Gooooooood morning! Arteta dropped some intel about some of the reasons we struggled early in the season.
DEADWOOD DEEPSTATE. Think I stole that from someone on the Arsenal Vision Podcast. Now it is mine.
The allusion was that certain players that aren’t here now were the problem.
I cannot imagine which part-time social media manager on £350k a week that could have been?
I cannot imagine which binned players might have been causing those issues?
I cannot imagine which players exiting might also have had a role?
The mess of the squad at the start of the last season led to dramatic decisions. Those decisions against big names were obviously going to hit the morale of the squad. You’ve all worked with a dickhead who hands their notice in and determines to burn the house down.
‘THIS PLACE IS A HELLISH VACUUM OF PUSS THAT IS GOING ALL THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM’
Actual quote from Sandra from accounts at my place.
The biggest issue, Mesut Ozil, was a problem because he was the king. Everyone knows that when the King is dethroned, you have to kill him, because their prior power will always be a threat to stability. The German was too big for Arsenal at that point, he was hurt by the rejection, so it was clear he’d be a problem internally and externally.
Form has picked up since we rid the squad of bad eggs. Things have been better since we discovered the power of creativity in our midfield. We controlled games far better with Thomas Partey in the side.
Everyone is whining on about how 23 games of form doesn’t count for anything. Well, let’s see how that pans out next season, but also dig a little deeper into some other elements.
Leicester beat us with their only run into our box. We smashed them at their place.
Fulham beat us without having a shot on target.
Wolves didn’t deserve to beat us chance. Self inflicted Wolves.
Spurs beat us off 5 attempts at our goal and 30% possession. It was palmed off as ‘genius’ at the time, but let’s be real, it was luck as shown by Jose exiting the building a few months later.
Burnley beat us off 2 shots on target.
Everton beat us twice.
Villa beat us twice.
Basically, a lot of very lucky stuff happened against some very average teams this season.
Turn 3 of the above games into more positive results and the last game of the season sees Arsenal in Champions League spots in our worst ever season.
Hardly a stretch, right?
Think how much better life will be if we have a settled squad come the summer. Creative players from the start. An Auba not dealing with family issues and malaria. Young players a season on.
Arsenal will sell a whole collection of players. I’m not sure reading the praise of the manager is indicative of who we are keeping, it’s a negotiation tactic. Do we really think Madrid believe their future hinges on Odegaard? Doubtful… but it’ll pump his price. Same for the players Mikel is saying are under contract. We are less desperate this summer, which will lead to bigger fees (or actual fees).
Arsenal will no doubt try and make Martin a centre piece of our rebuild this summer and I’d agree with that. I’d certainly prioritize him over the Norwich fella at £450m or whatever they are looking to charge for him.
Then we’ll go for a right back, which has basically been a dead position all season. A nightmare for many reasons, but mainly because we’re lopsided when we attack. If we can bring Tierney levels to the right, it opens a whole world of possibilities.
Ryan Bertrand is perfectly acceptable cover on the left (Leicester after him, so should be safe).
Then we need to address that midfield. I have no idea who we’ll look for in that role, but hopefully we have another press resistant player that can move in the role.
Shake out the deadwood this summer.
Have a 6 week preseason and bond the leaner group.
Make sure everyone is excited and knows their own personal plan.
There will be no excuses next season, but I don’t believe there will be a need for them.
The players are backing the manager. Look at the vibes in the training ground video for David Luiz’s send off.
The club is going to bat for the first team again this summer.
I think we’re on the up.
Final word for the Edu story doing the rounds. The gist is he was taking orders from someone banned from Brazilian football for corruption when he was over there. I don’t understand enough detail to give a running commentary, but the basics are pretty clear, he took orders, he knew who from.
Arsenal relevance:
- It shows real lack of leadership to keep quiet when things like that are going on. The guy giving orders was behaving like Pablo Escobar from jail. Shocking stuff.
- Subservience to shady characters is clearly part of his operating system.
Speaking up about tough things that don’t feel right is part of any big job. I’d say ‘imagine if that was Arsenal’ but let’s be honest, we’ve seen people fail to speak truth to power in our football braintrust to great cost. Shocking deals, cosy agent relationships, huge wastage that a layman could have predicted.
This story is a bad reflection on Edu, but an even worse one on our leadership. Did anyone check in with people that had worked with him to see if he was a determined leader, or a soft touch people pleaser?
I doubt anything will come of it, but at the very least, I hope Vinai V, Richard G, and Josh K are keeping an extra close eye on who we are talking to this summer. The number 1 interest should always be Arsenal FC, that clearly hasn’t been the case with a lot of the decisions we’ve made over the past 4 years. The weaknesses on show in this story aren’t hard to trace back to some if the things we’ve seen at Arsenal (subservience). It is also a worry that he can be so comfortable working with a man of corruption. It’s a canary in the coal mine. Let’s hope we’re not on the receiving end of one of these stings in the future.
Sad to see Maddison hugging and smiling with Kane, like AMN when sent off by Maddison clever cunning the ref and shaking his hand as he was walking g off.
Some footballers have no pride
Tuchel’s bounce ended very quickly
He’ll be sacked by late October
Dissenter, liked your point about Willian. There was a lot of bad shit going on early season, but we wasted development minutes on a 32 year old. Would some of the second half of the season games that were fine margins been wins if one of the kids had more confidence… could we have had this Pepe form in February?
We’ll never know… but hopefully we never make a mistake like that again.
Willock seven goals in a row
Did anyone else see the chit chat between Pepe and Bissouma? Looked like Pepe was showing him around the stadium, pointing out the history banners and what they mean perhaps.
Graham, it’s only insane if I’m wrong.
Maddison has always come across as a wanker.
iknow that everyone wanted to finish above the spurs but this is a blessing in disguise.
ECL is a rubbish Europe competition and thanks to not be in there we can trim the squad and focus in quality instead of quantity.
it is going to be extremely hard to recruit good players without internarional football, but it is what it is we made our own bed and now we are going to lay on it.
“CC Why not just admit that you got it wrong, maybe Brenda was a bottler until he stopped being a bottler?“ That’s you Dissenter, absolutely king of the premature declarations. And here you are again asking for a rebuttal on Pepe. I’ll skip it, he’s wildly below the level as a footballer. Aubameyang gets criticism as a footballer and he’s put up great numbers until this season. Pepe isn’t getting any slack because he scored 5 in 3 to end the season, he’s not been anything close to good enough and doesn’t even make the best XI. That’s the issue… Read more »
Gabriel lost a tooth on the pitch?
Great finish to a poor season, glad we are out of Europa league as it makes our job for rebuilding for next season a lot easier.
Left testicle
Think it’s the emotion taking over, common sense has grown wings and flown out of the window. Football can do that.
Tuchel got very lucky today.
Their season could easily have collapsed in the space of two weeks.
Yep well done will keep, has had a lot of differing opinions on here but you can’t help but be impressed by that feat
Wenger eagle
Tbf I’d rather atletico win la Liga at the expense of Real Madrid and Barcelona than Chelsea miss cl football. So I can’t have everything.
Will keep = Willick
So Spurs is in that weird Euro competition now… like the EL lite?
I guess thats a good thing… more games for them
What record is left for arteta to create at arsenal??
We missed out on top 4 by 7 points, well if you lose at home to The Mighty Burnley, Wolves, Aston Villa and Everton then you don’t deserve shit.
I am disappointed we finish below spurs I am happy we missed that shit 3 rd. Tier competition that will kill spurs next season
We can concentrate on getting top 4
I am interested in seeing what my renewal will be now for next season without Europe
Agree London, can’t win every battle.
Just hoping that Lille can hold their bottle and Juve are sitting in 5th by this evening.
What record is left for arteta to create at arsenal?
If that cunt Kevin Friend gave that CKEAR PEN against Burnley, we’d have finished above Spud.
When I look at the table Im fucking pissed off at Mike 2 more wins and we are touching 4th place 3 more and we are in top 4 as it stands now If he had a clue in the first 5 months of the campaign we could have done that. IF Auba was not a LW, and added 5-10 more – thats 1-2 wins more Lots of what ifs, but we could have done a lot better if we had a competent manager… our season was lost by Dec I hope that he gets a clue- goes back to… Read more »
So the only unresolved issue from the season is who’s a bigger cunt Arteta or Rogers?
Vickingz
Bottom half finish, relegation, etc…
Rodgers looking up definition of Spursy in the footie bible and fully pulls a h o l d my beer.
As Tim Stillman has just tweeted, playing (and indeed signing) Willian has been a huge mistake. One that has cost Pepe minutes and ultimately a European qualification place.
These types of signings are to be avoided, sad to see people still happy with potentially bringing in more in the shape of Bertrand.
SF
Look at some of the teams we’ve lost to over the season – Arteta’s been a nightmare.
Arteta now needs to get the quality players to move up the table. No need for blotted team. EPL is more competitive than Conference cup. We have enough elite youngsters ready to step up to EPL standard.
I always believed Europa League made the team complacent made them feel better than the were. A smaller team grinding out results week in week out in the EPL is better off in the long run.
Disappointing we couldn’t pip Spurs at the post, but at least they drop into the Europa conference Every cloud….. Professional performance today, deserved the points overall, and got the job done, probably Partey’s best performance 6 points behind 4th certainly isn’t insurmountable, and our form since Xmas gives us a nice platform to try and gain some momentum going into next season We’re a long way off challenging for the title, but with clever recruitment, we can definitely progress and get into the CL mix next season Hopefully we can clear out the deadwood, and add some quality in key… Read more »
Anyone who thinks Brendan would or would have moved the needle for us is an idiot.
Well at least this little end of season run can now stop the bullshit narrative we had from so many that the team and squad were really below par. What a get out that was for Arteta and stupidly carried forward for him by some fans. It raises the bar now for next season which of course is a good thing. I was willing Rod-gers to get in those top four places but losing to the Scum like that in last match my sympathy for him wanes away. Mind you Leicester are still over-achieving as a club. They massively over-achieved… Read more »
So the only unresolved issue from the season is who’s a bigger cunt Arteta or Rogers?
___
Haha leave it to Marc to boil it down to a cunt off. Brenda is more cringeworthy is all I know. both cunts though this season. That’s for sure.
Imagine west ham finishing ahead of arsenal, west ham oooo, spurs too, what a generational curse we have as head coach at arsenal. He rated himself above the club and the fans when he opted to play willian and kept pepe, martinelli out, he handled the big players conundrum so childishly, he can blame himself all he wants but he just doesn’t have what it takes to lead us to greater height. He should just go and take pedro along
The Cunt trophy goes to???? lol
First time in 25 years not competing in Europe. Well done Arteta. But Arsenal fans finding silver linings.
Ishola70
Smith-Rowe + Odegaard changed our season, two technicians in the final third
Bigger cunt out of Rod-gers or Arteta?
Arteta wins hands down.
Under-achieving with Arsenal whereas Rod-gers is still over-achieving with Leicester despite their late slump for top four.
Marc, were the fans on Arteta’s back in the ground today?
“Anyone who thinks Brendan would or would have moved the needle for us is an idiot.”
Most overrated manager out there with the exception of Arteta but he’s only rated by 3 people – Pedro, CC and Arteta’s mum.
Time for a prediction from Rich on where Arsenal finish in the league next season.
He seems very bouyed by this end of season run.
Top four eh Rich?
2 seasons in a row Brendan has CL Football in the palm of his hand and loses on the Final day.
No doubt he has done a brilliant job at Leicester but he’s proved himself over and over again now to be soft in the crunch games that count in the Premier League down the stretch.
He’s at the apex of his level with Leicester now, not big enough for a job at a top club.
Is there a pod coming?
Interested to hear how Pedro navigates Cochrane’s Inquisition. Always a more balanced discussion.
Pedro
No but they only let people in who like him hence the crowd being lower than what we were allowed. Not sure they’ll be able to pull that next season – full capacity available actual crowd 23.
No improvement in overall position. Great improvement in offloading players, development of young players. Several issues outstanding with concentration and mentality to break in the top four.
My dream is a splurge on players football manager style. Get top players quickly and in sufficient numbers to have a go at the table. A couple of decent backroom staff hires would also go great.
Top four is achievable, however we may only be good for fifth if slow pace of change and theatrics are entertained.
Thank fuck we didn’t get the conference.
Would have liked to finish above spuds though.
If we don’t next season, it’ll be criminal.
This blog has become so bizarre compared to what it once was. It’s just like reading breitbart style spin pieces or something. Is Pedro Arteta’s personal PR guy or something? From (rightly) demanding more from arsenal than the fourth place trophy to trying to sell Ryan Bertrand as a clever signing, celebrating the worst season in decades as a success, and bragging about how if you only take the last twenty three games of the season, we’re third. Disappointing stuff for one of the best arsenal bloggers of the past decade +.
Pedro
Good assesment.
Arteta has a chance to prove himself next season.
It’ll be a bit more of a clean slate- no covid (hopefully), no deadwood, or a lot les of it , and a full preseason.
No excuses either though- for Arteta or the BOD. The club has drifted in the last few seasons- not only in terms of league position but also in terms character, style and identity.
It’s not going to get any of that from its owners, but Arteta does have a chance create something in spite of that.
Good riddance to an absolutely horrific season, theres no excuses for next season. The ones for this season didn’t wash either.
Midwest
You know it had to be said!
Leicester fans celebrating their season weird Arsenal fans on legrove calling out bottle job. You couldn’t make this shit up 😂😂
Decent win, happy to be out of the shitty Euro league thingy, dissapointed about Spurs and for Leicester.
Been a crappy sesaon really, few highlights if any. That said I’m waiting for history to be rewriten or brushed under the rug over the next two or three months.
Roll on the Euro’s.
So the only unresolved issue from the season is who’s a bigger cunt Arteta or Rogers
Marc
The answer to that question mate is always Mourinho!
Leicester will be happy enough that they can keep Rod-gers and Arsenal won’t go for him because of his “bottling” tendencies.
All Leicester ask for each season is european football top six as their aim. Anything above that is a big bonus for them.
Meanwhile Leicester with their modest ambitions will continue to be an obstacle for Arsenal in the league.
Alexander
You see you make a reasonable point but you just know Pedro will be making excuses about pre season being influenced by the Euros.
Kroenkephobe
Yeah but he’s got a lifetime achievement award – Arteta needs another season to manage that.
I’m. Arteta’s biggest critic, but no manger this season made the Potter boys so quite with very little position if the ball like he did with Newcastle.
Radio
Leicester bottled it today, plain and simple. Still a brilliant season for them no denying that. Massively overachieved even without CL Football.
“Would some of the second half of the season games that were fine margins been wins if one of the kids had more confidence… could we have had this Pepe form in February?“ What youngsters? Saka was starting and ESR and Martinelli were injured. Pepe might’ve gotten more game time had he not head butted a player and seen a 3 match ban on his 3rd start of the season. Hindsight is a piece of piss to navigate. – Zeus Is that you Un? Only a handful of staunch Pepe defenders on here, and the fact Luiz and Willian have… Read more »
Today was the 1st time fans were back and truth be told the team played well, so no the fans weren’t heckling arteta. But Pedro, if you think Arteta can dish out the turgid, uninspired football, he specialises in, and the fans won’t get on his back, you are delusional.
These fans trolled wenger (not saying he didn’t deserve it at the end) but he is and always will be a legend at arsenal compared to who-the-fuck-is-arteta.
Now the what IFS start and the positive of only x-amount of points behind and all that. Look at the fucking table and cringe and weep. Tuchel took over Chelsea when they were in 9th place, he got enough out of the squad to finish 4th and is in the CL final. And AFC has no European football in 26 years and if you look at the teams that finished above AFC and their managers including Leeds and Bielsa you know reality tells you AFC is fucked in the next season unless you bring a manager in that does what… Read more »
Arteta’s errors and lack of know how will hold Arsenal back next season.
Seen enough to know he doesn’t have it.
Yea seriously, we start next season with Arteta ball- defensive and rigid and I think the knives come out really fast- when those losses start to happen, and we have to chase games again with an impotent attack.
He needs to fix the fucking attack. Let the players play, and express. Allow our CM’s to join the attack instead of waiting for more U shaped passing over and over
Its mind numbing… today, we saw some one touch football again, its was so easy and we carved them up at times. Get back to that
Guns ‘When I look at the table Im fucking pissed off at Mike 2 more wins and we are touching 4th place 3 more and we are in top 4 as it stands now” Absolutely right I’m sure Pepe playing first half of the season instead of willian could’ve got those points , rough but the guy does score goals and thats what wins games at the end of the day especially as Pepe is obviously a rhythm and confidence player something further up even Pedro slightly alluded to . Made quite a few mistakes but his ego forcing willian… Read more »
And arteta is baffling, his decisions are beyond ridiculous. Auba again was having a shit game, we were 2 nil up by 60th, what would you do, if you have a youngster who is lacking minutes and had scores last game? Well obviously you’ll keep him on the bench till the 85th minute.
The whole point of Wenger out was to compete for the PL and CL title – I would assume that is accurate?
Anyone volunteering when can we reasonably expect that?
Good News
Season is Over
Arsenal out of Loosers Cup 2
Willock. What a star.
Bad News
Man City, Man United , Liverpool and Chelsea will re arm with the CL money and will continue to be the serious players in English soccer why Arsenal fluff around with poor managers, poor executives, poor owners, deluded fans and the usual soundbites.
Summary
No CL soccer for Arsenal for the forseeable future.
Imagine the only Arsenal player of the month this season is …
It Mr Willock
I believe the Leceister and Westham performance next season will be hampered by European assignments. Tottenham have to get a new manager playing in a less glamorous league.
Luiz, Ozil, Mustafi, Ceballos leaving has already cleared a chunk of budget to be spent on potential quality. The young players that replaced them earn way less. Sales of home grown players can raise some pretty amount.
I do believe there is still some fight at the Arsenal.
Mr Arteta has until Christmas to sort it out or he will be fucked off the club for good.
I’ll give him a chance
Well CG, you have been quite accurate in your predictions so far 🙂 how long does le-sauce have?
Not being in Europe means we need a smaller squad – which is fine – but when get in Europe in a year, our squad will be too small. No Europe next season, is, on balance, a bad thing.
Finally Willock will not play for AFC’s manager because as someone already said, “that is not what Steve Bruce did”. Ozil will play CL football next season, LT won a La Liga title and AFC supporters are being served boring football, Arsenal supporters must be masochists.
Rocky, looks a bit petulant to whine on about decision making after a win. If your view is that the perfect game is just whatever your opinion is, then you’re always going to be disappointed.
CG
Summary No CL soccer for Arsenal for the forseeable future.
———-
More or less.
It will take an injection of at least 200 odd million or insanely good scouting + coaching to get us back
Into the mix, and keep us there.
Neither look likely.
Go watch the Etihad celebrations and weep.
Time Up
This is pretty much my stance.
Like Rich I am on the fence with Arteta.
Not convinced at all but ready to g8ve him a chance.
My condition is that we have to see clear improvement in his management style and the way he treats players.
He really has to lose his arrogant trait otherwise he will be going nowhere in the long run.
Wenger eagle
You’re right that’s a simple take on things. Too simple it’s nonsensical.
Mics_, if pure facts upsets you, head somewhere else.
2nd most goals since Xmas (24 games now)
2nd for points
3rd overall for defence
Plenty to fix, but we’re in Champions League form. A good summer and we’ll shock a few whiners next season.
Pedro – when do you think we will actually compete gif the PL and CL title? Approximate time frame?
Because that was the whole point of the Wenger out movement right?
Steve Bruce has made Willock bla bla bla… all he did was play him regularly which was the whole point of the loan.. hope he makes it at Arsenal
Twitter full of banter about Rodgers bottling top 4 (literally tending) for the second season but Raheem is still on here going strong that it wasn’t a bottle job because of expectations prior to the season? Weird.
Leicester were in the top 4 places for practically 36 of 38 games. You can’t lead at something for that long and fall short at the last. It’s the very definition of bottling it.
The premature congratulations Brenda got after beating Man United’s U13’s was exactly that. Premature. He’s made of Spursy stuff.
Evening,
Good win, pleased for pepe, he might get a run in the side next season if the rumours are true and willian is buggering off.
If arteta has learnt from this season then I’ll give him the first ten games next season.
If he makes the same mistakes then the fans will have him out.
He was lucky there was just an empty stadium pre Christmas.
Can’t screw this transfer window up again.
Right Pedro, so after a win, no one is allowed to point at stupid arteta decisions, regardless oh how mind numbingly stupid they are. Yeah that sounds about right.
I thought that Arsenal played well today and were good value for their win. Pepe can be infuriating, but when he is on song is beginning to look lethal. The major concern is the drop of form of Aubameyang. Let’s hope that he comes back next season refreshed. From my perspective not qualifying for Europe is a blessing. Let Spurs waste energy travelling to obscure parts of Europe. We should focus on the EPL next season and improve our starting X1. If we recruit three starting X1 players who are an upgrade on what we have got in those positions… Read more »
Willock has thrived at Newcastle because he’s all the attributes to do so in that kind of team. He’s athletic, quick, covers ground well, and has a nose for chances.
He’s way less effective at Arsenal where teams sit deep. We should make a killing of his excellent loan and congratulate the academy for producing a good PL player. Insert a sell on or buy back clause if you’re that concerned with down the road.
Champions league form, heard it all now.
8th is the new fourth
RR “””Well CG, you have been quite accurate in your predictions so far 🙂 how long does le-sauce have?”””” Hard one to gauge this one. I think we are stuck with him for another 12 months unfortunately. But from the moment he bought that watch for Gazidas he has played us. How he is still the Arsenal manager after what we have had come before is a bloody disgrace. ( Eg Chapman ,Mee, Graham and the imperious Wenger) I think we are stuck with him for another 12 months unfortunately. But he and KSE /Edu have done so much damage… Read more »
Also we won the FA Cup last season, and finished on a real high, that didn’t stop the shit show at the start of this season. Why is that some are so certain that the form now will carry on next season?
Dave
It’s twice as good!
“Good win, pleased for pepe, he might get a run in the side next season if the rumours are true and willian is buggering off.”
Well at least we’ll know who’s replacing Leno in goal.
Pedro Plenty to fix, but we’re in Champions League form Let’s find out next season eh? A bit premature to be saying this. He had one chance at redeeming himself, the EL semi, and he managed to screw that up. Let’s wait until the fist 10-15 games of next season before we can clearly say yes we are CL contenders. I’ll be honest with you. I like the fact that he admitted he made a loaf of mistakes. That is a good start. But he really needs to learn from his mistakes. Now let’s see him put his money where… Read more »
Rocky, there’s a whole crew of you that come on here to spew misery about Arsenal. It’s so boring. You can’t even enjoy a win, you pick on something that was irrelevant.
Spanish Dave, I know your default is misery… but one more time. Since Christmas, 3rd most goals, 2nd best defence, 2nd most points. That’s 24 games. A huge sample set.
This club could bang next season. Good summer, 6 weeks preseason, and a clear out behind the scenes and we’ll be rolling.
Radio
”Too simple it’s nonsensical.”
Lol, what point are you trying to make here mate?
Yep Marc our fantastic form since Xmas took us from 11th to 8th.
Perhaps other teams also had good form since Xmas , you never know!!
Pedro my default is reality like many others.
CC, Hassenhutl fan club is dead, the Tuchel one is fading, the ‘Potter is going to smash us’ crowd are now whining about the colour of Arteta’s shoe laces, Brendan not a bottle job… painful reading.
Last warning on the state of decline. Manchester United, Chelsea and even Liverpool noticed a decline in form in previous seasons and desperately looked for ways to address the decline.
Arsenal have been too accomodating. Really is not the end of the world. However, likes of Leeds can attest it is no place you want to be.
Strong football leaders required. The finances and setup have to match the ambition.
Glad the season’s over. I’m hopeful for next season. Shame that goes against most of the mood hoovers on here.