It’s tough hyping yourself to write a match report after beating a very average side in a tournament that generally doesn’t heat up until the semi-finals, but we have to make it work for a few hundred words, so keep with me.
Firstly, we won. You can only beat what is put in front of you and we did the job. We’ve qualified for the knockout phase of the competition which means our last two games should see some real minutes for some of the kids that are taking our fancy.
The performance wasn’t exactly electric, but we saw what need to from certain player. Nicolas Pepe had a major reaction after his dim sending off against Leeds. Again, he’s usually quite good against sides that give him the luxury of time and space that he doesn’t get in the Premier League but he still looked motivated and purposeful. He had 6 shots, he made the most passes, and his goal from a Joe Willock cross was lovely.
Arteta was pleased after the game.
‘He had a great performance, he scored one goal and could have scored another one or two. He created some good moments in the game and worked really hard for the team, so I really like it, I am pleased with that.’
‘We all know what his level is, and all the time the question is how often he can get to that level and how he contributes to other aspects of the game.’
‘Today is the example of the level he needs to hit, and he needs to keep doing it because he is capable of it and you can see that every time he gets in those positions win the final third, he is a real threat and a very difficult player to control because he can go with his feet, he can come inside, he can shoot, he can create crosses and he can go in behind you as well. That is what we can expect from him.’
It’s a shame we won’t see him for three games in the league now.
That might open up some opportunities for others. Reiss Nelson put in another good performance. His runs were direct, he was fast, his passing was crisp. I loved the goal he scored. He showed a lot of energy to get on the end of another Joe Willock cross. Again though, it’s in the Premier League where he needs to make it count. When the pressure is high and spaces are tighter.
Joe Willock had another game where you can see what he could offer the side. I think the glimpse of Emile Smith Rowe might have been a little more exciting, the manager seemed to be adament that we have a very good player on our hands. He created an assist very quickly, his clever run into space found the ball from Tierney, he’d already spotted Balogun who took a nice touch and bundled home for his first-ever goal for Arsenal. There’s something special about the two of them combining. Hopefully, that’s a partnership we see more of in the future.
Overall, the more attacking approach to the game had a positive impact on our numbers. We had 19 attempts at their goal, hitting the target 8 times. I’m not sure we landed a ‘performance’ out there, but I do think we are increasingly seeing why we’re not where we need to be as a squad. Another 2/10 performance from Lacazette who looked shite against a pub team. Another fairly anonymous runout for Eddie. Xhaka was far too slow in midfield again, even at this level. He doesn’t move the ball at pace and he’s a fairly one-dimensional player. We desperately lack craft with our final ball, even with space and time. Speed and precision is so important to this system Arteta is trying to move us towards. We need to find some of that in the January window otherwise it’s going to be more of this bland football we feel is unbefitting of a club like Arsenal.
The good news is Thomas Partey should be back this weekend. It’ll be interesting to see if he plays next to Mo or Ceballos. Then we’ll wait to see what he does about Joe Willock. Still, I’d prefer to play an attacking system badly, than give up and stick 11 men behind the ball. We need to move faster towards a creativity production line, so let’s see what we do against a very good Wolves side this weekend.
I hope it’s not the slap back to reality we had against Leeds at the weekend.
Rich
Those players you list, Laca, Xhaka, Luiz etc. Arteta had a chance to get rid of them ALL! 😂
He offered Mustafi a new contract you mong.
For good money too!
Marc
I agree with our wage bill and transfer expenditure, we should be in a much better place.
But we’re not.
Soares 4 yr deal
Kolasinac £120,000 p/w
Mustafi £35mill
Sokratis £17mill
Chambers £16mill
Luiz £120,000 p/w
Mari 4 year deal
Gabriel 22, promising but still raw
Saliba 19 potential
Xhaka £35mill
Torreira £26mill
Guendouzi 19/20 big potential, far from the finished article
Pepe £72mill
Willian 3 year deal
Ozil £350,000 p/w when he was clearly sliding
Lacazette £50mil, downgrade on Giroud
Turned down £60 mill for Alexis, to then swap him with Mkhitaryan
It’s an absolute car crash
If that was a defence of Arteta it was the dimmest thing you could have written.
Rich
Which is precisely why Arsenal fans should have the expectation of stopping the shit show and start performing better.
Just because we were making piss poor decisions before doesn’t mean we should accept more of them.
Danny+S Luiz is our only centre half who progresses the ball. Unless we were going to splash the cash, renewing him made some sense, he’s not a good option but he’s the best of a really bad bunch. Selling Xhaka in January would have been insane, we were in a rut, we needed experience, our other options of Torreira and Guendouzi were inferior, and Ceballos was injured. I don’t know why we didn’t sell Lacazette? I’d have sold him in a heartbeat We don’t know the details of Mustafi, or even if it’s true. You call me a mong, but… Read more »
Danny
We’ve gone from a place under Emery where no excuse was allowed no matter what extenuating circumstances were happening to looking for any excuse we can find or just accepting it’s shit.
I’m getting pissed off with it.
Rich
You do realise that we could have the used the £25 million from Xhaka’s sale to buy another midfielder and let’s face it to replace Xhaka level of uselessness would’ve cost about £2.35.
Marc
How do you perform better?
If the squad is unbalanced, and not of the desired quality?
We’ll be within a cluster of clubs between 3rd and 8th this season, because right now, that’s our level.
Over 38 games, we’ll likely finish around 6th, but could drop to 8th, I don’t see much difference between the teams around there.
United, Spurs, Chelsea are ahead of us in their current trajectory, I don’t think sacking Arteta changes that
Marc
You’re projecting on Pedro here.
Many people, including myself thought Emery did slight
Ky above expectations in his first season
Then got hung out to dry in the transfer window, where we spent £140 million, but actually weakened our squad
Rich
Mustafi contract offer is a definite, it was widely reported.
You telling me we couldn’t have found a replacement for Luiz in an entire summer?
Arteta signed Mari and Cedric.
Xhaka, Arteta actually favoured him. Said he’d have signed him for city.
Artetas best results were with Martinez in goal and he sold him.
Many of our current issues seem firmly on tets.
We are 8 points behind the spuds and with 13 goals difference , that’s a record !
They just moved to their expensive toilet and we all thought they were fucked!
Yet we still talking about transition!
G8
But mourinho is a dinosaur and he won’t get them performing! That’s what they all said?
Danny+S Widely reported , doesn’t equate to factually correct. One publication runs a story, others then run the same story off the same source. Online publications get paid from clicks. Mustafi being offered a new deal is likely to rope in gullible twats, which mean they then get paid. This is the way the media operates, it’s not about facts, it’s about sensationalism, ratings, and clickbait We don’t know who signed Mari, Cedric and Willian, you can speculate. But all we know is the guy who was friends with their agents, was sacked. Arteta saying he’d sign Xhaka for City,… Read more »
Rich
“We don’t know who signed Mari, Cedric and Willian, you can speculate.”
Sorry but that’s a weak argument – there are clear connections between Arteta, Edu and Mari. If Arteta didn’t want Willian why keep playing him? Soares made sense as a loan the permanent deal less so but it’s not unreasonable to think that it was done with a view of selling AMN which Arteta then stopped – where have we heard that before?
“Europa league is worth £30-£50 million to us.”
A good coach wouldn’t have fucked up qualifying via the PL.
Rich,
Your point about the premature criticisms of young players like Willock and others who can if given time provide an attacking threat from midfield are well made, as is your point that there’s bound to be some inconsistency in our performances.
I don’t buy your line that our poor performances and results so far are entirely down to our poor/unbalanced squad. A large part of the blame has to fall on Arteta’s hyper-conservative tactics and team set-up, which arw fine against the likes of Man City and Liverpool, but not so clever against Villa and other mid-table/second rank teams.
Marc
True.
Emery finished 2 points off the champions league with a worse squad.
Danny
Emery finished 2 points off third and 1 point off 4th – whilst the Spud’s goal difference was better than ours Auba scores that pen and we’re 2 points better off and they have a point less.
The world isn’t static.
Other clubs have progressed, and we’ve regressed.
Making statistical analysis between different seasons is pointless.
You need to account for variable change.
Marc
Willian, Mari and Soares all had links to Raul.
you can speculate, but you don’t know, and neither do I.
Arteta has to now work with these players, he’s hardly going to throw them under a bus, that’s not how it works
Rich
Mari was on City’s books when Arteta was there and was playing in Brazil when Edu was Tech Dir for the national team. Sanllehi had links to all the agents.
If Arteta and Edu both knew he was a poor fit why weren’t they screaming blue murder?
If Mari’s tearing it up and looking a good signing in 6 months you’ll be praising Arteta for recommending him.
Rich
“Selling Xhaka in January would have been insane, we were in a rut, we needed experience, our other options of Torreira and Guendouzi were inferior, and Ceballos was injured”.
Experience in fuck ups.
Marc, seems like you are getting pretty angry at anyone willing to cut the new coach some slack.
You are currently blaming Arteta for Mari, a player you admit you have no clue about, but at the same time, you are also worried Arteta will get credit if he comes good.
You really took the Emery thing badly.
Rich, great posts today. Kind of echoed by Arteta in his latest prezzer.
>> If I try things with players that can’t do those things, we’ll get into bigger problems
Pedro
Not at all – I’ve said it’s crazy to judge Mari yet he’s played a handful of minutes. I’m not blaming Arteta for Mari – we don’t know what we’ve got yet it is however daft to think that with the previous connections one or both of Arteta or Edu had input into the signing. If it works out they get the credit if he’s a complete and utter waste of money they get the blame.
Why are you so worried about Arteta being held to account?
“Marc, seems like you are getting pretty angry at anyone willing to cut the new coach some slack.”
No just following your lead of Emery.
On a totally unrelated note. Why does Thanksgiving turkey have so much blood on it?
“Marc, seems like you are getting pretty angry at anyone willing to cut the new coach some slack.”
Other than with that dickhead Superrob I haven’t had anything other than polite conversations with anyone on here today – not really angry at all.
Look’s like someone’s trying to deflect.
>> If I try things with players that can’t do those things, we’ll get into bigger problems _______ Arteta probably should have told himself that before he started Willian as a false 9. It does show he is learning though.. He needs a fast learning curve. But it would be the height of insanity to think the coach has no culpability to our situation which Rich is trying to sell as it will take years… No it won’t. Buy better players, make better decisions. The last transfer window was encouraging.. as well as formation changes recently. And better substitutions. But… Read more »
Funny how Rich has become Pedro’s darling poster and CG a persona non grata these days.
Quite a reversal of fortunes for those two from just a season ago..
Your time will come Tom.😊
Arsenal fans are not patient enough for project youth at this point in time, at least not those that post on LG.
When do we start blaming the bottler auba? Yes, he’s a great goal scorer but he fks up when we need him. Missed the pen against spuds, then missed a sitter when we crashed out of the EL. He is a stat pad merchant. Granted he’s the best goal scorer in the side but I wouldn’t count on him in a high pressure situation. I’d count of RVP and his twig legs. Also, if it wasn’t for emery, guens worth wouldn’t have increases 500%. Thanx to arteta, it’s going down again. Be lucky to get 20m for him now. Would… Read more »
As always double standards on le grove.
“then missed a sitter when we crashed out of the EL”
Imagine saying this after possibly his best Arsenal goal. He almost got Arteta out of the bin. Maybe you should blame Arteta for making 3 defensive substitutions before finally playing Martinelli in the 105th !!!!!!!!!!!!! minute of the game when we needed a goal.
Gonstrous, you don’t tend to use ‘stat padding’ for goals scored.
Tom, you are clearly not here when rich is talking politics.
Bojangles, fans would be patient enough if we’d set out with that as a strategy.
Arteta should have burned the squad down and reset. Instead, he’s chasing Champions League titles with 180k a week strikers that can’t score against Molde.
Just saw we are linked to Isco… another fallen giant.
Marc, you’ll just play yourself and have to go into hiding again.
Martyring yourself for Emery, what a cause.
Pedro
Loads of striker who stat pad by scoring irrelevant goals. Case in point, giroud, always scored when we were 2 or 3 goals up. Never one to open the scoring or be the difference maker.
Pedro
James Rodriguez was considered a fallen giant before this , Isco would certainly improve this team better option than Eriksen . More like the Cazorla signing.
Pedro
I disagree. Patience is not a thing football fans in general are noted for and is particularly true of Arsenal fans.
There have been comments here today about putting faith in youth but I’ll guarantee most of those making those comments will be among the first to blame the manager for selecting young players when results are not favourable.
Pedro
I agree that Arteta should have gone project youth from the off when he had the fans onside, however, to do so now would be to commit football suicide.
Project youth in the PL would’ve been a one way ticket to relegation.
“Lacazette is a poor header of the ball, but Eddie is quite good.” Quite good is championship league level Good is PL bottom feeder level Very good is PL top 6 level Excellent is PL title and CL cup winning contenders level. Sadly Eddie is then Championship league level with a low ceiling, so will probably sendup at a PL bottom feeder club at best as most of our youth have ending up. Let’s see what Balogun can do with the same amount of minutes as Eddie has ridiculously been given. Arteta and his numb-nuts young “yes men” coaching team… Read more »
“Freddie Ljungberg explains why he left Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal coaching staff”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/arsenal-ljungberg-arteta-coaching-departure-23082482
Freddie is a guy I greatly respect as a player and youth coach. His 6 games in charge of the 1st team wasn’t by any means enough to measure what he could do if he was going to be offered the head coach’s contract.
We should have stuck with Freddie instead of Fraudeta
Can’t believe there are some on here laying into Aubameyang.
We need to get him firing and the only way we do that is to get him in the right places of the pitch and not acting as a wide player or a provider for others.
Get the youngsters buzzing around him. That’s what he needs.
Brighton to get something off Liverpool today.
Score draw.
Tony
Sorry to disagree with your candidates for worst posters here. Not saying the two mentioned rank high on my list of great posters but there are a few here who are far worse. Rob and Pierre are at least least genuine Arsenal supporters.
Ward-Prowse, Romeu, Djenepo; Adams, Walcott
are the type of players Hasenhutl is working with
and if we ignore the results the underlying stats have been solid.
Unless theres a sudden positive change in underlying stats( highly unlikely, never happens in real life situations) diet Pep will not redeem himself.
Personally I would rather see our youth players play rather than the underperforming or journeyman squad players we have, ie AMN over Cedric Balogun or Nketiah over Lacazette Willock in the midfield over Xhaka This doesn’t equate to flooding the first 11 with all our youth, just giving them a chance over the ones that have already shown they may not be up to it. Even adding say for example just Saka and Willock as regular starters would still leave the team with enough experienced heads ie Auba, Partey, Tierney, Bellerin, Leno etc Moving forwards I would hope to see… Read more »
I want to make the following points to those who are constantly criticising Arteta. First Arsenal’s defence which has been a serial problem over last decade has most definitely improved. We are conceding far fewer goals particularly from free kicks and corners. Second Arsenal’s record in CUP Competitions is very strong since June. We won FA Cup and Community Shield against better teams and are unbeaten in both Carabo Cup and Europa League, which suggests that our squad players as opposed to first team are fairly solid. Arteta has had a limited budget in the most recent transfer window where… Read more »
I think those backing some of the youngsters aren’t advocating flooding the first 11 with the academy players, personally I think the inclusion of just one or two could change our fortunes.
Moving forward I would hope our transfer strategy focuses less on the likes of Cedric, Willian etc and uses the best of the academy players to fill the bench, perhaps one or two to become first team regulars, and by doing so we can use what funds we have to buy one or two high quality players of the Partey ilk.
Bojangles One man’s poison is another man’s meat. If Pierre stuck to pure football talk he’d be much more respected and add value to the blog. However, Pierre prefer to troll and bait people first and talk football 2nd purely because his idols were correctly unwanted any further. Rob is just uncouth, a nasty racist piece of work who just wants to be a bully on a faceless blog where he gets personal in posters faces. I’m not doubting they are fans – if they’re good for you, Bojangles, then so be it. I have no problem people disagreeing with… Read more »
Taking off my Arsenal hat for a moment but the game of the weekend has to be Chelsea v Spurs. It is very intriguing for a number of reasons, one being this is a huge test of Spurs’ title credentials (which hopefully they fail, Arsenal hat back on!). Chelsea have been fairly solid at the back recently since their early season shakiness but tomorrow is also a big test of that resolve. I don’t normally sit down and watch every match of the day but may do so tomorrow as Southampton have the form and ability to cause another embarrassment… Read more »
ES “The ship will take time to turn around after years of neglect.” Why wasn’t this said at the start of last season. Or the season before that. Then it was an expectation to challenge for top four. Why only now is this sort of stuff being said? It’s very dangerous because once your not so distant past expectations or demands are abandoned it can become a terminal spiral of decline. If Arsenal slip lower this season from past ones or don’t better last season which was written off as disastrous the bottom line will be that this club is… Read more »
Tony is so dim that he that he complains about posters trolling without realising he’s trolling himself. . You should stick to your smutty innuendos and judith chalmers impressions, your joke yesterday was in typical poor taste but was par for the course and the content was typical Tony …here’s a reminder. “Thought I’d throw in a Friday joke. Said to my ex girlfriend if she dies what is the only organ that will remain warm in her body? She said her heart? No. Her brain? No. What then she asked? My c**k I said. Ah well at least I… Read more »
Chris I agree 100% with what you post. There are at moment probably three starting X1 positions to fill, which are RCB, Creative Midfielder and Centre Forward. Personally I don’t think that we have the budget to buy all three in one financial accounting period particularly in current economic climate. As you say we need to invest our transfer budget and wage bill where it counts on first team rather than squad fillers and players aged 30+. I don’t blame Arteta for taking Ceballos on loan considering our current financial predicament, but I would certainly not buy him. He is… Read more »
Safety nets galore here from posters for Arteta.
This wouldn’t have happened if we had got in an experienced manager of a certain calibre this continuing lowering of the bar.
Ishola 70
I have been saying for a long time that Arsenal are a work in progress and it will take at least
two to three seasons to turn ship around.
We don’t have an owner who is going to throw money at the problem so we need to be realistic and make sure that we spend what money we have got more wisely than in past.
However, unlike many others who post on here I do see progress. We have tightened up our defence and we bought two very good players in last transfer window.
Emirates
You know as well as I do that there was more demand and expectation from fans with Emery in charge as compared to now and we are talking in the not too distant past here. Just a season ago.
We are lowering expectations because of the managerial appointment we made.
ES
“We don’t have an owner who is going to throw money at the problem so we need to be realistic and make sure that we spend what money we have got more wisely than in past.”
Doesn’t matter how much money Kroenke throws around. He is a distant owner and that’s the problem.
We need a hands on owner who is going to live and breathe the club.
My expectations this season are not lower than last I expect us to finish between 5-7th in EPL
and a lot closer to top than last season.
Let’s judge Arsenal at end of season and not after 9-10 games.
Emery had the credentials before taking over at Arsenal. He had 2 pre-seasons. It’s obvious that expectations would have been higher with him than with Arteta (who hasn’t had a pre-seasons yet).
I have seen comments that we have been made solid by Arteta. The oppn are allowed quality shots in prime areas and mostly its the misses or saves which is making us not concede more goals. If you want a bench mark – the AV game is our bench mark. It could have been more – but glad it was only 3-0.
Same with the leeds game — 3 times the woodwork saved us and another 3 times by Leno. If the Leeds game was another 3-0 no one here would have batted a eyelid.
An excerpt from 7amkickoff on Pepe that’s sensible and realistic, unless we change approach and manage to turn him into VARdy. —————- And Pepe had his best match of the season. Yes, it’s against Molde, but he blew away his previous season best (which was also against Molde) in terms of carries, dribbles, and creation stats. 72 – Touches* 6 – Shots* 6 – SCA* 0.4 – xG* 0.5 – xA 199 – Yards progressive passing* 61 – Carries* 357 – Yards progressive carries* 9 – Successful dribbles* *Season high for him Source: @fbref And from a qualitative standpoint I… Read more »
I am the biggest/best/top Arsenal fan on this blog and elsewhere, let that be clear, any measuring device will confirm
Im telling you for free!
@Ishola, Not sure Arsenal will perform better if Kroenke’s apathy was less. He is a tight fist, first rate mug and that won’t change. The deeper problems are our recruitment and having to get spot on tactics with a heavily imbalanced squad. A lot of Arsenal fans (me included) have to appreciate that the opposition have also not been static in their recruitments and on-field play and because we stagnated with Wenger so long (despite him getting us 4th perennially), the team and atmosphere versus our used-to expectation were being constantly shifted. As ES said, it’ll take a few more… Read more »
“ I have been saying for a long time that Arsenal are a work in progress and it will take at least two to three seasons to turn ship around.“ That’s only if we are progressing. But we don’t appear so and un fact going kinda backward, supported by what we watched and PL rankings of all offensive stats around 13rd to 17th in recent weeks. That’s disgraceful for a club like Arsenal, transition or not. People like to compare our inconsistency and lack lustre performance with Klopp’s first (and second ) years at Liverpool. That’s chalk and cheese unfortunately… Read more »
We have no idea if our rookie manager can do a job he has no track record.
Tightened up the defense some say, how’s that ? We have lost 4 games so far, the last home one was a 3 mil loss.remember
.
The team set up is poor , the midfield is too slow moving forward, and our forwards are disjointed. Arteta is using us to learn the job, so how long will it take and why should we be his experiment.
Stroller “I have been saying for a long time that Arsenal are a work in progress and it will take at least two to three seasons to turn ship around.” Some would say that we are a work in regress and are sinking like the Titanic. But seriously, Arteta needs to stumble on the best attacking formation through luck or design. It may take an injury or injuries to Aub/Lacazette/willian to find his best combination.. He seems reluctant to try any of the kids (other than Saka) in the prem .. Willock/eddie/nelson/smith rowe/Balogun have only started 2 league hames between… Read more »
Emery hit slightly above par in his first season. Then we: Sold Monreal and replaced with Tierney, who was injured, who had big injuries over the previous 2 seasons, no pre-season, came back in November, got injured again in December, that left us with Kolasinac and a 17/18 yr old Saka Sold an ageing Koscielny and replaced with an ageing Luiz, this didn’t move the needle. Signed Saliba for €30 million who was 18, and loaned him back out. Lost Ramsey for free. Signed Ceballos who I like, but he was 22, quite raw, picked up a bad hamstring injury.… Read more »
https://www.goal.com/en/news/arsenal-target-aouar-merits-lyon-ban-says-garcia/12v4yn26y6glv1s8l8e94gxvct
When the season started, we were a work in progress,
Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case.
It’s back to the drawing board for Arteta.
The youngsters have to be integrated into the team.
There’s no other option.
Graham
Are you prepared to give the likes of Nelson and Willock time to learn on the job?
Or are you going to scream for Arteta’s head, and decide young players going through a learning process, should be doing it out on loan, and not at Arsenal?
Or declaring them “never going to be good enough”
If we want to gamble on developing youth? you have to be prepared to inconsistency.
And that would involve fans giving Arteta time, rather than having a meltdown after every bad result.
Which is unlikely, people live for drama, and don’t have any patience.
Solid and balanced evaluation, Emiratesstroller. Patience was and still is required.
“I am the biggest/best/top Arsenal fan on this blog and elsewhere, let that be clear, any measuring device will confirm”
Yeah and that tag photo of Cruella deTrump you got going for you cements it for me!
Ernest Reed
Who are you quoting?
Rich Tierney is an upgrade on both Monreal in final two years and Kolasinac. Gabriel is also better than Koscielny at end of career and Luiz Partey is most certainly better than any defensive midfielder recruited. I think that Pepe will come good if he applies his brain better than he has done up to now. There is a good footballer there. Bellerin was out with a serious injury and despite many negative comments is beginning to get back to his best. Personally I don’t think that he needs to be replaced so long as we find a solid and… Read more »
I defence of Emery he inherited a poor squad that did not suit his direct playing style and then lost Welbeck , Holding and Bellerin to long term injuries just as he was getting a good run of results and then ended up with a makeshift defence for several months .. All Emery had as a squad addition in January was a crocked Suarez. when a couple of high energy premiership level midfielders would probably have easily given us 4th spot. I think he knew what he wanted but did not have the players to deliver, so ended up having… Read more »
Haven’t Arsenal been a club in transition since 2006?
Emirates ” Arteta may be a relatively inexperienced manager but he has a better football pedigree than
most of his competitors and is highly rated as a coach. He is an intelligent man, motivated
and focussed and will learn from his mistakes.”
Based on what?
Those who think that Arteta is going to turn it around, at the moment it looks like it’s just wishful thinking! All we have is the claim that he is a generational progressive coach, Keeping in mind that he has no previous data or history to support that claim Reality is so far the whole Arteta experiment has been disappointing in many levels Results ..shit Style of play….slow and rigid Motivation and improving players ..all look regressing Tactics and in game management..bollocks Man management and alienation of players…amateur Hoarding players instead of refreshing and upgrading the squad….insecurity and fear So… Read more »
Sid, Graham62
G8 ” is highly rated as a coach.”
Some fans from our competitors are rating him very highly. I can’t believe that ES is taken that seriously. He is a new coach and is still learning.
How do you think your team will do today Graham.
I fancy them to get a result against liverpool..
Bissouma sitting in midfield is a quality DM.
Emirates stroller I really like Tierney, my point was we signed an injured player, with no pre-season. So the transition from Monreal to Tierney, wasn’t a smooth one., Kolasinac is an inferior player to Monreal even now, Gabriel is composed and helps us at set pieces defensively, where we’ve improved massively this season, but he’s far from the finished article. He’s in the big potential bracket, he’s still raw, and his passing stats into the final third, are nowhere near what they were for Lille last season. But at 22, and this early in his development, it’s not unsurprising. I… Read more »
G8
“Results ..shit
Style of play….slow and rigid
Motivation and improving players ..all look regressing
Tactics and in game management..bollocks
Man management and alienation of players…amateur
Hoarding players instead of refreshing and upgrading the squad….insecurity and fear ”
Other than that , it’s going quite well.
Yep, ever since we left Highbury we’ve been in transition.
“The bottom line is that we need to be patient and lower our expectations. ” This is the last line from a longer comment by Emiratesstroller – I’ve always had a lot of time for Emirates and think he’s one of the more balanced posters on here but good grief. Lower our expectations? Precisely what are our expectations and what should they be? What is a reasonable expectation for the current squad? To show improvement on Emery – why is this not a reasonable expectation? It’s certainly what Arteta was sold as. I don’t expect us to be winning the… Read more »
Pierre
Score draw.
Graham
The stadium move was always going to see a period of transition – the problem isn’t that we went into it it’s that we’ve never come out of it despite spending a huge amount of money on transfers, piss poor contract management, poor decisions and wages.
“All our centre mids are struggling to progress the ball, because we lack midfielders with the movement for them to aim at.”
As long as we play Xhaka, our game will be very slow going forward.
BHA almost scores
I really think we need a manager who is going to maximise use of the abundance of dynamic attacking talent we are going have over the next 2-3 years. My concern with Arteta is that he was schooled by Moyes and what he learnt under Guardiola is never really going to translate to a less than elite squad and could be considered outdated as evidenced by City’s recent results.
Also Marc, in those few years around the stadium move, 2005-2007, we shipped out Patrick Vieira (far too early), Ashley Cole, Robert Pires ,Dennis Bergkamp in the sum!er of 2006, Sol Campbell and Thierry Henry 2007. Walcott was the poster-boy for the brave new dawn at the Emirates, and it has been massively underwhelming ever since. When a manager has served you up Bergkamp and Henry, and then considers someone like Giroud as an adequate ‘replacement’ (Yes I know he replaced RvP), you have to question the intelligence, trajectory and ambition of the whole project. It certainly hasn’t aligned with… Read more »
PK for BHA.
Maupay you twat!
“Arteta may be a relatively inexperienced manager but he has a better football pedigree than
most of his competitors and is highly rated as a coach”
What does this even mean?
Most of his competitors will include Lampard, Rodgers, Ancellotti, Mourinho, Nuno,Ole…..in what world does Arteta have a bigger football pedigree than any of them? An average Spanish midfielder never capped by his country, not even a complimentary friendly cap