The day after the game, I’m still seething.
Mostly, because it’s disappointing to watch Mikel Arteta shooting himself in the foot with his decisions.
Yesterday, was another prime example.
The narrative of the loss would have been ‘unfair result, bad reffing (again), unforced errors we can rectify, and a final pass away from being something really interesting.’
Instead, everyone is once again talking about how bad the decisions were this summer, and how much worse it is that Arteta can’t shake the truth about Willian >> he’s awful and should be annexed like Ozil unless his form picks up drastically.
He called it correctly after the game, top teams don’t make the mistakes Arsenal do. Teams at the top don’t breeze past 5 red cards. They don’t give away goals in the first minute as often as we do. I can take that little insight… what I think we all struggle with is a manager that has such clarity of vision for what’s not there, yet has had such an incredible blind spot for the things that are causing those problems.
David Luiz is a good defender, but he always has those mistakes in his locker, that’s why he’s not with Chelsea. We gave him a new deal and we give him lots of minutes despite his history with us being very, very, spotty.
Willian has contributed absolutely nothing to Arsenal this season. When you are chasing a game like yesterday, with the wind fully in your sales, against a team of athletes, what is the logic behind bringing on a player that has no pace, little ability to move around players, with the body language of someone that’s been asked to join a pub team as a ringer when they’re walking the dog over Hackney Marshes.
Why didn’t we bring Martinelli on? What top manager in world football would look at that bench yesterday and think the cherry on the comeback cake was Willian?
We’ve lost more games than we’ve won this season. No doubt it’s a weird season. Many problems have been had. But these self-inflicted should have been left as 2020 problems we solved. They are ego-driven decisions. He is absolutely desperate for Willian to come on and score a screamer so the move can be justified… I get it… managers don’t want to look like they have bad taste. But Jose Mourinho, in the state he’s in with Spurs, isn’t still trying to flog Gareth Bale. He’s accepted he’s not at the level and that’s that.
Politically, his instinct is always to give Willian minutes because he fought so hard to bring him to the club on a disgusting contract from a disgusting super agent that had been advising us badly since he was let back in.
Politically, he has to use Auba, a player the fans love, but one that seems less and less suited to the project the further we go on.
It’s time to stop thinking about the politics of being a manager. He needs to pick the best players for the project, because if he keeps going for his 30+ favourites, he won’t have a job past December next season.
Nicolas Pepe still has a lot of flaws in his game. His control is sloppy, his decisions are still very messy, but he’s been very good over the batch of games. He wants to be there, and at a base level, he has the athletic profile to be in the squad.
Granit Xhaka has many flaws, but next to Thomas Partey, he’s generally been good for the squad.
Our attack is electric when you have the young players out in force, melded together by the excellent Lacazette.
The season finished yesterday, now we need to go full force at what our options look like next season. Who else is waiting in the U23s that we can give a go in the squad? How can we make sure Martinelli is trustworthy in all the games over the next 3 months? How can we ensure Odegaard feels sexy about the plan going forward so he’ll join for the whole of next season? Is Flo Balogun better than Eddie and can he viable as a powerful #9 we lack? Azeez? Patino? Cottrell? Moller? Our season is in the gutter, but the project isn’t.
There’s something exciting brewing in this squad. We’re a final pass away from decimating a team. A bit more confidence and a bit more force, we’ll be very problematic for anyone we face. It’s fragile though… if you take out key players and replace them with people in their thirties that don’t have what it takes, it’ll all collapse. Yesterday, the introduction of Willian, combined with the nothingness of Auba, completely killed any hope of saving a game we were more than in.
If Arteta refuses to see that, he’s going to run into these same problems next year.
This week has been rough. Win those two games, as we should have, we’d be sitting in 6th place. The opportunity has been taken by the officiating gods, unforced errors, and some pre-December managerial decisions that shouldn’t have been.
Arteta’s coaching staff needs to gather their thoughts and go again, this is the last long pre-season they’ll get, because if we’re this badly out of the mixer February 2022, it’ll be team #Nagelsmann or #MarcoRose on this blog, because the club will have moved on Mikel.
There are standards at Arsenal. They have dropped for an experiment with a young coach with a high ceiling. He has to start showing high ceiling decision making based on merit, not politics.
I’ll be back later with a podcast.
Why
Always
Me
Tr4phy
So does Arteta have the sauce or no Pedro?
How many goals have we scored while Willian has been on the pitch?
If you take out the Fulham game., I’ll bet you could count them on one hand.
Babe, baby, baby, I’m gonna leave you
I said Diet Pep, you know I’m gonna leave you
I’ll leave you when the summertime
Leave you when the summer comes a rollin’
Pedro
Agree fully with your post.
The season finished yesterdsy?
Supreme leader has lost the plot, oy season finished in December, that much was clear to any rational person
Hilarious Pedro’s desperation to hush up this season.
Still a long way to go and lot of damage the rancid sauce can do the Club.
I predict a Sacking before next season kicks off.
Don’t call the season weird, Pedro. Call it for what it is, bad.
Pedro “The season finished yesterday, now we need to go full force at what our options look like next season.” Sorry but if someone had made that claim after 23 PL matches under Wenger, Emery or Dave from down the pub you’d go mental and demand the manager was sacked. It’s also telling that you think we have zero hope of winning the EL – what the fuck happened to sauce? Arsenal are on a precipice right now, our weak financial position has been compounded by the COVID situation. I don’t agree with those who say the Kroenke’s are tight… Read more »
The word “brewing” that’s been used on multiple occasions suggests some kind of excitement. There’s nothing exciting about Arsenal at the moment and there’s certainly nothing exciting about Arteta.
Upstate
Pedro is like a drowning man – he’ll cling onto anything to keep afloat. What he doesn’t realise is that beneath him the sharks are circling.
And they are hungry.
From saucemaster to brewster,
Punky Brewster
He is not good manager !
Its all players talent.
We should let him and his dross leave in summer.
One of the factor for this week’s collapse is because some of our starting 11 are tired. Laca, ESR and Holding need a rest. But we don’t have adequate substitute. Holding was also at fault for the goal. Why not play Mari instead. Maybe Martinelli replacing Laca and Ødegaard replacing ESR. Arteta has to build up chemistry also for the backups. I remember we sent out four attackers in the FA Cup competition. They played like they didn’t know each other.
We always laugh at untold. Now this blog is ref conspiracy bad luck and hair pills
rollen
Don’t forget the sauce!
We hired Arteta before he was ready. That much is clear.
It’s not easy remaining hopeful that the penny will soon drop for him and he’ll start extracting more out of this much better than 10th best squad in the EPL.
We went from ‘ we’re much harder to beat’ to ‘we have one of the best defensive records over x games’ to ‘the refs are cheating us out of points’ to ‘the season is over’ all within 3 weeks. Crikey.
Manager hasn’t a clue what he’s doing. Not a notion
Time to go now
“There’s nothing exciting about Arsenal at the moment ”
I find that Edu has become an expert of getting rid of unwanted players. He’ll have to overwrite Arteta if he wants to get rid of Willian. Definitely no extension to Laca’s contract. Give Auba one more year to see his goal production.
Arteta has a high ceiling.
Based on what?
Deluded , he’s way out of his depth, making the same mistakes week in week out.
Willian will haunt him and we will be left with the dross.
“a young coach with a high ceiling”
Not so sure.
All city players know how to receive the ball on a half turn..its such a basic skill..even I used to teach to that an under 13 i used to coach..how has Arteta not pointed that out to Xhaka is seriously beyond me..he always takes teo touches to get the ball in his stride
Marc
I really don’t get it. All it takes is a simple “I was wrong” and we can all move forward. But Pedro just wouldn’t let go. “The season is over” crap really gets to me as well because if it wasn’t Arteta, Pedro would be screaming for anyone else’s head, as you rightly pointed out.
Marc,
You are halfway there, the kroenke’s are bankers, greedy misers, and that is that!
They have not put one cent of their $ in-ever, and because of their apathy ,our ability to spend based on income streams is drying up. Also, because of players sales, we are losing money hand over fist.
AFC spends less than almost they entire EPL, out of pocket.
Moving forward, sell Auba, Luiz, Laca, and Willian for whatever we can get.
Invest in youth, buy wisely, under 25 with move on potential.
Play exciting futbol, lather rinse repeat.
Gazidis was a top notch CEO.
No he wasn’t.
He was a leech and sleazeball all rolled into one.
On top of that he fudged us over.
Back to Arteta though…………
Rollen “We always laugh at untold. Now this blog is ref conspiracy bad luck and hair pills” That is one bandwagon I would like to see roll…it will benefit Arsenal in the long run.. For too long we’ve heard ” it evens itself out” ….it doesn’t., not in Arsenal’s case anyway . Tony 2 posted this a little earlier “Jerry bulivant over at footballfixed just posted on Twitter the follow stats…Like all market analyst’s we monitor for biases for and against premier league teams. According to our data over the last 5 seasons where 1st most favoured and 20 least… Read more »
The good news is that we won’t get relegated.
Now we can sit back and watch our exciting youngsters develop and progress.
What am I saying?
“Arteta has a high ceiling.”
Ah clearly Pedro is a short arse because when you are short all ceilings are high and everyone else looks tall.
Both the Pool and MC play a high pressing game. I wonder why their players have so much energy. And our players get injury from training.
How fucking dull is this match?
“We went from ‘ we’re much harder to beat’ to ‘we have one of the best defensive records over x games’ to ‘the refs are cheating us out of points’ to ‘the season is over’ all within 3 weeks. Crikey.”
Spot on, Jamie. And it would actually be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
Aaron
“AFC spends less than almost they entire EPL, out of pocket.”
What are you talking about – check our wage bill? Check our net spend over the proceeding 5 years.
There’s no argument we’ve been badly run and thrown away fortunes through piss poor management but we do and have spent.
He should follow Gary Neville and become tv pundit
Forgot to ask… Are we still laughing at Spurs?
Pierre
Although I’m not in total agreement with you, there are clearly discrepancies in the way officials interpret things when Arsenal are playing.
Yesterday being a prime example.
No Marc, we have not.
AFC have spent based on what Wenger and the club developed into.
All the money came from within the club Mate.
However you spin it, stan the maN has never paid a “luxury tax” in his life. If you do not know what that means look it up.
Pen for city
Sterling is a diver….
Arsenal has a top 6 quality team and squad Think about the team Klopp inherited, that’s the measure of a top drawer coach The risks with a novice coach are out there for all to see It makes no sense to continue with Arteta beyond this season if he doesn’t immeasurably turn things around Enough with all the excuses – boardroom/kroenkes/weak squad/referees/Edu/willian et al It’s getting sycophantic Arsenal is too big a club to babysit a coach with a limited skill set, low EQ and ego maniacal tendencies If he stays beyond this season without tangible improvement there will be… Read more »
Fucking hell that was to penalties what Arteta is to management.
He brought Aubameyang on because he’s one of the best goalscorers in the world.
What a bad penalty kick!!!!
Any pen where the player doesn’t take a run up always seems to go wide
Aaron
I couldn’t give a toss and the Kroenke’s tax affairs. I also don’t have an issue with wealthy people. They allow us to spend what we earn – that’s good enough for me.
What isn’t good enough is the management of the club and how we’ve spent money or allowed it to walk out the door on a free / reduced value.
Marc “Arsenal are on a precipice right now, our weak financial position has been compounded by the COVID situation” When I read some of the comments on here as to who should be sold and who should be transferred in. I genuinely wonder if many grasp just how precarious things are at Arsenal. Lets sale Willian or Auba for instance. There isn’t any market for these two players. Their ages and contracts at Arsenal mean that almost certainly they will see out their contracts unless they have to retire through injury or Arsenal waste another mountain of money buying out… Read more »
Revenues will go down a lot.
Who wants to pay high prices for this tripe of a manager.
He isn’t changing this is all about him.
Crap management.
Stuck with Willians wages will stop us getting in 2or3 promising young players.
Could we see Liverpool drop out of the CL places this season?
It only takes Leicester & ManU to keep it up and one of Chelsea, West Ham, Everton or and I’m talking to you Pedro the Spud’s to go on a run and it could happen.
Graham “The good news is that we won’t get relegated.Now we can sit back and watch our exciting youngsters develop and progress.” That’s why the last 2 defeats may be a blessing in disguise For our attack to work we need a striker who has pace and movement and anticipation. Lacazette is not that player, his movement in the box is average at best.. We have 3 young strikers who deserve a chance to show what they can do and there should be no excuses for not giving Martinelli, Balogun and Nketiah a fair run in the team . It’s… Read more »
2 questions. I honestly don’t remember where we sat in the table when emery was fired. Where were we? Pedro I’m assuming your sources are the reason you say MA fought hard for willian and continues to stand by him. If that’s true, would the sources know any different if it wasnt the case, if it was yung Kroenke and edu who agreed the contract in the last years winter TW and its actually MA who is trying to make the best of it? It strikes me as the kind of decision that only the people at the very top… Read more »
For once I fully agree.?
Terraloon
I know mate – some of the comments on here when it comes to buying and selling players are like listening to 12 year olds.
When you consider we had £70 odd million of accumulated losses for the 3 seasons before all of this it’s scary.
Good piece. I can see why Arteta is trying to re-integrate Auba and why he brought him on. Auba scored a brace right before his personal issue and looked like he may have found form again. An on form Auba is an asset to any team. But totally agree with your take on Willian. Arteta appears desperate to show that bringing him in wasn’t a horrendous and costly error in judgement from a rookie manager. It was – he should take it on the chin and try to move on. Reiss Nelson and Gabriel Martinelli deserve any minutes being afforded… Read more »
Zach
I don’t know the position in the table but Emery had picked up 18 points from 13 matches.
Just for reference that’s 1.38 points per match. This season Arteta’s on 1.35 points per match but the footballs on the brink of being great!
Pedro since you look to refer to French tweets. Here”s the biggest French football media outlet on Saliba
‘William Saliba has been virtually pitch-perfect in his own game since arriving at OGC Nice, his weak moments came in trying to marshal a back three last month that didn’t speak the same language as him (Daniliuc, Austrian & Bambu, Brazilian) – no such issues in a 2 with Todibo.’
Marc
1.24 points per game?
Yeah but if we manage 3 points per gem from our remaining matches we’ll be challenging for a champions league spot 😀
*1.35
Good post Pedro,
Finally we agree. He should go with the young players you mentioned, nothing to lose. Against Wolves and Villa he should have brought on Martinelli in both games in place of useless with this system Auba.
The reality is, you know and I know, Arteta would still go with Auba, Willian and Bell due to the emotional connection with those players. He would never be above an ok manager like Roberto Martinez.
How many top quality coaches have Arsenal missed out on because of AKB’s adoration of Wenger.
I agree with your completely, whilst poor refereeing has not helped. Some of a Arteta’s choice of substitutions decisions have been awful.
Bearing in mind the recovery started, when due to Covid, he had to play Saka, Smith Rowe and Martinelli against Chelsea.
I hope Arteta now learns from the Villa game, and plays our young players, who are hungry!!
Okay, one more time, and I am being generous. It is not a literal “tax” and I could give a rat’s ass too about his and hers. Am from the USA, been a fan for decades, kroenke is a piece of $h*te, if you do not know about walmarT than look that up too. While you are at it look up how he moved the ramS from St. Louis to LA, and he had a contract with that city and broke it. The new ramS stadium was built with over $3-5 billion in cost overruns with AFC being collateral. the… Read more »
How can people watch the game yesterday and say we weren’t good going forward? We moved the ball up the pitch and got into good areas very well.
Pierre,
Stop talking as if Willock made it, it’s ONLY one good game and we’ve seen this film before, one good followed by 5 bad.
As for your insistence in including Eddie next to Martinelli and Balo name after countless headless chicken showing by Eddie, shows you follow football with your emotions not brain like a teenage.
One really complicated problem Arteta has to deal with now is Aubameyang. He has been our savior last 2 seasons but doe that we have to play a game that must always end with Auba in space to take a shot. And Auba has delivered magnificently. Auba’s form massively dropped at the start of the season for reasons unknown. Family issues? Big contract signed ? Who knows. As soon as that happened we struggled to score goals. Our attack always went down the left side with Saka, Tierney, Xhaka, Laca/Eddie all taking up different positions so that Auba can have… Read more »
When emeryvwas sacked we were in 6th or 7th
BUT
We were 17 points of 1st, a marker we hit this week i believe
Very strange. Definitely glad he’s gone, did not enjoy the football under him
“He should follow Gary Neville and become tv pundit“
Who and why would hire Arteta for studio work?
Not an elite ex-player and mediocre manager so far.
Sure there are some none elite former players doing studio work but mostly they are English and working at networks with English speaking audiences.
I’ve got news for the Arteta is a great communicator crowd, his English isn’t that great.
Maybe Spain then. Plenty formers Spanish greats available for that though.
And the foul on Lacazette was a disgrace how it went unpunished is beyond belief.
Olis
We were one good final ball away from opening up the game.
Unfortunately most here have their ‘Arteta Out’ masks on.
Goundogan scored.
“Auba’s form massively dropped at the start of the season for reasons unknown. Family issues? Big contract signed ?”
Playing under a fuckwit of a manager?
One good final ball away=
We need a betterstriker
The reason we’re such bad sellers, is our wage bill The price you can receive for a player, isn’t just linked to the value of the player, it’s linked to the size of the contract The clubs who can afford to pay our dross, don’t want them And the clubs who might be willing to take our dross, can’t afford to pay them what we do, and players don’t want to take pay-cuts, particularly in this market We need a strong Director of Football We need someone with a proven track record of identifying talent, and adding value in the… Read more »
Aaron
Don’t care about Walmart or other sports. You made an incorrect comment about Arsenal’s spending. Our wage bill is something like the 4th highest in the PL, our net transfer spending is high.
We’ve spent more than enough to be in the top 4 right now and anything else is deflecting.
And two days later after slamming mourinho, now Pedro is citing his treatment of Bale as a positive.
I genuinely think Pedro has outsourced the writing of this blog to a team of ghost writers. The flip flopping is reaching new levels.
More importantly, the season is over with only 23 league games played. Yet you’re not calling for the managers head??
Because?
Salt will be coursing Jurgen’a veins at record levels in the post match interview with that fat twat Shreeves.
Matt
Come on mate there’s only 45 points left to play for whats the point?
Fabinho with a little excuse me flick of a leg for the penalty on Sterling is one for all those who didn’t think Luiz was at all interested in doing something to remedy his positioning mishap in the wolves game.
It’s called muscle memory and defenders do it without thinking.
The manager isnt going to get the sack until at least the summer
Hes transitioned us away from a deep d and counter which we dont have the players for at the moment
It aint rocket appliances as ricky would say
Zacharse
Liverpool had won 12 of their first 13 games topping the table with 37 points when Emery was sacked.
Your comparison to this season is spectacularly false.
The goal this season is now to convince a Real Madrid reject to stay for another season!!
Laughable by anyone’s standards. Remember when we used to scoff at ‘4th place is a trophy’.
Its not false u just dont think its a helpful comparison
Marc,
yeah, deflecting that we are run by an absent owner and a bunch of amateurs.
Will leave the rest of the analysis up to you and everyone else here.
rot from within…..
I think Pedro entering the Pierre’s territory for Ozil, start going into weird excuses and see things he can only sees.
He even start calling us “the know nothing” crowd. We’ll soon be comparing who’s love stronger.
Aaron
If you go back and read my original comment you’ll see my judgement on the Kroenke’s is about mismanagement and the way we’ve spent money.
It’s not the lack of spending it’s how we’ve spent the money.
Is it a penalty???
Pen
Time Up
He’s already told me I can’t see the positives that Arteta is making.
That is a much better kick!
Another shocking Pen call with Salah diving.
Willian new ozil lumbered for 3 more years
This club is run by mad bunch of councillors …
They have not vision … And unlike real councillors can’t vote them out
Comical that is a yellow but David Luiz saw red
Zero consistency to say that is not a red but David Luiz was a red.
Honestly think 2/3 shod go from laca auba n William..
Only way club surges forward
We need to recruit more players with height and power. Too many weak/midgets in the team. We are often bullied out of games when the slick passing isn’t working.. Cedric, Bellerin, ESR, Tierney, William, Eddie, Lacazette are all relatively short. You can’t have that many short players on the field at the same time. Sure a few of them listed are very good players but the disadvantage is obvious on many games. On top of that Auber and Pepe are fairly weak players.. When you see Bellerin and Cedric marking tall strikers for set pieces you have to wonder WTH… Read more »
No red for city but red for the arsenal. Perfect example of us getting fucked again. He’s actually pulled him back not even an ‘accidental’ clip
Marc,
“He’s already told me I can’t see the positives that Arteta is making.”
I know it was coming, what I didn’t know, it’s already here lol. I’m worried now he start calling his blog Le groan or Le Moan, then we would know he’s been kidnapped.
RSPC
Arteta supports giving Auba a raise and new contract and then decides he can’t use him.
Arteta stops AMN leaving because he’s a first choice player then doesn’t play him and sends him on loan 6 months later.
Arteta fucks up Saliba.
Arteta fucks up Balogun
I’m waiting for him to give Laca a new contract on £240k per week in the summer and then drop him 6 games into next season.
Why that not a red card when Luiz was ??