I LOVE A NORTH LONDON DERBY WEEKEND.
The banter on the group chat is firing up. The nerves are starting to jangle. There is a LOT of pride on the line.
Spurs look like title contenders. Jose has made them nasty. They’re well organised, they have the special sauce in Kane and Son that keeps you in contention if you keep them fit, they look very strong.
Arsenal is a mess. Our form has been shocking. Big players have shrunk. Young players have struggled to make headway. Our rookie manager is overseeing a bonfire. Can he tame it? Can he do what the big managers do when the chips are down? Can he shift the narrative on the pitch like he has done off it this week?
As Janan said in the latest podcast, most other managers have a history you can point to, with Mikel, it’s faith-based. North London derbies are about faith. Form is rarely a factor. It’s a crazy moment in time when a concoction of wild elements are slammed together in a Büchner flask, and you hope the end product works to your hypothesis.
Mikel Arteta has a job on his hands. I tried to eke out some good news from Arsenal in the week and there wasn’t much to be had. There have been lots of problems to deal with. Stories leaking from the camp seems to suggest a 1997 style come to jesus meeting. Reporters are saying it was constructive and the path forward was clear.
Thursday night might have been against a nothing team, but for me, those are usually the games you worry about. The fact we landed a dominant performance can only be a positive. The players were aggressive, they were bold, they took chances. We need that vibe to flow into Sunday.
Can that carry through to Sunday? That’s the test. I think it’s amusing reading people demanding we play the same way against Spurs. This is why fans aren’t coaches. We’re going to The Lane to shithouse the master of shithousery and I am ok with that because it’s the only option we have. If City can’t blast Spurs away, we’re not going to. If Chelsea can’t score against them, we’re not going to hit them with a blitz. Setting up to lose to satisfy aesthetics junkies would be the rookiest of errors.
The good news is there’s a high probability we’ll see Thomas Partey. That’s huge for Arsenal. We have lacked a press resistant midfielder with his class. Put him next to Mo Elneny and we speed everything up to the level we need. There’s also a shout for AMN to start after his ripping performance against Rapid. Imagine that, 3 midfielders with legs? Game-changing stuff right there.
I don’t know how we’ll play, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see Lacazette pick up that link-up role against a team he likes to produce again. I think we need an athletic midfield that can pick up the movement of Kane, Son and some of the creators. Højbjerg has been a key player for them this season, it’ll be interesting to see how we deal with him.
This 90 minutes is all about closing the widening gap at the top. It’s a moment for the squad to show there’s a way forward. It’s a game that big teams would eat up. Are we going to be a big team this season? There’s no better moment to find out.
Before you go, I need you to listen to our latest podcast. We welcome Janan Ganesh into the AO fold with our regular Alex. It’s an evergreen podcast. We talk about Arteta, leadership, football strategy, and fixing the creativity issue. It’s a good listen, so put it in your ears and give me a 5* rating on Apple. THANK YOU X
MD what logic is that? You pick players based on what you expect them to do not based on pure hope The evidence dating back 3 years says ozil is more likely to go missing in big away games than he is to be a difference maker. He COULD be amazing but the evidence says it’s very unlikely It’s risk reward. If he’s anonymous as everyone expects him to be away against a tough team then you’ve just played with 10 men for no reason. That will make it even easier for spurs. You don’t pick your lineup based on… Read more »
D10,
Tierney get all this praise because he is at least trying to do something, anything, plus, he is not a pussy like the rest of these fucks.
Jose took the piss in 2nd gear, arteta is a fucking exposed busted fraud. It’s painful to listen to the little cunt. So far out of his depth it’s embarrassing to a once great club.
Spare a thought for Pedro and the mikel-generational coach-arteta fan boys.
Crux of the story being, if Pedro backs someone you shouldn’t touch him with a 10 foot pole.
George Graham took this club to the heights, now we have a sniveling little brown nose cunt like arteta. Shame on the arsenal.
Paulinho Bellerin rubbing off the ball counts for extremely little if when he receives the ball in the opposition half he can’t hit a cows arse with a banjo
Relentlessly awful crossing. Absolutely dismal, over and over again
Jose actually went easy on us. Imagine what would have happened if this was later in the season and Spuds needed to boost their GD. We’d get an absolute hiding and Mr Sauce would have no answer to that. Zero.
Dream
Bellerin’ s primary responsibility is as a defender. He’s a terrible defender.
Offensively, he huffs and puffs a lot. He had a chance to shoot at goal before the second goal was conceded and crossed it to nobody.
The first goal, he left Holding isolated against Son who had all the time in the world to find the only place that Leno couldn’t reach.
Bellerin had a poor game. Paulinho loves him, maybe not as much as he liked Ramsey.
Why bother doing endless crosses most were over hit, and to players who have no heading ability or threat.
The tactic doesn’t work.
Hitting some low crosses would pose problems but Arteta is a one trick pony.
Semedo holding his own in 1v1 against Mane thus far. Can’t say I’ve seen many do that.
Arteta wouldn’t succeed at any level .
Super Rob
Use you head twat. Sending in 54 crosses with PEA up top is a tactics issue. Who sets the tactics?
Rich: “Simeone has done a really good job, but the idea he’s taken over some minnows and over-performed, doesn’t stand up to any real scrutiny.” You said it’s a league where top 3 is the same almost every year. It wasn’t like that before Simeone was signed at all. At all. Atletico had not finished in top 3 for 17 seasons in a row. Twisting and turning will not change facts. Your first comments after the loss are how Mouninho shithoused his win over us, citing our possession like it led to anything. Arsenal wouldn’t have scored even if the… Read more »
Willian had a good game…..fucking hell that weed was stronger than I thought. He was straight up dog shit.
Lol rob it’s cute akin to the stuff my son says when watching football. You’re literally that level
I criticized the inclusion of Willian and xhaka before the game if you bother to read back through the comments and I’ve been shitting on Bellerin as a player being inferior to AMN since about January of this year
But please go on lad. You’re doing great
There was a point in the first half where Bellerin managed to get a basic throw-in technique right…and preceded to throw the ball to the nearest spurs player.
His number-needed to get it right is like 20. He needs to do the same routine over and over again 20 times to get it right once. He gets one cross in 20 right, one dribble in twenty right etc.
Run by the side, pump a cross into the box. Something a rookie on FIFA does all the time, before he gets to know a few useful button combinations and spice up his game.
Far too many mercenaries, a vacuum of leadership running through the club from top to bottom, and nobody at the club who cares enough to address these issues.
Very dark days for Arsenal supporters.
Yeah Willian was quality mate. Looked like a real keeper today. A proper difference maker just as he’s been all season.
Anyone knows what the plan is? We getting giroud on loan in Jan? Since Mr. Generational coach can only muster pulis tactics unless he is given 200 million and 2 years of OJT.
If the plan is to cross the ball 56 times then get Benteke to lead the line.
That’s not Auba’s game and certainly not Laca who’s only 5’ 9”
Have we reached the point yet where we’re being pitied instead of mocked?
So Spurs keep Arsenal out. The shock and horror of it all. This match was played out pefectly for Spurs and Mourinho. When Mourinho sat down pre-game this would have been exactly how he would have wanted the game to pan out and that’s all you really need to know about this match. Don’t be fooled by Arsenal possession especially in the second half. That’s how Mourinho rides. His Spurs team atm are quite happy to sit in and take anything the opposition may throw at them and hit on the counters and even more so when his team are… Read more »
China- Counts for little? Who tops our assist stats for the season? Who forced Pogba to bring him down for pen at United a few weeks back with an OFF THE BALL RUN?
Counts for a quite a lot when you remove your obsessive gaze from him and look around at who else is contributing in those departments.
All in all not much should be read into our performance because we played into Tottenham’s hands. If they try that against a team with goals in them they lose. They weren’t even this deep against West ham and lost a three goal lead.
We are 20th for chances created in the league, you can round on the players all you like but when does the coach step in and try something besides crosses
Arteta can’t “shithouse” anymore.
It looks over for him.
this
Just watching the lpool v wolves half time and I’ve Sussed it. Lego has modeled himself on the ultimate Spanish bullshitting fraudster….ladies and gentlemen I give you Roberto Martinez who has somehow conned the Belgian fa. Staggering bullshitter..
WHERE IS PEDRO?
Why would Giroud leave chelsea? Lamps is playing him
All those early games where people were hailing Arteta as the second coming, it turns out it was nothing more than beginner’s luck. So what now brown cow? Another manager, some more players, different tactics? Who knows? We’ve tried everything other than ambition so maybe that’s where our fortunes lie.
I’m not sure how anyone thought we’d challenge for top 4 this season. I was more top 6 but even that looks quite optimistic right now. Fans eh!
This is our worst start in 45 years.
Pedro, I hope you’ll proclaim that with the same vigour you proclaimed “The bum Emery gave us our worst start in 38 years.”
This squad is a mess. You have to go pre wenger and possibly pre GG to find such a disjointed group of players and the money going out in wages is insane. It needs a huge overhaul which will take time and the rest of the PL aren’t going to stand still while arsenal rebuild. So, the short to medium term looks tough going for arsenal. I’ve been disappointed with the way we’ve played as well as the results, but I think any manager would struggle with the current bunch of players at the club. Therefore, calls to sack Arteta… Read more »
Guernsey
Martinez is a good comparison. Another would be Marco Silva. Young, sharp dresser, continental, looked at as a talented young manager despite not doing much and hired by a (kind of) big club where he shit the bed. Both Silva and Martinez are better than Arteta though.
11 League games
13 points
10 goals scored
20th in chances created
17th in goals scored
Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal.
In other news Mr good ebbening has villareal 3rd in la Liga 5 points off the top.
I’ll take wenger back right about now, seriously, I mean he was kinda shit in his last season but arteta is out shitting that shit with shit to spare.
We had become the banter club towards wengers last years, what are we now?
Arteta had to have known that Partey wasn’t anywhere near 100%
So when the good professional who knows his body felt something , he wisely went to the sideline so as to not aggravate his injury.
What does Arteta do, he pushes him back like he’s some chattel.He’s your Rolls Royce engine so how can you miss the big picture.
Have we sacked Arteta yet?
This is on the Arseblog player ratings:
Willian
He plays like a fucking Willy. Soaring up the charts in the Top of the Pops of the worst Arsenal signings of all time. He’s just overtaken Squillaci.
Left side
‘ 11 League games
13 points
10 goals scored
20th in chances created
17th in goals scoredMikel Arteta’s Arsenal’
Some will,tell you to stop being a drama queen.
It’s just a storm in a tea cup.
RR
I really had no clue where we’d land this season, its felt to this point in season entire league was in a relegation battle with the usuals now finding some consistency. Top four felt as possible as out of the Europa league places if i’m honest. Never envisioned a scenario where Arteta may not make it into January, yet here we are.
I’d be all for Xhaka, Willian, PEA and Lacazette to sit the next month out.
How le Groaners celebrated when Arteta left Ozil out of the squad.
Doesn’t look such a great decision now does it…10 hours since a goal in open play in the league says it all really .
Diss,
We know who those are. That “superfan” rhetoric from them is just a load of hot air though.
I can’t imagine Partey being happy with his manager after that shove. Arteta’s man management has been abysmal.
Mics,yep in my world we interview con men and boy does lego have all the traits. Empty vessels make most noise and all that. Almost forgotten that bullshiter from Watford, wow he could spin a yarn.
SUGA3
Sorry to sound so dramatically melancholy, it just makes me think we only built a bigger stadium to line our owners pockets whilst renouncing any intention to compete on the football field.
why still persist with him when we already he’s not good enough
get rid asap before we reach the point of no return
RR,
Pedro and the media frauds conned me into thinking we have signed a generational saucy manager.
If our squad is the 6th best in the league, I believed that a manager better than OGS, Lampard and Mouninho could push us to top 4.
I don’t believe that it’s such a hard thing to understand.
In the end it looks like Arteta is pushing us to a bottom 10 finish.
Venga Dani 19.48.
It’s not hard to set up a wall.
But I thought a new set piece coach
might have come up with something novel
all I see when we do get a free kick in a dangerous area is the ball flying over the bar rugby style.
No invention there Dani.?
Supernob To back what China is saying, everyone on here groaned when xhakas name popped up on the team sheet. Many many people have been slating willian too, and many believe AMN to be superior to bellerin. Had we started AMN and Nelson on the right we would have posed more attacking threat as well as added 2 players way more athletic. Son and regulion wouldn’t have been able to attack so freely. Had we started ANYONE and not Xhaka, we would t have had Xhaka on the pitch. Not difficult to think of other options to the players we… Read more »
Paulinho. Bellerin tops our league assists for the season so far with a whopping TWO assists
How many crosses has he played to land on that gobsmackingly impressive number? That’s as many assists as Gabriel has league goals this season. Should we also now consider Gabriel to be a key part of our offense? I think he’s our second top scorer after all.
At least if you’re going to name drop stats let them be impressive lol
Pierre your far too old to keep such grudges and behave so catty all the damn time.
The 2020 trajectory of hipster-choice Arteta is almost exactly the same as the price graph for Pedro’s hipster-choice Nikola shares!
Radio Raheem
“I’m not sure how anyone thought we’d challenge for top 4 this season”
Yeah it was absolutely ridiculous wasn’t it.
Even more so considering a top four challenge was the overall demand just over a season ago at the start of Emery’s second season.
HA,
You are not wrong there. Dein, who was as much of a visionary as Chapman back in his day called it right that there was no point in having a great stadium with no great team to play in it.
11 League games
13 points
10 goals scored
20th in chances created
17th in goals scored
>>>>>>>>
Doesn’t matter as Arteta is going all out to win The Most Amount of Crosses League. We’re just an Andy Carroll away from improvement.
Arteta’s post match interview makes me worry. He does not see the issues that everyone else can. Also, if he thinks our best course to scoring goals is via crosses then we are in big, big trouble. Someone needs to set him straight but does he listens to anyone?
And bellerins awful crossing was directly what started the move for their second goal today
Anyone who thinks that we are 15th in the league because of our squad is retarded.
That would mean we have the 15th best squad in the league.
If we were 6th, 7th and we were failing vs the better teams, sure, blame the squad (that Arteta assembled).
But we are 15th.
It’s on Arteta. 100%.
I can sympathise with the arsenal board, a couple of years back I was conned into hiring an area head. The guy talked a good game, had all the buzzwords down and had fucking glorious recommendations. Turns out that was all he was good for…bullshitting. Ended up firing the chap in 6 months.
Difference being, I was okay taking a mocking from my peers and cutting the cunt loose, will the arsenal board do it?
#thissaucestinks
Damn rob excellent comeback. You’re on 🔥 today man. Doing nearly as well as Willian 😁
“Doesn’t matter as Arteta is going all out to win The Most Amount of Crosses League. We’re just an Andy Carroll away from improvement.”
Yep, crossing to a short striker with minimal aerial ability makes no sense.
For any system to work you need your best players to buy into it,Aubemeyang does not believe aerial crosses is the only way we can score goals hence his disinterest.
Some people say growing pains.
Being 15th when you are realistically the 6th best squad in the league, is not growing pains. It’s being shit at the job.
Everyone in the world knew how Mourinho would set up and our generational coach played into his hands. Playing into his hands isn’t even playing good football like Wenger but punting 54 crosses. Even Crystal palace won’t play so many crosses
We could have not a very good squad and not a particularly good manager either.
It doesn’t have to be either or.
Let’s face it Arteta won the FA Cup playing underdog football.
Did you really think that was the way to go forward in the long run?
It all depends now on how badly Arteta does in the EPL and believe me this could get messy. Not relegation messy but messy enough. Sackable messy.
Good point about Andy Carroll
My January transfer window wish list
1) Andy Carroll 5m
2) Bring Crouch out of retirement (free transfer, can give him 150k wages since he’s free)
3) bentdner (pay whatever it takes for the lord as he’s massive and will score at least 3 goals a season)
If crosses is the way we are going why doesn’t tets take a punt on the giant CF we have on the books?
“George Graham took this club to the heights,”
Also knicked about half a million for himself then went to mansge the spuds..
Rocky, that’s good management—sunk costs are sunk, if someone just can’t do the job best to realize the mistake as soon as possible and change course even if it means eating crow.
RockyRoe,
Good on you for reacting in a timely manner. Up to KSE to save Arteta’s career before it’s completely ruined
China – He would’ve had two more if Saka hadn’t of fluffed his lines twice in the last two weeks. He also got one against Leicester in the Carling Cup. Point is, he is invariably behind any significant attacks we have in a match.
anyway, I remember you being similarly clueless with Ramsey, chapter and verse posts about how much of a liability he was, then six months later bemoaning our lack of goals from midfield and in desperation bigging up Willock lol.
How are we going to win games?
any of you who are arteta in best be praying to whatever god’s you know that he goes on a run of wins now.
Jeff
All those early games where people were hailing Arteta as the second coming, it turns out it was nothing more than beginner’s luck. So what now brown cow? Another manager, some more players, different tactics? Who knows? We’ve tried everything other than ambition so maybe that’s where our fortunes lie.
—
Even in the early games, Arteta didn’t get the new manager bounce. And I remembered some here (I think Champaigne Charlie) saying new manager bounce means nothing (in reference to OGS at Man Utd) as Arteta is trying build something great.
Something great indeed.
LegendaryDB10
…and we’re back to the Kroenkes.
I’ve been saying it on here for years and boring everyone in the process so I don’t bother saying it anymore, but I’ll say it one more time:
Stan Kroenke buying arsenal was one of the worst things to happen to Arsenal . The club will never realise its potential as long as he’s in charge.
He won’t ever sell though so we’re stuck with him.
Depressing as that is, it might still be possible for arsenal to achieve something in spite of stan.
That’s it really.
Paulinho I’ve always said Ramsey is a talented player and a great goal threat from midfield but he was playing alongside xhaka and ozil in a disgracefully imbalanced midfield where none of those players suit each other – and coming to the end of his contract he wanted unrealistically high wages to stay despite also getting injured a lot
But do continue
Yeah, have to agree SUGA3, Dein was the last Arsenal fan left in the building, losing him has set Arsenal back immeasurably.
I doubt we will get our Arsenal back.
Where we have improved in the last 2 league games is that we are dominating the football, which means more chances created and more shots on goal. Prior to that we were outdone in those areas. Of course we need a little luck in front of goal and a little more composure and awareness arpund the box. Putting in aimless crosses is pointless without strikers who want to attack the ball in the air. I have always said that Aubameyang plays in self preservation mode so if anyone expects him to put his head in where it hurts, they are… Read more »
Raptora
Honestly I don’t give a flying fuck about artetas career. He can go back to being a cone manager at Stoke for the rest of his life, for all I care.
All I wish for is arsenal getting back to being a football club. The shit we find ourselves in is so depressing.
Alexander Henry, wish you were wrong but unfortunately I think you may be right.
Let’s just hope all those Nigerian billionaires are true to their word and buy Arsenal.
China: “and coming to the end of his contract he wanted unrealistically high wages”
Better give the money to Willian. Or to Mari and Soares. Or to keep Xhaka. Or to renew Mustafi.
Arteta master class.
China – It wasn’t a disgracefully imbalanced midfield though. Far better than the garbage set-up we have the moment. Xhaka is Xhaka so it’s not elite, but Ozil and Ramsey as a duo combining pisses on anything we have at the moment from a great height.
RockyRoe: “All I wish for is arsenal getting back to being a football club. The shit we find ourselves in is so depressing.”
Absolutely.
Pierre
We are “dominating” possession because teams are letting us – they know we’re shit and can’t score for toffee. Leicester did it, Wolves did it and the Spud’s did it today.
This might sound a stupid question but do the Kroenke’s realise that we have relegation in football?
I ask because the dopey fuckers who bought Blackburn didn’t.
This what Arteta s should have done..
If Arteta wanted somebody to be at the end of all these high crosses, he could have moved Gabriel up top and let one of the others or even the subs take his place at the back
We have seen Klopp, Zidan, Pep doing it with Van djyke, Ramos, and Kompany when they were chasing games
Even Macguire played as extra striker
That what generational managers do, not bringing on a midget like Nketiah and expect him to win a fight amongst giants!
Shocking all round
And Round is also shocking!
“Due to our high possessions stats now , we need someone to unlock the door , someone who can see the runner and play the perfectly weighted pass , who can slot it through the eye of the needle…..we all lnow who that is don’t we.” Pierre we have those possession stats because teams know we can’t hurt them. I believe Arteta would prefer us not having the ball so much, would create more space for Auba and Willian. If Ozil plays teams won’t let us have the ball so much and let’s be honest our off the ball movement… Read more »
We are not even close to sixth best in the league we are 8th best.
Liverpool
City
Spurs
Chelsea
Man united
Spurs
Everton
Lecister
Arsenal
Wolves are even pretty close to us. The only thing that separates us from them is auba whose playing like utter shit at the moment
Ok g you denigrate the graham era some of the best football and trophy wins arseanal fans have seen. If only this greasy little cunt could deliver 10% of that. Not a chance the bullshitter could.
Sal & Raptors
It’s quite a turn from such a promising start under Arrest.
We aren’t even looking ‘solid’ as we used to. For a short time, it now appears, you could count on us to keep things right and not concede. All that has disappeared. Weird.
Sal,
I agree, there are no sacred cows at this point. Think I suggested benching Auba a couple of weeks ago (even getting rid in the summer as part of a reimagined squad).
G8, yes when Round was appointed my heart sank as the man just does not cut it
9th best*
*Arteta not Arrest
At least we now know that ‘the project’ involves lobbing as many crosses into the box as possible on the off chance that we might eventually score from one. And there I was thinking that we didn’t have a plan at all !!!
It’s getting really dangerous now.
It’s getting really dangerous because not too distant past expectations and demands are being thrown away now.
They are being thrown away in the name of a rookie manager.
What Arsenal need to do now is bring in a manager of a certain standing and of a certain experience and start to get these expectations and demands back.
Throwing it all away in the name of Arteta is criminally dangerous.
The slippery slope awaits.
We’re 15th after 11 league matches I doubt we’ll be 15th after 38. That said you start looking for patterns after 10-12 matches 😬
Funny enough , if any other billionaire buys Arsenal, the first thing he or she will do,is to fire Arteta.
The idea that all we need are new signings to finally get the essence of Arteta ball is laughable.
andy
I would say that Arteta is panicking but I don’t think he’s being that rational.
“Leicester did it, Wolves did it and the Spud’s did it today.”
Villa also.
Mind everyone we are talking horrendous new lows.
1 penalty and 1 corner goal in 2 months of Premier League football.