So we spoke a little about the need to ramp up the productions numbers in attack. The thing we didn’t cover is our defensive stats. There are some good numbers doing the rounds.
•Most blocks in the PL (includes shots and passes)
•Fewest times dribbled past
•Fewest tackles won
•6th most interceptions
•3rd fewest fouls committed
•4th most aerials won
This follow-up was also interesting.
Since people are asking, Arsenal have allowed 114 total shots in the PL so far. But only 28 of these shots were on target. That means that only 24.6% of shots they have faced were on target, which is the third-lowest rate in the PL.
— Chris Moore (@chrismoore32) October 5, 2021
Good tweet, Chris.
When Roger Federer started out in tennis, he had the best forehand in the game. His backhand was not up to scratch. So he spent a year going to town on perfecting it, which cost him tournaments and success… but the output, in the end, is storied history.
Arsenal came out of last season with the 3rd best defence in the league and a shitty attack, so what did we do? Went out and smashed transfers records to make us even better at defending. We saw our backhand was average so doubled down on the forehand. That ain’t taking us to the promised land…
I mean, that’s a little simplistic. We know that the mission of the summer was maintain the resoluteness of the defence, whilst adding more dynamism to certain positions.
Our keeper has character, dominates his box, and makes game-changing interventions Bernd Leno refused to indulge.
Ben White, the chicken korma eating centre back that would definitely nick your bird if you met him in Ibiza, was brought in to offer us David Luiz like threat in the build-up. He makes less mistakes, he’s faster, he can pass, and apparently, he’s very good in the air.
Tomiyasu is quite simply an actual right back. But we found extreme specificity in his skillset. He’s a hybrid centre back so he gives us aerial coverage and he tucks into midfield with absolute ease. Another huge character in a position we’ve lacked it.
The point from the above statistics is we’ve upgraded the footballers without sacrificing the defending. We’re creating a City model in defence. The players don’t tackle because they are so fast at reading the game and intercepting balls. I think we ranked lowest last season for interceptions.
It’s also interesting that we don’t foul a lot, that shows you there’s a real quality in defence.
The lack of high quality shots at our goal is a team effort. It shows the system is good. This was the pattern last season. We’re difficult to create against because we’re well organised.
Now, the path to the end goal should be: If you have better footballing options in defence that can defend and break lines… eventually, the automatisms set in, and the team bangs in attack… becuase the ball moves fast, with more ambition, and your attackers start to convert.
Average shots per game is 13 right now. Take out City and Chelsea and it’s 17, I take them out because they are two of the untouchables in the Premier League, and we were totally injury-ravaged for one game, and played 60mins with 10 players in the other. European Cup finalists are the exception, the other teams are more the rule, at least until November 20th.
We don’t know which way this team will go, but my suspicion is that we’ll be more around the 17 mark than the 13 mark this season. If that’s the case, then the goals should come. The big worry is our ‘Xhaka at leftback’ right now appears to be anyone we put as our striker. We don’t have the bully we need in the forward line. Auba needs to ball to feet fast and if we’re pressed with discipline, that doesn’t happen. If we use our link player in Lacazette, he doesn’t have the speed to take advantage of situations. Eddie has been impressing everyone behind the scenes, he was superb in preseason, but he doesn’t really take his chances in the league. Martinelli hasn’t progressed. We need a DCL, Victor Oshimen, or an Ollie Watkins in our starting 11. I suspect if Balogun went on loan for the season, he could be that guy, but that hasn’t happened due to player preference.
So what will the club do? Hope that most teams can’t press to the levels of Brighton? Probably. Because most can’t. But we’ll see after the break. No doubt Paddy and Dean Smith have seen what Brighton did to us, so we’ll get a crack at it after the break.
On that note, see you in the comments.
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And I’ll say again Pedders. I don’t agree with some of the things you say, but I love ya. This frustration is at the club not you.
And apart from xhaka, I really am excited about this squad.
But why did project youth have to come in one window? Why couldn’t we have got experience and youth with the money we spent?
The only reason is so the blokes in charge can keep their jobs because ‘we are building a project’.
Template:
I’d rather fail at our target of top 4 that the club got the fans behind at the start of the season (which they didn’t); than to just be happy with wherever we land come end of season because the boys got to run out together over the season.
I thought this club was _________
Theres the online petition description to get ____ you can circulate it around the fanbase and see who else agrees
So we’re celebrating that we’re great at parking the bus and all we need to reach the promised land is a shittier version of Giroud up front. Troy Deeney might be interested.
You’d never guess that this blog was anti-Mourinho 20 months or so ago.
On a separate note, it looks like we might have dodged a bullet on a certain highly rated Brighton player.
Love sausage
No one knows why Bissouma was arrested at that night club
I won’t be surprised if an apology is tendered at some point
Diss,
Seems like too big of an coincidence to not be related with the arrest reported by the mainstream media. I’d be happy if that turned out to be the case but I doubt it.
Goober, I love you too.
You can use the word elite, but you have to be specific about what you don’t like.
Get in a manager that has proved themselves… like, Emery?
We know the plan. We like the players. We’ve seen where the football can go. But we’re 4 games in.
LoveSausage, no idea where you’ve got Jose football from, honestly, such a weird comment it’s not even worth debating
Pedro,
I’ve got it from the fact that we’re playing a narrow and deep 4-4-1-1 defence (a.k.a parking the bus) against mid level teams. And now you’re arguing that we need a big lump of meat in #9. What’s the difference between that and Joseball?
If we don’t want to wait for Mou to get himself fired again, we can go for Dyche. Party like it’s 1989.
Well, there are two reports in the last 24 hours.
1. Bissouma arrested at a nightclub for an unknown offence.
2. An unnamed Brighton player in his 20s arrested on suspicion of sexual assault.
Anything else is speculation and comments on it will give Pedro palpitations.
Emery had only achieved glory at Europa level (and at PSG, what should be a one horse race).
I gave Emery a chance. I have given Arteta a chance. I am willing to give these players a chance and I’m excited about the next few seasons. But if tets tanks this season again it’s just been a waste.
I was thinking that if you exclude Federer, Djokovic and Nadal, Andy Murray has an absolutely incredble winning record…his stats are off the charts.
Exactly right Bacary, no spec crime please.
LoveSausage, pretty shite analysis if you are watching us defend well and you call that parking the bus. Honestly; some Arsenal fans are painful.
Pedro,
Lately, any analysis that disagrees with your POV is a shit analysis.
Sitting as deep and narrow as we do without any real press is parking the bus. Having a starting point higher up on the pitch and pressing allows a team to break and score goals, in addition to avoid conceding them.
Last season we scored 55 goals which, by any measure, is poor. We still have many games to play this season but so far, it’s not looking like we’ve broken that trend. The numbers are what they are.
Massaged stats? Not interested in stats other than end of game stats where we do better each game or not. What matters are the results simple as that. Where we end up at the end of the season in terms of points and place. We can be number 1 in all the massaged stats, but if we are 8th again what do the massaged stats mean? Absolutely nothing! It’s just a fools errand trying to troll his point home. The trolls can troll all they like, but the tables print the truth. The rest is all PR spin ala Bojo’s… Read more »
Tony, if results are all that matter to you, then maybe you should start pivoting your opinion because we just won 3 and drew 1. 10 points from 12. A huge improvement. If you truly are a results man, where’s the updated view?
Love Sausage, sorry mate, we don’t park the bus. We defend well. Calling it Jose football is shit analysis. We haven’t parked the bus all season, to our detriment against CFC and City.
Pedro
“NWM, Saliba’s low pressures were a sign that he’s passive.”
Defensive numbers are strongly influenced by defensive tactics. Saliba’s numbers last season were undoubtedly affected by Nice’s tactics, look at his pressures this year. So far, per FBref, Saliba has more pressures per 90 minutes and is more successful with those pressures than White, Varane,, Dias, and van Dijk, to name just a few. Context is everything and it’s the main reason.you have to be careful with stats.
Pedro,
As a follow up, in your post you quite rightly considered the context of playing much of the City match with 10 men, and the Chelsea match without several key players and eliminated the low shot numbers from those games in your analysis of Arsenal’s shooting stats.
Defensively the context may not be as obvious, but sometimes we need to look a little deeper when considering defensive stats.
Pedro: “We know the plan. We like the players. We’ve seen where the football can go. But we’re 4 games in.” No, we are 66 games in and we’ve seen where the football is at. 8th and 8th and not looking good again. Even if you decide to close your eyes for Arteta’s failures of previous seasons, unquestionable failures mind I say, you still reach the number of 7 games in – the amount of rounds played this season. The arbitrary picking of a period that suits the narrative used to annoy you Pedro, it was Wenger’s special. Wenger: “We… Read more »
Pedro you clearly make my points for me and so far Arteta has proved me right, too. Let’s win the next 2 games and our position in the table reflecting the wins positionally, and my opinions will be based on what the table tells us and how we won the two games against Villa and Palace. If the football is first 30 minutes of the NLD rather than the Brighton Handbrake; then the signs will indeed be encouraging. Your mini leagues Pedro are amazing, though, and I applaud your ingenuity and the lessons learned from Pierre’s legendary Wenger and Ozil… Read more »
Raps I think Pedro has gone to sleep probably free falling from a double barreled doses of home truths. Football truth is kryptonite to super-Pedro where his super stats armor plates are wearing thin. To be honest they were shit to begin with, but we have to be kind. It how Pedro deals with Arteta progressing no further that concerns me as a caring poster. I mean what’s going to happen to the blog we hate posting on when Pedro realises his Arteta folly? We’ll love writing here because we will be winning again, plying good football and Pedro saying… Read more »
10 points from 12, but the table says 10 from 21. And here I thought poor Pedro he typed it too quickly the first time you posted this and I thought maybe your fingers got out of sync and the 1 came too quickly followed by the 2. But now you repeat this again and so it can’t be a mistake anymore,
Only two explanations, you either are dyslexic, and I feel for you in that case or you need to enroll in Math 101 to understand multiplications.
Hiya Tony
Good news about the jabs mate. And I hope your son’s results allow him to do what he wants, ie continue playing masses of golf!
No football patter left for LG I’m afraid. I’m reading it and not liking most of it because it sounds like peak 80s Pravda interspersed with rantings by angry accountants desperate not to lose the value of a few shares given to them by their bosses. Its no longer a pluralistic forum that allows for debate.
It’s either jumped the shark or gone beyond parody. I can’t be arsed to work out which.
Our back five is pretty good
It’s our inability to dominate the midfield and create genuine chances that worries me
Yeah sorry but we’re not 4 games in.
And last season didn’t start on Boxing Day either.
If we’re going to play these games wenger won loads of titles. ‘Top since Christmas’ one year. ‘Top until Christmas’ the next. ‘Top for a calendar year’ the next.
I’m sorry it’s just false.
Yeah, Pedro is too invested in his Arteta crusade, proving everyone wrong and how he knows better than anyone else. Caring for what’s best for Arsenal is not what it’s all about at the end. I’m not saying I know better, don’t get me wrong. But the change of tune in this current Arteta driven Pedro compared to before, is stunning. The double standards are insane. We saw it very well under Emery when Pedro was up his throat from day 1. Pedro would have been posting Sack Emery requests for 20 months now if Emery was bringing us 8th… Read more »
In attack its Ollie Watkins for me all day.. or better still Haaland if we can sell some of
our surplus in jan ?
I dunno why but I just remembered a hilarious transfer runout of one of those shit ‘soccer transfer direct’ type websites a few years back when arsenal were STRONGLY linked with making a bid for ‘Signul Iduna Park’
Apparently the bid was imminent but never quite materialized for some reason.
I remember doing a double take when I first read it and thought wait… that’s not a Korean… that’s a fucking football stadium 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
God Interlull is so boring . And theres another in November , ugh
And then you have Raptora all day , just on and on and on and on . When did you last enjoy an Arsenal game Raptora ?
NWM Yes I know they are wealthy but they aren’t in the same league as many of the other franchises. And they certainly don’t have the ambition. Arteta or no Arteta we won’t be going anywhere while they own the club.
DS: “When did you last enjoy an Arsenal game Raptora ?”
September 26.
Well Arsenal are going know where near Bissouma with that hanging over him.?
All these stat based posts are becoming quite ridiculous. Everybody knows that you can use stats to paint whatever picture you want – I do it all the time in a wok capacity. You can use certain KPI’s to demonstrate good performance of a certain department, franchise, partners etc and you can use a different set of KPI’s to demonstrate poor performance on those very same departments, franchises and partners. When you are really struggling to find stats to show good performance you choose one and then add caveats to say if certain events were/were not taken into account, the… Read more »
I teenage boy needs to spend time in the outdoors learning things like girls get excited by a guy with a high notch count,
Light room editing is great…….. for older guys
Raptora
You seem unhealthily fixated on Arteta man . There are other things to look forward to re: Arsenal . Arteta will either turn out to be a success or a failure , bringing Emery into the chat everytime isnt gonna help . Emery was a bad choice for us at that time , we didnt address the culture first . Those bad eggs in the team combined with his bad approach led to his downfall.
raptora
I have news for you: every season every club starts with zero points. Yet you natter incessantly about the past.
During his initial interview, did Mikel Arteta highlight the fact that it would take him just short of two years to start to get the team to gel? It’s October 2021 and people are saying “We’re only four games in”. It’s pathetic! Arteta has had ample time to rectify many, if not all, of our issues. “10 points out of 12” is yet another PR spin by someone who will try anything to justify his perceptions on things. It is quite embarrassing to see Pedro stoop to such low levels. He really does treat us like children with these cringeworthy… Read more »
Graham,
You should be aware that the last season and a half never happened. The first 3 games of this season never happened as well. We are 4 games in mate. When did you last enjoy an Arsenal game Graham? Get a grip betwetter.
Did I do well?
What is rather worrying to me, is the low possession percentages. We are supposed to be a side whose tactics are based on possession. I cannot view most of our matches because of business commitments, as well as financial constraints, but that really jumped out to me, that stat. How can we not keep hold of the ball for at least 50 percent of match play?? Ludicrous. Gel or no gel, pressure or no opponent pressure, that isn’t football I would want to watch, even if I could see every millisecond of it. Not to mention how enjoyable it must… Read more »
The Newcastle United official takeover will be the biggest story of season 21/22.
The Saudi’s are finally coming over to England and I suspect they will not be hanging around.
They are playing to win, none of this faffing around the edges like what Arsenal specialize in.
According to the UK Telegraph they want to enact revenge on the big x 6 English clubs who have tried to block the takeover.
Watch this space.
We are watching a football film called the “Curious case of Mikel Arteta”. Its a film about a manager whose record gets reset anytime things get too inconvenient for him. He will get born again at Xmas , just wait and see
We are probably in a situation where things could go either way . We are smack bang in the middle of success (top 4/6) or failure ( bottom half). Due to our 3 opening defeats , the team/players/manager have been under enormous pressure to turn things around , and in my opinion they are on the way to doing that , but not quite there yet. These next few league and league cup games will give us more of an idea where we are. The home fans are 100% behind the team, the new breed of fans are bringing excitement… Read more »
We have to be looking to palm off our surplus shiny toys to Newcastle in January.
Despite what Covid has done to European club finances, hopefully they still won’t be able to attract any of the real top players for a few years.
Pepe for £60m needs to happen. Auba or Laca could be a headline, ‘PL-proven’ name for their project. Ditto Bernd Leno.
This could be an opportunity for us.
A balanced article on Marseille’s new on-loan captain Matteo Guendouzi: “Guendouzi back on track and in line for France debut after Arsenal nightmare.” https://www.goal.com/en/news/guendouzi-back-on-track-and-in-line-for-france-debut-after/1g4vzv68cqkojzn8tp6jojnnh Deschamps picked him ahead of Real’s Camavinga. “He’s been getting a lot of playing time and he’s got confidence in himself,” Deschamps said, justifying his decision to pick Guendouzi. “Beyond the volume of play he gets through and his aggressiveness, he has great technical qualities. He’ll bring freshness, life, and that’s important.” So, like I have been saying, his chief problem is not the admittedly difficult character, but for me just his lack of quality to… Read more »
Graham62
How could Arteta possibly know in his first interview how long it would take to acquire the players needed? What he DID tell us early on was that the job he had to do would take a while. You should have listened.
raptora
By all means discuss (but fairly) this season’s games. But let me repeat the glad news: where the Club ended last season has no bearing on where it will finish this season.
global gunner
If you mean the doomsters, I’d say reset weekly
“The Saudi’s are finally coming over to England and I suspect they will not be hanging around.They are playing to win, none of this faffing around the edges like what Arsenal specialize in.According to the UK Telegraph they want to enact revenge on the big x 6 English clubs who have tried to block the takeover.”
Will the Saudi’s revenge enacting include the use of a bone saw again or just the financial means?
I’m sure MBS will pass the Premier League’s fit and proper person test for new owners and directors with flying colors though.
Guen will be as good or better than Pogba, but Diet Pep prefers meek lambs
Englandsbest,
It seems to me that the Arteta fan club are the ones who keep resetting every time they can find a new isolated piece of information that supports their case. Those of us you call doomsters are basically arguing that we’ve been seeing 20+ months of the same outcomes.
LS
Haha that just about sums it up
Diet Pep managing Newcastle and Not getting the results MBS wants would result in the bone saw
Negative Nigel, on the flip side the likes of Positive Pete will be here bragging Arsenal took a solid point against the fifth richest club in the world after a scoreless draw against Newcastle.
vlahovic would be the best option for us i think. excellent holding the ball up and going in behind. a real handful for defenders. if auba can’t get his mojo back soon i would like to see balogun given a run seeing as we worked so hard to keep him.
Sid, any future Newcastle manager leaving MBS ‘ office after getting sacked will be thinking this isn’t so bad.
I remember when Newcastle United won the FA Cup. It was way back in the days when there were no substitutes. We had a man injured – I’m trying to remember, was it Jimmy Logie? – and lost narrowly. 1952, I think. We also missed out narrowly on the First Division championship. I had a 1000-1 bet on Arsenal to win the Double – no Club had ever done that yet. Anyway, to get to the point. For me Newcastle fans have been the most loyal, the most patient of all. They deserve a break. Too bad it has to… Read more »
Afternoon
This ignores the mess Arteta inherited,ignores the deadwood he’s had to try & offload & ignores any realistic assessment of progress can take time.You don’t just press a button & Alls well.
Delete Arteta and insert Emery into that sentence.
5th place, missed champions league by a point, Europa league final.
id take that season in a heartbeat now, (oops i cant, we didnt qualify for Europe with our Valiant 8th place finish and blow up in the semi final to our previous boss who went on to win it!
englandsbest I wasn’t at the interview. Firstly, this had nothing to do with acquiring the players he needed, this was all about maximising the use of the players he had. Two years into a job and some fans are still making excuses for him. The world doesn’t stand still you know. Life changes every day. Arteta could and should have done far better than he has, the fact that he hasn’t is down to his inabilities to act accordingly and as previously highlighted, maximise the use of his players. Imo the reason we are so far into his reign and… Read more »
raptora
Genuinely enjoy?
That’s a difficult one.
Oh the irony of it all.
“Kick racism out” and “ end all abuses” yet we accept the Arab worlds investments with open arms.
FFP is a farce, the FA are a joke, the EPL likewise and as for FIFA and UEFA, well, what can I say?
It’s like ending drug abuse in athletics. Why frigging bother?
Just let them run the 4x400m “pass the syringe” relay instead.
It’s the same in football. Just let the bad and unfair things happen.
Why bother?
Honest question: which premier league club, right now, will take Arteta as manager if he walks away from Arsenal?
Graham62
Let’s be clear. I don’t make excuses for Arteta – there is no need to.
What I do is give explanations that refute the merchants of gloom, like yourself, when they twist the facts to suit their agenda.
So let’s return to your airy fairy statement that Arteta didn’t highlight how long it would take the team to gel. And now it turns out that what you meant by ‘team’ is the players he inherited. Do you realize how feeble an excuse that is?
Positive Pete, I actually do have a lot of empathy for the mess Arteta inherited. We’ve been accumulating subpar players for many years now and I didn’t expect us to change overnight. Which is why I supported him until early spring this year. But ultimately, a manager’s job is to drive change and deliver results within an acceptable timeframe. No amount of resetting and “projects” can change that. Arteta hasn’t, despite the massive amount of money that’s been spent on his watch. As for whether you should fire a manager after 5-6 losses, I don’t know. Depends on the circumstances.… Read more »
I’m really curious why people think Arteta inherited a bigger mess than Emery. Genuinely curious
It’s not even close
Olumide
”””’Honest question: which premier league club, right now, will take Arteta as manager if he walks away from Arsenal?”””’
Honest: Right here goes…….
When this ends, he ain’t a top flight manager ever again.I simply can not see what he offers a top level club except excuses.
He will revert to being where his skills are best suited. Assistant coaching.
He is Arsenal’s 2021 version of Don Howe.
And the Howe years like the Arteta years , simply a waste of time of everybody’s time.
Harsh but fair and you asked for honesty!
“Hypothetically speaking.New manager,loses 5out 6 first matches,do you sack him?” Pedro was shitting all over Emery the day Ornstein said we’ve appointed him. He literally wrote a 1000 words essay on all of Emery’s bad moments. He hated him before he even got appointed. Now we have superfans claiming that we should stand by the club’s decision and give time to the manager. Big LoL. Link to the post – https://le-grove.co.uk/2018/05/22/ivan-gazidis-opts-for-self-preservation-what-a-coward And one of the comments under it. Emery wasn’t even hired officially and Pedro was so incredibly invested in Arteta. Bankz May 22, 2018 08:37:17 I’m done with this… Read more »
Correction – Pedro was shitting all over Emery way before Ornstein said we’ve appointed him.
Pedro also delights in writing that “Emery lost the dressing room”, conveniently forgetting that it was the bad apples that were against him also moved against Arteta .
The same core group of players that the club had to move out to give Arteta breathing space.
Who can forget Emery’s bad xG being a massive stick to beat him with but when we struggle to score we prefer to talk about shots attempted and a tight defense now
Dissenter yeah Emery having a dressing room of luiz, mustafi, kola, ozil, guen, a Ramsey who wanted out etc was Emery’s problem because he can’t manage egos. But when said players caused Arteta any trouble Arteta was the victim and deserved 200m to fix it
Consider Guen is now known as the ultimate problem child, you wonder how Emery managed to have him start the huge majority of matches in a campaign where we nearly came third!
Just read this: https://le-grove.co.uk/2019/05/06/arsenal-rebirth-a-disaster-heres-how-we-make-it-back-long-read Title of the post is “Addressing the disaster hire of Unai Emery” the day after our top 4 dreams were over. We finished 5th btw. Part 1: is that the manager isn’t good enough. There’s no hiding from this reality. I will absolutely not accept that it was an insurmountable challenge to improve the areas set out by the manager himself at the start of the season (better defence, be the protagonists, entertain the fans, mental strength). Part 2: we are clearly broken from a structural perspective. That also has to improve. However, I don’t want… Read more »
Pedro says about the horrible squad that Arteta has inherited:
“The squad wasn’t ever going to challenge for the title, but it was always top 4 capable, hence the undeniable fact that we were in it as of yesterday.”
LOL?
China1 Emery famously told Mustafi that he should go and find another club in he summer of 2018. The club didn’t back him by moving Mustafi out. Same for when Ozil publicly dissed him in Baku. That same summer, he wanted us to sign Zaha and also spoke to Maguire early to try to to sign him. Instead, they signed an 18 year old defender and Pepe. Luiz was signed to cover Koscielny’s exit. Arsenal never committed tom backing Emery, that just plain fact. He was manager when there was so much chaos in the back room. Gazidis hires him,… Read more »
Know a die-hard Man City fan who wants Arteta after Pep goes
Bizarre, but true and he knows his onions, so don’t mock him (or me) for saying it
raptora Emery was wrong for Arsenal, it’s as simple as that. Pedro (and others) knew that. I am amongst those who didn’t. Nobdy is saying Emery is a bad manager, how can you with a man who has consistently won tiitles? But he was unsuitable for Arsenal. Just as he was for PSG I admit to misgivings about him but for reasons that had nothing to do with management skill. I wanted someone with an Arsenal background, a young guy who favoured a longterm approach, who had patience to focus on the young and vigorous, who could communicate well with… Read more »
englandsbest: “Top 4 is a halfway step, a return to CL My expectation is within three seasons, including this one.”
Pedro for Emery’s squad: “The squad wasn’t ever going to challenge for the title, but it was always top 4 capable, hence the undeniable fact that we were in it as of yesterday.”
So Arteta takes Arsenal and turns a squad capable of top 4 into a squad that needs 4 full seasons, counting his first full one, to reach top 4. And you are standing behind the said manager. Do I understand well?
That makes so much sense honestly.
That post is absolutely painful reading
How is gerrard doing this season btw? Last season was a big one for him, but I haven’t seen how they’ve done this season
Matt B
Define “die-hard”
I have two friends who are both extreme “die-hards”.when it comes to Man City. Brought up on sixties and early seventies MC.
Neither one of them are particularly enamoured with Arteta.
Now Newcastle is the richest club in the world, I guess we are now failing behind them as well.
raptora
A touch of hyperbole to make a point is perfectly permissible. We all do it all the time. Including you.
G of H
“””Now Newcastle is the richest club in the world, I guess we are now failing behind them as well.””””
Who is more likely to win the league title next?
a) Arsenal
or
b) Newcastle United
Will st james park be renamed to Al Hamis or Al Jawamie?
CG
Newcastle. Easy. Chelsea did it. City did it. Why not Newcastle? If these people come in and throw money at new players, why not? Newcastle is a nice city as well.
Good for them.
Gerrard is doing bad. Lost in the qualifying stages for Champions League to Malmo when in the 2nd game, at home, at half-time Rangers were leading by 1-0, doing well after a 2-1 loss away, and Malmo were with left with 10 ppl. After the break Malmo scored 2 goals and won the tie by 4-2 on agg. In Europa league qualification round Rangers barely made it past Alashkert? with 1-0 agg. 2 games played in the competition – 2 losses. To Lyon and Sparta Prague. Scottish Premiership is probably in the bag already. Celtic is 6 pts behind, 8… Read more »
Geordie women should dress apropriatly when going to watch home games.
englandsbest,
I agree about the hyperbole. I don’t get why would you bring that up.
englandsbest Agreed, “Emery was wrong for Arsenal” Arteta was also wrong, as has been proven. Arteta was wrong after Emery and would have been wrong after Wenger. After Wenger we needed stability and structure and experience in dealing with club systems and players. Arteta was found out big time. Our useless owners have no idea about the game and because Mr Arteta communicated in a way that Americans relate to, the tough and believable selling of the process ( is this being racist?), we went for someone that should never have been given the opportunity to take the controls. You… Read more »
raptora Those posts you quoted are some of the reasons long-term readers and posters have issues with Pedro. Fine, you have the right to support a manager if you want. But, at least, be consistent. You can’t say Xhaka should be sold at 26 under a manager and then say he’s great value at 28 under another manager. You can’t say a squad is top 4 quality under one manager and call the same squad (even improved) absolute shit under another manager. You can’t say 5th is unacceptable under one manager then say 8th is okay under another manager because… Read more »
lego head needs to deliver top 4 this season he has no Europe to contend with and he should defiantly have a plan B when things are not going his way. We have seen no in game management to even suggest he is a good coach and this is an issue for a lot of arsenal fans he should be able to change tactics to gain control of a game against a team like Brighton for example .The next five games will tell us what’s really going on .He should be winning the next three for sure. Villa will be… Read more »
Once Afghanistan taps into the $1Trillion worth of its mineral deposits including the Lithium, the Taliban and their main business partner,Tesla , will be looking to buy a PL club to clean up their image too.
Tottenham might be an attractive club for a takeover then , with a fairly new stadium , decent London location, although 40 year old Kane leading the line might be needing an upgrade.
Arteta will be knocking at the top four places right about then with Englandsbest giving him three more years to prove himself.
Olumide
For me personally, it’s become very simple.
I respect Pedro for the time and effort he puts into the blog but, on the flip side, I will disrespect him if he continues to act the way he does ( flip flopping to suite his own agenda). Because of this he has absolutely no credibility.
That’s me.
Graham here here.
He’s getting desperate to lavish praise on a lost cause.
We all want to get our mojo back , but as each year goes by it’s going to get harder.
Now Newcastle have got a sugar daddy, and they will pump a lot of money into their project.
Stan is a big problem, stagnation is with us
Have to feel sorry for Sunderland fans.
Tom: That was very funny
Graham62: It’s really okay for people to change their minds, nothing worse than sticking belligerently to a pov for no good reason
I didn’t agree with Pedro’s pov re AW, so I didn’t read but don’t castigate him for doing what he does — their are few, if any better
Thank you Matt, of course I forgot to mention Taliban will be needing professional help to promote their move.
Top of their list will be Peter Wood and Associates, voted the best London PR firm of 2033.
I understand that the famous Geordie lawyers, Hadaway and Shite, are handling this acquisition and that Mike Ashley is eyeing up a move for some underachieving shitshow of a North London club. He’s in two minds which one to buy.