Season over. It was like going into the operating theater for something serious. The diagnosis was clear, surgery was necessary, we’re just not sure if we picked the right surgeon for the task.
The best remedy post-surgery? Faith. Positivity. Good vibes.
I can’t spend a summer crying about a very odd season, with historically unique circumstances, that impacted nearly every manager at an elite club.
It’s time to search out the light, hunt out patterns of interest, and rev up that propaganda machine one last time for the boys in red and white.
My base premise for hope is this: We just went through the toughest professional sporting season in living memory. A global pandemic that stretched the physical and mental health of everyone. One that destroyed the basic structure of the game by ripping fans out of the stadium whilst also truncating the season to make amends for TV right issuers. The output? A difficult season.
Arsenal finished 8th.
6 points off 4th place Chelsea, the team that spent £250m on a top 4 squad last summer.
8 points off 3rd place Liverpool, the team that won the league last season with 100 points.
The three managers in the running for the Arsenal job prior to Arteta were Jose, Carlo, and Nuno. Two of them exited their jobs, the most prestigious of them all, Carlo, finished below Arsenal.
The weird season wasn’t just in the Premier League. Sporting won their first title for a long time. Atleti beat off Barca and Real for La Liga. PSG was toppled by a spectacular Lille. Inter beat out Juve.
That’s not to justify our position, it’s clearly not good enough, but all of these observations put perspective on it. It was a fine margins season and we didn’t do well with the margins. Our rookie manager botched a rushed summer and struggled to get to grips with a toxic bloated squad of players until January.
… but things picked up.
People were calling the final 5 ties ‘nothing games.’ You might have thought that, but the players didn’t, and that’s a chink of light for next season.
We won 5 on the bounce.
The Brighton game welcomed fans back into the ground. The boys put on a performance and played to the manager’s tune. Dead game? It didn’t feel like it. The starting 11 looked balanced, well-drilled, creative, and defensively cohesive.
The football was slick and fast. Martin Odegaard and Smith Rowe were pulling creative strings. Our midfield was rock solid, the addition of Xhaka to the midfield gave us more options and left us looking less one-dimensional. Cal Chambers had another really, really good game at right-back. His touch, intelligence and defensive ability really make him stand out.
Nicolas Pepe clearly wanted to take the attention off 7-goals-in-a-row-Joe and he put on one of his best performances yet. He was taking the ball at pace and running towards goal. He was switching sides. He was cutting in. He was defending like he really, really wanted to win that game. Those two goals take his season to 19 g/a for the season. Pretty decent.
When you want to talk about the biggest mistake of the season, I’m struggling to think of a bigger one than signing Willian and giving him Pepe minutes. The player produced next to nothing and he ‘might’ be off at the end of the season. Had we passed on the Kia phone call and given those minutes to Nico or one of the other youngsters, they might have hit their stride in December, versus March.
Still, what I will say is the idea that Nico’s form has just been waiting there is so far off the mark. He’s been dreadful because he’s been dreadful. Coaching is clearly developing his game. But we incubated him at the expense of someone older who wasn’t doing it. Perhaps if we’d let him rough it out hard and fast he’d have implemented the lessons faster.
The irony of the Willian experiment is Arteta thought a seasoned pro would pick up his ideas faster. He never picked them up. I think the player complained in the press that the training was very tactical and he wasn’t used to it.
The biggest truth of the season, bundled in a raft of similar mistakes is this: Older players don’t want to learn new tricks. Nico, against my expectations, really has aggressively eaten up the development plan. He’s not here to bum around, he wants to make it at the highest level, so I’m really, really happy for him.
Back to the game. Brighton does two things well, they create a lot, and their out of possession work limits opportunities against them. Lots of people thought Graham Potter was coming to school us after watching him beat Pep at his own game and amass a whopping 19 shots at their goal, along with a 3-2 win. It didn’t happen. We controlled Brighton. They had 5 attempts, 1 on target. They were completely nullified, left to have shots from less than ideal ranges. We battered them, they were demoralized by the end of the game because that pretty style of free-flowing football they offer couldn’t get off the ground.
We have controlled most teams that way since Chelsea in December.
The one disappointment from the game was Auba. Arteta is trying to play him into form, but it’s not working. He can’t play with his back to goal and the more he tries to do that Lacazette role, the unhappier he looks. Again, an older player, being asked to do new things, and badly struggling. There was a moment when ESR bound into the box and Auba didn’t even chase the run. It’s a bit sad. I’m not sure he’s built for the system we’re trying to operate.
The game finished, the fans clapped the team off, now it’s back to the drawing board.
8th position is not good enough, but it’s clear how we got there. A shocking start we weren’t able to recover from. 38% of the season wasn’t good enough. We were 15th for points accrued, that’s grim. The mitigating circumstances, we hope, were player unrest, Thomas Partey injuries, and no creative players.
The solves, we hope, were the Hale-Enders, creativity, a fit midfield, and a better team dynamic behind the scenes. The remaining 62% of those games gave us a lot of good things, but let’s talk holistically…
We finished the season with the 3rd best defensive record in the league. That’s not bad when you consider the amount of unforced errors that are hidden away in that mess. Dim penalties, inexplicable mistakes, and just all-round punching yourself in the face. If the plan was to build from the back, Arteta has done a good job there.
The final 24 games of the season also post a cheery outlook. 2nd most points. 2nd best defensive record. 3rd most goals.
If you are looking for signs of life and you can’t feel a heartbeat in ‘6 points off 4th place, with the 2nd best form over the final 24 games after we made pointed changes at Christmas’, I honestly can’t help you.
If you thought the first 14 games were relevant enough to merit sacking Arteta, I can’t listen to you tell me the 24 games after count as a mathematical sleight of hand. Again, just to remind you, I understand that the league is 38 games, but we’re searching for light, I’m not trying to convince you we actually won a trophy.
The best part about our little finish to the season was that we kept the pressure on Europe, won all our games, and were pipped by Spurs after a Kasper horror show. Have you ever felt so fine about missing out on St Totts day? I know my pulse on this is right because not one Spurs fans messaged me to gloat about their achievement.
Missing out on Europe is huge for us. It gives Arteta more time to work with a squad that will have new additions. It’ll keep our players fresh for Premier League games as we don’t have to travel long distances to play pubs teams on pub pitches. We’ll also have fans in the ground for Saturday 3pm games.
The summer objectives are clear. We need to be ruthless, fast, and clinical in the decisions we make.
Leadership has moved on coaching staff already. I was very sad to see Steve Bould sacked. Seems like a pretty brutal decision to make on a guy that has served the club diligently for 30 years. I remember him setting up Tony Adams with a peach of a chipped pass for the final goal against Everton to win the league in 1998. I wish him well and hope Per has a sharp idea of what he’s looking for to replace. I also wonder what happened to our PR? ‘Sacked’ is such a brutal headline for someone like Steve Bould.
Edu’s physio buddy Bruno M is out the door. Everyone loves him on the insta, but he was another disaster hire they’ve been trying to deal with for a while. I hope there is deep introspection for other areas of the coaching staff that is clearly not working. The job of Edu is to work out where the flaws in Arteta are and build muscle around them. There are flaws in the backroom team and the moves can’t stop at two changes.
Then we move onto the squad.
Arsenal needs to start selling well. Lucas Torreira just won a La Liga. Matteo G is too talented to take a shit fee on. Willock has 7 goals in 7, Newcastle want to build around him, make it happen. Then there’s a whole group of players like Kola, Hector, Willian, AMN, Reiss, Eddie, maybe Lacazette/Elneny who need to find new clubs. The market will be better this year and I think the players we have on offer this time are more buyable. It’ll also help that clubs know we have cash, so we won’t get lowballed like we did last season.
There’s so much work to do. Every addition has to be perfect if we’re to make moves on the summer. We’ll need a back-up left-back, a right-back, and a proper centre midfielder. I really, really, really hope we make Odegaard our focus. I think he has such a high ceiling. Madrid needs to sell, this would be a good moment to bring him in before he blows up at the Euros feeding that monster from Dortmund.
I also suspect there will have to be some movement for younger players on cheap deals that can pick up some of the weaknesses we have in midfield. I’m also interested to see what happened on replacing David Luiz. It’s a huge position, we have Saliba, but he’s still very green. It’s a moment for Arteta… plugging the gap with someone who is 30 is a tried and true bad approach for Arteta. Signing someone that is 25 blocks the way of a player that could have a Pepe like bounce if he’s given games.
We need to get all this done early, no pissing around until deadline day again.
Once all those moves have been secured, it’s time to use the 6 weeks worth of preseason to bed down the new ideas to ensure we have a really, really fast start. There can be no excuses next season if everything is corrected in the summer. There’s been a lot of patience, a lot of heartache, and a lot of weird stuff fans have had to deal with. Time to bring it all together and prove out the vision.
This is an exciting time to be an Arsenal fan. The club is spending money, problems are slowly being fixed, and the numbers are on our side. So you can choose to be miserable about the totality of our season, or you can be smart, and seek out the positive patterns, and put ALL your chips on next season being a banger.
Thanks for reading this season, it’s been a pleasure. Podcast later. x
They fired the wrong coach.
What did Steve Bould do to deserve such a unceremonious jettisoning from the club that he has given 30 years to?
Sure the U23s had a bad year last year, so why couldn’t we announce his departure at the end of the season with our thanks and best wishes?
Shame on you Arsenal FC for forgetting our history and those who made it.
Thank you Steve Bould, for all you did for the Red and White!
So we’re back to HOPING things get better. What happened to making sure things improve by taking definitive action? AFC is the football equivalent of a couch potato who keeps on bragging to everyone else about the six pack figure and muscles he could have if he wanted to. Arteta needed to go, but instead of taking the hard decisions now, so that the new manager could have the summer to peopare the squad, we’ve decided to drag our feet and keep him until December next year so not only content with sabotaging this season, we want to sabotage next… Read more »
Don’t think Odegaard and Norway are going to Euros btw
Anyway I still live in the hope that even now while Josh is over here that they’re actually discussing what went wrong with the season and acknowledging that the manager failed on the season. And with that being said I don’t know how they could give him more time. You earn that shit
” searching for positive ”
There is another phase for it. “Paper over the cracks”
Almunia, drop a post like that again and I’ll ban you.
I can honestly predict that we don’t have to worry about Odegaard before he blows up at the Euros feeding that monster from Dortmund.
Norway haven’t qualified for the Euros.
Marko, you spent last summer aggressively not being able to grasp Martinez over Leno. You told us the other day that you shouldn’t judge a player over recency, you should look at 8 years to get a picture of their talent. Not really a shock you can’t grasp patterns in data that would impact a nuanced decision like the one the club has undegone.
Partey had couple of nice shots on target and with a pre-season, I’m sure he will improve and we could see some goals next season from him. Willock is one of our own, scoring more than De Bruyne, Richarlison, Jack Grealish, Mason Mount, Werner this season. Even thinking of selling him at 20m is bollocks. You bring him back, integrate him the team and don’t go buying a 50m player hoping he would score 8 a season for us. With players like Saka, ESR, Martinelli, Willock, Gabriel, Saliba, KT – you can sustain a good 5 years at top if… Read more »
Frankly, I would love to see Guendouzi in the mix too. He was one of our best players 2 years back. You school the undisciplined, but don’t ostracized them forever. If it don’t work again, feel free.
Arteta needs to understand he is not Pep, we are not Barcelona and we don’t have a Messi coming up to replace Ronaldinho.
Marko, you spent last summer aggressively not being able to grasp Martinez over Leno. Pedro you know you’re in desperation mode when you have to resort to whataboutism. What about that time I thought Leno was a better keeper than Martinez… it’s juvenile I could easily bring up how you hounded out Emery after it became clear he was doing a poor job and you’re not doing that now with Mikel. It’s all pointless though cause you drank the Kool aid big time on Arteta and at this point it’s about not looking like you got it completely wrong. Again… Read more »
I like Willock. It gives us another dimension in the attack. Ode and ESR may look better and pass the ball better. I bet Willock could score more goal than both of them if he is given the freedom to do his thing.
Marko, your whole point was a whataboutism.
‘Lyon did x, Napoli did x, whataboutus?’
You are so bad at this you basically called your own argument juvenile.
I’m not desperate, because I’m right.
Arteta is staying because of the reasons in the post. You flapping around saying we should be more like Napoli is desperate.
Lool Poochettini!
Where are all those champions who gushed over this manager? “Only a matter of time” they said, “He’ll win trophies at the well positioned club” they said.
Can’t be a lot of clubs better positioned than PSG.
TR7, what happened lad…..
I will say what actually might save the god awful manager might be the fact that while we fail to make an actual smart decision on him we’ve missed out on Nagelsmann, Rose, Marsch and possibly Galtier. Might be left with a scenario where Fonseca, Allegri or I dunno Rangnick might be the only ones left.
Should have sacked him pre Christmas during that period and made a move for Marco Rose before he committed to Dortmund.
Rudi Garcia was not sacked because he missed the Champion’s League, it was announced months ago that he was leaving the club at the end of the season.
Should have signed a manager before Christmas and hoped they’d get us the 2nd most points, 2nd most goals and 3rd best defence over the remaining 24 games. We missed a trick there.
You are so bad at this you basically called your own argument juvenile. How is it juvenile to point out two clubs in similar fashion sacking their manager for not getting into the top tier of European football while we still with ours for missing out completely on European football. That’s not whataboutism it’s more what is wrong with us as a football club. I’m not desperate, because I’m right. How can you be right when post Villarreal you were implying that he was a failure and wrong for the job. I say imply because you still left yourself some… Read more »
19/20 20/21
PL 8th 8th
PL Pts 56pts 61pts
FA Cup Win 4th Rnd
EFL 4th Rnd QF
Europa L32 SF
Should have signed a manager before Christmas and hoped they’d get us the 2nd most points, 2nd most goals and 3rd best defence over the remaining 24 games. We missed a trick there. I was thinking more about sacking Arteta pre Christmas after we went through a horrific barren run to get in a clearly better manager. Again I don’t really buy into the whole upward trend post Christmas nonsense cause there was still inconsistent performances embarrassing defeats and struggles along the way. Also worth noting that Wenger made it his mantra post Christmas/Jan where he’d end the season with… Read more »
One of the main reasons for cutting down the size of our current squad next season is that we will be probably playing 10 fewer games as well as not playing in midweek. So from my perspective we need probably one less midfielder in our squad than would be normally the case if we were playing in Europe. From my point of view we should be offloading both Elneny and Ceballos and replace one of them with an upgrade to rotate with Partey and Xhaka. So the question you need to ask would Willock be a reasonable replacement for Odegaard?… Read more »
Purely on metrics compared to last season:
PL – same position, 6 more points = 20/21 wins
FA Cup – 4th Rnd v Winner = 19/20 wins
EFL – QF v 4th Rnd = 20/21 wins
Europa – SF v L32 = 20/21 wins
Improvement in 3 competitions and regression in the other year on year = 20/21 is champion
Pedro “they’d get us the 2nd most points, 2nd most goals and 3rd best defence over the remaining 24 games. ” The problem with this argument is you are clearly choosing to ignore the negatives . 3 defeats in PL. Failing to score at home in 10 matches , including the EL semifinal (which was during the Christmas period) . Opting to start non performers over form based players . Muddled tactics . Not knowing the best XI . Slow turgid football. All of these issues I agree Arteta can turn around but dont come out and say he did… Read more »
Oh and a Community Shield. How did I forget?
Marko,
‘I don’t buy into 24 games samples’ whilst saying a 14 game sample is enough to sack a manager.
Post-Christmas is important because it was a turning point. Arteta could have had no complaints if he was fired, he wasn’t, he fixed key issues and we’ve been in Champions form since.
Kicked out the dickheads
Found creativity
Got Thomas Partey back
‘How is 62% of the season relevant’ isn’t really a provocative or thoughtful question.
*13 defeats in PL
Emiratesstroller Willock is 21, 6-12 months can be a long time at that age Smith-Rowe went from Huddersfield to Arsenal Saka went from sitting out the back end of last season, to becoming our most important player this season Mount went from Derby, to starring in the CL and PL for Chelsea Young players improve with playing time Willock isn’t anywhere near the finished article, but at 21 he’s not supposed to be From the players perspective, he now needs to start playing every week, if Arsenal can’t offer him that, then he’s best off going to play every week… Read more »
Improvement in 3 competitions and regression in the other year on year = 20/21 is champion
Stupidest thing that I’ve read on here today. Dumped out embarrassingly in all the cup competitions. We had the easiest group and knock out run in the Europa League and we still drew to slavia lost to olympiakos and couldn’t beat a Villarreal side
Stroller – Just because we have no European competition mid week it does not mean we won’t need to rotate the midfield based on injuries, form and fatigue.
I do not see the benefit in cashing in on Willock just to spend the money on Sander Berge for example because he might be better for Arteta’s system.
If it came down to keeping Willock or selling permanently in order to buy Ode then yes maybe I’d consider it if the price for Ode isn’t extortionate, but even then it’s a tough one for me.
Norwich signed Buendia from Getafe for €1.5 million two years ago. We have to learn how other teams are doing their business. We shouldn’t target only established players like Pepe or Buendia when their values are already high.
“It should not be forgotten that Willock made very little impact when playing for us in first half of this season.” If a post Christmas assessment of our season is acceptable then a post Christmas assessment of Willock’s season is also acceptable is it not? For the record wasn’t that impressed by Odegaard – what is it he does exactly? He doesn’t seem to have a defining feature or a weapon that will improve us. For the money and the wages he’d command it would be a ‘no’ from me. On Willock I agree with an earlier post, he’ll do… Read more »
Rich
As I posted earlier if we were playing in Europe next season I would bring back Willock. You
would need at least SIX Midfielders to meet our commitments.
However, we are playing ten fewer games than we would be normally playing. I have no problem holding on to Willock and loaning him out for another season, but not bringing him
back and underusing him.
Nelson
And that is why we need someone like Ocampos who is available right now.
He churns out gems, left and right
‘I don’t buy into 24 games samples’ whilst saying a 14 game sample is enough to sack a manager. Well I’m saying he could of and should have been sacked before Christmas but now I’m judging it over the course of the WHOLE season and not being ever so selective. If you don’t think he deserves to be sacked after the season we just had then I dunno what to tell you I don’t think there’s any helping you. Which is funny considering post Villarreal you were basically calling for him to go he fixed key issues and we’ve been… Read more »
How is 62% of the season relevant’ isn’t really a provocative or thoughtful question.
Again for the umpteenth time I’m counting the WHOLE season not just the back end or the final few games where we had nothing to play for.
Bringing back Willock now only to use him as an impact sub or start in Carabao cup games would be a disaster to both the club and the player
Of course Willock would look bad when he is asked to be the ACM. He is a box to box CM. For him to be effective, we’ll have to play 4 3 3. We’ll need a striker and two inside forwards who can carry the ball and keep the opposing defenders busy. Willock could then pick up the lose ball and do his thing. He has an accurate shot and a good header. These are valuable skills to have.
Agreed Nelson, if it means tweaking formations from time to time to accommodate a goal scoring box to box midfielder then so be it. We have potentially a great asset, not just a potential 20-30 million added to the transfer budget.
Not sure Arteta knows how to tweak a system to accommodate players. He seems to have his way of playing and that’s it. Every time he’s tried to tweak it’s gone pretty badly.
A 433 of pepe Martinelli Saka as the forwards,
with a midfield of partey willock buendia is good enough defensively park the bus teams.
Arteta has his work cut out for him. In his shoes, I’d focus on youth and relatively experienced new players. There are entirely too many toxic elements with some of the senior players as highlighted by Pedro. *Xhaka is just not what we need and never was the quality that would solidify our midfield. I like the idea of a Partey, Bissouma, Willock, Azeez, Buendia, ESR and Elneny midfield. *We need clarity over Lacazette and Aubameyang. The annoying thing is that they are really good at different things. Lacazette works very hard on and off the ball. He lacks Sanchez’s… Read more »
Absolute no to Meslier, looked very shaky every time I’ve seen him.
Danny S – Yes when he has made changes we have had complete mistakes like the Partey one-man midfield against Villarreal but we have also had the previous seasons FA cup run where I think he was tactically on point in the majority of those games.
We’re a club in transition, we’ve been on a downward curve for a long time, some of our players look far too casual, treating Arsenal like some type of holiday camp, I don’t have a problem with Arteta’s hardline approach Wenger and KSE were happy for us to tread-water for years, and as clubs around have improved, we’ve started going under The traditional top 4 became the top 6, the top 6 the top 8, and there’s a few clubs below that who have also now closed the gap, and at the same time we’ve gone backwards Arteta clearing out… Read more »
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-9612979/Arsenal-defender-Hector-Bellerin-reveals-turned-alcohol-deal-injury-hell.html
Typical lefty….. multimillionaire footballer playing the victim card
My heart bleeds……
There can be no excuses next season…So how many months will we give Artita before we start making excuses again for him ?. One month, two months, by Christmas ?
Zidane is leaving Madrid this summer and his successor is not yet announced
That successor has to make up his mind about Ode after a pre-season
Arteta alluded to the u certainty about Odegaard when he said ” “I don’t know. It’s not in our hands so I don’t know.”.
We cannot afford a summer where we wait on a player like we did for Aouar last summer. The same player fell off a cliff this season.
“Lots of people thought Graham Potter was coming to school us after watching him beat Pep at his own game and amass a whopping 19 shots at their goal, along with a 3-2 win.”
Err city played with 10men from the 10th minute Pedro. Also, I’m pretty sure they were comfortably leading before the red.
Yeah honestly no one should read anything into any game that happened post Villarreal our season ended there. And outside of Liverpool Chelsea and Leicester literally nobody had anything to play for since the champions and relegated teams were decided for a long time now. Basically we were fighting for between 10/11th and 8th there at the end so utterly pointless
BUENDIA
BISOUMA
and Hakimi would be my choice with Bisouma being the priority as him and Partey would be a formidable partnership ideally suited to the physical side of the prem and they would be able to lock the middle of the park and alow the attacking players more freedom to express them selves 2 would be BUENDIA and defo over ODE
“8 points off 3rd place Chelsea, the team that spent £250m on a top 4 squad last summer.
6 points off 4th place Liverpool, the team that won the league last season with 100 points.”
One had their own version of Arteta in charge for most of the campaign, who they duly sacked & are in the champions league final as a result. The other literally had all of their centre backs out for the season.
But yeah, I’m quite certain none of that affected them & 8points infront of arsenal is their true level.
If you wanted Arteta out because we had 14 points from 14 games and sat in 15th place, then you can’t very well dismiss the improvement in the 24 matches since. – We lost 8 of the 14 opening games. – We lost 5 of the remaining 24. Not bothered what your take is on the season as a whole, it can be chopped up to any number of views. But flat out dismissing the trend present in the season is pure dishonesty. Pre-Christmas was incredibly poor, we improved from there, we were undone by such a bad start. That’s… Read more »
Rich, mental health problems aren’t the exclusive domain of the the poor and needy, nor of the left or the right. Compassion seems to be in shorter supply on one side though.
Obviously we shouldn’t judge Arteta based on his results for the whole season. The Premier league begins Post Christmas.
I thought this was common knowledge.
CC agree with your PL review but I have to say my confidence in Arteta was massively affected. by the way he set the team up for the two Europa League SF ties.
What this an aberration on his part or should we accept that Arteta is still far from the finished article?
Digital Bob. Thorough – I think we have room for Willock to contribute and for another midfielder to come in, although this depends on what happens with Odegaard.My point is giving the nationality squad quota, and the position we find ourselves in, I wouldn’t be so quick to cash in on Willock. It’s also not a guarantee we get the chance to bring him back should his recent form turn out to be the start of something great for the guy. IF we’re selling Willock to fund Odegard then that’s a no no from me. And I think he’s done… Read more »
Did we gain more points per game as the season went on? I think we did.
If anyone improves at anything along the way it’s called progress. If they get worse it’s regression.
Our progress may not be sufficient for us to be where we want to be but it’s progress nonetheless.
I’m sure Arteta himself would chuckle at the notion of being termed the finished article any time soon.
But this is how Arsenal of 2021 rolls.
Not bothered what your take is on the season as a whole, it can be chopped up to any number of views. But flat out dismissing the trend present in the season is pure dishonesty If you’re not bothered then that’s great we can forget another pointless back and forth then. Chopped to any number of views could literally be thrown at anything and everything. And it’s really not dishonest to dismiss a trend that is not there to begin with as in improvement. Again as has been stated before many times our season didn’t begin at Christmas and he’s… Read more »
An experienced old head like Wenger couldn’t go onto the next season and really kill it after having a good end to the season at times so there is of course no guarantees at all that a novice like Arteta is going to be capable of it either.
Also worth noting despite this idea of post Christmas being so good we still had some pretty bad performances against palace, wolves, Burnley, Villa, West Ham and Fulham in the league and Southampton in the fourth round of the FA Cup not to mention slavia Prague,olympiakos and two games against Villarreal in the Europa. But yeah other than that top 4 form
Marko nails the point about the irregularity of the post-December recovery
We were stil playing like a spinning top, when we played better teams we still looked very bad like Liverpool and city.
Then we had several games to forget against Villa and Burnley because Arteta was still trying to ram Willian into the team.
Arteta can still have an outside chance of top four next season if he really addresses that midfield but even then there will be the idea from many that it is actually the players themselves that are propelling the club forward rather than anything really special Arteta is doing himself.
Such has been the overall impression so far that Arteta has left with more than enough fans.
Dissenter we were literally jeykll and Hyde pre pointless run in games that started with West Brom prior to that the narrative was that we were incredibly inconsistent and he didn’t know what he was doing. It’s alarming how easily it’s forgotten how bad he was just a few weeks back. The Everton game was where it should have ended. Right after that performance I knew that whether it was Arteta going into the second leg or some assistant temporarily in charge we stood about the same chance he inspired that much confidence
My heart bleeds…..
Nouveau Rich
You can be breathtakingly crass at times little man. Here’s some medical advice for your liberally bleeding heart.
Sit down in a cupboard and don’t tell anyone you’re there. For about three days. Think of all that money you’ll be saving the public purse as you drift off…
Second leg being against Villarreal
I’ll also just throw up a quote in reference to our post Christmas form and significance
““Yes, it [our form] is very good but the league is played over 38 games,”
Arteta said that btw
Pedro
The weird season wasn’t just in the Premier League.
It’s not as weird as the year leicester won the league. Look at the top 4 table. look at the teams across Europe, the top teams are still at the top. Only at arsenal can we come 8th and try to spin it as a weird season for everyone.
Euros in the summer, so a ready made excuse for arteta again. It disrupted our rhythm, we had no pre season, we couldn’t get in the players we wanted. Boo Hoo, everyone is against the chosen one.
Arsenal played a very serious game in the last two useless games and experimented in the semis of the EL. What a twat? Yesterday’s game would have been perfect to give some of the youngsters a cameo, thank the home fans got actually turning up after a shit show of a season. Give us a glimpse of what we can expect next season.
The players did play like it was a cup final but sadly it was against Brighton.
Ishola
I agree about the midfield but I’ don’t think there wil be clear eyed ruthlessness in dealing with the problems, maybe is his hands are forced by players requesting to move.
The midfield isn’t just an issue of additions, it’s going to involve departures of some of the favorites of the manager.
Xhaka needs to be moved on, Sign Bissouma to take his spot in the team
Sell Elneny for whatever is on offer and let Willock take that place.
Sign an attacking mid like Buendia
Bring Miguel Azeez on the squad, he’s too good for the U-23s.
Marko
Exactly. For all the post Christmas run that has us as a 2nd or 3rd team according to pedro, I can barely remember 10 games that we have totally dominated and won through out the whole season. Fine margins games aren’t dominant. We have sterile possession and we expect to win from the 5 shots on target at most that we take. Performances haven’t been there like Pedro has been saying. If they were we would be behind him and call him unlucky.
Just want to mention. Ödegaard Will not make any noise in the euros this summer because norway didnt qualify for the playoffs
That Chelsea win towards the end kinda perfectly summed up how we were winning games throughout the season for the most part. Unconvincing with a lucky goal by a mistake then men behind the ball. I’d love to see the xg stat gurus come out in force for Mikel after that season but I have a distinct feeling that even most of the stats don’t make for a good case for sticking with him
Dissenter “I agree about the midfield but I’ don’t think there wil be clear eyed ruthlessness in dealing with the problems” No. You are probably right. Hoping this may occur is a very long shot. It entails really uprooting the make-up of this midfield that we have seen for years now and it will be probably be beyond Arteta’s compass to do this. Ideally he needs to get in midfielders that are all comfortable playing in the centre of the park. It would give the team such a better scope to work from and just make them overall more competitive… Read more »
Gonsterous ””””Look at the top 4 table. look at the teams across Europe, the top teams are still at the top.”””” Folk only want to look at the ‘Christmas Table Top’ They don’t want to look at the real data. Only data for dummies for them. Every big club out there in Europe, by hook or crook got top 4. Dortmund, Liverpool, Juventus and Chelsea all looked in peril for the CL places at some stage but they somehow did it. I don’t care how they did it. But they did it. And thats why they are BIG clubs and… Read more »
Habesha,
Hard to marry ‘I HAVE SEEN NO DOMINANCE SINCE XMAS’ with 2nd most points, 2nd most goals, 3rd best defence.
What do you think has been going on?
Pedro-
Whoaaaaa Long Read indeed. Your putting in some words.. 😀
While I don’t agree with all those words.. I’m deeply concerned over Arteta’s decision making for example. And I do believe most serious Clubs would have sacked him for results. Football is a results oriented business.
However, I do agree I don’t want to sit here all summer and be miserable as fuck about everything.. So . hoping we all have something to be happy about starting next season.
Pedro
Have no idea how my post could be considered offensive.
Disagrees with you, but offensive?
CG, Premier League has a lot more big clubs.
Full on propaganda going on on Twitter over some guy mentioning Edu and or Mikel could be in line for the sack. That Christmas table is going to be trending soon… just don’t mention Villarreal or our league finish or the previous 6 months though
What is it about the internet that makes people repetitively spout negativity? What are they hoping to achieve? There’s no possibility of a conversation or dialogue unless you count like minded people supporting their viewpoint but it’s so nihilistic. I just don’t get it.
What did Almunia say that warranted a ban Pedro?
Guy is a gent, just happens to sit on the other side of the Arteta fence. Becoming more like Untold on here by the day unfortunately.
There’s a wanker that still posts on here with impunity that personally abuses anyone that doesn’t chug the juice from Arteta’s knackers like he so fondly does and has already been banned before on more than a dozen monikers.
WE who is that? Seems like aubergine to me
The obsession with top four is worthy of Wenger at his best.It was eventually used as a stick to beat him with .How ironic is it that the very same mob now screaming that Arteta is a failure use the same mantric by which to diss any progress with our current league position.To say there has been no progress whatsoever is extremely disingenuous smacking of a warped agenda or juvenile shit stirring .
Bob the internet is a big place I’m sure there’s a spot somewhere where you can just bury your head in the sand
A few rumours doing the rounds that Edu is walking on dodgy ground
Not sure why we’d wait until now to make a decision, but bringing in an experienced Director Of Football with a proven track record, certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing
If Arteta then wants to do something crazy like bringing in a 32yr Willian here on a 3yr deal to win the Champions League, they’ll at least be someone with the common sense to laugh it straight out of the room
It would actually be hilarious if they looked at that season and thought huh you know what how about we sack everyone but the manager
Seems to me if Edu.. is on shaky grounds then by proxy so would Arteta because any serious Director of Football is going to want there own guy coaching..
””””Bob the internet is a big place I’m sure there’s a spot somewhere where you can just bury your head in the sand”””
Well said Marko
(Off to your yoga class with Hector , Bob)
Its not even an Arsenal issue. Its what sport is all about.
Its about achieving your targets.
Its what Phil Mickelson accomplished yesterday.
Middy if there is serious discussions going on about people being sacked after the season we just had (there should be) I don’t know how the manager couldn’t be discussed. It literally would make no sense. Unless Mikel got Josh a watch then I dunno he might be saved
“And it’s really not dishonest to dismiss a trend that is not there to begin with as in improvement.“
This is the sort of person you’re dealing with, complete flat earther denying facts.
In the first 14 league games we were 15th in the table, in the 24 league games since we moved up to 8th by being 2nd in the form table.
Apparently that’s not a trend demonstrating improvement through the season. Nothing but dishonest.
Diet Pep during the post christmas period has relied on the same luck Bummery had during his 22 game run, it was clear the football was turgid.
Im telling you for free!
Marko, The stats are skewed in his favours, because we had a few easy games that we dominated. However we won and drew a fair few games despite having a negative xG difference. To me that is due to a combination of luck and having elite players who in some case never give up. However next season when the situation will stabilise (no COVID, people in stadium, …), I do expect us to be back in mid table mediocrity between 6th and 10th. That’s exactly where the underlying stats and performance point. ManCity, ManUtd, Chelsea, Liverpool will be back to… Read more »
WE, if you want to use abuse of women on this site to illustrate a trivial point, you have no place here. That is disgusting behaviour.
Valentin
Who’s the Villa academy player?
Marko, It would be so easy to say your head is buried in the sands but I’m not going there. For the sake of argument, let’s say that there are three main positions on Arteta: 1) Arteta is the second coming and he’ll take us into the promised land (2% ?) 2) Arteta has a lot to learn, lucky that he’s still in a job but there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic (70% ?) 3) Arteta is an egotist, delusionist, incompetent- basically a useless c*nt ( 28%?) The ‘28%’ can’t get past their position. There’s no point discussing ins… Read more »
WE, if you want to tell me someone who abuses people I don’t see, then let it be known and I’ll deal with it.
Lorient boss Christophe Pelissier: “At the end of January we had 12 points. We finished 5th in terms of the 2nd half of the season.”
They finished 16th btw… you think that’s considered a success? Maybe
Pedro
What do you think has been going on?
—
We’ve been playing shit. That’s what has been going on. Even the games we won were unenjoyable. Can you list 5 to 10 games this season that you thoroughly enjoyed?
Again, what’s the target for next season? Top 4? Top 6? Or the “nullified Brighton” trophy?
Bob, Marko has spent all morning telling us he doesn’t understand data and trends. Hard to debate someone that is militant about their own ignorance.