via @Arsenal
HAPPY NEW YEAR! HOW ARE YOU FEELING? Ok, ok, I’ll stop the shouting, but I will maintain a quiet energy with the prose because I need you up for the BIG game today.
It’s a huge one, Arsenal takes on Manchester United at home for Arteta’s 3rd game.
I think it’s a stretch to think we’re going to take points from them today. A draw would be excellent work, 3 points would have us all buzzing, but when you look at how their squad is fitness-wise and look at ours, it makes for grim reading.
We are missing a lot of defenders, which is difficult to deal with because even when we’re fully fit, we’re not exactly 90s Milan at the back. There might be some good news with regards to Bellerin who is close to returning, but knowing how fragile he’s been, you’d be hard-pressed to imagine he’ll start.
The manager was keen to impress that the defensive failures at Chelsea; with a very weak backline, were not structural.
“It wasn’t a transition where we had a bad structure or a bad organisation, when we are defending big spaces on equal numbers or are outnumbered – it wasn’t the case at all,”
“We made one half-bad decision [to back off] and these teams, when in space, they punish you, for sure. But the other option is to defend all the time and be there [in defensive areas] and we don’t want that.”
So at the very least, we’ll be prepared to deal with United. They have extremely fast forwards, they’ll probe for counter-attacks and they’ll look to stretch us using width. Arteta only recently tasted a loss against them when he was at City, it was quite a lucky United performance, but OGS had his team of workhorses make last years Champions look very old.
Going forward is where we’ll have to provide something more interesting. Containing their threat won’t be enough, we need to create chances. The good news here is Gabriel might be back in contention, his aggression in the press and all-round threat could be highly valuable to us. I’d also imagine we’ll be seeing a start from Pepe, there has to be some rotation today and that seems like the most obvious place to start. It’s hard to work out what the issue is with the Ivorian because no one will say explicitly, but it reads a blend of work rate and general fitness levels. 3 managers in a row can’t be wrong.
Ceballos is also back in contention, people forget he’s a young player, under a coach that helps him, he might be U21 Championship Dani, so it’s a new start for him.
Xhaka is also fit. Again, not my favourite player, but he’d start in our midfield at the moment. If he doesn’t play, we’ll know he’s off to Berlin. Worry with him is he mails it in as a final fuck you to the fans that booed him.
I mused before the manager started that he’d look for a turnaround project, and it seems he has one, he’s going all out to make Mesut Ozil the star of the show again. Makes sense, he’s used to having lots of #10 like talents to work with at City and on his day, no one can touch Ozil. Additionally, we have no one that gets close to him on the creativity front. We are a more intelligent team with him at his best. The German looks happy on the pitch, he’s put in two dirty shifts, he’ll have another chance to find his level again today and hopefully offer something more decisive.
“Mesut is putting in everything he has and his numbers, physically, have improved so much,”
“On his own he can’t do it. He needs the collective structure, organisation and his teammates. He needs the team to play in a certain way to facilitate his strengths more and more in the game. That’s what we’re trying to do.
“I put him in the team if I see every day that his attitude, desire and understanding of what we’re trying to do is there. The moment that this changes, then he won’t play.”
At the end of the day, he loves living in London, he loves his contract, and he’s a human… he’ll want to be impressing the fans, no one wants to be hated. He might also have the afterlife on his mind, if he tanks another manager, no one will risk giving him the big bucks in 18 months. Wenger didn’t have a machine that worked for him towards the end, Emery couldn’t see past running him into the ground in a shit system… it seems like Arteta has a more thoughtful approach to extracting creativity from him, whilst pushing him to support the system. It’ll be very interesting to see what the physical output looks like today, because he has done a lot of work in a short space of time. Some will say we’ve seen this film before, but maybe with a more elevated thinker in the dugout, it could be a different ending this time.
The main worry I have about today is how another loss will affect morale. Bournemouth was just an unlucky day at the shooting range, the Chelsea game was bad luck with fitness and Mustafi… we really need a result to prove out the hard work and progress. The fans will be buzzing for the game this evening, a classic win would be a great way to start the year, let’s see where we land.
Right, that’s me done, see you in the comments x
Southampton won so we are officially 13th in the EPL. And to reinforce our depleted squad we have had scouts watching our old academy failure Glen Kamara during his last 6 games for Rangers and are considering an offer! You can’t make it up!
Oh well 13th now and sliding down.
The directors and owners should hold their heads in shame it’s all down to them
But
They don’t give a shit, as now they can say we are rebuilding, … from the mess they made!!!
Raul and co should be kicked out of the club as part of our rebuilding, but again Stan hasn’t got a clue, just tell him that there’s no European easy dosh for two years maybe he might listen.
Chelsea are not a good side yet we set up like they were Barcelona, make the same mistake tonight, then the donkey should be sacked..
Today , I would like to see
Lacazette chill out and relax in front of goal
Pepe start.
Xhaka and Torreira in centre mid .
A stronger bench …Martinelli, Ceballos , Holding ,Bellerin if fit.
An Arsenal win.
Happy New Year LG, Pete, everyone!
Why should Arteta get the final say for transfers.
Is that what we are reduced to?
Is this what w fought for all these years.
It’s a bad idea to give the keys to an untested manager who has arms full with the coaching aspect.
What’s going on here?
Dissenter
“Every time teams lower than us win, it just piles the pressure on.
The bottom is moving up and we are static.”
This is the situation.
We have Southampton leapfrogging today but it could have been two others in Burnley and Brighton also leapfrogging today. That’s how much in touching distance it has become.
And it’s all because these sort of teams are actually winning a few matches. Winning. Not drawing.
A couple of wins and you climb this table.
I expect to see the proem dominate europe for the next 5-10 years now So Liverpool. They won’t by the way. Literally only one club has won back to back champions league the last decade or so. And even if you’re referring to English clubs getting far in European competitions you still have other European clubs in there so still no domination. You see this is the problem and you just knew it was coming a decent showing in a major tournament from the national team (finally) and an English club winning the Champions League and then all of a… Read more »
Charlie “Can you explain why we finished 13 points clear of them last season then?” One, though flawed, our squad was better last season than it is this season. Two, though flawed, Emery overachieved with the players he had available to him. That he overachieved is evident from the fact that he finished so close to Chelsea and Tottenham, teams that had far better players and far better squads than he did. Three, Wolves feature several younger players (Neves, Jota, Traore, Dendoncker) and these players have improved steadily and in some cases markedly over the past year or so. So… Read more »
How come Özil is not gelling with anybody in the team since Sanches ?
Ishola
“ A couple of wins and you climb this table”
So true
Problem is you have many jokers here salivating at the prospect of a 2-2 draw. Snobs who are happy with “performances” when we are so close to being drawn into a struggle that we have no character to fight.
We are better off getting unexciting disjointed wins to get us out of the muck … then the manager can have wiggle room to implement his style.
We are now sitting in 13th place in the table behind the likes of Newcastle as well as Southampton who just picked up 3 points against Spurs. They too must have better squads than we do.
The decision to hire an inexperienced apprentice shows the board are not football men…
Charlie “Can you explain why we finished 13 points clear of them last season then?” Further, it’s interesting that you rely on this argument by inference — which involves any number of changing variables that you are more or less assuming to be static — rather than simply comparing our players to Wolves’ players, name by name, position by position. It’s almost as if you don’t really want to talk about our midfielders (Xhaka, Guendouzi, Torreira) in relation to theirs or about our defenders (Luiz, Sokratis, Chambers, Mustafi, AMN) in relation to theirs. It’s almost as if you realize that… Read more »
How come Özil is not gelling with anybody in the team since Sanches ?
It’s Cazorla more than Sanchez that Ozil is missing. And the reason is because no one in our midfield is capable of moving the ball forward so more times than not Ozil has to drop deep to pick it up himself.
Finally, as I said above, if we have better players than Wolves do, as Charlie seems to believe, then surely Arteta should be able to close the four point gap that existed between us and Wolves when Arteta took over the team on December 22.
We must win today – no excuses. But for the fact that Brighton begins with a B we begin with an A we would be in 14th place right now! As it has been said before, football is results based.
Dissenter
So you’ve not got much to say about why we finished above Wolves by 13 points despite an apparent inferior squad?
Puts that’s one to bed quickly then doesn’t it.
So yeah. That’s my prediction. Only Ronaldo and Messi altered the inevitable over the past decade anyway.
So if it wasn’t for Ronaldo and Messi there would have been this English dominance sooner? Is that what you’re saying? I mean it doesn’t explain how generally poor the national team has been. You can’t blame Ronaldo and Messi for that because Portugal and Argentina have hardly lit it up on the international stage
Aussie
Close but No. We scored more goals than them. But after today’s game I fully expect us to be in the 14th place. Needless to say that our players but more importantly our manager are not giving me any confidence.
Another day on legrove and another day about our inadequate squad…
We need to start putting together wins starting this evening
Dissenter
‘So true
Problem is you have many jokers here salivating at the prospect of a 2-2 draw. Snobs who are happy with “performances” when we are so close to being drawn into a struggle that we have no character to fight.’
Dissenter, you are literally the only doomsday merchant on here who has been scaring everyone off with a potential relegation battle. Arsenal will not be relegated.
Why don’t we hire the slaphead Ajax manager.
These are the critical questions that need to be answered.
Marko I’m sure you remember that 12 months ago I made the point that English teams would dominate Europe for the next 5 years …..you disagreed of course. confirmation of my point is in the fact that all 4 positions in the European finals went to English clubs despite the fact that the premier league winners never made either final,this shows the strength of English sides compared to the rest of Europe. Un was correct in saying that peak Messi and Ronaldo made the difference for the last ten years, but now they are losing their influence ,Real Madrid and… Read more »
‘5 wins and a draw needed in the remaining 18 games to avoid relegation – I think we will be able to manage that.’
TR7,
You are confident that we will get 5 wins from 18 PL games when in fact we have got only one win from the last 12 PL games!
Who do you expect will perform a miracle?
A coach you don’t trust to get one win in his first three games?
“ Dissenter, you are literally the only doomsday merchant on here who has been scaring everyone off with a potential relegation battle. Arsenal will not be relegated”
Reminds me of that guy who categorically stated that the Titanic was unsinkable.
I’m afraid that if we get stuck in a relegation dogfight we wouldn’t have the character to get out of it.
It makes me suck to my tummy even writing about it but that’s better than having my head stuck in the sand, pretending that we are too good to go down.
18 draws and we’re safe then.
Unless we are playing 352 i dont want to see Auba & laca o the field together. Whatever formation we play if ozil is playing Ceballos has to be on the field too.
Nothing worse than a team in relegation form falling into the relegation zone. It’s like a homecoming.
We have a lot of Championship level players in the team: Leno, Xhaka, Torreira, Mustafi, Chambers, Ozil, Aubameyang, Lacazette, Kolasinac, Guendouzi, and as for the kids lol
It’s getting a bit much when people are just happy to say ‘don’t worry, we wont be relegated’ isn’t it? Surely we should be aiming just a little higher than that, what next, a ticker tape parade if we seventeenth? Don’t think that Emery would have got such lenient treatment.
Expectations are bound to drop when you hire someone who is no better than the players…
With all this VAR controversy you know what it is.
Mike Dean cannot ref matches now so through VAR he can now control all the matches from his armchair.
That’s why he doesn’t allow refs to look at the monitors.
I wouldn’t mind trade Pepe for Mahrez. He is built for the EPL.
This team misses Iwobi… i said it!
Results not good for us today.
I’m confident we’ll be OK but a victory this evening would ease my nerves anyway and give arteta a platform to build on.
lol Ian Dark stating Columbo couldn’t unravel the latest VAR episode in the Man City v Everton match
‘No Leicester collapse Gentlebris lol’
Ishola,
Maybe I underestimated Mr Brendan Rodgers, a fine fine football coach!
You know some clubs are not that much into wild adventures, like my man CG would say, it’s only football; keep it simple. They got a smart coach with a beautiful record and didn’t bother to look for an apprentice with a high ceiling.
What a goal from Sébastien Haller
When Leno came to us it was noted that his weakness was crosses.
The overpaid coaches haven’t improved him on that point.
No offense to anyone, but this whole “is relegation a possibility?” conversation is a red herring. Yes, I agree that we are closer to the bottom in terms of points (and quality) than certain people are willing to admit, but relegation remains fairly unlikely and making this the point of discussion lets certain people off the hook. These are people who were so outraged that we were in 8th place after a 2-2 draw with Southampton that the manager had to go that minute. Now they seem to be OK with however we do, provided we don’t get relegated, and… Read more »
Bamford – “” Three, Wolves feature several younger players (Neves, Jota, Traore, Dendoncker) and these players have improved steadily and in some cases markedly over the past year or so. So even where they have the same players, some of these players are even better players than they were last season.”” Why didn’t any of our players improve in the 18 months emery was incharge ? In fact , they got markedly worse. If wolves players have improved , you would have to put that down to coaching no ? If our players regressed , then equally , you would… Read more »
Emery did a miracle getting anything out of the two donkey forwards.
Lose tonight and we are back in the Wenger era of losing to big clubs again…
Actually, in a certain sense, 7th place by season end is the minimum we should be demanding of Arteta, given that 8th place was totally and completely unacceptable.
Why not have no refs and let big brother VAR and Mike Riley run the games completely?
That’s what he would like after all.
If Arteta wants to recruit players to suit his style of football then he will have more bargaining power if the team falter at the start of his reign. What happened to Emery and his 22 game unbeaten run was a false dawn. The winning run weakened his bargaining power with the board in January , they probably said that the squad is strong enough and settled for the Suarez debacle. They tried to right their wrongs in the summer with panic buys. Arteta is in a good bargaining position as the board are probably starting to feel the pressure… Read more »
Can you lot please stop talking about relegation and get behind the team
The manager has been here for just over s week
I am off to the game to cheer them on
Maybe some of you doom mongers should try it ffs
England failed to qualify for two World Cups in the 70’s so too many foreigners in the league is an excuse as to why England flop on the International stage
Gentlrbris
Momentum, once we get in to a rhythm we will get results.
West Ham getting almost new manager bounce !
We are waiting for a tremble!
Hammers 3-0 up after 35 minutes, a bit embarrassing to be out done on the ‘new manager bounce’ front by David bloody Moyes.
Not necessarily a slight on Arteta, probably more of an indication of just how entrenched the culture is amongst the players that a new man struggles to make much of an impact.
Un
It’s obvious that Bamford is trolling..
West ham now doing that dangerous thing where performances and results improve after you change coaches.
Poor them. They will surely pay for that in the future.
Bamford you’re intent on holding arteta to the same standards as emery , when you’re smart enough to know that it’s ridiculous to do so
When emery took over – did you hold him to the same standards as wenger ? Did you expect him to win the league and cup double ? And if you didn’t then why didn’t you ?
If he makes a sub around the 70th minute mark or leaves it up in the air depending on the scoreline then we know we have recruited a tactically inept Wenger clone…
Enough with this rhythm thing TR7. If you are playing well and improving results are what validates that.
Not facing shots isn’t really the only barometer for judging things. How many clear cut chances did we create against Bournemouth and Chelsea? What was the xG in both matches?
Edu
Tell me you’re not serious with that argument.
Eddie How’s should be sacked if they don’t want to go down, they’re absolutely shocking at the moment Bournemouth
As saints go past us and west ham move within 2 points of us…..all is rosy in the sauce garden. Fuck me there are some clueless fuck knuckles on here. Deep in a rely but zero awareness as we are too good for that.
Mr Serve
“I am off to the game to cheer them on
Maybe some of you doom mongers should try it ffs”
They can’t, none of the doom mongers live in this country….strange that innit.
IF we go a goal down would like to see how the manager and players react.
“A draw with United is never a bad result for any club”
Un
See your post after we drew against UTD at old Trafford and compare with what you wrote above..
PedrYou smashed it with this post
Just so many truth bombsYou’re right. We were told he needed wingers to bring out his style and ethos
He is an asset stripper. He tearing the joy from Arsenal piece by piece every day and turning us into a shit version of Mourinho’s Chelsea
A duller, weaker, loser’s edition
Perhaps we need to exorcise the stadium ,the evil ghost of Wenger still haunts the club.
Yep bamford…Eddie Howe and Sean Dyche. Both Bournemouth and Burnley have been shocking for quite a while now.
Receding
“West ham now doing that dangerous thing where performances and results improve after you change coaches.Poor them. They will surely pay for that in the future.”
Without realising it, your prediction could prove to be correct.
Pierre taking pot shots at fans in other countries.
He is excited about a possible relegation scrapper because then he can truly rub all your noses in it for wanting Wenger out
“” Tell me you’re not serious with that argument.””
Ridiculous isn’t it mate
Jorge Nicola (@jorgenicola) from ESPN Brazil has just said live on air that a club from London is in talks to sign Gabigol from Inter. He said that it’s not Crystal Palace. It is a “bigger club”.
So not Arsenal…I jest I jest it’s obvious it’s Fulham
Wankers already making excuses for the inept appointment.
Anyone who plays Ozil and not Pepe deserves to be ridiculed.
All Arteta has to do is keep us in the top half this season.
That’ll do, all things considered and let’s be honest here, he’ll be given a fair crack at it even if we finish 17th.
A few wins will see us right in terms of PL survival and personally I don’t care how we do it . Also, I’d almost prefer avoiding Europa qualification.
Then it’s a case of pushing the reset button, giving Arteta a summer window and a full preseason and let’s see where we’re at next season.
The defences misses Monreal
Pierre nothing bad can ever come out of winning a football game. None at all.
Coaches come and go at clubs. Chelsea have had a few and keep winning stuffs. Same with real Madrid and Barcelona etc
The only club where change is treated with fear and everything constantly compared to what came before is AFC.
Un Na I never equated a draw to United with a draw to Southampton. You wrongly inferred that from what I said. My point was and is that Arteta should be held to the same standards that Emery was held to: if 8th place was unacceptable under Emery, then it should be unacceptable (at season end) under Arteta. If drawing 2-2 to a Southampton was unacceptable under Emery, similar results should be unacceptable under Arteta. As for United, Receding already made the point that you lot were howling in outrage about our drawing with them at Old Trafford while you… Read more »
Club in freefall, Pearson charging up, Ancelotti getting a bounce,Moyes dicking the cherries. And Leggo head, wow we run a lot more and the full backs tuck in. In a rely fight sauce and values count for fuck all.
If we don’t talk out relegation then it won’t happen.
Out of mind …out of sight
*talk about
Receding
“Pierre taking pot shots at fans in other countries.”
just stating a fact.
You will find that a high percentage of fans living in this country are totally behind Arteta .
Going by the comments on Le Grove, most non English can’t wait for Arteta to fail…
Dissenter, Bamford, yourself, Gentlebris to name but a few ….Marko is just about showing intelligence as he recognises what Arteta can bring to the club.
Of course ,it’s not 100% either way but I find the more knowledgeable posters support Arteta and recognised very early that Emery would damage the club….
Going to the game tonight. Moment of madness and decided to snap up a ticket in North Bank lower tier, as I wanted, as they are the cheapest tickets to get.
I am really not to sure what to expect tonight. We are going to see some improvement if we go by the last two games.
Funnily enough though, I think we are going to sneak a win. Don’t know why, but I have a good feeling about it. 🙂
Pierre I suppose superfans like yourself should only come from England. You’re a little turd you know that
Unai na
We support Arteta
We just want to hold him to the same standard
It’s a very real possibility as the clubs in the shit have taken action. With arsenal it will be like Jacob Rees mogg taking on Duncan ferguson in a scrap. Fuck me we need points 9 in 36 and one win in 12….too classy to go down.
Pierre
Now you’re just lying. I fully and completely support Arteta, as do most of the other people you’ve named in your dishonest comment above.
Dissenter
To be fair, Arteta needs a summer and a full season before we can really judge.
Coming in now is far from ideal for the guy. Quite brave of him I think.
We’ve hired a better manager so it stands to reason performances and results should be better than the previous incumbent.
Arsenal should climb the table and finish no lower than 6th…
We got woeful Bournemouth to start off the Arteta era and still had many happy with a draw.
We could have gotten that new manager bounce from that game , seeing how sauce less Moyes is getting on.
Sid
“The defences misses Monreal”
do You know, I was thinking exactly the same thing earlier today, was equally good at wing back, full back or in a back 3 .
Whoever decided to let him go was a fool, and I honestly do not know who’s decision it was..
Mourinho: “The yellow card was fair, because I was rude. But I was rude to an idiot”
Bournemouth…. who we were whaking skippy over a 1 1 draw, David sauceless Moyes is owning them 3 0 at half time. The future is bright….
Lose tonight and it would be a first to lose 5 games at home for Arsenal ever.
Bamford
“I fully and completely support Arteta, ”
Now you are trolling
AlexanderHenry
“ To be fair, Arteta needs a summer and a full season before we can really judge.Coming in now is far from ideal for the guy. Quite brave of him I think.”
I don’t disagree
I’m just enjoying applying the arguments that we used to at a precedent for the previous permanent manager.
The campaign of calumny that Pedro and his supporters ran against that manager is al documented. In the end he deserved his sack.
We can’t have a situation where people are drooling at the prospect of us drawing United 2-2 at home.
Never Change Jose, never change
Wenger gets sacked for spending two seasons outside of the top 4 when he should of been sacked for not winning the title whilst in the top 4……
“” How can you hold two people to the same standard when when has been dealt a severe handicap with only half a season to set it right?””
Exactly – you just can’t
The same way you can’t look at Man U and arsenal and not think that Man U have hit some form and we are still pretty bad – so to pick up a point would be a good result — this is not the same Man U from the reverse fixture back in September
In arteta we trust
Pierre
Don’t think folks aren’t backing Arteta, only an idiot wouldn’t back a new manager whether he was your preference or not and Arsenal fans are very patient, he’ll get time…I think some are just saying the excuses that are being made for him are weird considering many made same for the last manager and were slaughtered for it… I mean come on, even you can see the irony
Dissenter
How much money have you put on Arsenal getting relegated?
Put up or shut up on the topic, it’s fucking drivel to read.
Un
Have you noticed how Marko conveniently disappears when he’s struggling in an argument.
English teams are set to dominate Europe. and yes , the English kids Coming through are top quality …
If they can perform in the prem, they can perform anywhere and in any competition in the world.
Bamford, I agree that coaches should be judged with an objective eye but am not sure that finishing 8th is not too arbitrary . Most people will judge Arteta’s first six months by noticeable changes in style, cohesiveness and individual players performing better. These games right now are coming thick and fast and Arteta’s input will be relatively small. Give it a couple of months and I hope and think we’ll be feeling a lot happier. At half time against Chelsea, my mates and I were struggling to remember a better half of football this season. Obviously the bar has… Read more »