Arsenal are in trouble, big trouble. Freddie isn’t the man to take us forward, and worse, I think the true rot is at the head of the football side of the business. I have very little faith we’ve hit rock bottom, I think that’ll come when Josh makes deeper cuts than simply the manager.
Freddie Ljungberg, despite the introduction of a suit, couldn’t raise a performance out of players that are totally broken. Our form is so atrocious, we look like relegation fodder. Brighton were the better side. They had a plan, they played for each other, and they genuinely believed they were coming to The Emirates for the 3 points. The tidbit that I found interesting was that Potter had his team dropping GG style offside traps, because VAR now makes that exercise worthwhile. I love that. Very smart.
The task at hand for Freddie is a thankless one, made even more difficult by the fact that he has caretaker in his job title. Deeper than that, I think part of the issue is that Freddie is as deeply entrenched in the malaise at Arsenal football club as Unai. It’s hard to ring in changes when the only difference is an internal promotion and a coach that’s switched from training kit to suit.
The starting 11, for a second game in a row, didn’t fill anyone with any sort of hope. Freddie opted once again for Kolasinac, he left Pepe on the bench, and he played Lacazette, Ozil, and Aubamayeng. He also started Willock again. The football didn’t really look any different, mostly because the players haven’t raised their effort beyond anything they offered Unai Emery. This is no slight on Freddie, but really, Arsenal need a new manager, and we need huge shake-up of the culture.
I know I go on about vision a lot, but having an idea of where you’re going gives people a collective belief that what they are doing has more purpose than just a paycheque. It creates a north star that people can either agree to follow or not. For those that follow, that vision is their higher purpose, the reason you go to war, work through injuries and sacrifice yourself for something spectacular. A great manager instils a culture in service of the vision. A set of expected behaviours or virtues everyone gets behind. We don’t have that at Arsenal, marked by the behaviours of the players on and off the pitch. No one cares, because they don’t have anything to care about.
Sir Alex Ferguson was a master of the winning culture, his vision was so powerful, so exciting, squad players would take half their market value to be a part of it. Jose Mourinho was win at all costs, he instilled fire in his players, it made his team rugged, nasty, horrible to play against… he demanded everyone do their bit, if they did, he’d protect them and deliver them glory (Think Eto’o for Inter). If you didn’t follow his rules, you were out and he’d chargrill you under the flames. Pep G builds his culture around winning the beautiful way. He creates art, he hires in artists, he trains them to think differently, to control territory, he express themselves in his vision, and players go to war for him… who doesn’t want to be an artist? (Jose)
Arsenal haven’t had a vision since Wenger left his soft boy socialist culture behind. Unai took over a spoilt group of players and somehow managed to make them worse. The players had no reason to believe because Emery didn’t know what he wanted from them. Add to that all the additional problems he layered on top with botched leadership votes, throwing players under the bus, pushing Ramsey out the door and countless other microaggressions and you land where we were last night. The players don’t give a fuck because there is nothing to give a fuck about. Freddie ain’t changing that in December.
We are still 10% off the pace, maybe more. Defenders aren’t sprinting back, players are half arsing challenges, our midfield isn’t interested, and there looks to be nasty ruptures in the overall spirit. The lack of leadership on the pitch is embarrassing, but that all stems from the previous two managers.
Freddie can’t save this, he’s not getting the job, and the players know that. Arsenal can’t give him the job until the end of the season, because we’ll be in a relegation fight. They need to hire for January 1st.
Trouble is, the options are very, very unsuitable. Making an ‘ANYONE’ hire could be devastating for the club. We’ll either end up hiring a show pony manager that won’t be good longterm, or we’ll hire in someone from Raul’s Rolodex, and that’ll be fraught with conflicts.
This next move is so, so important. My fear is our shortlist is so fucked, the only chance we have of landing on a good hire is by accident.
Arsenal should have had the shortlist ready in August. We should have known the way we wanted to play, who could deliver that style, and had a plan for refreshing the backroom team. Raul should have fired Emery before the international break and had a manager ready the next day. The fact we didn’t have a plan in place shows you how badly we’re being run. No contingency plan at a top 6 Premier League club that has a turnover of £300m+. Savagely amateur.
The Freddie experiment is doomed to failure. He’s not set up for success, that’s not his fault. The next hire has to be made soon, and my word do we need to make sure it’s not a journeyman or someone that can’t speak the language.
Raul’s reputation has taken a battering, get this next hire wrong and his head will rightly be on the chopping block.
Right, see you in the comments.
DM
Arteta in!! lol
Boomz
Trofee
Tr4phy
This is going to get ugly
Joke Friday
Arsenal
Settled for Mediocrity for far too long, now paying the privilege for it
Liverpool fans I can feel the cockiness in the air. Mugs
If there’s not a strong management quickly, I think there will be only 2 solutions left :
a) relegation, and the Kroenke family departure – at last;
b) the death of the club.
Xhaka had a face on him after game. Massive smirk. What a Mug!
Very contradictory. We hear players being lampooned and criticised individually but in the same breathe we hear that the real problem is the coaches. It’s always hard to take on board that a problem is multiple and on the playing side on the pitch. Much easier to digest that there is just one problem. This shit fest we are currently witnessing has been formenting and forming for a good number of years. Far too many shit recruitment of players over several years now. We may have to reassess and think that Emery instead of being this perceived disaster that everyone… Read more »
“Raul should have fired Emery before the international break and had a manager ready the next day. The fact we didn’t have a plan in place shows you how badly we’re being run. No contingency plan at a top 6 Premier League club that has a turnover of £300m+. Savagely amateur.” Tell that to some on here who questioned what changes could be made by that time, going so far as to claim ‘who could we bring in’ for the start of the international break. There’s clearly issues in the new regime, potentially big ones, which is why hiring in… Read more »
Let’s go through the shit or not good enough signings shall we since season 2014/15
Chambers
Debuchy
Gabriel
Elneny
Xhaka
Mustafi
Lucas Perez
Mhiki
Kolasinac
Sokratis
Torreira (borderline – more doubters by the day.
Guendouzi (only some potential. Wouldn’t see so much game time at a real serious team)
Denis Suarez
Lichtsteiner
David Luiz
Ceballos
Pepe ( Not the world beater many fans thought he would be. Needs more time to prove one way or another.
And you try to tell me that this is about coaches.
Get out of here lol
Ishola
Not good enough for what?
Emery was a terrible fit here and we were a point off top 4 last season. Tell me more about us not having the tools on hand.
From the onset, I said to myself Freddie is not the man to take the club forward. The Arsenal board could easily see that results were not coming, but couldn’t draw a contingent plan. Look at what Spurs did. They didn’t take a day to replace their manager. That’s a good management plan. Knowing Arsenal the way I do, they will take their time to resolve a crisis just to save some money. When we reflect backwards, you will see that Arsenal takes their time in doing the most important things to be done by any club. A good example… Read more »
Hiring in a journeyman is not the way to go IMO, this will come across as more of the same to the players, they need someone new who is going to be here for some time and buy into a new philosophy.
The starting 11 was more or less the same as last May, if we couldn’t win then, how did Freddie expect us to win now?
And of course we have a player signed before that time period Mesut Ozil as someone described the heart of a mouse.
And Bellerin one of the most over-rated footballers on the planet.
What a shit fest of players.
It’s certainly not a prertty sight at the moment and anyone hoping for the Kroenke’s to throw a lifebelt from the ship they’re ought to bear in mind at the moment Kroenke more resembles Edward John Smith shan our saviour.
He’s haemorrhaging money in the short term from his $6 billion SoFi stadium buid and now this:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/prishe/2019/11/30/why-stan-kroenke-nfl-will-likely-be-singing-the-financial-blues-over-the-st-louis-lawsuit/#346b87f77b11
As usual great post, the players are completely lost they are literally playing like a bunch of 10 year olds chasing the ball around making ridiculous decisions. the gaps between players when looking for passes is HUGE so every pass becomes a risk ball. the system is too fluid players are able to just wonder around the pitch, forget the press just have structure for the next 2-3 games, stop Luiz trying to ping the ball 40 yards every time he gets it. we loose it and then we are back to being very open Whats happened to our youth… Read more »
Why are people still trying to get the 4th post trophy like that’s still relevant. Surely like the team you should be not really bothering at first and then vaguely hoping to finish in 17th place.
Charlie
It was clear that the team were regressing in Wenger’s last two seasons.
In steps a new coach. Players respond for a period to new coach.
But this period only lasts for a certain period.
Once period fades away of new coach the team actually regresses from Wenger’s last two years.
Shit or not good enough players will hurt you and they will resurface to hurt you.
What coach wants this?
I think the players all need a kick up the arse, so what manager has got this ability.?
Rafa is on big bucks right now.
Allegri has no English and has won in a lopsided league.
So who can hit the deck running?
Can’t trust the spivs to solve this problem.
Agree with Charlie, at this point and time Arsenal need an experienced hand that knows how to build from the ground up, a patient yet firm hand. Arsenal are rudderless from the top-down.
What we see today is a systemic failure from ownership to management to coaching to players. Not one of them is aware let alone capable of righting things. Why? There is zero leadership at Arsenal, its a lost boys club.
Arsenal need a major revamp of the team as well as this sexy saucy coach.
This should be quite clear and evident.
And it is a balanced view.
Good Peter. Thing is, who would swing the ax on Raul? There is NO accountability either in the pitch or off it. For me, the merry go around is watching out for each other’s backs, ensuring each one keeps their job and their pay checks coming. It’s like Omertà on crack! It was the same with Arsene’s reign. How did his staff keep their job for so long churning out the trash they did? Protection. I see the same thing now. Edu has done nothing. Zero. What were his credentials apart from being an ex Arsenal player? He wasn’t even… Read more »
really wish Kroenke would just sell , relegation or anything close will cost him
He’s haemorrhaging money in the short term
——————–
Great, then maybe the cunt will sell us to someone who gives a shit.
We are in deep, deep trouble. I agree with Pedro, it’s a culture thing and won’t change quickly. I have noticed over the years how the work rate of players we sign declines the longer they are at Arsenal. That says it all
Question is: will the next Head Coach have enough authority to change the culture even if he has the ability to do it? Or will the hierarchy get in his way?
Dangerous times. Really sad to see our club in this state
You get the feeling that the inmates are running the asylum at Arsenal at the moment. This is why I wasn’t against Mourinho as you knew he’d come in and at the very least clean out the non-performers.
Hopefully whoever we hire has a big enough ego that they won’t let lazy players be the cause for why they fail.
Hate to say it but a relegation battle or full on relegation is exactly what these overpaid buffoons need.
Pedro
Arsenal should have had the shortlist ready in August. We should have known the way we wanted to play, who could deliver that style, and had a plan for refreshing the backroom team.
This is also part of Edu’s job description. In particular the vision part of he we should be playing.
What the fuck is Edu up to?
Samesong
Your Joke Friday has actually made me laugh.
Sad to see that we have fallen down this far and it is not impossible to see us fall even further down. Sad times ahead.
The leech Kroenke: Out!!!
Trouble is that the money rolls in whatever happens.
However sales will fall, stadium will empty and sponsors will go away, eventually.
Perhaps this scare will wake somebody up.
Ishola Hahaha yea as expected, so there’s no discernible difference from one coach to another. How apt. Wenger was having a mare in his final two seasons (relatively speaking mind, because hello new lows) because he was more and more out of touch and without the answers as a coach. In steps a guy supposed to be a good deal better and turns out he was worse for the job, irrespective of what you think about Emery vs Wenger modern day. Emery utterly tanked at Arsenal, not his bag at all and it was largely due to his communication and… Read more »
Would almost prefer the Venkys to the Kroenkes
And lets not forget, Raul has already spent next years transfer budget, so there will be no reinforcements coming in. What you see is what you get. F*ck me and all!
I agree with Pedro, it’s a culture thing and won’t change quickly.” I’ve been saying for years that Arsenal was run with a country-club/academy atmosphere where “showing good spirit” and “nice try” and “heroic failure” was rewarded. Underperforming players were allowed to linger around for years with zero ruthlessness on behalf of le joke having some sort of grandfather complex for said players. Ironically the only players “frozen” out were the ones who eventually spoke out about the flaws. We actively went out of our way to not sign “troublesome” players who would come and rock the boat. The “softness”… Read more »
Whoever the manager is I think he needs to be EPL experienced even if that means us buying out a contract. They then need to be backed in January. It is an impossible job to ask a manager to get this squad playing. It has absolutely no midfield, poor CBs, absolute pussies like Ozil spreading bad attitude throughout the squad, Aubameyang and Lacazette unbalancing things (seems a myth they play well together). The problems are enormous in this squad and honestly the discussion with the manager needs to be about selling half or more of these players. It’s not just… Read more »
We told you so. For the last 10 years, or thereabouts, we told you so.
But in my worst nightmares, I would never, ever, envisage such rank incompetence. Gazidis and his team were gash, but what we’ve got now is WAY worse.
Charlie
There is a balanced view to take here.
Arsenal need a special sauce manager as well as a good spring cleaning of the first team.
Take it.
We don’t want to keep on being in the scenario of a new coach just getting a tune out of these current players for just a time period of 12 months or less.
so there will be no reinforcements coming in.
—————————-
Don’t worry, they’ll be money available from the sale of loads of players.
I think it what is occuring at Arsenal is not a simple fix. I have said for the past decade that there is a loser culture imbedded deep within the club. One glaring problem is that there are no leaders at all within the club, especially on the pitch. This captain farce that has played out over the past few months is a prime example. I mean who would you actually give it to? There isn’t a single player worthy of being captain at the club. Our defence is a shambles, but thats not the entire story, as our main… Read more »
Whoever the manager is I think he needs to be EPL experienced even if that means us buying out a contract.”
Agreed. Give said manager “power of attorney” ,so to speak, so that they have the freedom to trim the fat where they see fit. Nobody should be safe.
There is so much contradiction on here by some.
We keep hearing of lack of leaders in the team.
We keep hearing posters calling out individual players.
And yet at the same time we keep hearing a new coach is going to be the saviour.
Make up your mind.
What is it.
“Not sure where Arsenal go now. ”
Right in the wall.
There will be blood.
Time to sell a lot of players. This season is done. Next season is a true rebuild. Europe is gone for two seasons. Bite this bullet now or face bigger consequences. Auba and Laca are our best and it saddens me to say it but they gotta go. Xhaka is poison and the players supporting him speaks volumes. Sokratis and Mustafi must also be sold. Sell Torreira if he wants out too. Should get 120 – 150mil. The reason why I suggest these players is because they can’t be motivated and they’re playing like they don’t need to be either.… Read more »
There is not a team in the EPL currently who have not got a reasonable expectation of beating Arsenal based on current form. I maintained at the start of current collapse that Arsenal have not deserved to win a single game this season and that includes all four games that we have won. The defence is the worst that I have witnessed since I first supported Arsenal in the 1950s. They collapse now in almost every game that they play. The idea that we are playing with the calibre of CBs recruited like Mustafi, Sokratis and Luiz demonstrates just how… Read more »
I disagree with the players being completely shite. A team full of internationals and experience of various levels shouldn’t be as poor as we are. It’s the approach of both Emery and Ljungberg that is wrong and unsustainable. Both have made the fatal mistake of getting overly concerned and wrapped up in systematic football. The solution is VERY simple – GO BACK TO BASICS. Football as a team sport has its foundations in doing the basic things right namely : Tackling Passing accurately Shooting accurately Tracking back Blocking crosses Stopping shots Closing down Address these issues and you’re half way… Read more »
@Ishola –
“Make up your mind.
What is it.”
Have you ever stopped to consider that the problem may be more complex than just picking one?
Jim
Agreed.
I’d sell Xhaka and Torreira, AMN as well and buy 3 midfield players.
Any 3 from players like Ndidi, Zakaria, Doucoure, Grealish, McGinn etc would do for me.
The worries is the Kroenkes start the whole ‘Classenal’ and ‘values’ bullshit and talk about promoting youngsters to solve the issue.
This isn’t just going to take money to solve. It’s going to take something we’ve never been good at. High squad turnover.
Players like Bellerin, Mustafi, Sokratis, Mavropanos, AMN, Xhaka, Ozil, Torreira, Nelson, Lacazette etc should all be for sale.
Ishola Nobody is advocating the bollocks you keep perpetuating as a take. The squad of literally every club is trimmed and cropped every 6 months. The manager is the most vital component, a component you keep dismissing in the view of player poverty. Those stating the importance of the manager aren’t dismissing recruitment, it’s always an ongoing process, and as been the last 18 months to a tune of 200 mil. What hasn’t been addressed is a gaffer with the competency to lead this football club. That’s the balanced view, and it’s the view of several even if you want… Read more »
Jim Lah
”Have you ever stopped to consider that the problem may be more complex than just picking one?”
Exactly.
The view should be a mix.
Saucy coach and sprng clean of first team.
Unfortunately there are some that want to give out the notion that a coach is going to wave a magic wand over these current set of players.
I disagree with the players being completely shite.”
The team is absolutely playing under their ability. There are some that need axing but there is top 4-5 talent in the squad. They are massively underperforming.
Some have talent.
Some need to go.
We need a manager that can decide which is which and has the cajones to do just that.
Some good posts and I would agree that someone like doucoure is just what we need right now – a nasty b’stad to get hold of that midfield and stop teams walking all over us. Brighton bought on a sub late last night, Shane Duffy, he’s miles better than anything we have at centre back, a tough no nonsense Irish centre back yet there is a ridiculous snob factor amongst some fans. Imagine if we went for Mings in the summer people would have been scoffing, yet we’d give anything for players like that now. I want defenders to defend… Read more »
“Unfortunately there are some that want to give out the notion that a coach is going to wave a magic wand over these current set of players.“
Name them. You keep spouting this shit and it’s a blatant lie.
Exactly Tits
That’s why we need to demand the very basics required of any player before we throw out the baby with the bath water…
Don’t be daft Charlie. Everyone recognises the importance of a good coach. What you keep refusing to take on board is that this squad isn’t on a level to be doing anything of serious note. Maybe for a certain time period with the impetus and novelty of a new coach coming in but not over the real long term. Your view that the squad is fit for purpose is not only wrong it is now getting boring and more and more fans and posters are coming to the realisation that the first team needs revamping as well as a new… Read more »
Who the hell thought Freddie would be a good manager? even an interim one? He was never going to do any better. The fact is the odds were always in favour of him doing worse than Emery.
Now whether you like Spurs or not, whether you like Mourinho or not. Spurs sacked a better manager than Emery and had a replacement within 24 hours. A week after booting out Emery, we are still fucking around with a likeable but hopeless interim manager. Only at AFC!!!
I see you also get it @ Guernsey
No point in having a player like Luis that can hit a 50 yard pass but not be arsed to block or compete for a header
WHEN HES MEANT TO BE A DEFENDER
“Don’t worry, they’ll be money available from the sale of loads of players”
Surely you jest, how much money do you honestly believe you can get from selling this bunch?
Arsenal players will shit their pants in the Championship
The Walmart’s won’t sell The Arsenal until the relegation ‘parachute payment’ has cleared into one of their American bank accounts .
Why are we even in a position where we need a special sauce coach to get some sort of tune out of this current team? This says it all. We all want a super coach to come in that will get fourth place out of this current team. If this club are going to start moving and going places we best pray that Arsenal improve their player recruitment in comparison to the last five years. So then we will be able to say that we want a super coach to come in to take a tilt at the league title… Read more »
Freddie still has one “get out of jail free” card left.
Last week I said he had three games to show the fans how he really perceived things.
Against West Ham he must make some massive decisions. It is essential that Xhaka, Ozil, Luiz, Sokratis and Bellerin( who is not fit) are binned.
Bring in Martinelli, Tierney, Holding, Chambers and ,dare I say, Mustafi(I know).
Too many physical/mental lightweights in the team.
WHU will be chomping at the bit, so we have to give them something different to think about.
Freddie can’t be that naive.
Can he?
Arsenal fans are an overly entitled condescending lot.
Pedro still doesn’t realize that we are ALREADY IN A RELEGATION DOGFIGHT.
There’s a very high likelihood that we get ZERO points from Westham away, City at home and Everton away.
He’s still talking about a perfect manager hire for January 1st FFS!
We have a GD of -2 and haven’t won a league game in 2 months.
We need a pragmatic caretaker coach to get us to the summer.
Protecting our premier league status ought to be the singular priority of the season.
No talk of Wenger or perfect sauce manager is necessary right now.
Alot of fans should be a bit embarrassed with themselves for so badly misjudging the squad. All this “we should stroll into third place” was comically off the mark. There is more to good football teams than just talent. We have good players (albeit not enough, especially midfield), but the composition in terms of mentality and IQ is the most important. We lost our best player quality wise and mentality wise in Ramsey, and also other solid citizens that think of the team as much as themselves. We are now full of flawed followers that are lacking confidence because they… Read more »
“Mustafi(I know).”
No you don’t. lol
“What you keep refusing to take on board is that this squad isn’t on a level to be doing anything of serious note.“
Again… what’s “anything of serious note”?
“See, after a while, it all gets mixed up in your head, and you can’t remember whether life’s shit because Arsenal are shit or the other way around”
If Freddie wields the axe it will give all the players a kick up the backside, which they all desperately need.
We’ve not even hit rock bottom yet, these fixtures coming up will leave us right down there.
Get someone in ASAP, our players don’t have the bottle for a relegation scrap.
Something has been broken. Even under declining latelate Wenger, we would regularly beat teams convincingly in the Emirates. And in Emery’s first season, we were 3rd in the PL based on home form. But this season the Emirates is no longer a fortress, but a kind of party-island for visiting teams. I’ve watched Wolves, Palace, Southampton and now Brighton thoroughly enjoy themselves here. Whether Xhaka or Ozil are in or out, whether Torreira or Laca play or not, whether Da Yoot play or not, no matter what our formation is, our play has looked laboured, slow and lost. Not sure… Read more »
@Dissenter : anyway, I doubt any decent manager would agree being in charge of this squad right now.
Following what I posted above I spoke to two season ticket holders who sit near me and have followed the club almost as long as I have. One has dealings with staff and management at the club in a professional capacity. At the start of evening he said to me that the club is “too good” to be relegated and the problem is “confidence”. He believed that once we started “winning” we would be okay. I disagreed with that opinion because history has shown that many clubs with similar background to Arsenal e.g. Man Utd, Liverpool and Spurs have all… Read more »
I think I read that Dalian Y would want £20m to release Rafa B from his contract, they finished way down the league and only won 4 games.
Is this someone likely that Arsenal’s BOD’s are going to stump up that kind of money for ?
Champagne charlieD .“Again… what’s “anything of serious note”? Getting beyond just being in a dog fight for fourth place which isn’t even achievable now this season. Arsenal need to improve player recruitment as well as getting in the right coach. I don’t know why this is so hard for you to take on board. Everyone sees the current big flaws in this current team except you it seems. We don’t want to keep going down the road of just covering up these obvious evident flaws for certain time periods and living in delusion all the time. They need to be… Read more »
how much money do you honestly believe you can get from selling this bunch?
———————-
Honestly no idea but if we can move on Xhaka, Mustafi, Elneny, Mhiki, Kolasinac maybe Ozil (huge saving on salary) and who knows what will be with Pepe, Bellerin and Torreira, then that’s good money to buy some decent players, not superstars, just decent players, I mean look at Leicester and also Wolves and maybe Sheffield U and C.Palace, all 4 of them have decent players who aren’t stars.
Incidentally some who post on here have been critical of Pepe. Based on what I
have seen briefly yesterday I see potentially a very good player.
Unfortunately he is playing in a poor team and he “tries too hard” when on the
ball.
I would not write him off too quickly.
The demeanor of the players was atrocious last night.
There is no ‘team’ at the moment. They were pointing ringers at one another and looking for every way to avoid responsibility. They were fighting each other but cannot put up a fight for the team.
How can any football executive not see what is so obvious?
…and to think people are still talking about Jan 1st?
Words on a Blog
“Something has been broken.Even under declining latelate Wenger, we would regularly beat teams convincingly in the Emirates. And in Emery’s first season, we were 3rd in the PL based on home form.”
It’s called a gradual decline, then followed by a response for a period to a new coach and then serious regression after that.
It’s been said time and time again that Arsenal have been hiding behind home form for far too long. The team were not on firm grounding.
No-one is writing Pepe off.
All that was said was that he hasn’t hit the ground really running from the off as some thought he might have done.
@CA – I think you and I are of a similar age, and I am wondering like me if you are starting to panic a small bit? The last days of George Graham are a vague memory to me. I was spoiled (although I didn’t realise it at the time!) growning up in the Wenger glory days. What I am seeing now is very new to me, this level of deterioration is something I haven’t seen before. People speak of the reign of Terry Neill but I wasn’t around to witness it! What do you make of this current situation… Read more »
Man Utd, Liverpool and Spurs have all been relegated in the past.
——————————
Liverpool? I don’t think so.
As for the other 2, it was a long long time ago (even though it’s a pleasant memory, nearly one after the other I seem to recall!).
Honestly I would give a pragmatic manager like Benitez a medium term contract, say for 1.5 seasons.
This is just to allow us to stay competitive while clearing out the mess of a squad we have acquired. We don’t have the resources to buy players contract out so they have to be let go when their contracts run out.
We have too many ill suited players on long term contracts. Too many players that we have to subsidize their loan moves.
Legacy players on overly generous contracts, conflicting loyalties and an absence of passion and motivation – it takes a special kind of stupid to concoct such a mess from the resources available to AFC. Power rests with the players and their agents at the moment – that needs to change, rewards need to reflect results. Contracts that are heavily biased towards incentives not just basic pay need to be the norm. I always struggle to understand how elite players on weekly wages that are multiples of the average annual wage show so little drive, passion and application. Sir Alec Ferguson… Read more »
Dissenter
“The demeanor of the players was atrocious last night.
There is no ‘team’ at the moment. They were pointing ringers at one another and looking for every way to avoid responsibility. They were fighting each other but cannot put up a fight for the team.
How can any football executive not see what is so obvious?”
Yes it was very poor to see.
Xhaka and Luiz were the ones doing this most evidently along with Ozil.
Luiz is the king of this sort of stuff.
Ishola 70
I don’t think that any player would hit the ground running in our current team.
Whoever the manager is I think he needs to be EPL experienced
I have been saying this for awhile now.
The problem I see now is that Ifyou bring in an absolute regimented guy the players will sulk and complain.
If you bring in a likeable character the players will take it easy.
The balance has to right and for me that man is Benitez. Not saying we would get him but he’s the type of guy we need in.
Actually if we end up in a low position come May, I think it’ll do us a lot of good to start next season not in europe at all like Leicester this season and when they won the league.
We really need to regroup and start all over again. It’s been done before of course like when Mee, Graham and Wenger arrived.
“Getting beyond just being in a dog fight for fourth place which isn’t even achievable now this season.“
Yea, and please tell everyone who claimed a competent manager would do anything outside of a top 4 challenge?
“I don’t know why this is so hard for you to take on board.“
Hahahaha rich coming from a guy who can’t read what’s being written.
Give the youngsters a go, too many legacy players still in the team,
Tierney, Saka, Martinelli, Nketiah (get him back), Guenda,
Sell the dross to whoever will take them, get a RB and another CD (Saliba arriving next year.
We have talent, they just aren’t being used or played out of position.
Am I the only one who likes the look of Pepe? I like the way he plays, always looking to take on his man and has great feet. He has been very unlucky numerous times this season. I think there is a great player there. I feel like our system isn’t getting the best out of him. We rarely break with pace. Also I got to say Martinelli is a starter for me. Came on and forced the Brighton keeper in a class save, he is so dangerous in the box and he is clearly the only one out there… Read more »
At the start of evening he said to me that the club is “too good” to be
relegated
——————————–
and what did he say at the end of the evening?
Jom Lahey
“Came on and forced the Brighton keeper in a class save”
It was the Tierney-Martinelli combination yet again.
Tierney cross, Martinelli header.
That is something to look to in the future I suppose.
“Incidentally some who post on here have been critical of Pepe. Based on what I have seen briefly yesterday I see potentially a very good player.” He’s another of those forward players we have that is completely fine with losing the ball, and just sees it as part of his package. A team can carry one of them, but we have four in Ozil, Auba, Laca,and now Pepe. We desperately need a Nasri, Rosicky, Hleb that can just slow the game down and give everyone a break. But no, we are always in a rush to nowhere and as a… Read more »
The question in the previous seasons was if Arsenal could beat any of the top six teams.
Now the question is whether we can beat any team!
The buck stops with Kroenke. The trail of shit leads to his door.
For my sins I was at the game last night and I can’t recall a team lacking in effort as much as the team in red and white last night.
Right now if you offered me 10th at the end of this season I’d bite your arm off, we really are on the edge of a precipice and collapse is very high on the risk metric probability.
We could’ve done with Mikhi last night. Usually good for a goal in these games.
No bother though, lets just send him out on loan; we’ve got Saka, Willock, Nelson,and other kids to play instead. It will all work out.