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
Bob N16 Well summed up Arseblog wrote something similar this morning: We actually won our last five Premier League games, and with 61 points it’s very difficult not to feel some serious regret about what happened earlier in the campaign. 61 points got us 8th; Chelsea finished 4th with 67. You can’t help but think of the games against Burnley; of that run in November/December when we were dreadful; the stupid red cards we picked up which had such an impact on performances and results; and I guess you can go two ways with those thoughts. If you’re an optimist,… Read more »
Bob
There is no need for your three criteria and your percentages to go along with them.
You either believe Arteta is the right appointment for Arsenal or you don’t.
All this cautious optimism stuff is just fluff.
Almunia, you want to talk about abused women to make a point about football, go somewhere else. Totally inappropriate.
Val
You have forgotten that they have Martinez in goal.
I am hoping Ceballos is not coming back, that Willian is off to Miami and that MO is prised away from Real Madrid. I wouldn’t be sad to see the back of Aubameyang either, he is not Captain material and his contribution this season has been dire. Kane leaving Spurs and our not having 3rd tier European football should see the return of St Totteringhams day, next season. Can West Ham compete for the top 6 next season as well? Can Leicester continue their form or will they regress? I can’t see Everton improving, my one big concern for next… Read more »
Valentin, interesting that xG is defacto for Arsenal, but you ignore it for other clubs and heap praise on them.
Reducing defensive errors and improving our approach in the final third can be addressed with good signings. Think we can move up a level far easier than most of those other clubs you mentioned.
Wow wow & wow again.Bob,v.well put & a fair assessment.The 28% is how I shall refer to the Doom n gloomers going forward & their warped way of analysing the season with a disregard to any progress,18 months only,inherited problems & only two windows so far to sort the mess out.But they’re entitled to their opinions but f** k me are they depressing.Still not too long to see who right next season.Cant wait.
I better indicator would be xG table since chrismas
I think there was clearly improvement .. but improvement over a base of terrible.. and then also throw in … whatever that was Arteta was trying to do against Villareal.. and it still doesn’t give me a lot of confidence going into next season. I understand the form table. and it mainly coincides with the rise of ESR and Pepe late on. . We are one injury away from… back to terrible again, imo. I’m optimistic about some of our players who are poised to break out next season not so much about how we set up for matches. I… Read more »
https://understat.com/league/EPL
Here’s a league table with the relevant expected values for goals, goals against, points.
Takes a really creative mind to work out a scenario where the data is somehow cherry picked favourably for us.
Can we fuck off please with this constant left wing political signalling on here.
And that goes for right wing too.
Some of us want a break from twitter shite and hope to escape from it on here.
For once, I agree with Ish.
No politics unless it’s about The Arsenal
Yep.. I’m burnt out on politics…. get it from all sides these days.. ‘don’t need it in my footie, too.
Ishola, are you seriously saying it’s a binary position on Arteta? If you think Arteta is not up to the job fair enough but to suggest there is no possibility that with a great TW, lessons learnt from last season and young players continuing to improve we can’t make significant improvements is overly pessimistic. I have no certainty about whether Arteta will be our manager this time next year, I hope he is because I’d imagine we’d have had a much improved season. I have significant doubts but I can see the possibility that he’ll reflect on his mistakes and… Read more »
Ishola70
Well said mate.
The only left-wing I’m interested in is who is going to play in front of Tierney?
Bob
I think it boils down to real belief.
Whether you have that in Arteta or not.
Bob
Nuance? Never heard of him, who does he play for?
Great post Midwest, particularly the last paragraph.
Arsenal aren’t the only team to do it but the over reliance on the backwards, sideways passing does my head in. I’m confident though that if we can upgrade Xhaka, too much pointing and passing backwards, with a player who like Partey, can receive the ball under pressure, the opposition will have less time to organise themselves!
Pedro, The problem with average is that often they don’t mean anything. 9 people on $10k per year and 1 person on $1,010k per year gives you an average of $100k per year person. The median value $10k is closer to the reality, but most people will talk about the average. Same thing about our sample. We have a few outliers games where the xG difference is heavily in your favour, but most of the others it is against Arsenal or neutral compared to the result. In the long run, that’s not sustainable. No team can keep winning or drawing… Read more »
I am curious as to why Pedro is so convinced we have “money” to spend this summer? Obviously we’ll make the odd signing but if the Kroenke’s are going to sign off on some serious cash just how much are we talking about?
CC, Carlos Nuance, grew up on the shores of Lake Titicaca, been banging them in for Always Ready (current Bolivian champions). Bit of a party animal( marching powder) but maybe worth a punt!
Rich,
Carney Chukwuemeka
Looks like the vulture are already circling. ManUtd and Liverpool are reported to be interested.
If you can’t make a point without resorting to infantile name calling, whichever side of the fence you sit then quite frankly you should trundle back of to the kindergarten that is ‘Untold’. You know who you are.
Already looking forward to next season..Arteta hasn’t had a pre season (for a new manager I think that’s pretty important..
Partey will be better as will our youngsters.. add to that 2-3 1st team players .. should re coup 50 mill +
Futures bright
Re Willian season shows he was a mistake but I can see why he persisted just probably persisted a bit too long .. but he stopped starting with him months ago
Valentin, what the basic xG numbers don’t consider is where the bad numbers come from. Bernd Leno isn’t in the top 10 keepers for Football365, yet he conceded the 3rd least goals all season. You wouldn’t put any of our defenders in a team of the season, but numbers-wise, that’s surprising. Auba scored 10 goals this season, he’s normally good for 30. You don’t see what playing a sulky captain does for your game. Arsenal mostly controls games. They’ve been very good at limiting sides getting at them. They’ve struggled with errors, which we can rectify, a lot of bad… Read more »
“If you can’t make a point without resorting to infantile name calling”
Yeah you’ve got to be some sort of complete wanker to go round calling people names.
Midwest
“Yep.. I’m burnt out on politics…. get it from all sides these days.. ‘don’t need it in my footie, too”.
Couldn’t agree more. I hate politics, try to keep it to myself. Too many people try to force their political opinions down your throat today, it’s become so toxic. Even the social media techs are getting involved. I don’t know if it is the same in the USA but back in the day here in the UK, your political allegiances were kept close to your chest.
Best stick to football, that’s not toxic at all……!!
Marc, ‘money to spend’ wil turn out to be whatever we can recoupe from sales. The loan from the government has been repaid by another loan on less favourable terms and we are looking at a £150m loss this season. So we need our sales team to step up, which given their track record is worrying. Probably also worth mentioning we will probably have to pay more players to leave – Kola for one. And anyone who thinks we are selling Auba needs to remember that he’s not going to get £300k+ pw anywere else. Willain may also need ‘encouraging’… Read more »
Marc, I knew I could rely on you!
Marc,
The issue is that buying somebody is an all package. If you buy big name player, you have to pay big wage. But Josh wants to reduce the wage bill.
Getting rid of all the youngster on cheap salary may numerically reduce the aggregated wage bill, but then you just help create another Özil/Aubameyang problem. A player with a long term contract on high wage that do not match his value to the team anymore.
If you at Arsenal in the recent term, none of the high money purchase have been financially worth it.
Too many people try to force their political opinions down your throat today,
_______
Yes .. you have met my family then. I have become a master at changing the subject at the family reunions.
andy That’s pretty much been my position for a while now but with the caveat that some of our so called salable assets aren’t going to be that easy to sell or realise as much as we’d lilke. Laca for example – he’s on £180k per week with a year left is he going to take a huge drop in pay when he can leave on a free and get a signing on fee etc in a year? Of course we will raise some money but Pedro’s been pushing quite a strong line that we’ll be spending a significant sum… Read more »
Mid
I’ve become a master of being so obnoxious that they don’t even invite me anymore.
Trust me it’s the way to go!
Marc, pretty clear that Josh is trying to buy off fans this summer after his super league showing.
We’ll sell a lot of players as well.
Busy one, but the club won’t have to wait until the last day of the window to make big moves this season.
Pedro and his Arteta agenda.
Birds of a feather, me thinks…
All the teams above AFC will improve their squads as well and their respective managers will get better too.
So as far as AFC is concerned, it will be business as usual next season.
By Christmas, Pedro’s Chosen One, pardon, Special Saucy One, will be out the door.
Can’t forget those game in the autumn where Mikel was playing Willian at the time when everyone knew he was utter shit.
Every team looks to improve but our improvements are likely to be more significant points wise as we left so many points on the table. One would assume VVD will return and make a big difference and City could buy a CF but…..
Pedro
I’m not so sure – they’ll chuck a £20 – £30 million signing at us but i don’t see much more beyond sales and I’m not sure we’ll raise a fortune on that either.
You can’t slag off the quality of the players and then think you’ll sell them for big money.
Unless of course Doris is feeding you info!
Pedro, I don’t favour Leeds or Aston Villa over Arsenal. I just think that if they recruit smartly their margin for progression is higher than ours. Arteta entire system is based on slow, ponderous play and being difficult to open. So we may be difficult to beat, but we don’t score enough goals to win easily. The number of goals scored at home is one of the lowest in our history. That was one of criticism of Arteta is that he was happy that we were never spanked, but the flip side is that we never spanked any team either.… Read more »
Marc, we have lots of decent players we could get good money for.
Hector being pursued by PSG
Willock, Reiss and Eddie will all fetch a decent number
AMN, if we sell him, will have EPL clubs in for him
Torreira and Matteo will get ok cash
We’ll recoup what we paid for Leno
Kola and Willian, massive ifs, will free wages
Then you have Lacazette who might get a bit of a fee
“Can’t forget those game in the autumn where Mikel was playing Willian at the time when everyone knew he was utter shit.“
Which ones in particular?
Midwest
I have never been to the windy city mate, so probably not!
Valentin, Arteta’s game is based on control. To improve speed and attacking numbers, he needs ball players and athletes.
I think we can do that in the summer.
“I don’t favour Leeds or Aston Villa over Arsenal. I just think that if they recruit smartly their margin for progression is higher than ours.“
Based on what?
Leeds, Spurs, and Villa over performed the most in xGA this season, where’s the consistency that their poor defences will rectify itself at some point?
Really rudimentary to argue that improving our attack will destabilise our defence too, Man City have the best defence in the league because their attack is so potent in controlling outcomes and pitch territories.
Pedro
I’d forgot about Bellerin! But at a stab –
Bellerin – £25 million
Willock – £20 – £25 million – important thing here is a sell on clause.
Reiss – £7 million
Nketiah – £10 – £12 million
AMN – £17 million
Torriera – think we’ll see another loan or negligible fee
Guendozi – £15 million
That’s £100 odd million when we’ll need a new RB, CM, and CAM while a new RCB keeps being mentioned as on Arteta’s shopping list.
Valentin Smith-Rowe + Saka should improve next season, Odegaard will be better next season if we can get him A top attacking right back should improve us down that side I’m not saying we should go for Grealish, even though I like him, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least, we’ve been burnt with big fees and wages, and his shin injuries are a concern, but I don’t think a signing like that is as far fetched as some seem to think Arsenal can’t afford to invest, KSE can’t afford not to invest If we can clear the decks,… Read more »
Who’s going to pat 25 million for Bellerin?
CC, in 2017, City added 20+ goals in one season by adding mostly defenders to their squad.
*pay 25 million
Dissenter
I was trying to by into Pedro’s happy positive summer time!
Stan better throw in some $$$
Add 100M,
So 200M, we can get back to speed, and have a crack at top 4.
I only hope Arteta knows what he is doing. Someone better keep this fella in check… short leash this time
Diss, PSG apparently offered 35m last summer.
SF
“Stan better throw in some $$$
Add 100M,”
Or what?
The only thing is we cannot wait. Get shit done early.
No waiting like we usually do and trying to see if teams will sell cheap
Aulas schooled Edu with that shit.
Team needs to be re built fast as we can.
Pedro
Mate really?
“Diss, PSG apparently offered 35m last summer.”
You’re supposed to be in marketing for crying out loud – telling me and a few others that Arteta’s still the right choice and then reminding everyone of another (it’s a mind boggling list) of his major fuck ups.
Marc
or we cannot get what we need with 100M
We need another 100 M
If they can throw us 40M for TP, full price, they can add to our players sales
Kamala Harris will be president before Diet pep gets Arsenal back in the CL
You heard it here 1st!
Sid
Mate we can’t get into next seasons CL.
SF
So we can’t get what we need then what?
The problem is thinking players like Willian are ball players and athletes
Spending £200 million, only helps us if the people allocating those funds are competent
A fool and his money are easily parted
If for example we sell Bellerin for £35 million, which seems far fetched, but then replace him with a player just as average, it doesn’t really help us
Paying Kolasinac to leave, then replacing him with another subpar journeyman looking for one last payday, is straight up lunacy
I am looking at the post Christmas results Other than 5 wins in a row in May once nothing to play for – its not pretty reading. I just don’t see this legenadary uptick in results. Its too patchy with really poor February & April and average March (the business end) Some truly woeful results: O-0 Man Utd H ( a poor Man U team at the time, for the taking) 0-0 Palace H 2-1 Wolves A 0-1 Villa A 0-1 City H ( it was a thrashing) 3-3 WHU A (actually a decent result in hindsight, imagine saying that… Read more »
This is a good point and is a push back to those that just always say throw forwards attackers at the problem. That Man City point is an example that Pedro gave. And another would be why have that Liverpool frontline not clicked anywhere near like it did last season? Would it have something to do with Liverpool being out of kilter this season in other areas of the team and this in itself affects the attack itself? It’s quite startling that some just don’t see that if you are healthy and strong in areas up to the attacking areas… Read more »
Rich
It’s like a really bad soap opera at Arsenal – personally I’d like to see some serious changes. Bin off Edu and get a serious DOF in then let them do what needs doing.
Wenger eagle
That was a very nice thing to say,thank you.
Kroenkephobe
Thanks mate but I forgot the golden rule, don’t fall out with the proprietor! Pedro’s house, Pedro’s rules.
Hitman
You need to add a note to the Fulham result. Precisely what minute did we get the equalizer?
Good point Marc. Almost a defeat. I’d switched off by then…
Damn, Hitman’s notoriety just went up several points after that kill. But will the agenda stay dead though…Stay tuned
I love all these twitter rumors about Arteta’s job not being safe
Qualification for Europe was discussed as the basic minimum for staying in the job
Someone needs to make Arteta not too comfortable.
How dare he be asking for “ruthlessness” after not meeting his basic target.
And so what’s your point Marko? – that we should all be as depressed as you are or take a leaf out of Pedro’s book and accept that shit happens but look for green shoots? The latter for me whether Arteta is generational or not. He certainly won’t be the first manager to have a very rocky start
Maybe we should celebrate we don’t dump managers after 10 minutes of playing badly.
Pedro, remind me again who are the third biggest net spenders over the last five years?
Not Chelsea.
Point being we could spend £200m but if we don’t improve our decision making in the market we may as well piss it down the drain.
Remember ‘winning the transfer window’ in summer 2019? Didn’t turn out too well. Worth remembering that this isn’t ‘free’ money, AFC will be paying for these purchases and for the loans for years so fuck it up again and we’ll be in an even worse state than we are now.
Who will be ruthless with Arteta?
Who will hold him accountable?
Pedro, who do you think this will be? Edu? Josh? Vinai?
I just need to know who to direct my anger at…. thanks
Missing on Europe is not good for us. Long rest did now work for us lately. Still time to get rid of Tets.
Decline continues. We are new AC Milan now.
2017 Man c signed Ederson (KDB of goalkeepers), we signed runnarson, Kyle walker & Mendy, we signed Soares, the signed Bernado silva
Thats context(Diet pep)
Im telling you for free!
How wrong were you guys on Pepe. Wilian Zaha Nelson all garbage.
I’m confused as to where the renewed optimism came from after the Villarreal game where Pedro said He will have no excuses if he’s moved on. I dunno did the nothing games at the end there bring about renewed hope
Worth taking into account our home grown quota regarding Willock. Last time I read we need to sell more non home grown players if we wish to buy more
In Willock we have a home grown player from the academy, one of our own, who has come on leaps and bounds with a decent amount of consistent game time.
Personally I think we would be nuts to sell him.
SO Stan just loans us the money…. wonderful
I told them pepe is as good as Alexis
I told them Willock is better than Soumare
I told them partey is equal to Alex song
Obviously Pedro has an argument for an improved showing next season and there’s a lot of talk of Christmas being the make or break decision time but IMO by the time the transfer window closes it should be pretty clear if it’s onwards and upwards or further decline.
Marko, football is emotional and so is writing about it. It’s really not confusing at all.
That game could have ended a lot of coaches, it didn’t. Cup games happen. Brendan Rodgers went out to Slavia Prague.
Important thing is the season didn’t die after that game, the players stood up, and we won our final 5 games. No downing tools. Plenty to be positive about.
I hear Matheus Pereira is available for a low as 15 million
H’s good for 5-10 league goals a season. He’s one of the best shooters in the league.
Willock will stay it’s the older players that will go MA needs powerful players that can run Willian laca xhaka do not fit the criteria
Diss, may be worth a punt on the basis that at that price we wouldn’t lose money if it didn’t work out. I have a feeling that current flavour of the month Bissouma might turn out to be a bit underwhelming.
It all hinges on this transfer window for me and Arteta now. If he actually puts his money where his mouth is and clears out the players holding us back, then he earns a fresh start going into the new season.
If I see a new contract fir Xhaka and moussa dembele coming through the door then it’s going to be a very negative start for me this season.
I’m also hoping, or praying above all that Pierre will finally put Ozil to rest and move on to his next contrary subject. It’s time I think.
Imagine if Barca take MA from us lol
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/15052718/premier-league-table-without-var-arsenal/
So we’d have been 4th without VAR this season. That’s pretty interesting.
Pedro, ManCity and Arsenal way of playing are nothing alike. Their problem are completely different. ManCity have 60% or above possession in most games. They strangle team with their passing. Their main issue was that on set pieces and counter attack they lacked a physicality and an organiser. Ruben Diaz has been the difference. Against ManCity teams have a low possession percentage because they can’t retrieve the ball off them. Against Arsenal teams had a lower possession percentage because they deliberatedly conceded possession. They knew we were toothless with the ball. Rodgers explained his tactics after the game against Leicester.… Read more »
Danny yep VAR hurt us this season
Ruthless is re-defining Arteta’s responsibilities as Coach and bringing in an experienced manager He needs feedback that he has to listen to — rather than being able to repress or ignore it I prefer the points per game accumulated since Christmas over the ppg accumulated up to Christmas, just saying 🙂 I am still very frustrated with the uneven-ness of the performances — particularly the back-to-back Fulham/Everton games I think some major problems have been addressed — Partey not being asked to be a one-man midfield, Willian not displacing Pepe, using a striker 🙂 Still some major problems to be… Read more »
The transfer window can give you a direction, but the issue is:
Are the new players what was needed?
Do they fit into the new system?
Do they have the personality to adapt to a very strict regime?
Does the deals make sense financially?
Because we need:
STARTERS:
+ A new goalkeeper
+ A new central midfielder
UNDERSTUDY:
+ leftback
+ Right back (starter if Bellerin is sold)
+ striker who can hold the ball and play with his back toward the goal
+ right winger
+ No10 to role so ESR is not overworked
Arteta trying to be clever hurt the team this season. New coach syndrome, coupled with arrogance, power going to his head etc. Veteran coaches know when to tinker, and not. rookies over tighten the screws when things are not working, making sure they have “fixed” the issue for all to see. veteran coaches know their best lineups in general, and also against certain opposition. Arteta does not know his yet. Vets know problem areas quickly… it took Mike 5 months for him to realize we need more creativity and not rely on our left side only. Too much more that… Read more »
Hi Almunia I wanted to say something – WE was right. You’re one of the good eggs on here, and crucially can see that humour is an effective dialectic tool as well as being entertaining. You also talk eloquently about what being an Arsenal fan feels like when many on here can sound like accountants and hr people picking angrily and competitively over balance sheets. It all seems a bit doom and gloom on here today which is probably justified. I remember the 94/95 season vividly. We lost 17 PL games that year. Plus the cup loss to Millwall and… Read more »
Guns
Being dumped out the cup by the bum coach you replaced, managing a much inferior team, is pretty humiliating.
Hopefully that was his wake up call.
Valentin, let’s be clear here, Brendan Rodgers beat Arsenal from entering Arsenal’s box once in the entire game. It wasn’t that he cracked the code, he just got lucky, then we spanked Leicester in the away game.
Arsenal are trying to play closer to City than anyone else in the league. To spank teams with the possession we usually control, we need better players.
Liverpool signing Konaté. I think he’s a better at defending than Upamecano. He would have made a very good partnership with Saliba.
“Brendan Rodgers beat Arsenal from entering Arsenal’s box once in the entire game. It wasn’t that he cracked the code, he just got lucky,”
I’ll raise your Rogers with an Arteta against Chelsea.
Pedro you’ve really got to stop using different metrics when talking about other managers (sauceless) and Arteta (pure sauce).
Rollen
Lol Arsenal are not and will maybe never be the new Milan seeing as Milan at least some kind of European pedigree and we have Copenhagen in 94