Well, what an average week.
One bad decision snowballed into multiple.
The biggest problem this week was how we approached the Europa League. We went big, played a group that had been rinsed physically by the Leeds game, we didn’t win.
Then we headed into Sunday, we were forced to rest players, and our lack of depth couldn’t handle City’s quality.
We lost 1-0. That’s not bad against the best team in Europe, the problem was less about the result, it was more about the acceptance of a lesser defeat.
‘We didn’t get spanked as bad as we usually would have’ is a 2019 way to look at games. Yesterday, after going down in under 2 minutes again, we just seemed to land on the idea that losing by one goal would be acceptable.
That’s not cool.
We played our way back into the game after Sterling of all people headed in birthday boy Mahrez’s cross early on.
We were certainly asking questions of City, especially in the last 15 minutes. We were stretching their defence, we were pinning them back, we had some moments. The hope was that we might have a go in the second half.
We didn’t.
We played with fear. The whole game was predicated on caution. Odegaard rarely took a chance by turning into space. The Norwegian was not at the races, it was a timid showing from him, but again, maybe his fitness was running low after a few games in a row after very little before. Mo Elneny’s fear of vertical passing seemed to infect everyone’s confidence. Auba, clearly knackered, offered next to nothing going forward. His fake jumps for balls in the box were embarrassing. His body language was shocking at times. He offered nothing. Is it time to accept that he can’t handle three games in a week? Is it time to accept that in hardworking games like that, you need a different forward leading the line: Lacazette or Martinelli would have offered more.
Defensively, I kept on thinking, ‘wouldn’t it be nice to have ball players.’ Rob Holding was fairly decent, but he’s not really built to be spraying it around against City. Pablo Mari was supposed to be the artful of the two, he just kept passing it Holding. Hector Bellerin was deeply frustrating all day. His partnership with Pepe was horrendous, not helped by the wingers return to normal form. His first touch was horrible. His decision making wasn’t great. Then you had Tierney, not his best day out, but maybe City was too much to ask after 5 games out.
Let’s talk about Pepe. He’s just not the full ticket, is he? His runs were poor, his touch wasn’t great, his decision making was laughable… he looks like he should be a good player, I’m just not sure we’ll ever see it. I’d prefer to see Martinelli on the left and Saka coming in on the right
We also have to be very honest about this squad. It is very nothingy without Thomas Partey. You can’t expect to beat City with Mo Elneny playing next to Xhaka. It’s not the Egyptian’s fault, he’s a sound guy, no doubt, but he’s painfully limited in games that require accurate passing with an edge of boldness.
The Arteta system needs fast passing from the base and it needs someone leading the line that is fully fit. Auba couldn’t run the line, he hid from crosses, and he looked sad. Elneny is living the dream, he’s the African Carl Jenkinson, we need to move on from him.
We also need to find a strong narrative heading into the end of the season. At the moment, there’s nothing to hold onto as a fan. We’re 1 step forward, 2 back every other month. It’s exhausting. There’s progress, but it’s not wrapped in anything. Arteta keeps telling us what we already know. He needs to give us hope. He needs to show us he can give us a run or another trophy.
Ending Leicester City’s title run next week? Yes please.
Ending Jose Mourinho’s Spurs career? Double yes.
Winning the Europa League by putting Unai ‘Good Ebening’ Emery to the sword? Don’t say sexy things you don’t mean.
This season has been shit. Give us some f*cking joy. Put a run together.
Check out our On The Whistle Podcast. It’s with Matt and Johnny. It’s a good one. They are basically miserable af and I keep the positivity bubbling. I’m that guy now. Imagine?
1
More like enhancing Leicester City’s title run next week And prolonging Mourinhos carieer…
Oh and 3rd
4th?
The season is a watershed moment for Arsenal.
The quicker we forget the better for all of us
In Order to compete we need Partey / Saka level players in most positions
More like enhancing Leicester City’s title run next week
Benjamin,
I think we saw this year’s title winners dominate the Arsenal this afternoon.
An honest post from Pedro.
AFC Forever
“we were bottom of goals conceded from set pieces”
You really should stop lying on this that can be disproved easily.
We conceded 10 goals from set pieces in 18/19
The best defence set piece wise was Leicester City with 7 goals conceded.
“We also have to be very honest about this squad”
Lol at Pedro blaming player poverty after spending all of last season telling us player poverty isn’t a thing.
Gabriel
Partey
William
Mari
Cedric
Runnarson
Ryan
Odegaard
Players Arteta has added in just over a year.
I suspect there will be some celebrating that we only lost by a goal. But the issue that I have is in the manner that we lost. Like the Aston Villa match we lost the match to a sucker punch goal because we couldn’t get switched on from the opening whistle. What is that about? If we lose to a better team scoring wonder goals against us that’s fair enough. What is not acceptable is that we are losing games again and again and again due to lapses of concentration. Wolves, Aston Villa now Man City. We love defeating ourselves… Read more »
We deserve better!
Pedro, you have created a monster with Arteta.
Like Raptora said on the last post, this blog used to be about challenging the dwindling standards of this football club and Pedro himself used to slam people for defending Wenger.
This blog is now the antithesis of what it used to be.
i watched the leicester game today and have to say they looked a lot better than city on the day. Auba needs the fucking hairdryer treatment if not outright benching. bellerin needs to take a backseat and let cedric in, i mean could bellerin do as good a job on the left as he did covering for tierney? not that he was amazing but he was a threat more times than not. why not pop an academy player like azeez into the midfield. xhaka can come on as a shoring up sub. Non-negotiables look well and truly negotiated in the… Read more »
I would trust the process and the manager’s protestations more if we didn’t keep making the same mistakes and put our faith less and less in players like Willian and Luiz. Give their minutes to our academy players like Nelson.
The positive from this insipid performance?
At least Willian didn’t get off the bench. Could the penny be dropping? One can live in hope.
“i watched the leicester game today and have to say they looked a lot better than city on the day.”
I see it differently. City will play Champion League game this week. There is no need to waste energy. The real master plays just good enough to win.
Arteta really is not the real deal, is he Pedro? He played into Pep’s hands by sticking Auba up top and chucking Pepe out wide with Hector ‘the useless’ Bellerin. Lacazette, who didn’t feature against Benfica, was nowhere to be seen until it was too late and Martinelli was also left on the bench. Saka tried to do things but when the emphasis is on restraining your opponents out of fear, rather than having a go, you’re destined to fail. Where’s the risk taking? Arteta is so scared………but of what for Christ’s sake? To be honest, it has all become… Read more »
today’s game looked like city taking the mickey out of us.
like an orthodox boxer deciding to southpaw.
or right handed bball player deciding to go left handed for the game.
I don’t get why we played Pepe on the right and Saka on the left when Pepe has looked sooo much better on the left, and Saka always does well wherever he is! I thought at first, ok, so I guess they have license to switch, which will cause City problems… but nope, no switching, and surprise surprise, Pepe was ineffective on the right once more. I swear, Arteta does some baffling things. There’s no doubt we’ve improved under him and some things he does so well, but then he’ll just do these weird things that I’m at a loss… Read more »
City the best team in Europe? I don’t think so, Pep will get his arse handed to him the CL as usual this season. A team in form for sure but not the best team.
Good post Pedro, at least you kept it real this time, tomorrow’s back to Arteta fantasy world !! The whole team was not at the races today, Arteta should have freshened things up upfront Pepe and Bellend compo was useless for the first 45 mins, why didn’t he switch Pepe to the left for at least the first 15 mins in the 2nd half ? He was going to be subbed anyway . He could have also introduced early subs with legs and energy..err…wait… only the outcast Martinelle fit the bill Auba was embarrassingly weak he should have come off… Read more »
It’s player poverty now, is it? Typical.
Sometimes you can not help that a better team is better than you because they have spent more. How do you attempt to “even up” the stakes in such a circumstance? You bring your “A game” to the table every single time and you concentrate from the very beginning of the game to the very last second. Therefore if a superior team is going to beat you make them work for it. Press them you pressure them to make a mistake so that you can exploit the turnover… Where is that eye to detail? That hunger to get it right?!??… Read more »
Going nowhere with this greasy bullshitter in charge. Absolute fucking fraud.
I’ll just leave this here.
We’ve lost the same number of games in the league as Fulham…
I’ll just leave this here.
We’e lot the same number of league games this season as Fulham…
The truth is that Arteta is a bad squad manager… and he played the squad he did versus Benfica out of fear.
He knew his squad and fringe players were not good enough to get a response and so he went for a very strong team— who didn’t get the job done anyway.
We should have kept our best players fresh for the Man City but we couldn’t because Arteta knows his future is more important to him rather than the pride of the shirt.
You might as well completely write off the games against Leicester and Tottenham because Arteta will go all out against Benfica to save his skin.
Arteta is trying but his gripped more by fear trying to save his job rather than making choices which are brave visionary and confidence inspiring.
He is like a toddler trying to make himself understood in a tutorial at Oxford.
Crap management imo We played Leeds with give or take our best team. We picked pretty much the same team against benfica to give ourselves the best chance of going through but fluffed it then picked most of our best players again in a dead rubber against city meaning that not only would they always likely struggle due to fatigue but now they’ll also be knackered ahead of our most important game of the season so far vs benfica Arteta rolled the dice on his best players fitness and not only has it not paid off for the city game… Read more »
Thursday is our season on the line.
No pressure.
Odegaard played way too safe today , we missed the one and 2 touch football of Smith Rowe and his ability to take the ball on the half turn ..Tierney’s final ball was poor , he linked well with Saka but didn’t deliver, he was also poor for the goal in allowing Mahrez to casually come inside without any pressure on the ball. Holding getting the blame for the goal but to me, I would ask the questions of the keeper who was rooted to his line . Sterling was on the 6 yard line when he headed the ball,… Read more »
City could have had three in the first thirty minutes. Then they took their foot off the gas, content to let us amble about without any purpose and barely a decent shot on goal. More random. football from the Arteta team without any evidence of a decent game plan and players willing to put themselves on the line for it. This was a training exercise in the sunshine, and about as gripping to watch. Ever since at least Emery we have had a patchwork quilt of a side, promising bits here and there, dull pointless bits leavened by flashes of… Read more »
… out of his depth, out of ideas and out of steam to move us forward.
Thursday is the important game, it’s a must win game or our season is effectively over , which is something Arsenal fans have not been used to , as the past 6 seasons we have competed in a cup final .
Not bad for a team in crisis…
Remember according to the latest Pedro we’re going to beat Benfica and beat Leicester…
We might barely get over the line against Benfica but does that inspire confidence, convince you or anyone that we are moving forward?
*latest podcast
Even if we beat Benfica we still face very good experienced sides in Europa. We are delusional and arrogant to think we are anywhere near winning this competition.
Pierre
Maybe Leno forgot to shout “away” and that’s why Holding did nothing lol
Lee Dixon called it right but what does he know, he only played Tierneys position all his career and was a part of one of the best Arsenal back four on record.
Tierney was to square on Mahrez and Holding was ball watching.
Stop trying to be too clever for your own good, Leno wasn’t at fault.
I do see potential in arteta
He has done some decent coaching with players, nice improvement with the style of play and players understanding what’s expected of them
Being able to transition the ball from defense to attack etc
I don’t see elite potential in arteta
He doesn’t have the swag
His team played with an inferiority complex instilled by the manager
This mentality will never take arsenal to the top tier
Poor/naive player rotation will cost us any further progress table and cup wise this season
It did seem that Arteta had agreed with Guardiola prior to allow them to continue their winning streak if they let us get away with a 1-0 loss. The result let’s Tets off with some face and City were allowed to ease back in some players coming back from injury and prepare for the tougher matches they have coming up. How else to explain away the midget scoring between our CBs or the huge drop off in City’s intensity, ambition and overall play after their goal. The fact is, this City side could play Arsenal a hundred times in the… Read more »
Pierre If you want to absolve Holding of any blame— a bit of a hard ask— then next in line to blame might be Bellerin, who makes contact with Sterling shortly before the ball is delivered, but then let’s him into space uncontested even though he has the whole play right in front of him, unlike Holding. Also, just because the ball wasn’t drilled super hard it wasn’t really a floater. These are usually hit from the very bottom and have an under spin. Mahrez curled his cross and it was an in swinger, which made it a lot harder… Read more »
Which set of correct lenses did you put on for this post, Pedro? You can put on 300 pairs of different shaded lenses and guess what, crap still looks like crap and this team, is crap. You have lowered your standards so much with Arteta that you cant even see the obvious with him at all, he’s an incredibly poor manager and couldn’t pick a lineup that works consistently if his own life depended on it. “Whatever” is the only word i have left on offer to describe the utterly useless team that’s presented to us, game in and game… Read more »
To be fair to Xhaka, I find him and Saka are the only two players that don’t disappoint.
For Thursday, my preference is to get back to the trusted offense. We’ll have Laca, ESR and Saka for three positions. Either Auba or Pepe will occupy the LW. Ødegaard will backup ESR in the 70 th mins if required.
For me I don’t care about the result yesterday provided we win the EL game. We were always underdogs and we’ve little to play for in the league But I do care that we’re beasting our best players in every match and not giving some of our useful squad players much of a chance And you can see how arteta has set martinelli up for a fall. By dropping him every game his confidence is likely to take a hit sooner or later. He’ll eventually give him a start and if he doesn’t do an ESR and hit the ground… Read more »
I don’t care about who to blame for the goal We didn’t even threaten them. What optics are these? It’s a training match, and arteta hasn’t even gotten spicy with the selection for a training match. What’s the point in any of what he is doing. How does it progress us or prepare us for the next season? This one is finished. Is he planning for the future or is he desperately trying to preserve the now? Martinelli can’t get minutes and he expects Balogun to sign da ting, he is lucky our form is so questionable otherwise he would… Read more »
@China1
“Mikel doesn’t rate martinelli”
I believe the reason Martinelli didn’t play was because he was not ready.
I also don’t like to play Saka all 90 mins. I would either rest him or at most 60 mins. Auba had such a bad game, but I understand why Arteta kept him there. He provides the hope for a lucky goal.
Aubameyang is not good captain material
He does not embody the fighting spirit you want around the club.
Seeing him knocked down so easily on his bum by John Stones was so disheartening
, not once …but twice. John Stones is not even a bruising defender.
To see Ruben Dias run over to high-five Stones made me so angry.
“I believe the reason Martinelli didn’t play was because he was not ready.”
He was on the bench so he was ready
Why is it okay for people to carry Arteta’s water like this?
Arteta is not a quick learner or maybe he just depends on happenstance too much
Why did he take Pepe away from his area of strength and put him on the wing that he is poorer
Talk about setting up players to fail.
“Ending Leicester City’s title run next week? Yes please.
Ending Jose Mourinho’s Spurs career? Double yes.
Winning the Europa League by putting Unai ‘Good Ebening’ Emery to the sword? Don’t say sexy things you don’t mean.”
In your dreams Pedro
You will still have more excuses than a cactus has spikes when he falls short of all three expectations
‘Standards have indeed been thrown out the window” and something is “brewing” at Arsenal
Arlo White on NBC described the city pace as ” a testimonial” match.
They didn’t even break a sweat. They don’t need the goal difference and have CL midweek.
Elneny is Egyptian, so if you are comparing him to Carl Jenkinson, say the Egyptian Carl Jenkinson not the African Carl Jenkinson – next time check yourself before using African as an adjective.
Well predictable loss, but I don’t understand why we are playing saka for 90mins in every game. That’s a recipe for disaster. Sadly artetaball is having 11 world class players in the team. Another term for that is cheque book manager. Learnt from the best. He’s not going to improve anyone. Saka was always a world class talent, but for the sake of his career, he needs to get a move away before he is broken beyond repair. ESR, Martinelli, Guen and Saliba are talents the fans have been going on about for months. Guess who is the only one… Read more »
Last month, we were 3 points of chelsea who were having a bad run. What do they do? Sack the incompetent coach, and get a new manager, who with the same players have led them 9 points away from us, and sitting in top 4.
Gonsterous
Absolutely right. Arteta makes no sense in his rotation decisions. He’s running Saka into the ground. There’s something seriously wrong with his judgement.
I think at this point we all know in our hearts that it’s not going to end well with Mikel. The real question is if ownership has the guts to pull the plug in time to avoid too much damage. Imagine Gasperini or Rangnick leading the team out for our Premier League opener. The new manager claims that he’s trusting youth but there may be bumpy times. In the summer, The first XI features Leno, Saliba, Gabriel, Tierney, Partey, Guendouzi, Smith-Rowe, Saka, Martinelli , Balogun and a dynamic young right back. . We know that this team will make mistakes… Read more »
OGS subbed in Sola Shorotire, a highly rated academic graduate who just turned 17 years old 2 weeks ago. It may very well be a token gesture but it’s a lot more than we are doing. We have good academy products running down their contracts because they don’t get opportunities. When we were leading Leeds 4-1, why not bring on a young player just to give academy players that little hope the ladder is open. Instead he brought in the 32 year old Brazilian. Good managers give young players opportunities, OGS did a bit of that at Spuds with some… Read more »
Pedro
Just listened to that podcast
It’s kind of sad to see hear your two guests repeatedly pin you back to reality every time you fly off on another Arteta hot air balloon.
Pedro “Let’s talk about Pepe. He’s just not the full ticket, is he?” Absolute right, Pedro when Pepe is stuck out on the right wing with little support and being doubled up on by defenders when receiving the ball mostly from the hapless Bellerin. So why isn’t he the full ticket? Pepe is one of those anomalies in football – one footed, but yet still mesmerizing with quick feet when given a little space with players around him dragging defenders out of position. 9 goals and 6 assists in the last 2 seasons says there’s a player there, especially with… Read more »
**OGS did a bit of that at Spuds with some of their average academy players.
That should have been Poch did a bit of that at Spuds with some of their average academy players.
Why do we need to pay players like Luiz, Xhaka, Abu and Willian exorbitant salaries just to be ‘good eggs’ in the changing room when we pay a manager and director of football to do just that?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-9284987/Nicolas-Pepe-admits-Arsenal-need-sort-concentration-problems.html
I wonder if Nico Pepe will now get punished by Arteta for stating the blinking obvious…
Both Spurs and Liverpool losing and it doesn’t matter because there is a manager at the club who is happy to speak a good game rather than to learn from our mistakes.
I actually wouldn’t mind losing if we showed desire but we constantly and consistently switch off mentally.
City beat us without breaking a sweat.
Aussie we do it because the manager lacks confidence to be able to maintain order amongst players who have strong personalities. Rather than be the alpha of the team, arteta is scared of personalities that may challenge him so they get sidelined
We saw the same thing happen in wengers last 10 years where we would only play nice boys who won’t ask questions and it hurt us enormously because accountability disappears when everyone is too nice to challenge each other
And yeah everyone should give up on the idea of balogun staying at arsenal and kicking on Mikel has made it entirely clear he has absolutely no interest in giving him any chances. Balogun is 4th choice at best atm. Maybe 5th if you consider arteta tried Willian as a false 9 multiple times Basically arteta dislikes the guy because he’s got a bit of a swagger about him. Martinelli, guendouzi, saliba. All young players with confidence to speak up will get their development blocked here. I guarantee you if ESR said anything mildly negative tomorrow he’d be benched before… Read more »
China Mike A is conservative coach. His old school tactics are such BS. Someone who is his age I would expect to be more progressive and moldable and flexible.. He is nothing of the sort. City was in third gear the entire game…. under no time during the game did I feel like we were keeping them pegged back or pressing the issue It was more or less KT cross to no one, Auba get the ball and get pushed out of play and then smile Odegaard chasing shadows- welcome to the EPL young man Lots of shit, the Bellerin… Read more »
This is correct
Elneny is Egyptian, so if you are comparing him to Carl Jenkinson, say the Egyptian Carl Jenkinson not the African Carl Jenkinson – next time check yourself before using African as an adjective.
What would Wenger or Emery do with this team? I wonder sometimes
I hate to admit it, but losing Rambo, and not replacing with a similar Rambo player has hurt us. When he was not injured he generally was a positive player for us. I do think we let him go at the right time, but the lack of a like or better replacement has hurt us and continues to. El Neny on the pitch is like a 5th defender. how do you expect to win and score against City with him? Bring him on when we are closing out games we are winning. Dani would have offered at least something more… Read more »
Honestly, I would not doubt the agents of Martin are putting some feelers out for this summer….
He finally drops Willian but goes back to Pepe….instead of the dynamo that is Martinelli….
And I dont even care if he does not score, Martin offers pressing, vision, attacking nous and crossing, as well as taking shots… a real attacking threat all around.
yes he is reckless but a player like that would cause city some issues… if not for simply forcing them into mistakes…
Mike needs to wake the F UP
With the same mistakes repeated time after time I do not see Arteta ever learning. Honestly a consensus of folk from Le Grove would do a better job managing the team! We were completely impotent against a City side that didn’t need to move out of first gear. Shameful! One shot on target at home! Lost 11 games thus far – on target to lose 16???? Mid to low table form!
So in a nutshell, it is the manner of losing that annoys most here. I’m glad though that we weren’t humiliated by City who somehow mananaged not to score 3 more goals by the half hour mark.
ArtetauphillclimbFebruary 22, 2021 01:40:47
Elneny is Egyptian, so if you are comparing him to Carl Jenkinson, say the Egyptian Carl Jenkinson not the African Carl Jenkinson – next time check yourself before using African as an adjective
Next time check yourself before attempting to control another person’s language
You’ve no authority over anything boy
“In Order to compete we need Partey / Saka level players in most positions”
Yes, just like West Ham have top level players in all positions.
By the way Partey hasn’t dominated every match he played in, a bit rich acting like our whole season rests on him.
“You’ve no authority over anything boy”
Boy?
Isn’t this the racist Pedro says has been on his best behaviour.
Pep plays a simple brand of football that gets results often. Silky midfielders and great defenders. Kloop played a simple brand of football that worked for him. Hardworking midfielders with great defenders and quick lethal attackers.
Arteta needs to simplify his game and stick to it. By know he should know what works where and use that. Otherwise he just frustrates his players and the fans. When he came in his simple approach led to a run of results. Tinkering and not changing game plans quickly in play are costing him wins.
Predictably the dummy throwers are out in force. Sack the manager and most of the players. We sacrificed this game for the Eurpoa league. City were terrific and we were poor. We can play a lot better. Too many players weren’t at the races. It’s no big deal. We will play better.
Arsenal were outclassed yesterday by Man City playing in second gear after the first 20 minutes of game. I don’t want to discuss their creativity and attacking potential, but rather their defence, which is now an outstanding unit conceding just 15 goals in ALL competitions played since the beginning of October. Let’s focus just on their Centre Back resources for one minute. Dias [£61.20 M] and Stones [£50.04 M] are an outstanding unit. They have in addition Laporte [£58.50 M] and Ake [£40.77M] sitting on bench. That is £210.51 Million spent on Centre Backs. Contrast that with what we are… Read more »
The Bard
Playing better against minnows just doesn’t cut it for me.
Receding hairlines
No
I say boy, kid or lad regularly. Lad
I apologise if any offence was taken
Tom “Maybe Leno forgot to shout “away” and that’s why Holding did nothing lol Lee Dixon called it right but what does he know, he only played Tierneys position all his career and was a part of one of the best Arsenal back four on record.” I get that i embarrassed you a couple of weeks ago and now you feel the need to look for a kind of revenge, but you reall need to do a little better than this. So Lee Dixon obviously knows a lot , he agreed with me , Tierney was partly at fault for… Read more »
Artetauphillclimb
In footballing terms Egypt is a member of the African Football Confederation
In geographical terms Egypt is situated in both Africa and Asia .
El Neny was born in the Nile Delta which is located in Northern Africa so adjective or not technically factually he is African
Was Saka on the left because of the return of KT? Pepe has been half decent on the left but was back on the right and shite!
ES
Not buying into the argument about the cost of players being the reason for yesterday’s dire performance.
Up against those CD you had Pepe , who cost more than any of City’s CD. PEA who cost £56 million.
City played with the handbrake on they came to do a job and no more. Arsenal on the other hand could have gone all in they didn’t they played with fear and were doomed to be beaten before the first ball was kick because of attitude.
I still can’t get over needing a goal and subbing off the meek, negative Elneny for Ceballos.
Watching us as a whole is so soul destroying, there is nothing to get excited about in this team, the only thing brewing is perennial midtable finishes under the insecure, control freak Arteta.
And I do not care about some Arsenal fan’s weird dislike for Emery but we at least challenged for the top 4 under him and reached an EL final, Arteta has us championing 1-0 losses where the better side barely breaks a sweat and challenging for top 10 finishes.
We have lost 16 Premier League games in the last year and Man United for example have lost 4 games and Mikel’s job was still safer than Ole’s.
Olis, we have a chance to beat Benfica, but we are not beating Leicester. They are very beatable, but not for us.
I don’t mean to get into dangerous territory here but Egypt is in Africa as any outline of that continent will confirm. As far as I can tell, both descriptions are valid. Is there anything wrong with describing someone from Africa and therefore Egypt as African and/or Egyptian? In the context, it doesn’t seem to me as if there was a consciously discriminatory nuance to what was said. In general, opting to apply a national identifier to someone can be seen as un diplomatic, but the original post was critical of the piece because Pedro called him African instead of… Read more »
Poor game yesterday. One could say Man city weren’t at their races, someone else could say Arsenal defended well. But the main point is we lost the game and didn’t create one clear cut chance. No matter who we are up against, not creating even one chance is abysmal for Arsenal football club. We conceded a very poor goal. Tierney didn’t get tight to Mahrez but it was Mahrez and if you get too tight with him he’ll just zip past you. The main culprit imo was Holding ( he did defend very well for the rest of the game).… Read more »
Every other team in the league except Arsenal would have tried harder to win that game. Again Arteta only gets away with that tripe performance because there were no fans in the stadium. Heck Arteta would not even be the manager today if there were fans in the stadium.
Olis, that was the latter stages of Emery’s tenure and I’m sure you knew what I meant. In his first season we were at least challenging for Top 4 and the EL – that is not championing anybody that is just a fact. That is the remit for any Arsenal manager, to at minimum challenge for a CL spot and that is what Emery did in his first season. Arteta came in half way through last season I hear you say, fair enough but he still didn’t move the needle much. He has had a full season and we are… Read more »
Yet they are about double figures ahead of us
Mikel Arteta was the wrong choice for Arsenal football club and the stars conform that
Out of 38 League games Arsenal away must be Man city’s easiest, the spuds always give them a game at home it was embarassing seemed like we played out a 0-1 loss at 20 mins to go at least have a go.
Pathetic.
Agreed Leftside Leicester will beat us we have/going backwards under MA
Terraloon You don’t need to buy into the argument I was making. Pepe was a speculative buy who was not worth remotely what we paid for him and I agree he is a waste of money. On the other hand Man City have bought 3 Centre Backs in Dias, Laporte and Stones who are now amongst the best in European Football. I recognise that Arsenal do not have the budget, which is available to Man City, but if you are going to spend mega bucks then at least spend it on the right players. Arsenal’s 1st X1 is probably three… Read more »
Globalgunner
100% correct.
Try convincing Pedro of that.
The tactics, the set up, the players used, were all wrong.
I hope Bellerin doesn’t feature on Thursday. Total embarrassment.
It’s all on Arteta.
Guarantee Olis will be nowhere to be seen at the end of the season. Or will it become, wait until the end of next season?