Well, here we are, the unofficial first game of the season kicks off today. Leicester City take on Manchester City at Wembley in the Community Shield.
City really is the team to beat this season. Things are settled, they’ve added Jack Grealish, they’ll add Harry Kane by the end of the month. They are basically unstoppable
Leicester are recording a tricky third album. Rodgers has bottled top 4 right at the end twice now. He’s either going to take his team to the promised land of Champions League football this season or it’s just going to be his thing that Leicester will be also-rans.
I think most people are excited by Leicester recruitment because they basically buy up all the players fans like on Championship Manager. Patson Daka has been on our radar for a while, can he go some way to replacing Jamie Vardy’s output? What will Soumare do for their central midfield after a decent showing for Lille? WILL THE ARSENAL FANS LIVE TO REGRET BERTRAND?
Worth noting Leicester have sold absolutely no one for cash this window.
Arsenal news was very slow yesterday, our fearless Technical Director was once again posting pictures of himself on vacation, this time, the jetsetter was in Mallorca. I know… we’ve lived in a Covid World for the last 18 months, people can work from their phone… still isn’t a good look. Can someone not tell him to shut off his IG Stories?
The big link today is Bernado Silva. No doubt an excellent player that can do all the things we want because he’s been coached by Arteta. We’d be landing a top talent, someone that is schooled in the system, and Arteta will know his character intimately.
… but I like Maddison.
I know, I know, both would be great… but Maddison is on an upward trajectory. He’s won one FA Cup. He’ll be hungry. He’ll slip into our very English vibe. He’s 3 years younger.
BOTH would be good. I just think the statement move is Maddison
Outside that, it’s mostly quiet. Eddie has an injury that has ruled him out for a month. Partey is back in 3 weeks. Gabriel M is still out. I don’t think an injury stops Eddie moving out of the club though.
MARTINELLI WON GOLD AND CELEBRATED WITH BRUNO.
Right, not much else to talk about. We’re under a week away from the start of the season, time to kick it up a gear Edu.
How people are seeing a top four team in Arsenal is beyond me. Number 8 at best as it stands. And we can’t keep blaming the players. Arteta is also part of the problem. Trying to stay positive but when you see Auba on the wing again when it never worked last season is just sheer negligence. Very disappointed.
Smith-rowe belongs in the championship
It’s a pre season friendly. It means nothing blah blah blah…
Aubamayang is a disgrace. Absolutely embarrassing that he is the captain of this team.
Here we go again….another season of agony and frustration.
Things don’t look good, do they ? Lokonga, White and Tavares improve us but only marginally. We need a couple of quality players in attacking areas who can lift the level of our game.
Radio
I’ve learned fuck all has changed since last season
A lot of the tactics and patterns of play were very similar to last season, the team line up isn’t much different so its not surprising that we don’t look to have pushed on. It is very disappointing though.
It’s not great for the confidence regardless of being a pre-season friendly to lose games and especially to high profile rivals.
Where is Claudio Ranieri nowadays?
SHAMBOLIC..
Saka’s hype is OTT
My favorite part during the match was charlie saying that’s my manager. Believe me we know and it’s unfortunate for the rest of us
Only providential event to make Arteta unavailable for a prolonged period can show what Metersaker can do.
Otherwise the management and owner are both dumb and daft
Nuno ,like Dean Smith of A. Villa
3 games against the inept Arteta
and 3 victories ( did the double for Wolves)
Can’t Pepe be sold even for 15 million? I guess he is unsaleable. Disgraceful that Arsenal is carrying the burden of a wrong buy season after season.
Seems Arteta is still serving last season’s sauce
Like someone said to expect a long tortuous season on the field and with Peds.
We’re really going to struggle with goal scoring from the look of things and Mari has been below par both in the first and second half.
Aubameyang has continued from where he picked off last season and it’ll take a little while for Saka to get up to speed. It must be said that Mr Recycle Bin-neny isn’t good enough but will likely get a lot of games due to our wafer thin midfield. We have to bring in at least very good midfield and attacking options else it’s gonna be another 8th place finish with marginal improvements here and there
Oh come on, how can you not be UTTERLY excited over the season to come ?
i could get behind the team if I saw some improvement but our attack is so fucking bland
It is only a so called friendly , however we really look no different from last season,play wise.
Lokonga and White looked decent,but the usual suspects look exactly the same.
I dont feel Arteta is going to last until December.
we really need some movement in the transfer market,but we all knew that anyway.
To be an Arsenal fan is to suffer.
Whoever of English Arsenal fans can muster up, pl arrange a protest before it is too late. I’m saying this resignation of us Arsenal fans to accept another agonizing season can still be salvaged with a protest, i suppose.
As expected, the fallout commentary from a friendly is always riveting on this blog. A clear vision of what our season is likely to be about, no doubt. I’ll be excusing myself from the Doom and gloom today gents. Have a good day lads.
& we have had all summer, all summer to really try to improve this squad. It’s not going to end well for Arteta.
Radio Raheem
Thanks for saying that. I don’t put any weight in these friendlies. Way too many subs and hard to establish a rhythm.
Signs of promise with White and Lokonga but the most crucial factor right now is if we can get Partey back relatively soon. The main concern right now is that Auba is hopelessly lacking in confidence or he might just be on a rapid downhill slide.
Arsenal’s main problem is quality of squad deptth. We will look like a good side with all our key players healthy and available but how often will that actually happen?
Some really embarrassing comments on here. Get a grip ffs.
C’mon Pedro… pl start your excuse engine and propaganda machine
One thing is clear though there’s no “process”, I have begun to dislike the word now.
Both flanks can be manned by two flops – auba and pepe. One HAS to be sold.
White looks the business, so does Lokonga, very pleased so far with these two. The one thing that might make White look shaky at some point is playing with Bellerin consistently, Hector’s still in woeful form.
We certainly need one of B.Silva or Maddison as well as a CF to really kick on and challenge for a top 4 spot as I cannot see Auba or Laca firing us into the champions league.
Without another elite 10/8, minimum it looks to be like more of the same this season.
How we are playing and looking at the first 3 fixtures of the season arteta is going to have a very rough ride at the emirates. This isn’t going to end well for him this season
“As expected, the fallout commentary from a friendly is always riveting on this blog”
I bet you won’t see much difference in our play even when the season starts next week.
Both flanks can’t be left to be manned by two flops – auba and pepe. One HAS to be sold.
Arteta is clearly a talented coach, if you take results out of the equation.
Add Hibs , Chelsea & Spurs to the x 17 games he lost last season.
Just the 20 defeats in 12 months.
And they called the peerless A. Wenger the specialist in failure!
Auba is shuffled to the wings at his AGR and people are wondering why hr ain’t scoring?
Arteta is the same yesterday, today and for ever. In as much as its preseason, I don’t have a mustard of hope in Aterta in doing some meaningful with this squad.
Lack of cohesion.
It’s always a ‘result’ that will sting in this fixture.
I haven’t seen the game so can’t comment on the performance.
Let’s hope to see some moves in the next week, in and out.
CG, the benchmark of failure has moved and shifted by us all
Peanuts you are a spurs fan you have been outed as one before and you only ever show up after a defeat go back to mummy’s house
*at his age not AGR
Can Balogun and Eddie be even worse than the laca auba pepe trio?
Mr Serge: its only human behavior we like to hear what are harts want us to. So, I’m not surprised at your reaction. BTW, are you Pedro himself?
The sad part of it is that I’m not sure we’ve learnt anything in preseason except that hopefully lokonga and white are good
Who will be our rb this season after we’ve had no quality rb for the last 4 years? Well take your pick from bellerin chambers and Cedric ofc
We desperately need partey and sambi to stay fit this season to cover the abject lack of dynamism from xhakaneny
Up front were worse now than we were 2 years ago. Laca has some strengths but he looks like a 7/10 striker in a team that used to have Henry, Bergkamp, van Persie etc. meanwhile Auba looks like a championship striker. Our best CF in preseason was probably Eddie who we all have some reservations about and who only has a year left on his deal
Pepe is still inconsistent. It’s not ok
I could go on and on but the bottom line is we have had a whole preseason to try and kick on and there’s so far no evidence that this is going to happen. People can say the window does close for a couple of weeks but personally I don’t care – the season starts imminently and we should’ve been aggressively trying to make our moves early to get players bedded in in time and get a strategic advantage over all the others
Too slow, too casual, not good enough. I’ll be shocked if we come top 4 this season after this even if I hope it happens.
The sooner you all realize it will be hard to score goals with Arteta in charge gifting contracts to players that should be shipped out of the club the better you’ll feel and maybe just find something else to watch and do. I don’t even see an 8th place finish I see surviving relegation. We got lucky with Saka and Smith Rowe and the whole league knows them now so who is the new player to surprise and save our season? Ben White an average CB from Brighton??? Delusions of grandeur doesn’t explain this fuckery!
Mr Serge: its your bad luck that these days you get to see me more often. No prizes for guessing the reason, Sir.
Well… that was 90 mins of my life I won’t get back.. Pretty much an advert of why we still need…at least 2 midfielders and a rightback. A striker who can… you know…. strike, wouldn’t hurt either.
How you can start 3 attacking players upfront .. none of which can head the ball is baffling considering… our best move is Tierney putting in crosses.
Anyhow.. not exactly motivating me for the season, to say the least. Another season of Granite Xhaka pointing at people he isn’t going to mark, whilst tackling like a crash test dummy for a yellow card about sums it up for me, unfortunately.
There’s no point wasting money on any other player as long as the manager is such an asshole, such a rookie
Better, sell off these aubas and pepes and keep giving the baloguns some chance
I mean, what difference does 8th and 14th make? Nothing, right?
No point buying anymore till the manager is changed
TR7
My general feeling when you hear a young, well-dressed manager talk about ‘the process’ or ‘the project’ is to run a mile from said manager.
This was what immediately turned me off from Villa-Boas when he started at Chelsea (and then hilariously at Tottenham). I hope last season was a wake-up call but I think he has some fundamental flaws that simply won’t allow him to adjust.
Name me a match under Arteta where Auba Laca Pepe together has worked . Under Emery Auba and Laca played well together .
The righ flank is utter fuckery – from bellerin to pepe. Utter shit. Still no player up front to head in from crosses. These are basic stuff even we understand but this jackass doesn’t get it
You english Arsenal fans. Pl organize a protest. Else, go watch Bundesliga.
Arteta today played Bellerin , Chambers , AMN and Cedric but still doesnt know who to retain or dump.
Arsenal can’t create anything since Wenger left. It’s like watching a colourful Burnley every week.
Gonna be a very long and painful so season, can’t see us getting Europe football even if Arteta is sacked.. The players are not good enough. Simple
Saka and Smith Rowe are great for the future but can’t consistently bail out the club. There needs to be purchases of creative players and finishers.
Challenge of Auba and Laca may be burnout. They have held up the team when there was no sufficient attention to needs of creative midfielders in the side. Laca has paid for that by previous injuries affecting his form now.
MidwestGun
Its unfortunate that Arteta has only retained Moyes’s tactics of crossing in the box , shame we dont have Tim Cahill.
Avi the squad does have problems but also the tactics as awful
You watch all the training session videos the club puts on YouTube and 90% of goals are cutbacks from outwide for someone to hit and sure enough that’s 80% of our offense on match days. Somehow no one at the club has noticed there’s a difference between doing this on a 6 a side pitch and throwing in long high crosses into a crowded box full of defenders on a hope and a prayer that somehow auba or laca will score their first headed goal of their career
Honestly how hard is it to notice that we can’t play that way? Really.
This club has been losing its way for 15 years and has now officially disappeared without trace. A team of losers managed by a cretinous, truly terrible manager. Fuck it. It’s only a friendly right? The (Arteta’s out of his) mind series.
Have we actually won any of our pre season games this year under Arteta?
Haha Divine..
Actually during the Match I was thinking of Tim Cahill.. too, I swear. Maybe Teta could use his contacts to get him here for some lessons. Dude was a heading machine. Pepe, Auba and Laca.. are not.
Pre-season or not we looked slow. Same pattern of play since last season.
Forwards can’t score in a brothel. Expect the similar energy levels next week. Two weeks into the season the manager be saying that the players look tired.
Arteta is a boring manager. And that shows in our performances.
China 1
You DO go on…
And on and on and on…
Aubameyang is the new Ozil..
Senior player on very big wage who is clearly not good enough but must have to be played because he’s the captain and the coach is too meek to drop him
This team simply is handicapped with so many horrendous decisions for it to succeed
We pay arteta millions of pounds a year to bring more to the table offensively than ‘throw enough shit and some of it will stick’. Surely.
Arteta on Willock: “When I can say more I will let you know.”
Willock gone
Too many problems with my club englandsbest
You have to either somehow accept and ignore it, vent about it, or bury your head in the sand and pretend we aren’t shite
Choose your poison
Structure is actually very good, but with that it illustrates exactly what’s needed in certain positions….and sadly how far from that we have in the current occupants.
CF – Laca has game, but can’t press or threaten space.
LF – Auba is horrible here with no legs to his game.
RF – Pepe is a passenger for 95% of the game as usual.
RB – nobody has the legs to get up and down like KT.
Maddison and Tammy make a massive impact. Not sure who is getting linked at RB, Max Aaron’s seems very expensive and unlikely, Trippier makes little sense unless it’s a straight swap for the Bell.
But if our attacking trio is Auba/Laca/Pepe then is struggle to see much of an uptick outside of more typical finishing from Auba than last seasons horror show. They’re rubbish together though, best friends off the pitch and total strangers on it.
I’m happy it seems we’re no longer signing duds (Lokonga/White) but why is it taking so long to get rid of players that have NO future at Arsenal
El Neny
Nketiah
Kolasinac
Bellerin
Reiss Nelson
Runnarson
Chambers
China
If we don’t have a good start to the league he’ll be gone in December.
Brentford, Chelsea, Man City, Norwich, Burnley, Spuds.
He’s still chucking in Auba on the wing ffs having enduring most part of last season with him there and the team been utter shite.
Unbelievable stuff really
Didn’t we just watch Leicester against City yesterday? Arsenal is really a step up for maddison
TR7
Good. Hopefully Eddie, Laca, Willian, Kolasinac, and AMN swiftly follow.
Peanuts
60 fucking years mate. I have a strange feeling it’ll be 61 in about 9 months time. How many of you slags were even alive in 1961?
At we know we’re shit at the moment.
After today’s friendly match against Tottenham and hearing that the later are going to grab the striker from Inter beneath our noses – Arteta and Edu HAVE got to pull their fingers out this week and complete signings for another striker,attacking midfielder,right back and goalkeeper! Otherwise next season is looking like a disaster!!
That game does not matter a damn.
We learned nothing new about the players we had, and vey little about the new ones.
Trying to draw conclusions this early is a waste of time.
Trying to draw conclusions this early is a waste of time.
How about drawing conclusions after 18 months? Or in Bellerin, Xhaka and Elneny’s case many years
This early? The season is about to start. The squad has only marginally improved and the tactics are mostly the same
Or are we back to the old wenger trick of ‘just him in august’. Then when the season starts ‘judge him when the window closes’ then ‘judge him in January’, then ‘judge him at the end of Jan’, then ‘judge him in May’ rinse and repeat
If you can’t see what’s plainly in front of you it’s because you don’t want to
All available and factual evidence points to the fact that nothing has changed and Arsenal is heading for another 8th position finish or lower under Arteta.
How some of you can defend the disgraceful football and tactics surprises me. After last season’s shambolic performance I knew Arteta had nothing to offer. Beats me that he’s still here. Arsenal as a football club lacks any real ambition. It’s clear in the players they offer new deals, players they cannot move on for half their market value, managers they hire and refuse to fire and players they sign.
But it’s okay. Pedro you can keep peddling your snake oil sauce to the gullible. Also, you had better oil your PR and propaganda machine, because it’s going to be a long season. Zero expectations from Arsenal and Arteta. I’ve gotten to that miserable stage where I’m just waiting for Arteta to get sacked before I can enjoy watching this Arsenal side play again.
If you think I’m overreacting then you need your head checked. We finished 8th last season. And nothing has changed.
The difference this season is the fans will react directly to Arteta, so he will get what he deserves.
The club is in disarray, when will they wake up?
Charlie
The way I see it only Willock is going to fetch us good money. £20M + £ 5M add ons is the reported fee which hopefully can help us pay £60M for Maddison. Kola will leave on a free transfer but yes will free up some wages.
Very little time left to sell that many players now. Torrera and Willian can’t seem to find any suitor. Eddie is injured but looked good in the matches we played. Given the woeful form of Auba and tepid display from Balogun, a part of me wants to keep Eddie.
Hopefully Balogun is loaned to another PL team, not ready yet.
A front 3 of Pepe Laca Auba isn’t going to work because honestly they can’t play together
Pepe and Auba can’t combine with others and Laca doesn’t have the legs and strength to do what Arteta wants effectively but guess what he will persist with that till he is shown the door
Arteta won’t survive anything closer to the first half of last season,the patience many had last season was because of the FAC that is in a distance memory and hopefully will be shown the door before we have post Christmas top 3
Bacary
Fair observation. But can’t shake this sense of déjà vu with our new signings looking promising early doors (only for that to turn out quite fleeting). Hopefully, we buck the trend this time.
By the way, if by some miracle Arteta leads this side to a good season, whatever that means, it wouldn’t negate any criticism he has received so far.
In his first 5/6 months he did alright and was rightly praised and rewarded with a longer contract. In the 12 months that followed he has been crap and also rightly criticised and if this continues he’d be rightly sacked. Should he turn it around then he’d, again, be rightly praised. Plaudits should only be based on performance and nothing more.
I played semi pro football at a very low level but none the less I was paid to play.
I hated pre season games from the heat to the threat of not securing a starting berth in 5he first game.
I hated everything but no matter how important I knew those games were and no matter how I tried I just couldn’t convince myself to put that extra 10% in . Yet when it came to the first league game everything for me changed and that competitive edge seemed to change everything.
I rarely pay good money to watch per season games they are meaningless to supporters and how or why some read too much into them defeats me.
I would doubt that either of the clubs deployed any of their training game routines today nor would the game analysts have spent an inordinate amount of time preparing research on the opposition both clubs will no doubt will have spent the bulk of their support teams time in the build up looking at their own players conditioning.
Am I the one who would rather Arsenal buy Abraham than Martinez?
At this point, even average Abraham would improve us. Seeing Auba try to whip a cross for Laca is exhausting. If the plan is to cross a lot, get a target man! I used to think football was simple until “the process” showed up.
This is the team you wanted Pedro
peanuts&monkeys i think you need help, pepe for 15m? Get a psychiatrist, you can be helped. Folks that have never kicked any round object apart from maybe their mates testicles now know a lot about football?
peanuts&monkeysAugust 8, 2021 16:23:00
You english Arsenal fans. Pl organize a protest. Else, go watch Bundesliga
Youre American and its not soccer, its called football, how are those guys who flew planes against wenger feeling now, in his worst season he did better than all the well funded coaches after him. If arteta fails this time around fasho hed go but we dont want fans killing the morale even before the seasons start, we dont need no unrest, this is arsenal not capitol hill