Arsenal head into another week where everything feels poised on a knife-edge. Truth is, I don’t believe there’s a knife-edge Arteta is hanging on. This season will be put in the bin for a lot of major clubs. Liverpool just lost their 6th straight home game at Anfield, Spurs have been utter shite, United have failed to capitalise again… really, it’s hard to hold any club up bar Manchester City who are well ahead of every team in Europe.
If the objective is to get back into the top 4 next season, then we’re likely chasing Leicester, United, Chelsea, Everton and Spurs. We are easily on the level of those clubs and if we can fix a few things over the summer, I think we’ll certainly be up there.
Structurally, we’re in a good shape.
We defend well. We’re in our worst-ever season and we have the 5th best defensive record as it stands. Structurally, we’re built really well. It’s a group effort, everyone knows where to be on and off the ball, and players are far more accountable than they have been in a decade. We don’t get battered these days, you never feel it’s coming either. That’s progress, because there was always a spanking waiting in the wings under Wenger, and Unai Emery oversaw a game where Watford unleashed 31 shots at our goal. That sort of banter has been consigned to yesteryear.
We’re also looking slick on the ball. Our build-up play is excellent. Forget the Xhaka error yesterday, the build-up for our goal that started with Thomas Partey flooring a Burnley player with his deft movement and it was pure NSFW stuff. That is a consistent feature of this team. Whining that we should just ‘HOOF’ that ball is really unimaginative. Fixing the problem is more appropriate than the default Sunday League rhetoric that followed Pep G when he moved here.
Our final third needs some work, no doubt, but before Christmas, we were dull and unimaginative, now we’re creating a consistent flow of high-quality chances that aren’t being finished. As problems go, this is a better one to have than being a turgid fine margins attacking unit that is sad to watch.
The foundations of a top 4 team are undoubtedly in place at Arsenal FC.
There are two issues we need to fix as a matter of urgency. We make too many errors in both boxes. Defensively, we punch ourselves in the face. It’s not structural, it’s a lack of concentration. Granit Xhaka always has that move from yesterday in his locker, but we have to accept reality, he’s our second best midfielder and he’s vital to our play. Saying he shouldn’t start is a nice soundbite in the comments section, but who else are you playing there? Ceballos who gave Leeds an assist 2 weeks ago? Elneney who refuses vertical passes? AMN who gave the ball away about 50 times in his last appearance before being moved to WBA?
We’ve also had 5 red cards this season. Again, this is an area we can control. Doing dumb things can be addressed with coaching and upgrades.
Unforced errors are our biggest enemy. Xhaka alone has contributed to 8 goals since 2016 from errors. You can’t hide from data points like that. The coaching staff know that this problem exists and they will work to fix it. Key point though… the system is not the problem. Individual errors can be debugged far easier than an Unai Emery like approach that invites waves of hell at your goal. We’ve dropped 8 points from our last 4 away games through unforced errors, win those points and we’re 5th now (via @KayaKaynak). The objective will be to cut those unforced errors in half next season.
The second part of the equation the coaching staff will be looking at is finishing. We’ve been awful in front of goal this season. We weren’t taking our chances before Christmas, we are taking more of them now, but not enough to see out games.
Again, I think this is hopefully an anomaly. When Arteta first started, we had a finishing rate so good it was unsustainable. I think it was second only to Liverpool. Auba will hopefully not be this bad next season. Saka, ESR, Odegaard, and Martinelli will find the net more often after a season of playing together. People were saying Saka wasn’t top-class before Christmas because he didn’t score or assist… what are those people saying now? Young players get better with minutes. Pepe and Willian might come good and contribute to the levels we thought we were buying into. Pepe certainly looks like a live wire. I know we’re all upset that Martinelli is sitting on the bench right now, but Lacazette was brought on as a false 10, and in a straight choice between the Brazilian and Pepe, you have to go with Pepe. He should have won a penalty, and scored two goals, he made the right impact.
If Arsenal takes 20% more of their chances next season, we’re going to be a top 4 side.
There’s a 3rd thing we need to deal with, and I have no idea how you coach this. Arsenal have always been easily rattled. That Xhaka error gave life to a shit Burnley side. It took us 20 minutes into the second half to get over our misery and that’s not good enough. Dealing with adversity has been a weak point since way, way back when. The squad needs to get better at that. We should be able to concede a shit goal and get back to the plan right away.
The machine that has been built at Arsenal is controlling teams now. Every game since Christmas, bar Manchester City, has been dominant from Arsenal. The problem we have now is not the machine, it’s the coding. Things like finishing will come more naturally, unforced errors will likely be addressed with upgrades in certain positions. It’s debugging versus a total rewrite.
Now, transfer news is always contentious, so don’t hang me. But I don’t think the club will renew on David Luiz with the young centre back production line we have coming through. The chances of Dani Ceballos joining us next season are very, very low. We’ll probably land Martin Odegaard on loan for the whole of next season and try and get a buy clause in his deal. Arsenal will look to ship out £100m worth of talent, which seems doable even in this market. Then they’ll look to bolster right back, left-back and central midfield.
We’re strapped for cash though. A consistent flow of poor decisions has seen to that. Arsenal paid out Unai Emery £10m on his full deal almost immediately after he was fired and he landed a job 6 months later, a very unusual move. Spurs and Chelsea simply paid Conte and Pochettino their monthly wages until they found new roles. You have to wonder why a Super Agent recommended manager is getting a full payout from a club that’s asking people to shut windows and heat their lunch using bonfires to save on the heating bill. I guess that’s why we don’t have a Don at the club anymore. It’s also why I don’t care for Unai Emery, he knew why he was at Arsenal, so fuck him.
We need Edu to be the guy that sniffed out deals for Odegaard, Martinelli, and Thomas Partey. This summer needs to be about smart signings. I want to see us picking off players no one else is looking at. 22-23 years old, a couple of seasons of football under their belt, high levels of technical ability, with strong characters. Get that centre midfield position looking a little deeper with a lot more quality and we’re laughing. I’m also quite hopeful AMN can do this business at WBA and prove he can cut it at Arsenal in the future.
It’s hard to be Mr Positive. Honestly, I’d rather be throwing shit at the project with the reprobates every day because it’s easier. However, that’s not my style. I write what I believe in and fuck everyone else. I wanted a progressive manager that would move us multiple levels with future football. I have no doubt we have that in Arteta. It was always going to take time, but the foundational work that’s been done so far is more than enough to convince me that this project is going in the right direction. I wrote right at the start the road back to the top would be rocky, it’s been rockier and less linear than I hoped, but there’s something brewing. It is now clearer than it’s been in 10 years what needs to be fixed… it’s up to Arteta to fix it and do it in fucking ruthless fashion. Get the basics down until the end of the year, start picking sides with next season in mind, then go to town this summer and bring in a generation of talent that’ll fire us to the Champions League places next season.
… or, win the fucking Europa and do it now. See you in the comments.
Xhaka, Willian, AMN, Luiz, Emi, Ceballos, these are just a few names to keep it simple , all six were Arteta’s decisions to either not sell when opportunity presented itself , bring back, or lobby heavily to acquire.
Can anyone find a single Arsenal fan who can agree with majority of them?
Doubtful.
So what makes anyone think that going forward Arteta’s decision making will improve…..hope?
spanishdave yah, Arteta is another cheque book manager. I dont know which signing is worse, sanogo from wenger or runnersaur from Arteta. I read somewhere where arteta said, this team is far, far away from being his team. He said he has to add quality. If that is the case, why did he convince xhaka to stay, why sign willian and auba to long term contracts, why does he insist laca is not for sale??? Hoarding is another of his weaknesses. This happens because he doesnt know what his style of play is. If he did, he would identify the… Read more »
The Bard His major problem is and has been that 75% of the players aren’t up to it and it takes time to shift them out and get better ones in. We know Luiz, Cellabos, El Neny, Bellerin,Xhaka ,Laca( maybe Pepe ) need moving on but it can’t be done overnight. — Arteta choose to keep these players and even added Willian to them. How can you now say they’re his major problem. Arteta didn’t want to ship them out. And if 75% of these players aren’t up to it, maybe we’ll never make top 4 again. With a worse… Read more »
Andy
Arsenal’s is a dream job. We spend money and Kroenke’s standards are lower than most.
Arteta would be nuts to ever consider any top club job even if he makes the grade here first.
Anywhere else in Europe he would’ve been out on his ass already after the start he had at Arsenal,
Consider this, even if we lose to Olympiacos and go no higher than 10th in PL his job is still safe.
It would be perfectly understandable for a young inexperienced manager to want some experienced older players around him and in his team.
But if the line was that Arsenal should go for youth then why not get in a manager that has a track record of working and bringing on young players. This can be a young, middle aged or an older manager it matters not. Only that he has history of doing well with younger players.
Running saka into the ground is bad judgement, not giving martinelli is bad judgement. Persisting with Willian is bad judgement. we are not going higher than 10th. Someone was very optimistic the other day, stating 7 of the remaining 12 games were against bottom teams, then we went on to draw against burnley of all teams. Yes, we were denied a penalty and unlucky but we should not be relying on luck and VAR to salvage 3 points against burnley. We may beat olypiakos (fingers crossed) but I dont see us knocking out a stronger team in the competition. (we… Read more »
Tom, I’d tend to agree – AW chose to take the safe option later in his career rather than risk being found out at on eof the very top clubs. Why would MA do risk it? Arrogance is the only answer that springs to mind.
Ishola I think all managers should look towards the medium and long term goals of the club. This is irrespective of whether they will remain manager or not. Emery did this by giving Saka a chance, Bedding in Guen, playing Iwobi at LW, giving ESR his debut, whilst helping them develop for the future. Arteta on the other hand, has got guen, saliba, Martinelli and future youngsters rotting away with no eye to the future. He has been bringing in players with no resale value and selfishly only look to gain personal glory so he can use the job as… Read more »
“Arrogance is the only answer that springs to mind.“
Andy
You mean the rookie manager who’s career hasn’t yet taken off in the slightest who said it was obvious his name would be mentioned with the Barca job ……….is possibly arrogant ?
How dare you?
Hey guys Check out Swiss Rambles take on our financial results on Twitter This is last years results, there’s some late payments due from broadcasting But this seasons losses are expected to be significantly higher with the loss of match day revenue And the numbers elsewhere aren’t any better ,or expected to be any better Anyone who thinks there’s going to be tens of millions thrown around this summer, is living in dreamland Outside of clubs with incredibly wealthy backers, I don’t see hardly any money being spent I do think KSE will back us, but that’s just my opinion… Read more »
To believe Arsenal is headed in the right direction one must have some deep and solid connections inside the club or be aware of information that’s otherwise not publicly available, The publicly available info is that we have an unmotivated owner, a rookie coach who seems a nice guy but is completely unproven, a mid-table team at best despite having the 4th highest payroll in the league, and are now poised to miss Europe (and tens of millions of dollars that come with it) for the first time in something like 25 years. Obviously I hope MA can pull us… Read more »
Pedro
“Diss, you are right. Spouting off that white privilege doesn’t exist when you live on the west coast. Honestly.”
I’m, not quite sure what you’re referring to.
I was just wondering why you have been giving oxygen to a race baiter who never comes to talk Arsenal or football.
^
AMN to Arsenal is never going to happen. He burned that bridge when he gave some comment about Arteta not valuing him.. the egoistic maniac Arteta is , he will never take AMN back.
Kroenke is looking at £220m Arsenal loss over the last three years.
Elon Musk lost $27billion last week.
“I do think KSE will back us, but that’s just my opinion”
I have a bad feeling. Last time, Arteta has just won the FA cup. He was also quite newly hired, KSE paid for the signing of Partey, assuming that we could compete for the Top4. KSE read only the result. I don’t think they will put up again their own money this TW. We’ll have to sell before we can buy.
Spanish Dave I agree, have no idea why we signing Willian When we had Aubameyang, Martinelli, Saka, Pepe, Nelson, Willock, Smith-Rowe Who all play in the same positions It was a terrible message to send to young players signing a 32yr old on a 3yr contract to put in front of them Complete mismanagement I’m sympathetic to the position we find ourselves in, and don’t necessarily think it’s down to poor coaching, this mess has been years in construction But some of the decision made have been truly shocking We signed Soares, when we already had Bellerin + Niles, but… Read more »
Nelson
Arsenal are in a position where they can’t afford to invest
KSE are in a position where they can’t afford not to invest
We’re in with a shot of winning the Europa League, but we could end up with our worst season since 1994/95
Hopefully KSE do what billionaires are famed for, which is capitalise during an economic downturn
The alternative to not investing in their asset, is allowing the value of their asset to deteriorate even further
Rich
“it won’t matter who we appoint, because we’ll be setting them up to fail”
The issue atm is failing harder than previously.
I have seen enough with Arteta to see that the team is going in the right direction. Its more now about personnel. I can see a plan but Arteta has to be careful to realise, as he is trying to come closer to his game plan, he has to adapt it or take into account the quality of players he has. They have done loads of work on the squad but we have so much more to do with existing contracts and we need midfielders in the summer, we are so short there. AMN and Willock are not good enough… Read more »
Like a pro, I managed to post this in a different blog post. Here goes again. Pedro, A post with many good points. I think you might be a bit optimistic with how much we can raise through player sales but we should still be able to guy one or two good players. Provided we do that and become more consistent with results should be enough for a real top 4 push. What I can’t understand is your defence of Xhaka. Saying he’s our second best midfielder (unfortunately true) doesn’t change the fact that he’s absolutely terrible. The reason he’s… Read more »
Stroller: “Arsenal have been “outplayed” in just one game in EPL in 2021 and that was against Man City” 9 January 2021 FAC vs Newcastle – Garbage performance. Barely won in Extra Time – they had the better chances. 23 January 2021 FAC vs Soton – Absolute garbage game that we deservedly lost. 14 January 2021 vs Palace – Drew at home as they hit the crossbar and had the better chances overall. 30 January 2021 vs Manure – Drew at home thanks to Cavani’s 2 shocking misses. 6 February 2021 EPL vs Villa – Garbage performance vs Villa deservedly… Read more »
Forgot:
18 February 2021 vs Benfica – Garbage performance.
25 February 2021 vs Benfica – Garbage performance.
9 garbage performances in 3 months but Stroller is happy.
2 months*
I am reconciled to the fact that whatever happens Arteta will not be let go. Whether it is because of the cost of paying him and the backroom staff off,or we are just ticking along keeping KSE’s investment bubbling over. I can see some improvement in the way the team plays,but I feel any of the other mid table to lower half managers would exact the same sort of performance’s. we all feel aggrieved over the penalty call,but we still had a half in which we should have put Burnley to the sword,but again we are happy to plow on… Read more »
The margins are small, there’s certainly been vast improvement in our performances since Xmas, but we were coming from such a low bar, it’s hard to gauge the overall improvement What’s screwing us is individual errors, along with some really idiotic red cards earlier in the season If we’d clocked another 7 points, we’d be roughly in the position I’d have expected us to be at the start of the season From what I’ve seen so far of Partey, he’s like an upgraded version of Xhaka Last season he had the highest percentage of successful dribbles of any midfielder in… Read more »
Rich , Andy
Well said guys
Edu is also part of the problem as he has no experience doing his job.
Can’t imagine him being tough he’s just ticking along taking the dish.
We need somebody to kick ass , but nobody’s doing it, and yes we are rotten to the core
When fans return it will get toxic again Arteta has been lucky that there’s nobody to vent their disgrace at him.
Ten Hag can build teams with youth that’s what Ajax do
Just start Pepe
Playing Partey as CM with his poor goal scoring record and poor decision making in the final 3rd is another sign of cluelessness
Lovesausage
The major problem I have with Xhaka, besides his occasional brain farts, is he is an acceptable CM only playing next to Partey. When he is our main CM, our transition play from defense to offense becomes very slow. We can’t play Partey every game. I would prefer to have a CM with less limitation or we sign another CM with the capability as Partey.
Arteta’s Everton ring tone went off as he was giving An Arsenal video conference his heart is blue but Everton are not sexy enough to be likened to the best manger in the world’s route to the top and number 1 manager it had to be Arsenal and we have all heard the ass licking stories And the snitching on his team mates to the serpent Gazzides (sorry can’t be bothered to spell his name correctly) so Arteta is definitely going to F off once he has learned his trade and fucked our youth to suit his own agenda.it is… Read more »
Nelson,
Yes, we need someone as good or better than Partey. While no single player is responsible for this entire mess, I just don’t see how you get to top 4 with a player that limited. We can talk about the extent of Xhakas relative improvements all day long but in the end, even at his best, he’s an obstacle due to his slow pace and lack of technical skills.
Having no fans in the stadium has saved Arteta And I say that as someone who thinks we should back Arteta Arteta + Edu’s shared role, is a real concern If we don’t think Edu is competent enough to direct the football operations, then we should replace him with someone, who we do think it competent enough to take full responsibility of the football operation Having a general manager, who shares responsibility with a line manager, is a really strange setup Does Edu have the authority to sack Arteta? Or does Arteta have the authority to sack Edu? We’ve got… Read more »
Direct quote from the Telegraph.
Mikel Artetas side are making progress in almost every aspect of the game, playing with greater control and more defined style than at any point in his reign…
It’s not just the Telegraph, every learned commentator sees it, Pedro can see it, fuck, even I can see it, so what team are the naysayers watching?
Direct quote from the Mail. Arteta is not improving players, especially misfit Pepe, with club stuck in mid-table, Arsenal are stagnant.
IHGB
When the chips were down, the naysayers had judged Arteta to not be up to standard.
Now they will stick to their ‘hot take’ until the end.
No human wants to put his hand up and say they were wrong.
Rich I don’t disagree with Swiss Ramble and your analysis of this year’s finances. They will make grim reading. However, next season’s potential transfer business will fall into the accounts for next season and hopefully by then there will be potential normalisation of football attendances. My view is that the club will make “sales” when the transfer window opens and at the very least our transfer budget will be at least equivalent to receivables. As I posted before I foresee at least 8-10 outgoings which should generate a minimum of £100 million. That is a relatively conservative figure if you… Read more »
China1 March 8, 2021 : I always find the American concept of nationality to be an interesting one Second third fourth generation immigrants still seem to identify thenselves with countries on the other side of the world. My grandparents and great grandparents were Eastern European but I don’t feel any sense of related identity to their countries, I’m just British.“ I’m British English and my wife is British Welsh, it winds her up that so many people in the States identity as Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, etc. when really those links were several / many generations ago. I can understand… Read more »
“I don’t disagree with Swiss Ramble and your analysis of this year’s finances. However, next season’s potential transfer business will fall into the accounts for next season” What part of Swiss Ramble’s analysis don’t you agree with? The financials just released were for last season. This time next year, we’ll get this season’s financials, where basically the whole season will have been played behind closed doors and we haven’t made many (any?) player sales. The losses for this season (which we’ll read about in a year) will be far worse than the £50m net loss just announced. Unless Kroenke invests,… Read more »
£100m* although £100 war chest sounds about right tbh.
Stroller,
When you have a negative xG, whatever the possession percentage says you have been outplayed.
When the opposition is happy to play keep ball in their own half once ahead because they know you are toothless, you have been outplayed.
TheBayingMob/China1
One of the reason could be geographically, USA and Canada are much larger than the British island. People coming from the same origin tend to live closer together. Here I know that there are german school and arabic school. They keep their own tradition and their native language. .
Emirates stroller Even if we get everyone vaccinated by summer here in the U.K., which barring supply issues, looks likely Then we get fans back into the stadiums Clubs have still lost over 1 and a quarter seasons of gate revenue, which runs into the tens, and in some cases, including ours, deficits of £100+ million Those deficits will need to be made up over the next 5-10 years, which will mean deflation I think the transfer market will be completely gridlocked, I just don’t see clubs throwing around tens of millions they don’t have Or banks borrowing businesses tens… Read more »
Rich, I agree. Forget about the pre COVID valuation. Mega rich clubs will still make those marquis signing, but the rest will just be happy to wait and survive. French, Italian clubs won’t be able to afford to pay a fee AND the wage of any EPL failure. We had to release Mikki on a free to get him off our wage bill AND he had to accept a wage cut. We are not recovering £25 millions for Torreira. Our best hope is that due the new BREXIT work permit rule there is a premium on young Home Grown players… Read more »
Pedro
Why do you delete my comment
It’s a fair comment, nothing I put was factually incorrect
You’re a brilliant writer, but an absolute bottle job
You need to see what’s going on, and standup against it, before it’s too late
Rich, because it leads the thread into hell… this is a football blog, go to Reddit if you want to talk about identity politics.
NEW POST
Arteta must love you Pete. You stroke his ego every single day.
Our worst campaign in a generation but you’re confident that this is progress? Something doesn’t add up.