‘United will get run ragged by the German boys’
The coolest take of mine this week.
Getting smashed by OGS 5-0 is embarrassing. But look, that’s the reality of United, they have a lot of good players that on their night, can be absolutely devastating.
… poor Nagelsmann. That’s a real spanking. Another one of my hipster fantasies running into problems.
So, onto Arsenal.
We host Dundalk. It’s a dreamy story of a team that’s climbed the ranks with a coach that was teaching kids to play football in America not so long ago. What a day out they’re going to have.
We should beat them, but they’ll be high on life, so this will very much take on the vibe of an early-round FA Cup game. I’m praying for a win out here…
There’s a lot of misery around Arsenal and Arteta at the moment. Everyone needs to take a reality pill and get back on track with what the project is about.
This time last year, people were genuinely talking about Arsenal getting relegated. We were 12 points off 1st, and 4 points off 14th. There was no direction, the players looked uninterested, and things were about to get very, very bad for us.
We hired in a 38-year-old manager. He expertly steered us out of a hideous situation and stabilised the club. That was a huge task most thought he was incapable of.
His biggest mission has been to change the culture of the club, that takes time, especially when you can’t turn over large chunks of the squad that were badly recruited.
Arteta tasked himself with making us difficult the beat. He has achieved that. No one comes to Arsenal to roll us these days, you might think that’s no big deal, but we have literally been getting rolled by top teams for 10 years. We are good at defending. We have the second-best defence in the league and we rarely concede more than one goal. Shots against us have drastically reduced. Again, you might think that’s par the course, but it is within living memory that Watford had 32 attempts at our goal.
Part one of the job is on track. The foundation has been set. The next phase is about fixing the attack.
Here, we have to be realistic. Solving that problem with internal solutions, to the level we require, is unlikely to happen. We don’t have the attacking riches United, Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea or City have… even Everton look like they have better-attacking options than we do.
We clearly lack a #10 or a modern #8 player. It isn’t one player either, it’s two. We don’t have players that thrive in the half-spaces. There’s no Hleb, Santi, Wilshere or Rosicky to make the magic happen. We’re currently relying on Saka adapting to that role, and that will be a huge ask. He’s more suited as a wide player.
Wide player-wise, there’s simply no world in which Arteta sanctions £72m for Pepe. He’s not playing well because he’s not that good. We hope based on his price tag, the reality is, if his name was Billy Smith and he was a youth player, we’d not be interested. Reiss Nelson is now the answer, but let’s be honest, he was struggling the break into Hoffenheim after a blistering start and we spent the summer trying to move him on. We love Gabriel, but it’s still a stretch to think he’s going to be a teenage saviour this season.
Then you look at the striking options. Auba through the middle isn’t an option because he can’t hold the ball up in the way we’d like. Lacazette isn’t right, and Eddie seems a way off ready. Fans are pumping Balogun?! That’s not right.
If we’re realistic, solving our attack is going to be very, very tough.
At the moment, our approach is to squeeze out chances to make our powerplays. The hope is that out of 4-5 good chances we create, we score one and batten down the hatches. This season, our form has been poor and we’re not taking our chances. Nothing has clicked and lady luck has covid.
You also have to accept that when you hire a young coach, they will make mistakes and misjudge situations. Arteta has a high ceiling, but he has to learn. We couldn’t afford to spend £15m on Poch, so we took a chance on potential. He will fumble, he will do odd things, but that’s a price worth paying, because when he gets it right, and he will, it’ll be worth the entrance fee.
‘SACK HIM’ is not analysis. It’s what stupid people who live in the moment say. Again, worth noting that the ‘best young coach in the world’, just had his arse handed to him by OGS. RB Leipzig is a very well assembled side deep into its development. They made the semi-finals of the Champions League last season. They are a good team, but bumps in the road are part of the journey when you bring in a young manager. Even Jose, with a far better squad than ours, tanked a 3-0 lead to West Ham.
I also find the perversion people have over William Saliba very, very odd. Arsenal are pretty good at defending. If we are not including a young player in our squad this season, there’s a good reason for it. The player had fitness issues last season, so we know there are problems there, because the Premier League is brutal. He can’t speak English, which is also tough to manage. He’s 19 years old, has just moved to a new country, and he’s dealing with horrendous personal problems. Do we think throwing a precocious talent into the first team, just because Dave on the internet saw two minutes of him on Youtube, is a good idea? Do we need to wreck him in front of millions to prove a point? 19-year-old centre backs at the highest level of the Premier League are a very, very, very rarely a thing. Arteta is protecting a player that has a very, very, very long career ahead of him. You are really struggling if your analysis of our problems right now is #FreeSaliba… but again, when things are not going well, any average idea is given oxygen.
Arteta will experiment. He is humble enough to admit when he’s wrong. He will develop his ideas. But you need to brace for the fact that the path to top 4 is not paved in goals, it’s brick walls and ruthless discipline… and the hope that January might bring a present or two.
Don’t lose faith. Don’t covet busted flushes that started with better tools. Keep the faith. This is the way. xx
Great post Pedro. . Lots of commonsense but sadly some of your audience like the flip comment , lack judgement or are idiots. Grouville has it right. Some of your more exasperating , deeply irritating posters do not . Arteta is the answer to a complex question . He needs time but some with the attention span of a gnat and the patience of a two year old won’t grant him that. Comparisons with Gary Neville are idiotic, Arteta has won the FA Cup already . Your point re Nagelsmann is very pertinent. On a Leipzig version of Le Grove… Read more »
Raulishuss, Obviously red mist fall down on you because I dare criticise Arteta and you did not bother reading my comment. If we were better at defending, a simple long ball in the channel would not beat us easily. Against WestHam, a long ball toward our left side to Antonio helped create their goal. Against Leicester a long pass to our left side helped create Vardy goal. Despite the higher numbers, an easy simple long ball over the top keep beating us. Spare me the “we attack in numbers”, because everybody can see that we do neither. We don’t attack… Read more »
Why do we need to reframe expectations?
What changed?
A future alias to look out for haha
TYAG
Irish League is literally one of the worst if not the worst football league in all of Europe excluding banter nations like Andorra and Luxembourg.
Arsenal Ladies would give them a game…
Actually going to walk that one back a bit, one our academy u15s/u16s sides would smoke them though.
Pedro already removed his posts and possibly banned him? It’s pure content. Come on mate…
Val ANY TEAM can be caught with a long ball is that your excuse? Like I said you have laid your bed on arteta enjoy
We all know our attack is not good but you want to beat down our defensive structure under arteta also yo fit with your propaganda that he is not a good manager.
Pedro
” “Getting smashed by OGS 5-0 is embarrassing. But look, that’s the reality of United, they have a lot of good players that on their night, can be absolutely devastating.“… poor Nagelsmann. That’s a real spanking. Another one of my hipster fantasies running into problems.”
Solution is not having fantasies about Arteta either. A very good coach , hardworking , multi – lingual, alas also a perverse arsehole prone to power games for a false sense of leadership.
Copies from Emery and Wenger , not realising these were incomplete folks and the former was neurotic
Raulishuss
You’re spot on, he’s one of these guys that makes declarative statements and changes everything to suit them so he’s right.
There’s no flexibility his end to alter his view with time, or new info. Just gets put through the blender and spat out as pseudo-support for what he said all a long.
Anyone care to guess what his 4th alias will be if his boys get it done against us on the weekend?
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11708/12117733/burnley-on-verge-of-200m-takeover-by-egyptian-businessman-mohamed-el-kashashy
CG out there somewhere thrilled at the potential.
Raulishuss
What proves he is a good manager? The FA cup? Too much was made of us winning that trophy, too many conclusions drawn, too much power ceded.
Leicester didn’t pay us respect by playing the way they did, they were in the middle of an injury crisis and two back to back losses, they played the way they needed to play. A good manager would have seen that coming from a mile off. Boring people to sleep and hoping Aubameyang scores isn’t the hallmark of good managers.
Raptora, I can’t have the dominant narrative being one poster and his weird behaviour
“ Reframing expectations”.? Why? The goal posts shouldn’t be moved every other time Arteta underperforms, There have been many illogical and weird decisions this season. Emery however some disliked him, to put mildly, did more than well in his first season. With many arguably Arteta endorsed signings, there should be expectations. Bet KSE has too. We don’t need to bring up every wart Saliba may have to help Arteta justify the bizarre decision eg excluded Saliba in Europa. Unless Saliba is still recovering from his not so minor foot injury, he has been training hard , as reported, since before… Read more »
We have a good manager yet we need prayers to beat Dundalk? Under any of our previous coaches two things is certain for games like tonight
– the kids will play
– we will score at least three
Now we can’t even look forward to that but we are in better hands? Because he is learning and guaranteed to be great? Is that why we need to reframe expectations?
This wasn’t the dream sold
Sack him is stupid
Reframing expectations equally so
Charles you’d observe he’s only interested in echoing someone’s Stan on arteta been what he says he was. Same with pepe. Always heresl to prove he was right about this or that or he told us so…… What a bore.
Of course we’re not going to be creative when we play 5 defenders, 2 defensive midfielders, 2 strikers and only one creative player on the wing. That’s on Arteta and that’s the sacrifice he has done to get the goals against down, is it worth it though? 2 of our biggest holes in the squad has been filled with top players now in Gabriel and Partey so there’s no need to go ultra defensive anymore, we should be able to cope anyway playing a back 4 and adding in a creative player in midfield, even better if we also move… Read more »
RH if u think we played boring and expected auba to score against Leicester then I can’t help you. We all know you’re still sour about been proven wrong about you know who so enjoy your ride.
What is this about been ultra defensive? We are not ultra defensive. We just struggle to create attacking patterns. It is a personnel problem and the coach should find a way around it but to say we are camped in our own box defending is just plain lies and very agenda driven
Raulishuss
Yea it’s dull and ultimately self serving. If your view is immune to time and new info then what’s the point? I argue against numerous POV on here because I have my own, but I come here to expose myself to these varied views primarily. Keeps me revisiting my own and tests my resolve/belief.
We might have big name name attackers but as a unit they are a mismatch. Our Senior players are scared to take responsibilities in attack and are leaving it to young saka. I like ceballos but he is a very limited offensive weapon I’d sooner get rid of him for a better offensive cm he duels too much on the ball and struggles to move us forward quickly. In a team of creators he’d be the water carrier
Raulishuss, “Like I said you have laid your bed on arteta enjoy”. That’s the point, I am not enjoying the football we play under Arteta. 😂 Playing ultra defensive was understandable and acceptable when it was about stabilising the team and quickly get results. It is not when the performance are turgid and the results are bad. It is even worse when the manager uses a system that everybody has sussed out and get predictably schooled. Use the same tactic against ManUtd, and Pogba will have a field day pinging long balls to Rashford and Martial above Xhaka and Ceballos… Read more »
Compare what we have now to what we had at this stage of last season. Bellerin back in decent form, Tierney playing, Gabriel is a massive upgrade That’s 3 out of 4/5 defensive players that wasn’t available last season. A fully settled Ceballos instead of lighweight, inconsistent Ceballos. Partey again a massive upgrade. Willian is an upgrade on the non existent Ozil, even though he hasn’t been that good yet outside the Fulham game. Pepe hasn’t really kicked on as we hoped but the whole attack has been isolated and disjointed. Martinelli out and Eddie in is a downgrade. Overall… Read more »
CC So let me get this straight. Factual points are subjective but your footballing eye is not. WoW. Must have a really great pair ha. Anyways factual points in my dictionary point to the goals, assists, dribbles completed, chances created , etc etc. Also for those who think Pepe has done nothing. He was second highest in goal involvements for last season. In his first season in English league playing inconsistently in a disjointed team under 3 different managers. Has he justified the price tag? Definitely not. Will he ever? Maybe not. Has he been as bad as some point… Read more »
Raul how many gilt edged chances exactly did we miss against Leicester that you keep going on about? The Lacazette header and which other one?
The disallowed goal Xhaka had to jump for the ball to go in, that’s pretty self explanatory.
By all means though bring up my thoughts on Emery’s first season as some come back, means you have nothing else to go on.
We wouldn’t be talking about prayers against Dundalk in his first season that’s for sure.
Raulihuss
We have been setting up the team with an ultra defensive mindset though, we don’t create because we have 5 defenders and 2 defensive midfielders and only 1 creative player on the pitch.
That’s not a personnel problem, it’s a selection problem, we have the players to play much better and more offensive football than this.
With Party and Gabriel there’s no need to protect our shite CBs and CMs by adding numbers, if we play the right players.
Insist on starting Xhaka, Mustafi etc and it’s just more of the same.
Valentin spouting his usual rubbish. Slagging off everything whilst pretending he’s some tactical genius. Probably never played the game.
Just a thought.. but if your strikers are not suited to play as lone front men.. then why not play with a pair? 4-4-2 diamond is one of the oldest and simplest things in the book but it certainly works with the right cogs.
Leno
Bellerin, luiz, gabriel, tierney
Partey
Willian, ceballos, saka
Lacazette, auba
“So let me get this straight. Factual points are subjective but your footballing eye is not. WoW. Must have a really great pair ha.” You’ve not got it very straight if that’s your takeaway. Where have I said factual points are subjective? Makes no sense. I said the following: “You’re not going to get “factual points” because it’s all inherently subjective views that are being shared.“. That’s very much been the case as I’ve argued my reasoning for saying Nelson is a better footballer than Pepe is down to him doing the basics better, and more consistently. How do you… Read more »
Starting from tonight we need to see Arteta’s long term vision for Arsenal, time to do away with the handbrake, pretty annoying he ever used that term.
Young managers are usually known for creating feast or famine teams, that’s how you lose 5-0 to Ole but somehow you are top of the bundesliga.
Whatever Arteta is building isn’t clear, it’s boring, starves the attacking players and still allows two of the worst signings in our recent history, Mustafi and Xhaka, to get games.
Enough of the sound bites, we have heard all about his vision, let’s see it.
HighburyLegend “Mostly, it’s up to Mikel to learn where to place correctly his players on the pitch.” Or maybe it’s about Arteta’s players learning about where he wants them to be on the pitch, then building team cohesion, and patterns of play, which takes time…. It’s muscle memory, when you go to the tap for a drink of water because your thirsty, you don’t need to think about it, the same as driving a car, or the vast majority of things people do everyday. The last 17 years has seen huge advancements in sports science. The next 20, will be… Read more »
Let’s not forget Wenger played Cazorla in each of our games in the beginning of the EPL and Champions League in 2016/17. He had 11 games by mid October, including a home game to Ludogorets Razgrad when we won by 6-0. It was his last ever game in an Arsenal shirt.
I will never forgive Wenger for this stupidity.
With regard to Saliba, I would much rather see a young lad getting a proper chance and maybe making teething mistakes, and then again maybe not, than watch very experienced players tanking week after week after week and still being chosen.
“ eez you’re all over the place. I know your a marketeer by trade but some stats / facts help. Try this article https://7amkickoff.com/index.php/2020/10/26/trying-to-trust-the-process/”
Read it couple of days ago. Indeed good article and thats analysis. At least the metrics aren’t far off the facts.
“
“If I could stay at Arsenal, it would mean a lot to me,” says Mustafi.“
It also means a lot of cash to Arsenal, mate. Sod off
CC ‘You’re not going to get “factual points” because it’s all inherently subjective views that are being shared.’ Your own words. There are many factual points s out there which you can take a look at. For starters you can check goals, assists, Chances created, dribbles completed. These 4 are probably the most important stats for a winger. You’re salivating over one ball retention stat derived of what 81 minutes of game time? And this one stat justifies your imaginary viewpoint that Nelson does the basics better and is therefore a better footballer. Arteta and the whole coaching must also… Read more »
ArsnilOctober 29, 2020 13:40:56
Many say the same things after witnessing what happened at the crime scene @ the Emirates!
Rich crushing it today. Great comments. Spot on stuff.
Did you read the Ralph R article is posted?
Willian reportedly said …
“It may happen that you don’t touch the ball and get frustrated, but Mikel always says that, wait a minute, the ball will arrive. I’ve been learning a lot.”
Cmon. Ask our forwards who played in the City ans Leicester games!
The fucking ball didn’t come, mist of the time.
I suppose Willian learned the lesson of joining Arsenal for the money.
Rich has Definitely followed Arsene’s media drive these past 2 weeks.
RH wants to see suicidal football, it’s now or never Mikel!
CT
I’ve explained my POV, in turn you’ve dismissed it as imaginary and the like because you disagree. Do you actually have any value here?
Explain to me how I deliver “facts” that illustrate the areas I’ve said I rate Nelson above Pepe: namely work rate, ability to deliver tactically, directness of running/dribbling, quickness of execution? – things I believe will bring better balance to our attack.
All in all you’re just acting like a fucking prick because you’ve got your back up over Pepe. It’s boring.
Pedro
You are being way to vague in setting out targets or minimum standards/goals that arteta has to achieve.
Let’s put some kids up.
For me arteta anything worse than 7th and he deserves the sack, if you trust in arteta’s ability surely you can agree with this and we can recover this at the end of the season?
Personally for me a good season constistues 6th placed finish.
I wonder if this co-equal relationship between Arteta and Edu is going to work. It just seems to be set-up for meek decisions.
One example of the flawed decision making is Reiss Nelson. He’s at that stage where he needs to play 30-45 games season to go to the next level.
How is that he is able to stay “to fight for his place” when the club is trying to move him out on loan?
They need to establish who’s in charge. We have a squad that’s too large and the younger players aren’t getting enough game time.
London, agree, this kids should play.
I’d also be shocked if there were any circumstance Arteta would get himself in this season that would have him fired
Only time will tell if we get better, but we do make a lot of Fk ups in the transfer window, don’t we?
Want to see the kids play tonight, unleash ESR, see if he can fill the AM role and provide some much needed creativity. Nelson, AMN and co, hope auba s form returns soon.
Pierre is right about one thing though, we made a massive mess of the saliba situation. 5 GKs??? Why? Someone please explain why we need that many registered for the EL or EPL?
All for the kids tonight, Reiss Nelson, Emilie Smith Rowe, Runnarson and a few that haven’t gotten as much time like AMN.
Pedro RH wants to see suicidal football, it’s now or never Mikel! — I think what most Arsenal fans want to see is football that doesn’t make you feel like you’ve wasted 2 hours. I’ll tell you this: once a match begins and I see our opposition is defending deep, I just know that we’ll witness an eyesore. I doubt an attacking midfielder will just come in and make us play like Man City. There are just many things off with the way Arteta sets up our attack. There are many teams with worse players who are playing better attacking… Read more »
to manage a squad over a season needs experience which at the moment MA does not
have.. and one sprained ancle can ruin your season
Arteta needs to understand the club as well, this isn’t Fulham making the el and its their one shot at playing so play your pros. Arsenal have always used groups o stages to blood youngsters, nobody wants to see kola and mustafi stink the place out against these godforsaken teams, arsenal fans want to see kids.
Nnow your club and play to the crowd a bit. From the footballing side it also makes sense as these players are trash and are leaving anyway, so why play them, their heads are gone
London gunner
For me arteta anything worse than 7th and he deserves the sack, if you trust in arteta’s ability surely you can agree with this and we can recover this at the end of the season?
—
Emery (the dumbass) got us 5th (2 points away from 3rd) in his first season. Why should Arteta (the genius) be getting us 7th with a better squad?
If we have a top 6 squad, then Arteta should be getting us top 4. Or what’s the point of being a genius if you can’t outperform dumbasses like Emery?
Olumide, how did ten years of playing beautiful football that was ineffective make you feel?
Il say it again, you should get a tune out of a team with an Gabriel partey auba team. Ithe squad isn’t that trash
Olumide, where did Emery leave us after ‘strengthening’ the squad?
Pedro I did read that article, really interesting. And it makes so much sense. Thinking of the success I’ve seen Arsenal have, all the teams had stability and cohesion. I can remember the teams from 1989, 91, 98, 02, 04 player for player And I can remember the teams from 07/08 and 2010/11 as well, where we were close, but lacked just a bit of squad depth. What all those teams had besides having very good players, they had structure and cohesion, the earlier teams were built on longer term foundations But in 07/08 and 10/11, Arsene had build up… Read more »
Tim’s of 7amkickoff forecast ( comes with a qualifier ,about subject to revision)
So, let’s recap:
Man City
Tottenham
Everton
Chelsea
Liverpool
Leeds
Aston Villa
Man U
Wolves
Leicester
Arsenal
Leicester and Wolves have some fantastically constructed sides with managers who are capable of maximizing their component parts. That’s why I’m putting them above Arsenal.
He justifies the ratings
Weird thing is that we haven’t progressed or developed our game during Arteta’s reign. We started well, then had the FAC glory, but we’ve looked clueless more often than not lately, when we should have been on an upward spiral although a steady one. We need to pay attention to how we play because it’s the real benchmark on how a team is doing. You can get the points in several games one way or another, but if you are not doing all that good, you are going to struggle eventually. It’s about the ability to bounce off, see what… Read more »
Rich, he’s our best hope.
He’ll make mistakes, but he’s a great coach, respected by the players and he’ll put the club right after a lot of wrong
Pedro
I think Emery strengthened the club in some ways.
Even you will agree that he gave the kids a chance and played them a lot, maybe it was out of necessity.
He deserves some credit for that at least. Even Saka and Willock agree.
Pedro
Olumide, how did ten years of playing beautiful football that was ineffective make you feel?
—
Well, made me feel bad because we were losing. Now, we’re playing awful football and still losing.
I see Pedro got his second wind after the Leicester game is all but forgotten. Mikel ain’t that bad he’s just dealt a bad hand with a bad squad of players who realistically can’t do much more until he addresses the squad. Is that right? Cause if so I agree and I agreed with it under Emery while people argued about the squad being top 4 quality. That’s not in defence for Unai in case people are confused it just seems like we are now in a situation at Arsenal where we can’t trust the manager (be it Unai or… Read more »
Surely we can’t be worse as a team then when emery left. Surely then arteta has made a few errors by letting the better players go. Torr, guen, mhiki are surely not better than what we have right now. If they are, then arteta fked up by shipping them out.
Raptora, hard to move on from ‘we haven’t developed’
Anyway top 4 still the target. The manager not knowing what his best front 3/4 is or what people’s actual positions are shouldn’t be an excuse come seasons end
Diss, in what way?
100m on Pepe arms Saliba? How do you prioritise a winger over a defensive midfielder or a Ramsey replacement?
CC All you’re doing is trying to support your imaginary claim of Nelson being better than Pepe with subjective ideas like direct running, basics of wing play bla bla while ignoring all the hard facts in front of you i.e the goals, assists, chance created, etc etc. Arteta has considered Nketiah and Willock over Nelson to play on the wings. Do these 2 players also perform the “basics of wing play, direct running ” better than Pepe in your imaginary world? Also you’ve provided no stat/fact to support your argument other than a ball retention stat which is based of… Read more »
We need a better game plan, where we don’t depend on only auba to score goals. We need laca, pepe, saka,, willian and martinelli, each hitting close to double figures in goals or else it’s going to be a long season and not a successful one at that.
Pedro Olumide, where did Emery leave us after ‘strengthening’ the squad? — He was rightly sacked when he stopped performing. What was the point of us hiring Arteta? The football we have right here in Arteta’s first season reminds me of Emery at his worst. I could remember you arguing for days (before Arteta came) that Arteta will play beautiful football. What was your reason? Because he was Pep’s assistant and Pep played beautiful football. Now, we’re almost a year into Arteta project and he’s still working on the defence. Pedro, when should we expect attacking and beautiful football (coupled… Read more »
Pedro
What position should be the minimum for Arteta (& Arsenal) this season?
Auba csn play through the middle, in any case of laca was a complete beast then a point Co kd be made, but he’s not, he gets bullied nullified and the system is not connected enough for him to build triangles as a false 9.
Watching martial yesterday was like a different world, gets the ball he csn turn and drive and push defenders back, laca can’t do it, aubq can’t but at least he can run in behind to stretch
Pedro,
I meant in the last few months. We’ve hit a brick wall. We stopped moving. You cannot go to a game after you’ve struggled in front of goal game after game, and just move Willian to the CF position = fail, the move Auba to RW = fail, then move Ceballos in a weird ass position that nobody including him can explain = fail.
As for tonight if Dundalk honestly give us any sort of trouble tonight then I dunno what to say. We should be beating them comfortably at home with the league cup kids. But Arteta’s hurting and made some mistakes with the Europa squad like so expect a few players to play who shouldn’t be anywhere near the game with United on the horizon
Lol if Nelson is better than pepe then we really are screwed
Olumide, FA cup? Second best defence in the league? Community shield? Competitive? Good press?
Bar that, nothing
Raptora Sunday was the first time we’d played with that midfield, Partey had been in the country for less than 2 weeks. While I expect a 27yr old who speaks fluent English, and with his level of experience to provide a relatively quick impact. I’m not too bothered or surprised that the shape of our midfield was a bit wrong on Sunday, if we’re still have this conversation in 2 months time, fair enough…. But they’re just likely teething problems. I think we’ll see this team develop as the season progresses, and providing we stay away from extensive injuries, I… Read more »
*list
It’s amazing the excuses for Arteta fucking up. If Emery was still in charge playing the shite we are playing, you’d be going nuts Pedro . In less than 3 months Bielsa had Leeds playing decent football. 10 months on with Arteta and he’s still clueless about his best team.
Agree TYAG, or more worrying his preferred xi has our water carriers in it
Bielsa, hipster dream coach, didn’t manage to get Leeds promoted in year one.
Arteta, is not Bummery.
Any thoughts on why he’s getting it so wrong Pedro? Outside of not having a good enough squad
Meh. People are going overboard on here. What is Arsenal? A team that doesn’t create much nor does it let it’s opposition to create much. Has some questionable individuals who are prone to brain fades, especially defensively. If a team doesn’t create much , some days opponents can be clinical,you can be unlucky ,bad refree decisions,you may waste your chances and suddenly the results will be bad. Arteta chose to upgrade in CB and CM areas first instead of focusing on the attack. So naturally we are struggling. It’s the same thing United went through. Focused on upgrading in defensive… Read more »
CT “All you’re doing is trying to support your imaginary claim of Nelson being better than Pepe with subjective ideas like direct running, basics of wing play bla bla while ignoring all the hard facts in front of you i.e the goals, assists, chance created, etc etc.“ Your childish defence of Pepe is boring. My opinions don’t need to be passed through your vetting criteria, you’re not an authority I turn to when deciding how I rate a player and I dont live my life comparing goal and assist figures to feed me my opinions of players. I’ve named my… Read more »
___________Gunnar
Cedric____Musti___Gab___ANM
_____________Mo
_______Willock___Cabellos
Nelson______Eddie___ASR/Willian
Hahahahaha if Bielsa is a hipster coach, then Arteta is a shitter coach
Marko,
I think he’s over coached an under coached team. He’s had to squash some of discipline issues and I think he’s taken it too far.
I suspect he’s fully aware of that and as his new tools adapt to the club, we’ll see him solve the issues.
I also think some of his players are lacking form. That won’t last, then we’ll start winning again.
… but harsh reality they are dealing with is that without Ozil, we are in trouble until we replace.
Bielsa the ultimate hipster coach, not quite sure ‘shitter’ is contributing much to the conversation.
Pedro, Bielsa took Leeds from 13th to 3rd with a 28 gd gain in his first season while implementing the most difficult and demanding system known around.
Not exactly what failure looks like.
@Tom
Spot on, well said. Give Bielsa this squad and 3 months and we’d be fighting for top 4
I’m more nervous about playing Leeds than United
As opposed to struggling to mid table mediocrity, which we are under Arteta
Pedro
As much as I’m in favour of leaving Ozil to train on his own rotting until July 1st, particularly if he’s got a nice moved lined up in Jan that we can scupper.
Do you think once his wages are off the books, we’ll invest in an attacking midfielder?
Or do you think we’ll gradually look to give Smith-Rowe opportunities?
These days I’m pretty nervous whoever we play Tom. Even tonight’s game is making me nervous against an Irish pub team.
Owners have bought into the Arteta project don’t see him going anywhere unless we finish way down table, bottom 1/4. For me no excuses for Arteta he has the squad to touch top four, it’s so competitive this season it may end up being a few points shy but challenge he must. We’ve a very solid spine if played positionally to maximum effect. Just needs time to blossom, Partey’s played 180 min. Its not as exciting or remotely fluid in the attacking end as the Ozil/Sanchez and Rambo combination but it should be equally if not more effective with what… Read more »
Rich
” but I think he’s exceptionally bright”
Well let’s hope gunnerblog is talking out of his rectum which is entirely possible when he informed that Arteta still sees Xhaka as the heartbeat of his side and as before most will go through Xhaka in the team.
The being exceptionally bright statement will fall flat on it’s face I’m afraid. It will be more of a case of being exceptionally foolhardy.
Is this site ill.
It’s in maintenance a lot.
Rich,
Ozil going along with a few others next summer will be huge for our bottom line.
We need more than one creator as well. Club like ESR, but you have to be so good to make it in that role
I think he’s over coached an under coached team.
Overthinking maybe yeah. I’m not sure I’d word it like that though.
but harsh reality they are dealing with is that without Ozil, we are in trouble until we replace.
Another flip flop really? I don’t see him making a difference at all.
Any idea why he’s misusing players?