Mikel Arteta dropped his first press conference of the season and I have to say… he didn’t inspire much confidence and came across quite muted. Not a good look when you cross-reference it against Thomas Frank’s glowing account of how his summer has gone.
Key points for me:
- We haven’t done the business Arteta expected us to do
- The market has been more difficult than they thought it would be
- A domino effect will likely happen in the last week of the window
Outside that I couldn’t really name much of note he spoke about.
The target is consistency this season and to take each game one at a time.
Our goal is to get the best version consistently that’s going to bring us closer to winning football matches. That’s what I want from the team. If we do that consistently in every single match, we’re going to be in a good place, but that’s something we haven’t done, consistently give the best version. That’s something we must control and we must do, and I think if we’re able to do that, then the results will be the consequence to that.
He’s never going to pick a league position, but I hoped for something a little more inspiring than consistency. It also felt like there were a few not-so-subtle digs at what he has at Arsenal, but I might just be reading too deeply into it.
The clarity in what they do. They’ve been doing it for a long time together and you can see they have that fluidity and chemistry between them, and they believe that the plan they’ve put in place works for them. I think that’s a big strength for any team.
There needs to be clarity on the pitch this season, with the players he has right now. The squad is still a mess, that’s not all his fault, but he’s going to have to make it work this season. We have a bright young squad of players with some players that are misfits for the system… but we can do things this season and we have to.
The objectives are pretty clear for the next 4 months.
We need to rapidly adapt to playing a higher line with Ben White. Getting ripped through the middle cannot be a new thing for the first three months this season.
There needs to be more clarity when it comes to our football style. We need better transitions, the team needs to feel more fluid and unpredictable, and we need to start taking our chances. Statman Dave called our style Doughnut football. We control possession around the sides of the area but there’s no verticality to our game. That has to change.
We need to reduce errors by 50% this season. We cannot continue to punch ourselves in the face. Moving on David Luiz was a big swing at that. Sending Ceballos back to Madrid will help. There are still a few players with us that lack the right level of concentration, but whatever, it needs to be better this season. 50% less errors last season and we’re a top 4 side, simple as that.
We need to improve our finishing by 20%. It wasn’t good enough last season. That’s the whole team, not just Auba. But, Auba does need to play like a £350k a week striker. We need 10 goals from ESR. We need 10 goals from Saka. We need to see our other players popping up in the box and contributing.
The start to the season is really important, if we’re within spitting distance of top 4 come January, we’ll very much be in mixer in May. Last season, we fucked the start of the seasons so badly we couldn’t recover… but we were still close. We need to be the post-Christmas Arsenal, that is the standard.
We’ll know pretty early on Friday which Arsenal has shown up. We’re playing in a new stadium against a team that doesn’t know where it’s level is at the moment. None of that matters, we need to go in there, boss the game, and start to build confidence. Chelsea is winnable. West Brom there should be no excuses. We need to go into that City game with at least 4 points. Then we’ll see.
It’s going to be interesting to see how everyone else does this season. Manchester City are the side to beat, without a doubt. Chelsea have not looked convincing preseason so far, they were very nearly Emery’d in the Super Cup last night. Spurs have a very drossy manager and a bag of issues no club needs to be dealing with. Liverpool is a team to watch, their players are all getting older, they dropped their level by 30 points last season, and they’ve solved that with one signing this summer. Everton haven’t done much. West Ham haven’t done much. Leicester have made 3 signings. This is going to be an interesting season.
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It’s possible Samesong.. I suppose.. They are bff’s.
Yeah Something like that MB.. I’m sure they have good writers that can come up with a snappy title.
Wouldn’t mind both Auba and Laca leaving though. For me they are both busted flush now.
Auba and Laca both walk in together in the training video, but they aren’t in any of the pics on the website.
Think they’re been sold off! Both of them missing at the same time just doesn’t add up for me
Very possible there’s an offer on them and hence not playing.. have liked both but wouldn’t b too upset too see them leave..
Abrahams seems to have split opinion but I would take him.. can hold the ball up and score goals
Hopefully Martinelli grabs this chance with a hat trick
wenger would have used a chance like this to roll with the postman doubt that arteta has the balls to start balogun even if it were a great chance 🙂
William arbuckle up top then, he’ll steam roller that back line….the pie munching fraud.🖕🏿
Who’s going to be Captain tho? You just know he will go Xhaka or Bellerin
Willock would have been a useful option had he not been sold.( with the center forwards out)
Never understood, why Willock was not sold after this game.( if he had to be sold)
Don’t think anyone would bemoan either leaving, which kind of tells you where we are for CF’s.
One issue that still irks me is the fact Auba is captain of this football club, he’s wholly undeserving of it and the message it sends it really poor.
None of the youngsters praise him for his role behind the scenes, that’s Laca, and none of his teammates hold him up as an example, that’s Xhaka/Tierney. His captaincy is such tokenism.
ya Xhaka will be captain but KT should be
CC
I think we were in a bit of a Catch 22 situation with Aubameyang. I don’t think Arteta particularly liked him as a player but he was already Captain and scored the majority of our goals. I won’t miss him if he goes.
I just joined that le grove fantasy league
I’ve never done this fantasy league stuff before. Not 100% sure what I’m doing but if it’s fun I might keep an eye on it
Tho I dunno why but it didn’t seem to let me remove Werner when I added him by accident and tried to replace him with Firmino, but w/e
Who else is on there? I see lots of teams but don’t recognize the le grove names!
All the more surprising, CC, bearing in mind Tets himself was an Arsenal club captain, who saw it as a very important leadership role at the club, even when he was no longer in the first team.
Of course he inherited Auba as captain, and it’s difficult to displace what was your best player without damaging your relationship, but it has been strange that he’s allowed it to roll on.
If we somehow manage to dump both Aubameyang + Lacazette, we’ve had a right result, our forward line hasn’t functioned properly for a while Lacazette is a decent enough player, but was a downgrade on the underrated Giroud, he’s also the oldest looking 30yr old I’ve ever seen Aubameyang is an impact player, I was against renewing his contract, giving a 31yr old who’s all about athleticism a 3yr mega contract, was bonkers, particularly as we gave a 32yr old a 3yr deal at the same time We need to get much better at reading the career trajectories of our… Read more »
We have 3 young strikers in Gabi, Eddie and Balogun. If all of them get opportunities you would think at least one if not more of them will shine and become an integral part of our team. Not that Auba and Laca have set the bar too high.
Wenger had the right idea – only offer 1 year contracts to players 30 or over. Might be painful at first but if everyone knows the score it would get easier. As soon as they hit an Auba season like last year you wave goodbye.
I’m just hoping we can somehow magic up a swap with RM so we get some form of value for him in p.exechange. for Ode.
Honestly I’d rather we sold laca and auba and replaced with no one than we kept both
We pay all that money and I’m not convinced either will score close to 20 league goals
Our kids won’t either but at least they’ll be building as part of their development. Laca and auba are depreciating assets and very expensive ones at that
Gbat/Elmo Agree, it’s a bit of a minefield but even still we appear to take the ‘just leave it’ approach far too often in the hope it’ll fix itself. Prefer to see a bolder decision made. I mean at this point it’s not exactly going to dampen his confidence and interrupt the flow of goals, is it? Feel the armband weighs heavy on him and Arteta, can’t leave out your captain even though he’s no starting XI form to his name. Sooner we underlined the Arsenal rebirth with a young captain (Tierney) and remain on brand with ESR getting #10.… Read more »
Your first golden boit winner since 2012 hasn’t set high standards lol
Maybe we should do what the banks did in 2006-8 and package up all of our dross (Auba, Laca, Kola, Wobbly Will, and Bellerin a separate bundle- collectively called Spurs, and offer them as a collective whole for 1p in the £
Insigne?
At 125/wk…
Seems even more unlikely than maddison
The securitization of our dross is an immense idea, I love it
Northbank
I think auba could become a great substitute game changer. My feeling is that he feels too much responsibility and its fucked w him. If u give him 10-20 min/game and let balogun and martinelli fight a bit, could wind up being a good strategy
Willock departure official on .com
Its the first day after a long time without fooball… am i the only one noticing how arsenal fans are acting non interested. The fire is gone, wenger on his own can attract players cos of his personality, no one would come cos of arteta, i dwear if wenger were still incharge we woulda never been this way. Thank you wenger for all the memories. I remember all of you who were akbs back then, why yall complaining…. enjoy your plate of hot gravel
Bye willock I would liked you to have stayed but that’s good business in my eyes
Auba has been Mr. Arsenal gave it his all. His crew not him saw what was to come and wanted him out.
Lots of young players in training. Best young team of late has been an exceptional Ajax. Expect volatility in results.
Not sure why but Willock’s news doesn’t even appear on the front page so I had to click on NEWS and then it was somewhere down there.
It’s a giant news for Arsenal, a bit more important than the training pictures pre-Brentford.
Happy for Joe. I hope he has a cracking career. He will not be as good as Ramsey but he can easily become someone like Barkley and Lingard and that’s not bad at all.
Can you smell what the Diet Pep is cooking?
25m for an academy graduate is great business
Yeah raptora good luck to the kid
Zacharse – I fear that your strategy would do the opposite. it would destroy him mentally and paying £350k a week for an impact sub is way ott. If he stays then it has to surely be as a first team choice until the moment we hoist the white flag. I think it would be better for alll parties if he went. Like Xhaka, he could benefit from being in a slower and less competitive league. If it brought does the net cost of Ode we’d be able to still fund Abraham, who seems to be desperate to join us..… Read more »
Advice to Brentford players. Might be important to arsenal too on what it takes to barely survive in the EPL.
Consistency, spirit, composure, experience, patience.
https://www.goal.com/en/news/premier-league-most-relegated-hreidarsson-top-five-survival/o6p0gdiyw9yn1u8p0ftglkfor
For Arsenal to get to the top four. Probably need to add quality, incisiveness, speed to that list.
Joe Willock cold have been a very good back up in CAM role but at £25m it has to be a sell only decision. We need to be able to do this successfully than we have in the past – keep our very best and sell the rest.
I hope Eddie also goes for a similar amount although his injury has probably blown that – maybe the Jan window.
In meantime I hope JW has a great career
So Lac & Abu are not in the opener for illness. I am so tired of these twats today! What happened to the real men who played this game. Peter Story where have you gone!
Don’t think Eddie has that long on contract so if sold in Jan would be closer to a free?
Nbanker
Ya dont see that happening tho. Impact sub would be ok for me. Long as he’s useful
Eddie will go for about 15 M. Glad that we took 22M for Willock. Raptora said it best: “He will not be as good as Ramsey but he can easily become someone like Barkley and Lingard and that’s not bad at all.” (BTW Ramsey is on 187K/week, just in case better to say it again) Chambers has to go if Bellerin and Cedric both stay. 3rd choice RB and 3rd choice RCB in a year without Europe? Or is Cedric now a 3rd choice RB? In which case why are we not selling him (even if it’s for peanuts?) And… Read more »
Sid
Mate yr having a stroke
All the best to Joe Willock, its a departure that’s a bit sour for me, I would have rather loaned him for another year. I don’t buy the whole his transfer fee would have reduced after this summer argument but anyway what’s done is done.
Laca’s agent has come out and said no moves in the pipeline, so its likely Eddie and Flo Balogun will leave with the latter being a loan. That’s actually the preferable trio for me, having Auba, Laca and Tammy will keep all three on their toes.
Now that Willock is officially a Newcastle player the only question remains will he “celebrate “ the non celebratory style way when he inevitability scores against us, or will he run the length of the pitch after studs raking one of our player’s face?
Sleepy Biden gives Afganistan away to Taliban. Imagine the furore if Trump had done something like that.
Some comments are really funny. The last time Arsenal won the golden boot was 2012 with RVP before Auba 2 seasons ago. Lost his form last season and suddenly he isn’t good enough to even be in the first XI.
Wenger was always bastardised for playing with kids. Maybe Wenger needs an apology from some of us.
Play Pepe in 9.
Gabi and Saka on the flanks.
We’ve enough lightweights at the club in Aubameyang, Pepe and Willian without signing another in Odegaard.
Leno
Cedric, White, * Holding, Tierney
Lokonga, Xhaka
Pepe, ESR, Willian, Saka/ Martinelli
*on Holding because I think he’ll be out when Gabriel is fully fit.
William in because I fear Balogun if thrown in might make or break him. Saka I fear for early burn out. He’s been involve in too many games. Him and Martinelli don’t seem ready.
Now here’s one ES Have just read that Chelsea haven’t given Lukaku a squad number. Abraham is given the number 9 shirt . Does that mean that Chelsea are selling Lukaku? Of course not but they do go on to say that he will be given a number in due course which my brother , who told me about this, says that Lukaku will get the number 9 which means one of two things in his mind . 1) Abraham will get another number ( would have already happened) 2) Abraham is being used as cover this weekend so will… Read more »
DId someone say Insigne???
Haha what a shower shit. FOAD arteta.
Arteta really should be sacked… This is unacceptable!!!
This is just fucking embarrassing
The recruitment has been horrendous!
Also when does the first Amazon show air as that could be worth a watch!
What Ian Wright said : But for real though. It’s the opening game of the season and you can’t match the intensity?!!! You know for months what we gonna be up against! Pre-match I said we’d be happy with a draw! A draw!! That’s where we are! But to not even match them? Just passing sideways.. Pedro, you said this would be good. Are you happy?
Bertfish, it’s not till next year. They will follow the season to our relegation last game and then drop the whole thing at one time.