Happy Christmas one and all.
Even if you don’t do the pagan thing, I hope you’re taking the best bits of the festivities and making them work for you this Friday. Beers at 9. Too much food. MASSIVE fight with your partner.
How about presents? How greedy were you with your ask this year?
I asked for a way out of the mess Arsenal have leveled on themselves. Santa is going to have to work hard to satisfy this tall order.
If Mikel is staying, let’s see what he’s got. He’s been taught all the worst lessons over the past 5 months, his big challenge is whether he is capable of actively learning… or whether he’s going to dig his heels in and get sacked.
There’s an old parable Isiah Berlin used in one of his essays.
“The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”
Leaders are split into these two camps. Lincoln would be a fox. He knew where he was going, but he was prepared to zigzag to get there.
Steve Jobs was a hedgehog. A hedgehog has a singular vision and nothing will shake them from that path. When the world went opensource, he decided to close off his products. When the world offered variety, he went for a narrower focus. When Microsoft let others build hardware for them, he shut off contractors, and created an entire production arm, building out an unstoppable vertically integrated behemoth.
Who does Mikel think he is right now? He looks like a hedgehog. His plan is failing, he’s stuck in a rut, and he can’t see that his singular vision is failing. His one way of operating is tanking and he can’t adapt. It’s unclear whether his vision is even worth being a hedgehog for.
He needs to become a fox. Lincoln knew he wanted to end slavery, but he was painfully aware there were things that needed to happen before he could drive at that goal. He said things he didn’t agree with privately. He wouldn’t commit to anything that would rankle half the country he needed to vote for him. He was extremely cunning in how drove towards power so he could make the changes he felt were necessary for his higher calling.
If you’re going to shoot at the end goal early, boy, you’d better not miss. My oh my, has our boy missed. His lack of patience has cost him a season and most of his political capital with the fans. A grand vision means nothing in politics if you aren’t in power… he’s in serious jeopardy of losing power after only a year.
Arteta needs learn to be a fox. He needs to work out how to get back to winning ways. He needs to start crafting a narrative the fans can get behind. He might have to do some painful things, like give up on players he put faith in. Like admitting he made his very own Ozil mistake. Like winding back the ‘let’s do pretty football’ part of the process and get back to basics again.
Is he capable of being a fox? So far, it doesn’t look that way. He continues to make the same mistakes, trot out bland tired excuses, and flap around like a one-dimensional hedgehog.
This Sunday is huge. The coaching staff has had a week to plot out a way to get at Chelsea. If they fail, it’s going to be really, really hard to picture a way Arteta escapes with his job.
Our season starts at home to Chelsea. Win, and the next group of games feels more comfortable. We rack up some points. We move to midtable safety. Lose? Well, I don’t know where it goes.
It’s time to shut up and support the lads. Let’s see if we’re dealing with a hedgehog powering towards a main road at night, or a fox, that’s raiding a chicken coup before shitting in a farmers wellington boot.
Happy Christmas, have a great day, thank you for reading. I love you all very dearly. x
So many good comments. I agree, mikel needs to leave, it’s just too much. On Nelson, I have a hunch that he will be sold as a casualty to raise funds for the midfield. That is why there is radio silence on him and he is kept out of the squad. Which is also a huge mistake as we have our own Sancho in him IMO and will regret it. Thought Mikel is a coach who develops players, especially young ones and I saw zero proof of that, this is my biggest problem with him and my non-negotiable. We are… Read more »
Season’s greetings and happy holidays to Pedro and all from the swamps of Jersey.
Pedro’s litmus test for Arteta’s capacity to learn will surely be whether Xhaka is included in the team for tomorrow’s game.
Feliz Navidad everyone 🎄🎄
Please Santa, give us a win against the Rent Boys
Happy Christmas.
Barney Ronay’s piece is very, very good, and funny. A Zombie club, going through the motions, presided over by a brain dead billionaire. Lol
Chelsea can be ruthless, or they can be indifferent. Their form yo-yo’s up and down. We have quite a good record of pulling something out of the bag with them, against the form book. So, you never know…I can see a potential surprise there.
@Andy1886
Hahaha!!! It was a typo!! Was meant to read as middling men!!!
Having said that if there ever was such a word Willan would surely fit it- slightly over the hill but just enough glamour for some young fool to buy into long-term (Arteta)
Tony, it’s not Good To Great, this is ripped from Isiah Berlin’s essay ‘The Hedgehog and the Fox.’
It’s covered in a book called On Grand Strategy (John Lewis Gaddis), which uses the story in the way I have here.
Both types of leader can be great, but there are things needed in both styles to make it work.
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! x
Merry Xmas everyone
Arteta football is vanila hog
Great post Pedro. I’m digging the intriguing analogies.
Arteta’s time isn’t quite up yet. He can still redeem himself but you’re right, he’ll only achieve that by changing a formula that’s gone completely rancid.
Whether he deserves the time and space is irrelevant, because the people running arsenal are like the giant tortoise of modern football.
Having to act and get their hands dirty is the very last thing they want.
Anyway, I have a sneaky suspicion we’re going to get something tomorrow.
Merry Christmas Gooners!
Had our traditional Xmas morning dog walk over the golf course and I bumped into someone I know from our local with his family. He is a Spud and he was pitying me – can 2020 be anymore fucked up?
Let’s hope for a (much) better 2021!
COYG!
Merry Christmas Pedro babes
Thanks for the blog
I often rinse you for the arteta love in but still luv u
The mrs got me a customized whisky glass with my name on the bottom and a selection of several different mini whiskies. A better milk frother so I don’t need to use my busted coffee machines one and some Christmas socks. Good shit from the mrs this year 👍
Merry drunken Christmas to all And especially shoutouts to Pedro – supreme leader and arteta fantasist Freddie and guns of SF – positive dreamers always posting at the hours when I’m online and at work in the mornings Marc – will be banned again sooner or later for too much Pedro ribbing CG – for somehow finding credibility (not even sure you know how you managed that) Charlie – because this blog needs one xhaka lover to offset the 300 xhaka haters Everyone else for making this blog fun when supporting arsenal is about as fun as injecting dead moth… Read more »
onwards and upwards for the arsenal boys.
despite all the doom and gloom with the club and the results being bad their have been flashes of improved performance.
I think in the new year we surge up the table and finish around 8th.
We are shit
Merry Xmas le grove
China did she give you whatever you want in the bedroom as well ?
I have read your posts for the last 6 years!
I read because even in the rockiest of times, You have given us something to hold on.
Merry Christmas Pedro and all Grovers. Lets look forward to a more positive 2021.
Serge my toddler is sleeping in our bed tonight so if any of that went down it would be weird as fook
Merry Christmas to Pedro and all who daily come here to read and contribute to make this blog an interesting one. Peace be unto you. The manager was set up to fail and the fault lies with the management. Pep G. was manager of Barca B team before he was promoted to the first team. Zidane also was manager of Real Madrid Castilla before promotion to the first team. In these cases, the management would have had the opportunity to assess their performances and suitability to manage the fist teams. Arsenal just made a decision that an assistant to Pep… Read more »
J asked for 2 things this Christmas
Mariah Carey naked wrapped in a bow and Arsenal to be good in 2021 I got none of them gutted
China put the kid on the floor lol
Or the Mrs
China
Let the kid watch TV all night. It’s Christmas..
Plus you need to give Mrs Claus some “ho ho ho”.
We are playing Sat by the way
Merry Christmas to Pedro and all who daily come here to read and contribute to make this blog an interesting one. Peace be unto you. The manager was set up to fail and the fault lies with the management. Pep G. was manager of Barca B team before he was promoted to the first team. Zidane also was manager of Real Madrid Castilla before promotion to the first team. In these cases, the management would have had the opportunity to assess their performances and suitability to manage the fist teams. Arsenal just made a decision that an assistant to Pep… Read more »
The first real rumour that we are in touch with Tuchel. Great news.
https://www.beinsports.com/france/mercato/news/mercato-thomas-tuchel-deja-pret-a-rebondir/1607682
Fuckteta will be out soon
tuchel is a shit manager though.
never been impressed once
I am drowning and I am just happy with a piece of log. Boat will come later.
Tuchel is better than arteta; can work with auba; can help us be competitive in EL
The worrying thing so far is that board is backing arteta; If they are looking at alternatives then that means they are starting to see what we are seeing
Wow
I urge all arsenal fans to read this:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/dec/25/arsenals-problems-lie-with-kroenkes-ownership-rather-than-arteta
It’s a bit of a masterpeiece . So true and so sad.
I completely agree that ownership needs to be better at arsenal. That starts with appointing a new DOF and a proper coach that understands arsenal values. Current DOF is not competent for a Top European club, current manager seems to be a piece of shit as a human being.
ac
we don’t need better than arteta we need a great manager.
bringing in average guys with an average team is just two leaps backwards and 1 half step forward.
tuchel only did well with players like neymar I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a disaster for us
An entertaining read but could be summarised in far fewer words: The owners don’t know what they are doing. Something quite frankly just about every Arsenal fan already knows. No solutions – they aren’t going to sell up, nor are they suddenly going to ‘get’ European football. Best we can hope for is they get lucky with a managerial appointment in the same way that Pep keeps buying players until he hits on a combination that works. Sticking with a bad manager, a bad goalkeeper, a rubbish midfield isn’t going to fix anything, so lots of upheaval until they chance… Read more »
And no thanks to Tuchel, the German Emery (better than Arteta but not the answer).
personally I’d go for Gerrard
top of Scottish league 16 points ahead where celtic had a huge advantage. Hasn’t lost a game.
Top of europe group over benefica hasn’t lost a game.
“Serge my toddler is sleeping in our bed tonight so if any of that went down it would be weird as fook”
Did u name your son after Gnabry?
Why is nobody discussing Poch? Did he rule himself out?
poch is at psg
Flowery and entertaining read from Barney as always
https://amp.theguardian.com/football/2020/dec/25/arsenals-problems-lie-with-kroenkes-ownership-rather-than-arteta?__twitter_impression=true
He does echo a lot of what some say on here though
Merry Christmas all!
andy
‘Best we can hope for is they get lucky with a managerial appointment’.
I agree, but don’t you find that scenario depressing, not to say unacceptable for a club of the stature of arsenal.
Barnay Ronay is right to mock Josh Kroenke coming over and trying to get hands on with arsenal.
Daddy’s boy flies over to arsenal and gives a training ground pep talk. Great, that’ll solve things.
Radio Raheem
Ronay is on the money, absolutely…but I would say that because I’ve been saying the same thing for years.
For tomorrow’s game the big question will be: Will Werner exploit Holding’s errors 😆
Excuse me while I light my spliff (spliff)
Good God I gotta’ take a lift (lift)
From reality I just can’t drift (drift)
That’s why I am staying with this riff (riff)
Take it easy, easy skanking
Happy New year Grovers!
Merry Christmas from Brazil, Gooners!
Alexanderhenry
I get it. I think the issue with Kroenkes is that they have made bad appointments. Changing Edu and Arteta for better should have solve that problem (in the meantime at least).
@Alexanderhenry – absolutely, but I’m not sure what can be done about it. Now we know what it used to be like for ‘Pool fans and what it’s still like for United fans. It’s not just the Kroenkies, ‘investors’ have been ruining football and football clubs for decades, ever since they realised there was money to be made.
https://amp.theguardian.com/football/2020/dec/25/arsenals-problems-lie-with-kroenkes-ownership-rather-than-arteta
Some great posts. Of course Arteta is the symptom not the cause. Kroenke is being protected by having no fans in the stadium. Arteta has the respect of many Arsenal fans. If we weren’t in a pandemic Kroenke would be getting a shed load of grief from us fans. Getting rid of disinterested owners has to be our goal. Liverpool manged it. Once we get back to attending games we need to protest big time. Kroenke is part of a brand and brands get hurt by bad press. Over to you Pedro on this one. You know plenty about this… Read more »
Pedro
Arteta
Pussy or prick more like
All I want for Xmas is a balogun start tomorrow.
Strange but we will be Chelsea tomorrow.
Fact
PSG needs to come get Arteta from our hands.
“Barnay Ronay is right to mock Josh Kroenke coming over and trying to get hands on with arsenal.
Daddy’s boy flies over to arsenal and gives a training ground pep talk. Great, that’ll solve things”
“ Get excited ! “ said Josh to all Arsenal fans……….incidentally it is also what he says to his sex partner instead of an actual foreplay.
On ESPN-FC excellent discussion about Arsenal with input from Mark Ogden. Discussion favored B. Rodgers as next manager because he went from Liverpool to Celtic as reestablishing himself again as a manager in the EPL. Leicester is just a placeholder for a nigger club, Arsenal would fit that picture.
Merry Christmas Pedro and everyone else here. Le grove has given me enormous value over the years, for free, and i am grateful for this community.
Didnt read book but can people just switch between two kinds of thinking? In my mind, best managers are hedgehogs with hyper focus on winning, our manager just happens to be a lesser hedgehog not up to job.
Merry Xmas y’all !
Thanx Pedro for keeping this thing alive through thick and thin.
Cheers Sid !
Bit of a shock at the last line of your post there MD-Gunner, then I realised it should have said ‘bigger’.
Steveyg China was referring to me my name is Serge and I am older than Gnabry so he was named after me lol
With all due respect Stan dowsn’t give a flying f*ck about fan opinion, ask the people of St. Louis. he doesn’t have a brand of his own either, the club is the brand in this case. Best thing that could happen is if the casual viewers stop buying Sky packages and the TV money starts to fall, sports tourists lose interest and move on to their next ‘entertainment’ choice. The only thng that gets Kroenke out is when his ‘asset’ starts to lose value.
Merry Christmas from Milan Le grove and everyone celebrating.
md gunner
haha think you need change that n to a b my friend.
I have said this a few times but hell no to tuchel he has even less sauce than emery.
Gerrard
brendan
Andy
He will have Marc Faber on soon calling him out for dog whistle tactics in a minute.
Tuchel please be true
Oh great, kyle walker and gabi jesus are covid positive. Gulp
Benga,
‘ Oh great, kyle walker and gabi jesus are covid positive. Gulp’
Careful what y9u wish for
Just imagine if Leno became COVID positive?
Oh wait that spectacle is already befalling us since we can’t win a damn game.
I heard that Xhaka had been considered as a back up ‘keeper in an emergency but every time he had the ball he passed it backwards into the net.
Maybe we could get either Edu or Vinnai sacked if Leno gets Covid. Someone really should walk over the Icelandic GK transfer.
Merry Christmas Pedro and all the Le Grovers, I hope you have all had a great day full of good food, drink and merriment. Thank you to Pedro for a blog that keeps us coming back everyday, despite Arsenal’s struggles.
Let’s keep fingers crossed for a turn around tomorrow.
I see a lot of you have already seen this article today https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/dec/25/arsenals-problems-lie-with-kroenkes-ownership-rather-than-arteta KSE need to be mocked for their laughable ownership of Arsenal. Unfortunately I cannot envisage a situation where they sell up as they appear committed (in their own way) and Arsenal fans are too placid to group together to force them out. We are stuck in a depressing reality where we have to hope they stumble across the solution to our problems, as they have been proven mostly incompetent in their actual strategies thus far. It is absolutely not good enough for a club the size and… Read more »
On ESPN-FC excellent discussion about Arsenal with input from Mark Ogden. Discussion favored B. Rodgers as next manager because he went from Liverpool to Celtic as reestablishing himself again as a manager in the EPL. Leicester is just a placeholder for a nigger club, Arsenal would fit that picture.“
How is this MD GUNNER allowed to use a racial slur and get away with it? Always knew she was a disturbed individual
Godfather, it’s a typo, should have been ‘ bigger’.
We are going to batter Chelsea!
The only problem i had with Kroenkes when they bought club was that they would bring American attitude towards their sport leagues to London. Americans have closed leagues, no relegation/ promotion, salary caps, worst teams pick first in draft, owners not encouraged to build dynastic squads. Leagues are very equitable, multiple teams have realistic chance to win title every year. Kroenkes have not shown ambition, drive to win that is needed in european football where it much more survival of fittest. I convinced Josh was thinking American sports when he sanctioned all these novice as our top execs because incompetence… Read more »
I doubt is KSE will sell, but is it really too much to ask that they put in some Exec who actually knows what the fuck they are doing, and even more, cares about the club, If only to protect their asset?
It would break my heart, but KSE actually deserve relegation for their neglect.
Arteta will probably go sooner rather than later, if things don’t improve, But the failing structure will still be in place for Vieira ,Henry, Rogers, Tuchel, Wenger or Tony Pulis
I hope Tim Lewis is spelling things out to them
David Smith,
Tim Lewis is a lawyer.
If, ahem, things are not quite by the book, and people are not quite shall we say above board, then he’ll sort it out.
Hence Sanllehi is out.
But I don’t think he’s the person to delve deep into the quality of Arsenal’s football structures.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/premier-league-supercomputer-standings-arsenal-23217003
Supercomputer predicts Arsenal to finish season in 16th position
Venga Dani,
I usually love to take the piss out Of these so called supercomputer predictions.
Sadly unless things change soon and Arteta is out then this time the supercomputer may well be right.
@andy1886
well caught the letter N is next to the letter B on my keyboard and auto correct didn’t flag it, maybe this should go into the suggestion box as flagging such honest mistakes 😆
I know his limitations Words in a Blog, but just wonder if he is the best hope we have to wake the Kroenkes up, he is supposedly a life long fan, so just hoping he might view the world as we do on the clubs performance
I don’t agree Arteta should be absolved from blame just because the management who hired him are incompetent. He has shown nothing positive bar a cup run playing the antithesis of “arsenal style” football. Arteta should never have been hired into this mess; but that doesn’t mean his multitude of mistakes haven’t cost us points, and it definitely doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be sacked. Wtf is wrong with us fans?? We need every part of management to be of the required expertise. So it’s not just a matter of getting in a new DoF and things will be better (well… Read more »
Arteta is canker.
I have not seen a Manager self-destruct so much within 13 months.
With the mess he’s made you’ll think he’s been here for a decade.
But the guys higher up are even more stupid not to have put him out of his misery.
Merry Christmas everyone.
MD racialist lol
Arteta is a chimp
Lets stretch our dismay to breaking-point and imagine the Club is relegated. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. Not if you believe as many do (myself included) that the root cause of the problem is an absentee negligent couldn’t-care-less owner. And here is why. He DOES care now. The Club is a money-loser. Not small time but on a grand scale. On a scale that scares even a multi-billionaire like Stan. Like a broken-down Ferrari that cost a fortune but doesn’t get further than the nearest bus-stop. Needing not only a new engine, but a new chassis and bodywork… Read more »
Mike Ashley when he sells NUFC?
The German bank?
A consortium of wealthy Arsenal fans?
Season starts at Chelsea….lol
Relegation will be a disaster
Don’t see Arsenal coming up in a hurry
Huge loss in revenue
The threat of relegation will likely scare the owners into being proactive
They’ll want to avoid it at all costs
Arteta will have run out of games by tomorrow
we will batter chelsea and score first.
you heard it here first
Yup
Willian to score a hat trick
Guns
Love your optimism!
Merry Christmas and hope that (for once 😂) your prediction comes true!
“Like admitting he made his very own Ozil mistake.”
Fuck me, removing Özil was one of the few things Arteta has got right. I hope he doubles down on this for the rest of the season. Imagine having Özil and Willian in the starting lineup.
Also that Barney Ronay piece was absolute shit.
What sort of grown ass man uses the word “LOL” and is trying to sound credible?
Made reading the rest of that article a massive task for me.
Is he an Arsenal fan? Or just some absolute cuck? (Or both 😂)
Test
Yeah sorry but removing ozil was not a mistake
He created and scored fuck all in the last two years. People think he would successfully solve our creativity problems and also allow us to look like we have 11 players on the pitch have lost their minds.
The mistake wasn’t binning off ozil, it was creating a crap setup that is strangled of any offensive freedom and choosing the wrong players to play in it making it even worse.
The idea that it’s impossible for arsenal to create chances without ozil is absolutely ludicrous
Martinelli to score
The weird thing with ozil is that his fans will literally wipe 90% of his performances from their memory and can only remember him being a monster from the remaining 10% and act like that was his level I guarantee you if you ask any of these guys how ozil did in emery’s first season they can only remember two games, Fulham in the league and that one EL game where he was awesome. They can’t fathom this idea that the whole reason he got dropped was because he didn’t do much at all of note since signing his contract… Read more »
Also ozil even fucked off to turkey on holiday rather than watching arsenal in the cup final.
Like how big of a pussy do you have to be to want that prick reinstated? How low must your self esteem be?