
Additionally, the summer is all for Emery. He will have a full preseason. He’ll get to spend £40-100m. I don’t think we’re playing in a tournament. He’ll have all his ducks in order to go hard at next season. Then we’ll see where the football is… then we shall see if patience was indeed a virtue.
Ok, that’s me done. See you in the comments. x
DM
2
Trofee
Tr4phy
our final league position this season
yawn
Top 4 is on, dont’ write us off yet grovers!
We’re on the march with Unai’s army..
Jamie Carraghers likening Chelsea to Arsenal is in a way correct. Both like to pass in fact over pass to retain ball retention.When the Blues attacked its with a series of passes which MC quickly snuffed out with their massed ranks. When Mc attacked they hit with long balls as opposed to the short passes favoured by both the gunners and Chelsea. And a sudden strike by Aquero results in agoal. I have been saying for years Arsenal’s style is tailor made for fast breaking teams like MU. We will have to wait and see if the gunners can get… Read more »
The manager will be here this summer, of that there is no doubt
Seeing as it will be his last year of the deal I think, do you think there’s a chance he’s offered a new contract this summer?
We’ll finish fourth with ugly football and there is nothing OGS and United can do about it.
Let’s see if Unai can sort this defence going forward.
If he can this team can rock with points totals in coming seasons.
But it won’t be hipster football I’m afraid.
The hipsters may have to look elsewhere for their fix away from Arsenal FC in the future. Shame that.
And the old geriatric Wenger lovers will be washed away.
I think that emery has done reasonably well especially considering that so many key defenders are or have been injured.
If he can make it to the champions league next season i would say job well done. If he fails both europa league and top4 fight his and his teams position should be questioned.
Unai don’t do hipster.
Be warned.
Pedro One, hyperbole aside, no one is arguing the squad is “shit”. The argument is that the squad is inadequate in a number of ways and that Chelsea, United and Spurs all have better squads. And they do. Two, half of the players you list above are injured or were injured for long stretches of the season. This is true for Bellerin, Sokratis, Koscileny, Monreal, Mkhitaryan, Xhaka. Three, Leno may be an improvement on an aging Cech, but he is error-prone, not great on crosses and ultimately a stop-gap. He may be internationally-capped, but he’s nowhere near the level of… Read more »
Nah, we’re not going to finish fourth. Europa is our ticket.
Pedro I agree with you that Emery will be still here next season in contrast to Mourinho and Serri. Our owner and Board have more patience. However, as I have just posted on earlier thread our team are mediocre and as dull as dishwater. Apart from the two strikers we have on the books there is honestly not a lot of inspiration or quality in the squad. What does concern me is that at a time when the top 6 in league are well ahead of the rest of the clubs in EPL most other competing clubs believe that they… Read more »
Bamford
Everyone said that the squad was broken and full of holes.
I don’t think so, but as alot of people point out, I am AKB and my mind is clouded.
Ped is right. This squad ain’t crap. Huddersfield is a team that is crap.
And to express what some posters mean, “We shouldn’t be trying to play brave underdog football against them. I mean, we are not THAT crap right?”
Wolfgang Maybe Emery has decided that counter attacking football is the way he wants Arsenal to play. The problem is , counter attacking football is difficu!t if you concede the first goal. City could play the counter attacking game v Chelsea and Arsenal as they scored early and they were never chasing the game. I think we have the players to play this style of football , good movement and quick precise passing is the answer . If Emery has decided to play this way it could possibly be a good decision as we should remain much more compact defensively… Read more »
“One, hyperbole aside, not everyone is arguing the squad is “shit”. ”
FTFY. I think we are 80% shit. In terms of elite players, it’s closer to 100%.
A couple are merely past their sell by date, a handful I am happy with and a several are understandable/acceptable given the circumstances. But by and large I do think that the squad is shit.
B10
The fact that we have a chance of finishing top 4 and maybe winning the EL should mean something. At least it gives us hope.
Better than no hope at all.
“you can smell the Lynx Africa emanating from the sweaty jowels of Phil Jones
looooooooooooool
Great post Pedro, and can agree with most of your arguments as I read your posts daily. I also am concerned at the ‘antiques’ he seems to want to invest in. His training seems to have been too much too soon for most/some of his squad resulting in some of the injuries or overtraining syndrome costing us illness-wise as a maybe – he has reduced the intensity I understand because of this. I don’t think he has the players left to enforce the press as result when even Torreira is nacked which is why he’s had to sit off for… Read more »
Bamford
I see no reason why we can’t finish 4th , we have a very favourable run in , United have difficult ties in the champions league and FA cup .
Kosielny and Monreal are improving in fitness and strength every game , Sokratis will be back soon .
The return of Mhkitaryan is a massive boost to our creativity ,he has the ability and intelligence to find space between the opposition midfield and defence .
Bate home and away plus a couple of easyish home games in the league should see us regain our confidence for the run in.
QNA
Well, it’s all relative. The squad is “shit” relative to City’s, relative to what the squad should be, but it’s not shit in some absolute sense. Monreal, Bellerin, Ramsey, Sokratis, Koscielny, Guendouzi, Torreira, Aubameyang and Lacazette are all good players. If we were “shit” in some absolute sense, we wouldn’t be one point off of fourth; Emery is not working miracles with this group. Indeed, other than getting them to work hard, it’s a little unclear what, if anything, he is getting them to do.
Fair article Pedro, My take is that we are in an ok position in the league with a chance of CL football next year. We have been hampered by not being able to pick our best defence once all season, Monreal, Sokratis, Koscielny, Bellerin which has resulted in Emery jumping from one line up and combination to another, on a game-by- game basis. One summer window was never going to be sufficient to overhaul our squad. So many players being overpaid compared to their contributions. Looking into the immediate future, other than three tough games in March, our run in… Read more »
I hate to say it, but we need a bit of “free spirited” Football. Irrespective of injuries and a lack of quality in key areas, this over complicated style is stagnating us. Keep saying it’s all down to paralysis by analysis. This doesn’t just happen in sport. Even at work, if you have a boss that over emphasises systems and procedures, it can become boring and demotivating. Emery comes across as an exceptionally intense individual, which can only imagine becomes slightly suffocating if you are around him 24/7. I could be wrong but please try and chill out a wee… Read more »
I can
“Emery has sausages available to him at the moment, and you can’t make caviar out of those.”
Gunnerblog on the team selection for Saturday on the Arsecast is a fair summation of our current team situation with all the injuries and general lack of quality.
Bamford, its shit by the standard of our wage bill. Its really as simple as that for me. Looking around with what other clubs have done with less money and nobody comes close to how poor our squad is relative to how much we pay for them/paid for them.
Emirates So your concern is that we don’t sign high-profile, high-quality players? A couple of things about this. One, both Aubameyang and Lacazette were expensive, high-profile, high-quality players. We signed them, no? Two, I like Nicolas Pepe too. How do you know we won’t sign him or a player like him in the summer? Because Pedro keeps banging on about Ever Banega? That’s just paper talk and the anti-Emery chorus. Plus, even if we sign a Banega, that doesn’t mean we won’t also sign a Nicolas Pepe. Three, we need five to six new players in the starting XI. How… Read more »
Hanging on at the end away to a Huddersfield team who have only 11 points and 14 goals all season was a shock. Even knowing how shit we’ve been all season, the football has to improve or we won’t be challenging for top four come the end of the season. Not entirely sure what the vision is under emery going forward, we are missing some quality in vital positions however as a whole the squad isn’t actually that bad.
Pierre
Those are all positive signs, and I agree that getting Mkhitaryan back helps, but I still don’t see us catching United. I would love it if we did, but I just don’t see it happening.
Our defence is shit, no doubt about that. Any defence with Mustafi is gonna leak and concede stupid pens. How do we get him out and please….no more Iwobi
Global, we have to be pragmatic with our squad overhauling. Mkhitaryan on 200,000 a wk, Ozil on 350. These are the players we need to shift and replace them with first team starters. Mustafi, Czech, Welbeck, Ramsey, Jenkinson are will also go and need replacing. This fixation with Iwobi who is being paid as a squad player. Unless he improves his finishing, that is all he can ever justifiably be but as we have such limited choice of wide players he’s playing more games than he deserves. The idea that he is the poster boy for our woes is far… Read more »
Qna
Try not to focus too much on the wage bill ..pointless exercise
Yes, Pedro, you are missing something – IMO, many things. Here is one. So far it’s not ‘all anyone wanted’ but rather ‘what many of us expected.’ You sum up the Arsenal squad as if we operated in a vacuum. You should make a comparison with what the sides above us have in their squads. They are better and deeper in every position. Emery inherited a disjointed, dispirited, deficient squad. To my mind he is trying to do what we all hoped a new coach would do – create a winning ethos. And few of us expect an overnight change,… Read more »
Iwobi reminds me of Forrest Gump.
“Run Alex Run”
Are we stuck with AMN as our RB or right wing-back the rest of the way? Does anyone think it would make any sense to give Mustafi a look there? If we were playing Chelsea or Napoli in the Europa League final, who would you play there? I like AMN’s athleticism, but he is a little casual and error-prone at times. He might be our best option, though.
Is Mkhitaryan really on 200k a week?
Can’t believe that.
What was Sanchez on before he left?
englandsbest
Are you a spiritual healer?
You have a calming influence.
Cheers.
Ten years ago Arsenal fans were protesting that we are not paying our players enough money to keep them at the club.
Now they are protesting that we are paying our players too much money which is stopping them leaving the club..
Bamford 10
Arsenal’s track record whenever there is serious competition for players in transfer market is to drop out of the running.
That has always been Arsenal’s problem. Do you think that if we are competing with Man City, Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern or Juventus that we won’t pull out in face of competition?
I want to see how effective is “Emery ball” next season. For that we need to sign 1 CB, 2 LB’s and 1 RB to backup Bellerin. Of the existing defenders, only Bellerin, Holding and to some degree PapaSok are suitable for “Emery ball”. Mavropanos is an unknown. The rest are not fit for the purpose: – Kosc and Monreal are too old and slow. They can be backup for one more year. – Mustafi makes too many errors – Kola can’t pass and can’t defend. Once we have wingers, we don’t need him. – AMN is not ready At… Read more »
ES
Think the biggest obstacle to that before was Wenger.
Now it’s the fact that we need so many signings that we can’t afford to spend that much on any single player. Maybe in a couple of seasons if we start spending smart now and we can get into the CL again quickly.
Graham, I might be wrong on Mkhitaryan but is agent played hard ball with us, just like Ozil’s and he’s being paid way over the top for his contribution to the success of the team. Pierre, ‘wage bill’. Not sure the context of your statement but coupled with our poor buying and selling, overpaying players is one of the greatest weaknesses we have as a club right now. Obviously a player like Cech is about to retire and he is not giving us ‘value for money’ but there is a long list of players not ‘living up’ to the wages… Read more »
Pierre, I don’t dive into you as others do but that last post, ‘ten years ago…’ is facetious at best. Take a step back….
Pedro seems to be digging in further and Valentin is the de facto technical adviser.
What else is new?
Mustafi, Xhaka, Ozil, Mkhitariyan have to go. We need to recoup as much as possible from them and reinvest in these positions. Suarez isn’t good enough and with Ramsey leaving that leaves us with a hell of a lot of work to do by way of creative midfielders. We need to strengthen at CB, no doubt. But Sokratis and Holding are a decent first choice pairing, supported by Koscielny and Mavrapanos. I wouldn’t be spending much of our available funds on a CB. Get another young talent for around 10m. I would be looking at attacking mids and wingers. I… Read more »
My first point is…I wouldn’t give emery £100 let alone £100m. This guy isn’t capable of delivering £100m of exciting, no way. I’m afraid we would end up with £100m of Spanish journyman waiters playing their trade at the shithole. No dice. Second point. Apparently you need to have been in a job in football to be good at it. Right? RIGHT? OGS has got united playing the best football since Ferguson. Gerrard the scouse bastard…doing alright. Fat frank. Good. Vieria…good. Four guys who probably haven’t managed 100 games between them and one of them has one of the biggest… Read more »
A very logical statement by bamford.with him on that.
“Pedro seems to be digging in further and Valentin is the de facto technical adviser.”
Actually a bit surprised he is referencing posts made by someone with no inside knowledge, dare i say no knowledge at all, and passing it off as fact.
Freddie, agree with you. The need for an overhaul, coupled with a s-s model and possibly no CL income means that we’re nowhere near the top table when it comes to the more popular players on the market. Hopefully in a couple of years we can ‘do a Liverpool’ and go big on one top player a window in an area that needs upgrading. At the moment it’s easier to make a list of players we would be happy to keep than the list we want rid of!
With the number of players to upgrade, it will take time…….
Good read Pedro, I think are problem is fatigue double sessions have knackered some players. If you look at some of our earlier games of the season, Fulham for example now I know it was only Fulham and that they’ll be lucky to stay up. But there were signs of the hard press and lightning counters, here’s hoping we get that type of football back. I believe we should at least give the manager a bit more time, but if we fail in #top4trophy this season and next season then it will be time to say goodbye.
Our squad is shit even by Wolverhampton wanderers standard.
They’ve got a lower wage bill but theirs squad is better balanced
Pierre says focusing in the wage bill is a pointless exercise.
That’s one of the reasons we were hamstrung in the last TW.
He knows focusing on it just takes us back to the Monsieur W.
Dissenter
True. Give Wolves or Watford Laca or Auba and they’re better than us, depressing really. We have 2 top class player that keeps us above the chasing pack, outside of that we have a couple of promising players but that’s it.
Just can’t understand this viewpoint that we have a good squad, I mean I can from the former AKBs but not from anyone that’s been complaining about how Wenger was watering down the squad for years and years.
QNA
I agree with all of that.
The suggestion that Arsenal’s finances are weak and many of the other clubs in market are much stronger is complete moonshine. What is true is that both Liverpool and Chelsea have handled in recent years their transfer business much better. They have not allowed players to run down contracts in same way we have done nor pay wages at rates which are unjustified. Take a look at net worth of Liverpool and their liquidity and compare both figures with Arsenal and you will discover very quickly the difference between both clubs. Financially Liverpool should not be able to compete with… Read more »
GOH: My first point is…I wouldn’t give emery £100 let alone £100m. This guy isn’t capable of delivering £100m of exciting, no way. I’m afraid we would end up with £100m of Spanish journyman waiters playing their trade at the shithole. No dice. I still dont get how people are not understanding this. The club isnt giving Emery any money at all. They are giving it to Raul. Wenger’s role has been split into two. Raul is given full authority on player transfers and wages. Emery can just tell him what he needs. Ivan -> Venkatesham Wenger -> Coach part… Read more »
Also this Banega nonsense needs to stop, was only ever paper links.
All the players we were linked with in the winter was for loans only because we didn’t have any money so it’s beyond moronic to use that to bash the manager with.
Some people complaining that we signed Suarez (on loan!) wanted us to sign Cahill instead, first of all Chelsea would never have agreed to that, second, that was a really nice assist he made for Aguero yesterday.
Qna
I’ll rephrase. I wouldn’t give anyone at Arsenal £100 to spend.
I said on here a few weeks ago, our run in is easier than Chelsea or MU’s, we have a home to MU & away (at Wembley) to Spurs as our hardest games left on paper.
Will anyone give a sh*t if we win ugly and make 4th this season ?
CL football will not only give us more spending this summer but will likely give us the time & opportunity to offload unwanted and overpaid players in addition to attracting players that demand CL football.
So what if Emery is not Gurardiola, it results that count.
“I wouldn’t give anyone at Arsenal £100 to spend.”
What if it still was wenger ? (- trappy question lol)
GOH. I wish somebody had told the club that 30 months ago. And that sentiment included giving anybody at the club the authority to let Ozil, Sanzhez, Ramsey and Welbeck’s contract down to zero. Would have sold each and every one of them with minimum 12 months on their contract. That would have netted us a lot more than the 100m you dont want us to spend now. And personally I feel we were off the mark with Laca and Auba. Overpaid for them and if they really are both on 200k/wk despite no other big club in the world… Read more »
“Maurizio Sarri admitted he never hears from Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich. ”
You will soon meet him, Maurizio.
lol
Stroller
You are right .it is impossible and has been impossible for years for Arsenal to compete for players against the club’s you mentioned.
The only time in my life time of supporting the club did we have a chance to recruit the world’s best is 2004/05 as at that time any player in the world would have wanted to play for Arsenal football club.
The best players will eventually go to the club who will bring them success and trophies(and fortune) and that is why eventually Eriksen and make will leave Tottenham unless they win a trophy this year.
GoH
How about Jennifer Lawrence? She’s exciting. Can’t say whether she’s too experienced..
Kane*(make)
you are counting the good players…….. really!!!!! Please check the price tag on the players in Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea, Man City and even Tottenham and come back again. What about you only counted 14 player 1 of them is out (Bellerin) and one has just settled after a long injury period and one out also for 1 month at least (Sokratis) >>> does any of the big six has the same problem of counting 14 players!!!! I didn’t speak about counting Ramsy – really I was praying for him to leave in Jan – and Mesut who has been… Read more »
I can live with the bad football as long as we’re getting results this season But I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t jar seeing us do to underdog struggle against relegation fodder tho It’s ok to play like shit sometimes. Happens to absolutely every team. City lost against crap opposition this season. It’s inevitable. But I really hope emery can work out how to control games against bottom feeders more often Our first game against Fulham was a good example of what we can do against inferior clubs. We should see that more often if we’re honest Likewise… Read more »
People keep referring to our easier run-in, which I agree with. However, on current form, I am not sure we will be taking much from Spurs, United and Wolves on the bounce .
Europa or bust.
“Spurs are still third in the table with 20 wins in their last 26 PL matches.
Arsenal are nowhere near competing with that,
Even if Raul Sanllehi recruits very cleverly, your favourite football club will not be in the Champions League before 2021-22.”
Apparently the Arsenal News Review guy doesn’t think much of our world class squad
China, my thoughts exactly!
Jenifer Lawrence insists on herself too much. She falls over a lot as well.
QNA
To begin debating the footballing masterclass of losing hundreds of millions of football talent is moot. There isn’t anyone at Arsenal I trust to do a job. Not one.
We simply have to be sold by Stan to have a chance at recovery. But he’s cool with the way things are so…
BobN16
The only part that was maybe facetious is I said “protesting” .
Maybe if I had said
” ten years ago Arsenal fans were insisting that we pay the players higher wages to keep them at the club and now those same fans are now angry that we are paying the players too much so they can’t leave the club. ”
whichever way you look at it , It’s true though .
I understand the love for Arsene (I honestly wanted him to stay), but constantly having a go at Emery about literally anything including his accent is a bit embarrassing. If you adored Arsene’s values so much then you wouldn’t be castigating a man trying to do his job.
— Limpar33 (@Limpar33) February 9, 2019
GOH. All true. I keep saying it will be a 5 year job to turn it around. But that is really just an arbitrary thing to say. The truth is it will take around 4-5 years to completely overhaul the squad, player for player. But that doesn’t mean the new squad will be good enough either. Really, I think that my 5 year target could be achieved ONLY if we had world class talent scouts and head of football that can seal deals for those talents. I am not confident that we have either, or the will to do it.… Read more »
Qna
Five years? I’m a pessimistic bastard but I admire your hope. Honestly, unless we get an Abramovic or Oil family, I can’t see recovery under this current regime. Stan doesn’t care. Period. So what do we do?
I’d say within five years, we’ll firmly be in the 7-10 league positions. Maybe lower.
There are indeed Two Sides of Ugly -PedRo 1)Unai 2)Emery One thing- All of us will agree on – until this 3rd Rate chancer leaves our club- we will be witnessing UGLY football. For one of the richest and elite clubs in the world – That should never be acceptable! Never! One paragraph in PedRo’ s post – did surprise me though! For such a bright chap- he too ,Seems to been duped with this ‘Pressing “Nonsense! Good players working hard is the cornerstone for all successful teams. Pressing is a moderm day myth! Real Madrid- 3 time recent CL… Read more »
Emery spent two years at PSG, Jese,Krychowiak Digne and Ben-Harfa were signed the summer Emery was appointed.
How Emery backstatted a DOF under a month of signing and signed his own players would be one of the greatest mysteries of the universe.
Pedro you can want Emery out without writing stupid things.
Pierre, Do I need to spell it out? Yes we weren’t paying top wages, now we are. That is not the point, it’s one thing to pay top wages, the issue is ‘are we getting value?’ We have signed players for a large transfer fees eg Mustafi and paying them a top wage and subsequently their performances don’t justify their salaries. Then you have Ozil and Mkhi, who due to circumstances created by running down of contracts, are paid at a scale that should expect excellence. Older players who are declining in ability but still are paid on the basis… Read more »
Emery also ‘signed’ Neymar and Mbappe. I’d take a DoF backstabbing all day long if Emery gets credit for all the signings and brings super talent like that to Arsenal. Or does that not fit the narrative?
Hail Pedro the Arsenal king of negativity, I mean can you listen to yourself? The man has bad injuries to deal with, and we don’t have the depth to cope and we are coasting our way and you are on here talking about style?
It is obvious your Arteta coach crush is still on.
“On 14 October while on loan at West Bromwich Albion, Krychowiak said to the media that he felt deceived by Paris Saint-Germain manager Unai Emery saying “I spoke with the coach but every time when I spoke with him I felt deception”. He went on to say “Yes, exactly. So for me I didn’t understand why. The coach knows me very well. We spent two years together and before I signed the contract he told me to come to PSG, and I didn’t play.” This was in response as to his frustration of being left out of the team and… Read more »
I’ve always maintained Arsenal fans undervalue our own players and big up those of other sides.
I don’t think the Arsenal, Chelsea, United, or Spurs squads are that different in terms of quality. Though I’d for sure accept that Spurs have the best balance of talent across the lot.
A number of Chelsea and United players are living on reputation or price tag alone. I don’t see a United defender making our XI when all fit.
CC,
‘A number of Chelsea and United players are living on reputation or price tag alone. I don’t see a United defender making our XI when all fit.’
Good of you to draw the battle lines with so much contrast.
At least we know why we disagree.
Your point is valid (and positive) CC. Under the microscope, like when we are considering value for money, our players are more ‘transparent’. I haven’t a clue what the Chelsea and United players are on so don’t base their worth on whether they justify their salaries.
One of the great aspects to watching football is the way individuals play within a team game. Obviously it’s easier to win with great players but to create a great team with simply good players, that’s the impressive bit!
Here we go again , Emery is doing a great job at Arsenal. What Arsenal football club needs to do is find more players like Guendouzi , maybe 5-6 more finds like him and a quality leader centre back. Cut the wagebill drastically & build from our players in academy. Reboot Arsenal. Without a Strong vision this shit ain’t possible.
Dissenter
What United defenders would you have over our first choice ones?
Bellerin-Sokratis-Kos-Monreal
Valencia, Darmian, Bailly, Smalling, Jones, Lindelof, Shaw, Young
Best defender there is Valencia for me and there’s nothing between him and Hector of this season. I’d favour Hector, and this is someone who would happily sell Bellerin were 40 mil on offer.
I read an extract from the Emery biography El Maestro – in it it seems that his player recruitment when he had Monchi doing the deals was to say, ‘I need this type of player’ – Monchi would then get a shortlist and between them decide on the player to get. At PSG he was working on the same basis, but with people who didn’t have the same level of football knowledge as Monchi. The general thinking was that he shoul dhave told PSG exactly the player he wanted, because they would throw all the monies at that to get… Read more »
We need to stop making excuses and change our mentality and just get on with it.
Emery needs to be doing better with the players he has for sure.
“I’ve always maintained Arsenal fans undervalue our own players and big up those of other sides.”
Everybody in football undervalues our players, we and the peeps in charge are the ones doing the overvaluing
Bob
Not really
I was trying to make the point of how we have gone from one extreme to the other as a fan base in that we were calling for our players to be paid on parity with the other top sides and now we are complaining that we are over paying them.
Whether they are worth it or not was not my point.
Ozils contract is the worst piece of business ever especially as we now have a manager who doesn’t rate him.
Completely agree about Leno. Imagine him with a defence in front!
“We need to stop making excuses and change our mentality and just get on with it.Emery needs to be doing better with the players he has for sure.”
I don’t think the manager has ever said his players are the reason we are where we are. If anything he has defended them. We on the other hand have seen this same players make the same mistakes they have been making since the first day they put on an Arsenal Jersey.
I think we’ve been guilty of overrating our players.
Ramsay. No.
Ozil. No.
Kos. No.
Laca. No.
Auba. No.
Sanchez. No.
The list goes on. While not bad players, they aren’t elite level…we’ve simply got so used to poor performances and shit players, the 7/10 ones we have feel like 9/10. For absolute sure, not one of our players would ever make our very best teams of the past.
Before, we were underpaying our better players when we should have been giving them more, whilst our not so good/unreliable players were on far too much
Now we have players who are clearly not good enough, earning top dosh; whilst the better more reliable players are earning less than them.
Nothing makes sense at AFC. Very confusing.
No wonder we’re fudged.
Pierre, completely different discusssion..
Ten years ago players, who we wanted to keep, left because we were not being ambitious enough ( financially was just one aspect of this).
Now we have players, that we would be happy to see moved on, who are being overpaid and therefore we are in a poor negotiating position.
Pierre but it’s only bad business to pay ozil so much if he isn’t justifying a salary that high If arsenal had paid peak cesc, vieira or Henry an ozil equivalent wage I don’t think any of us would be complaining about it because these were players who put the team in their back on a weekly basis and were different class 9 times out of 10. The size of the wages are irrelevant, it’s the value for the wages that matter. If you had an imaginary striker who could score an average of 80 goals a season no one… Read more »