How was your Christmas people? Good I hope. I cooked. My gfs dad said, ‘great meal, the thing with a big Turkey is they don’t have flavor.’ Don’t have flavor? Are you f*cking kidding me? I massaged that Chicken with sage and orange rind butter like it was a Kobe cow. No flavor? You’d best have covid taste buds right no… wait?
OK, enough of the personal talk… Arsenal today is massive.
If we lose, I struggle to see a way back for Arteta. It’s one humiliation too far and I’m not sure the players will put in the requisite shift to lift us in 5 fairly straightforward games after.
Arteta, a manager flailing in the media, behind the scenes, and on the pitch… needs to find a performance. We need to see the players come out of the traps like they did this time last year when Mikel joined. We need a huge, huge game that convinces everyone the corner can be turned.
I don’t really know how you go back to basics again when you are coach that has overseen such a shocking run.
I’d start by playing those that want to fight. Mikel keeps saying he sees the players give it their all in training. Reality is, they are not doing it on the pitch. That has to be solved for.
Deference to players that have weak character has cost him all his political capital this season. That said, he has to stop being a politician. It’s time to start being the guy that set out guiding principles at the beginning. Show the fans and the players who is boss and make tough decisions. Being bullied by shit players is unbefitting. Those players might have been his choice, but we’re in survival mode now, time to castaway personalities that are toxic, because they have us in 15th.
He needs to pick a side that has runners in it. We’ve looked closer to a system when we’ve had players that think fast, takes risks, and move at speed. It’ll be huge if we have Martinelli in the side today. We have to have AMN and Mo at the base of midfield. Then there’s a big decision to make on the third player in midfield. There’s a video of the City game, Lacazette trudging around when we’re 1-0 down, Gabriel charging people down… give legs today. Take a chance. If Lacazette drops another 4 out of 10, we’re in trouble.
Defence is also going to be problematic. I don’t think anyone is seeing it at the moment, but new signing Gabriel has been bad. His form has dropped over the past few weeks. We need a shift from him and 100% concentration. Same for the rest of them. Where do we go with the defence? Do you opt for Hector with his terrible form? Do you risk Soares? Whatever he puts out there, it has to play a focused game because Chelsea are lethal. Surely we don’t play David Luiz? We all saw him digging out Mo in the last game. That is Luiz, deflecting responsibility in full view of everyone. Behaving like that was part of the non-negotiables, I hope he’s not there today.
Mikel sounds like he’s in bad shape. I’m not surprised. This season has been dreadful and I’m sure he had far higher hopes. He said this.
“When I don’t do things to perfection and just the way I want it in the timing, I feel like I’ve let people down. To live with that feeling is incredibly hard.
“As well, I have to know that what I thought a year ago that it would be, what I wanted to do and what I am right now; that perspective is not far from where we are.”
It’s a little bit sad to read if I’m honest. Like, what is he seeing that we are not? We don’t create. We don’t shoot. We don’t press. We stopped defending. Our xG numbers aren’t telling a positive story. What is he seeing that we are not? It’s the Emperor’s new clothes, except it’s not a sexy outfit, it’s Steve Round telling Mikel the numbers are good. Still, I think he understands the gravity of where we are.
“The next seven to eight days are going to be crucial to see where we’re going to be heading to in the Premier League,”
“We have to stand up and we have to pick up the points. Let’s draw a line and move forward. Whether it’s bad luck or these things that are affecting our results, they have to change dramatically.”
If the next 8 days go badly, it’s hard to see his survival. The players might be shite, but you can’t relegate a club to make a point… and at that point, it’ll be clear we don’t have the person in place to make things happen.
Today is the moment. Beat Chelsea and hope returns. The players will take confidence, the fans will have seen a performance, and the next games look easier.
Lose… well, let’s not consider it, but it’ll certainly feel like the prison doors opening on the green mile.
P.S. Olise is blowing up at Reading. £8m release clause. 19 years old, the exact sort of player we should be taking a risk on.
A bittersweet victory.
We needed it. We will need to win the next coupe of games too now.
Where the f@#k has this been all season, then?
Have got a man crush on gabby Martinelli by the way
Good to see all the smiles again!
Say hi for me Middy
Guess we are stuck with Lego man till the end of the season now
Vital win. Well done lads.
ESR and Martinelli are the future and they need more game time.
Keep playing like that and we might stay up!
We’ve got to get rid of Arteta before we lose these really great young players.
Keep him even till the summer and we’ll be looking at over £500 million of lost talent in a couple of years.
Great win even if it got wobbly, Pepe sub bit bizarre for me but its pretty clear the boys are still playing for Arteta. Roll on Brighton.
A win against Brighton then sell Pepe, Luiz, Mustafi, Willian, Laca, Xhaka and Bellerin in Jan and Arteta might earn a reprieve.
Please please please stick with this starting 11 Sauce Lord Arteta
We won. We played well. We deserved more goals. We shoeed character.
ESR and Martinelli NEED TO. BE STARTERS from now on.
Pepe needs to look for a loan, same goes for Willian.
Up to the heady heights of 14th.
Global
Nah we’ll drop points against Brighton and possibly Palace then fat sam’s going to use Arteta as a butt plug.
Boys showed up at the party tonight
We had 15 shots today?!?!
And 7 of them actually hit the target?!?!
…I need to sit down.
Arteta will f the January transfer window up now🤡
Pepe has not shown any energy defensively or offensively.
He may not be Arsenal quality, but he should not be shown off by hungrier kids.
Whisper that Radio!
On tv Saka was talking to AMN and he asked him if his goal was a shot and he signaled … no it was a cross.. and then started laughing.. hahaha I don’t care either way it was a classic goal.
Saka’s goal was surely a cross which found the top corner.
mid
tell your nonce brother thanks for the late Christmas present
Boom Laca, Xhaka, Saka
No post yet Pedro?
Should be safe to put in appearance this evening.
Pepe has no future in this team
Karim…
K… sending all the Chelski faithful, I know.. our love. 😀
Massive win, hopefully the one that turns the season around.
Martinelli has that x factor about him. Goes beyond his ability, one of those that rubs off on everyone else and raises the level of the team which is incredibly rare for one so young.
Top performances from nearly the whole XI today, have to give Arteta some props too. Read Lampard like a book.
andy
What sort of useless cunt of a manager doesn’t beat that shower by at least 5 goals?
The Arteta out mob about to throw a wobbly !
Very predictable result. You just knew Arteta would somehow buy himself another lifeline. Watch Pedro flip flop back again. Joke blog.
Still Arteta out!
like I said it was far too soon to be writing off arteta.
I gave him four more games and he has won 1 of those four.
I expect us to go on a winning run now
I think 0,5 % of us expected such an outcome today.
Fair play if it was you.
Up the Arse !
Should’ve put in AMN instead of Pepe. No idea what AMN has done to Arteta to deserve this.
Well done The Arsenal!!!
Really pleased with that win vs Chelski! Put a massive smile on my face!!!
Our overall play has been the best since the start of the season. Made my weekend! We can for once feel positive!!!
I am curious whether MA will learn from this game though?
London –
Yep… this makes my Christmas weekend complete.
Great, important win today. Arteta gets a stay of execution with this result. A bit disappointing to give up a late goal and penalty, but beggars can’t be choosers right now. Hope this can lead to a string of strong performances and some wins on the bounce.
Great win – incredible that with all these big money signings we may have had everything we needed all along
The, Mari and Bellerin played well considering. The starting 11 did very well and destroyed Chelsea within 60 min.
Marinelli xould/ should have the 4th but for the reflex save …
No brainer. Most here talk about for ages. Play those who have the passion and sauce, and it clearly shows today.
I also think Saliba isn’t as unprepared as Arteta makes it …
MF still very weak. Need surgery. Ceballos defo not the option.
7 on target outta 15 attempts. That’s more like it.
1H was enjoyable for long, long time.
Real Boxing Day game for the fans!!
Clearly, it was the addition of ESR and Martin and Laca in the middle.
That amount of energy was what I noticed when I saw the lineup
Now we get Xhaka out and TP back in, that would be a boost.
Still need a CAM in Jan…. a ball carrying attacking 8 perhaps to fill the 3 in midfield he wants to play.
Yeah Drogba…used to drive me nuts with his …. against the run of play goals.
Arteta out tho
Isn’t it amazing that if you play Tierney at LB he looks like a player.
Bergkamp
It’s one game.
This isn’t his 10th game without a loss or without conceding a goal, this is the first win in 6 or whatever it is and the first time in fuck knows how long we’ve scored more than 1 goal in the league.
It’s promising, but 100% doesn’t prove a thing. We need to win a few more games before we can have any faith at all Arteta has any clue what he’s doing.
Would love to see:
Martinelli–Olise–Saka
We’re a quality CM and CAM away from being a decent side. Great result.
If Areteta goes back to Willian in the next game though…
It was players left out that was the deciding factor.
Much needed win but importantly the performance as a whole also merited it, despite a late rally from Chelsea.
We were much more positive in our play, quick passing and one touch. Great to see.
Brighton will look o play a similar attacking game to Chelsea, so not too much point in changing it up, carry it on for that game.
What are the chances we see Willian back at Brighton?
KT I felt contact and went down good lad
Captain Bellerin moving forward?Fantastic performance from the team. It all started from high energy performances from Martinelli, Saks, ESr and yes, Lacazette.Full backs were excellent and Holding might have had his best performance this season.
arteta in!
arteta in!
Boxing day win against Chelsea, don’t give a shit what the circumstance i’ll take all of that.
Fact some on here seem angry is hilarious.
Laca is doing work,,,, the last few games
Scoring some here and there….
Better than Auba so far this year!
HMMM
Danny
Arteta’s now on 8 points from a possible 33 and the Arteta fan club are all wet between the legs.
Joke manager.
Stay of execution is bad longer term.
Not the solution.
A patch at best.
Edu and Aptera haven’t the sauce, nor scouts, to manage the Jan TW.
We don’t need Erikson or Isco. Aged and sequels of Willian
put some respect on tierney name guy was balling today same with saka not just martinelle
Well it was bound to happen at some point. Teets won a football match. He needs to go on some sort of run though to convince those that think he shouldn’t be manager but you have got to start that run from somewhere so he has a marker now to kick on. What he should do to go on a run is keep this same side for the next match barring Pablo Mari. Yes even play Xhaka again in the next match. Mari didn’t look convincing tonight. He made a poor foul for yellow in the first half and he… Read more »
As great a win this has been we have to take it in context. Lampard for some reason decided to attack us instead of sit back and let us have the ball which is what we struggle against. The early pen+goal also helped make sure Chelsea would always have to come at us.
Arteta knows how to play against attacking teams, it’s defensive counter teams he has problems with.
Yeah let’s win a few more games before we start building Arteta’s statue.
Ishola
Chelsea looked like they only finished a really big Christmas dinner 5 minutes before kick off.
I really hope we don’t fuck up the transfer window. Hope Arteta realizes he can trust the youth. That was a super high pressure game and the youngsters came ready with no fear.
ESR will look much better supported by Partey. We still need to find the CAM but this is shaping up.
Yep Arteta In / Arteta Out… just enjoy the win today. We haven’t won in 10 matches or something and we smashed those fools.
Havent looked yet but are people moaning about us winning because it staves off arteta getting sacked?
Sal
Crazy season eh.
I’m hoping we stick with these young attacking players going forward.
Aubameyang btw should defintely not be picked for the next match.
The offense looked much livelier today and seemed to look for more options without Auba there and Auba’s body language has been poor for quite a while now.
We’ll lose the next game if what I believe is the reason for our bad form be restore for the next game.
Maybe , just maybe the bad run turns out to be a blessing in disguise.
What hopefully will happen is that we have half a team of 19/20/21 year olds ..
Arteta needs to show trust in them, players like balogun and azeez meed to be drafted in..
I always want to win anyone who moans we won is not a real fan
Starting to think behind.a CAM, a right back is next most important. I think Ainsley is better at CM, hector is a ghost, and cedric is well, cedric. We need someone of Tierneys quality on the right flank.
Midwest
Santa definitely got your letter.
“ just enjoy the win today. We haven’t won in 10 matches or something and we smashed those fools.”
This.
“It proves that Aubameyang is a waste of space and a bell end.”
Stupid comment Auba would’ve nailed the one on one Laca missed and no striker has outscored Auba in the PL since his debut. And that’s after being Artetad this season.
Great win.
Special thanks to Covid.
Good lad Saka, claiming the goal
have to give Arteta some props too. Read Lampard like a book.
___
Arteta doesn’t deserve any credit. Should’ve never have been in this position to begin with. You finally win a game after being shit for months and you somehow convince the doubters? What a joke.
Artetas judgement is seriously questionable if he doesn’t bring ESR into the team until today. Player great in Europa but we were desperate for a number 10 with energy in the league. But he wouldn’t play him. I still don’t trust arteta.
Midwest
Santa definitely got your letter.
_____
Yep Santa … wears Red and White… just sayin.. He knows.
Marc
“Chelsea looked like they only finished a really big Christmas dinner 5 minutes before kick off.”
They were quite poor overall but as said tbf Arsenal themselves played well enough.
Funny enough Chelsea in recent seasons have put in quite a few rough performances against Arsenal.
We may be becoming their bogey team.
But Chelsea have been fragile on the road lately.
This was their third EPL defeat away from home.
Said before the game they are far from a complete team and were very beatable.
Un na
I have been saying it from the beginning. May as well trust the youth. If we are going to end up as low as we are now, may as well do it with the kids. They are aleays going to be willing to learn and progress
Fuck all our current Seniors. They deserve to just be put on ice and sold.
That is the whole point of a rebuild.
Esr played well in his first PL game this season.
But Esr is perhaps half a good MF at his stage of development.
Missed out on Dominik Szo hurts… for £21m??
Elneny playing like 2H would work with Partey and the new AM.
If we sort out the MF and some dross in Jan, rest could wait
Wingdings
100%
I would like nothing more than for Arteta to go on a 10 game unbeaten run with 7 wins or so. We all want Arsenal to do well but he’s made some horrible mistakes.
Fortune was kind to him with the enforced absence of Luiz, William and an out-of-form Gabriel.
Holding and Mari, for the most part, look to have an assured chemistry even if their lack of pace wasn’t exploited today (maybe b/c of our impressive full-backs)
The most encouraging thing about today was we moved the ball at a much quicker tempo and the whole team pressed well.
Guys, we need to focus in the next game then the next and after that we could talk about transfer window.
A loss next game and we are in square one again. Arsenal needs to make someth8ng after this victory like 9 out of 9. (points)
With that the club can at least says to new players that we are back on track again. But if we lose then nobody will want to come to be part of it.
Beat Chelsea 3-1, Arsenal fans are still unhappy.
What a fanbase.
Gabi, ESR, Saka, Tierney is the future.
If Laca is doing better than Auba, then Auba needs to sit.
Play based on performance…..
Coming into this match don’t think any logical arsenal fan expected a win, the big match was Brighton. Actually is still the big match but for different reasons:
Can we build on this win?
Will Arteta fall back to the shit experienced players that have underperformed so far?
Marc
I have to disagree with you on Auba though.
The offense as a whole definitely looked better without Auba tonight.
It’s not a case of whether Auba would have taken a chance tonight another player missed.
The whole offense looked much brighter without Auba there.
Ishola
I’m not sure Fat boy will survive as Chelsea manager for that long – with the money they spent there will be expectations. Reckon he’ll be gone either in the summer or half way through next season.
Brilliant win today because we got 3 points and we are in a relegation battle at the moment. Period.
Captain Tierney
It was a fluke win
Radio
“Crazy season eh.I’m hoping we stick with these young attacking players going forward.”
Bizarre one top to bottom but starting to balance out.
Would be mental not to keep it youth attacking, if Arteta reverts back he fully deserves to be shed asap. Nice watching a side that actually cares with arguably less talent than one that doesn’t although Willians talents seem to of been lost along the long 3 weeks stretch of summer.
ESR had a banger of a game tonight, more of him please. Hope Arteta doesn’t fall to type and bank on experience like this wretched Autumn
Xhaka playing further up the pitch mitigates defensive risk somewhat and is similar to his role in the Swiss national team. At least he took shots , and scored too.
Marc
“Isn’t it amazing that if you play Tierney at LB he looks like a player.”
Its more down to playing a PROPER CAM in a 4- 2-3-1 system..
Martinelli , ESR and Saka were immense tonight….vibrant, technically good , hungry and confident in their ability.
Un
It proves we can have one good game in 8 or 2 in 10 if you want to include our last league win v United.
Fair chance is Brighton will look how we played today and adjust accordingly. There is only so far youthful exuberance will get you.
Plus we have to see if Willian is straight back in next game or if Xhaka has an off day etc etc.
To set the record straight ArtetaOut
Arteta prejudices were in check at death until the kids whom he perversely kept out with political statements saved his bacon today . Then Pepe after conjecturing to bring in Pepe instead of ANM
Ishola
The offence looked good because of Martinelli, Saka and the overlaps of Tierney and to a lesser degree Bellerin. Laca was OK no more.
ESR did well but he’s still got a way to go but I do think we’ve got a player there.
Un na,
Welcome back. Merry Christmas.
That result and performance proves exactly why Arteta needs to go. He was forced into that personnel selection.
If Arteta has some sense, he will continue with that selection against Brighton. Hopefully Luiz and William are unavailable again. The only changes I would make is AMN for Elneny and Saliba for Mari.
Everybody has been arguing for a 4-2-3-1, instead of that monstrous 3-4-3. It is clear that we have the players for that high energy, forward passing pressing style of play instead of that slow controlled backward looking Arteta has us played.
Hasn’t Josh landed? Starting 11 his suggestion ? Hahaha