ARTETA PAYS THE PRICE OF TRANSACTIONAL MANAGEMENT

by .

Arsenal are out of the race for top 4.

Our season is over.

Let’s not pretend it can be any other way.

If you can be beaten by individual stupidity and the sheer drive of Brighton and Palace, you have next to no hope of finding the right tools against West Ham, Chelsea and Spurs.

There are a lot of hot takes as to why we failed. The main one is the January transfer window, but that is totally wrong in my opinion. If the right players weren’t available, then it was best we sit on the funds. I know that stings people because the obvious solution to everything is signings… but that mindset is old Arsenal.

The cold hard reality regarding our striker hunt is there are probably only about 5 players in the world that fit the profile of what we’re looking for. Vlahovic was one of them, but his agents pushed him to Juventus. Benfica and Sociedad both know the money will be the same in the summer as it is in January, neither is going to give up a season now. We’re not going to spend £40m on a backup striker, we’ll be looking at free transfers or promoting from within. If we get the striker signing wrong, we are fucked long-term. We don’t have infinite funds, so we have to be laser-focused on making the right signings.

The real problem is how Arteta has managed the squad. I’ve been writing for a long time that we need to give our backup players games. The striker solution is sitting in the squad, we didn’t need to buy, we just needed to give Eddie minutes. Those that say he’s League One are so, so wrong. He’s Premier League striker and when he’s given games, he will score goals. If he’d been given a 6 game run, we’d not be having these conversations about Lacazette right now.

Just think back to Tomi. He was overplayed, he broke down… and we all feared Cedric would break us. He didn’t. When he was given some minutes, he found a rhythm and he’s done an excellent job. Players need minutes, not everyone can hit the ground running. Just think back to Odegaard, the only reason he’s doing bits now is that we showed patience with him.

Nuno Tavares was the big one. He landed a run at the start of the season. He was so good, it was a legitimate question as to whether KT would get back into the side. Then Tavares was dropped for two months. When he came back at Forest, he was pulled after 30. Then he wasn’t given any time to address his performances. Is anyone shocked he hasn’t found his game?

If Arteta was as ruthless with Lacazette as he has been with Nuno, we might be in better shape right now. How Lacazette can offer up nothing for 3 games and face no recriminations is beyond me. Eddie did more in 30 mins than Laca has done in 3 games. The man hasn’t scored in open play in 2022. How is he still starting?

Arteta totally botched the starting 11 today. It’s not a hindsight thing here, putting Granit at left-back was a car crash idea. Sambi needed Xhaka next to him so he could do this thing. It was a tactical disaster. Granit can’t left back, Odegaard isn’t effective from deep, and because the system was so alien… the players performed like they didn’t know what was going on. That was all on Arteta.

We have learned many things over these past two games.

Arsenal are far too reliant on the brilliance of Thomas Partey. When he exits our system, our system crashes. We need to sign able midfielders this summer that can rotate with him. The Ghanaian is now officially injury prone. We cannot rely on him.

We need to put the Lacazette experiment to bed. He was a good bridge to get us on track, but he doesn’t score, he doesn’t cause problems, and now he looks dead to the world. Southampton needs to see Eddie given a run of games. Though the issue is now that Eddie is going to leave and he’ll feel the full force of being Arteta’s get out of jail free card. If he comes in and does what he’s capable of, we’ll see that a top talent was slept on. If he fails because he’s demotivated, we’ll be no worse off that where we are with Lacazette.

Arteta needs to think about his entire squad next season. He overplayed his favored 11 when he should have been giving out minutes to other players. That has bitten him. His ruthless approach to Tavares has now cost him top 4. It’s really sad.

I do have questions of some of the coaches around Arteta. Why didn’t anyone push an inexperienced manager on squad rotation? Seems like a real basic that should have been addressed. It seems like Arteta is the only voice in the room and his mistakes need to be learned the hard way. I’m a big believer in experience. Don’t make mistakes you don’t need to make. Overplaying the same talent killed Tomiyasu, that was the warning sign, but everyone watched on.

I also feel like we’re not as smart as other clubs, still. Why was KT allowed to go to those Scotland friendlies? He’s injury prone. He was crucial to our success. But he flew out anyway and broke himself. Liverpool would have faked a hamstring and given him two weeks rest.

Heading into next season, Arteta needs to take lessons from all of these problems, because tanking a great season against Brighton and Palace wasn’t the magical ending we had hoped for.

What I will say in his defence is this: Not many clubs could deal with injured first choice right back, left back, and central midfielders missing. Not to mention having no goal threat from a striker. This is a unique set of circumstances we hopefully won’t have to deal with next season.

That’s no help for today. This moment is one of sadness. Spurs are riding the luck train, they’ve scored 12 goals from 15 shots on target, Kane and Son are injury free, and their ascent to top 4 is now inevitable.

Right, I’m off for a beer and a cry. See you in the bar. x

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Edu me a favour

China

I can’t mate. But I googled it and saw he’s had at least 2 since he’s been here

Mr Serge

Sal like playing 3 bc and cedric and saka as wing backs that would have been better
You cannot excuse the fact he made that massive mistake and left our midfield so bad

WengerEagle

”Last season
Played 38
Conceded 39This season
Played 30
Conceded 36”

This is nuts when you consider that we spent £100m on defenders and a GK in the summer. And we were being ridiculed by the self pro-claimed superfans expressing reservations about our summer business.

Edu me a favour

Anyway – if anything, this all makes for an exciting end to the season. Title going down to the wire and 4th place , think Chelsea will get 3rd. Best league in the world ✌🏽

Mr Serge

We
Who is ridiculing YOU ? And I mean you personally ? It’s 2 guys that are unflinching in their defence of the club it’s not an us v them scenario those 2 are crazy and the 2 or 3 that are the opposite side are also crazy, everyone else is just having an opinion that can be swayed either way by seeing the cold harsh facts

WengerEagle

Mr Serge

You know who and I didn’t say it was me personally. I shouldn’t have to name names, anyone who has read the blog semi-regularly over the past few months knows who I am talking about.

Pedro himself has to own up to the fact that we are on the brink of collapse yet again and there can be no more excuses for Arteta now in his 3rd season here.

Zambian Gunner

Arteta might never be a top coach unless he improves his man management skills. We can’t afford another 8th finish in the league. Not being in Europe has hit us terribly this season.

WengerEagle

It’s a shame that our away trip to Spurs has gone from a must not lose to a must-win now.

Their vastly superior GD pretty much puts them 4 points ahead of us with only x1 game in hand. I see them getting beat at Anfield but I also see us losing at Stamford Bridge.

The rest of their 5 matches are very winnable, we have Utd at home in ours and for all of the banter let’s not forget that they did beat us at OT after all.

WengerEagle

Our last PL win at Spurs was in 2014 too.

Mr Serge

We I hear you and agree on we know who the guys are each side of the fence. Totally agree with the no excuses thing 3 seasons is more than enough time to move the needle to us being able to compete again at the top table. If we don’t make top 5 he needs to be removed Also still very pissed off that we threw away such a strong position for top 4 there has to be accountancy for that too Let’s see how the season ends the last two matches have really thrown that cat amongst the pigeons… Read more »

David.D

A day later and I’m still fucking fuming. What the fuck was that. We are going for 4th place , chance to get back on the horse and we put in a performance of such shiteness. What on earth was Arteta thinking playing xhaka at left back. Pre match talking about tavares being supported and playing through it then he precedes not to play him and further hangs him out to dry!!!!! Just poor decision. Xhaka needed to be in there to support lokonga. Took him till half time to realise it. Really hurts as 4th has gone. Spurs in… Read more »

salparadisenyc

Southampton seems a big ask based on form, Arteta needs to find the solution to escape this season without complete collapse in that 90 minutes. Otherwise 7th place awaits.

China1

I’m still not sure I’ve seen any players I’d particularly want as captain so far For me people are way too quick to talk about captain material when the team are doing well. Looking good when the sun is shining and the team is playing well is easy but tells you nothing about someone’s leadership ability. It’s easy as hell to lead a team when everyone is already in the zone, doing their best, hungry and sharp. It’s when the going gets tough, when your team mates (and you) are struggling, when people are distracted, when the young players need… Read more »

China1

Put the team on his back* not best

Mr Serge

We are not beating spurs Chelsea or west ham away that’s for sure

Top 5 is the best we can hope for now uefa or bust

Benjamin

We went out og FA Cup in third round and people
on here said that it didnt matter cause we would
compete for 4th place. Well with 8 games to go
We are out of that competition. If you cant get 4th
Place without “distractions” of Fa cup and Europe
Then how are you going to get it next season?
Unless offcourse Arteta finish in his favorite
Position again…8th. Besides, he spent 150 million
Mainly on the defence and we are worse off than
Last year.

Nelson

What is really worrying is that Conte is known to challenge the league in his second year. With the trajectory Spuds is improving, the worst could still happen.

CG

David

“”””Spurs in great form and smell blood.”””

Something Arteta did not do- when he got the Spurs fixture cancelled, when they were also in disarray.

Spurs , since Conte’ s outburst at Burnley a whopping 25 goals in 7 games.

The game has always been about goals and your quality of your center forwards- someone needs to remind A&E this rather obvious observation.

Maybe Vinnie or Josh?

Mr Serge

Nelson no chance spurs challenge for the title next season lololol

WengerEagle

Agreed Mr Serge, well said. We are on pace to score 57 goals this season and concede 46 goals. Last season in the league we scored 55 and conceded just 39. So after pumping £100m into a GK and defenders we are on pace to have a worse defensive record and we are scoring goals at the same rate as last year which was the main reason that we dropped so many points and finished 8th. It is immensely frustrating that we only elected to add Odegaard (who we had on loan for half of last season) as the sole… Read more »

Mr Serge

It was a massive mistake cancelling the spurs fixture
We should have played it no matter what it galvanised them and their fanbase now we are going to play them away when they are bang in form instead of when they were in dissaray
Foolishness from the Arsenal heirachy

Batistuta

Went into the most important period of the season without a striker worthy of note.

It’s all so familiar and so are the excuses really. Hopefully we don’t totally crash and burn.

We will be 3 years into this project and if our form continues, may well miss out on Europe altogether for the 2nd season running. I hope that’s not the case.

Nelson

The chance Conte would challenge the league is infinitely higher than Pedro’s favorite generational coach.

Naija+soccer

Conte really starting to have that huge manager impact at Tottenham. His teams have this nasty habit of figuring out the league and just going going on a crazy run. Hope their run now isn’t one of those.

Arteta is getting there but Conte is already the finished product.

Mr Serge

Nelson oh yeah for sure Conte is a top manager spurs need a lot of work to challenge though and they are a billion in debt. It’s not happening

WengerEagle

I don’t see Spurs challenging for the league as their XI is still miles behind the top 2 in particular not to mention the bottler mentality that is cemented in their core, one that even a serial winner like Conte cannot supersede.

But can they move comfortably clear of us next season and lock up the CL places? Absolutely if we are not careful and proactive this summer.

Kulusevski will be signed permanently and they are a couple of decent CMs and a RB away from being a very strong team.

Spudnik

Arsenal table April 2021 and April 2022
April played won drawn lost GF GC GD Points
21 30 12 6 12 40 35 5 42
22 30 17 3 10 45 36 9 54

Mr Serge

Naija I get that but a world class forward line hides a lot of difficiency they were totally outplayed in the first half yesterday but their front line won them the game
That front three is very very strong we do t even have a front 1
Not sure who we can bring in that will actually step us up that much unless we get two top strikers and a top number 8 cm

Naija+soccer

This is such a hard time for rookie coach like Arteta to be managing a club like Arsenal. He has to do it against the best in the business in Klopp, Guardiola, Conte.

Three managers with histories of not only winning titles but having dominating periods.

Mr Serge

Thank god son and Kane will soon be the wrong side of 30

salparadisenyc

Said it yesterday Eagle, pretty clear this season’s failures were born in last summers transfer market.

We fucked ourselves by not brining in more to the attack, notably Champagne Charlies golden boy Tammy and a central mid as there were some serious bargains out there.

Don’t tell me we’d not be in a better place with the center back options of Saliba/Holding/Saliba/Mavro with Tammy leading the line opposed to the White splurge.

Batistuta

Careful now, everyone who commented on how we would have been better off not spending so much on our defense was ridiculed and called names

Naija+soccer

Serge

Conte knows how to make attacks click and function. Arteta as good as he’s been is still learning the attacking game. When u look at it like that it makes sense that he’s got their front 3 purring while ours struggles.

Nelson

Who is this Ademola Lookman? He has good skills.

Dissenter

The annoying thing about legrove was Pedro empowering a few fans to go after every one that didn’t join the goose step in support of Arteta. It seemed to be Arteta before Arsenal. When we said Saliba was good enough, 1.5 seasons ago, it was deemed as ant-Arteta so it was wrong. When we said Saliba was good enough last summer, spending £50+5 million on Ben White was a luxury we couldn’t afford since our midfield was so dependent on n injury prone Partey. It was deemed anti-Arteta , and so had to be wrong. How do you spend £160… Read more »

Naija+soccer

Playing Martinelli or Pepe instead of Lacazette at striker would have given us more options in the team and given us some ideas about how else we can play.

CG

Serge

“”””but a world class forward line hides a lot of difficiency they were totally outplayed in the first half yesterday but their front line won them the game””””

They were pretty garbage against Newcastle, still scored 9 goals in the last 2 games.

With Artetaball/JSP- you have to play faultless – to win by one goal.

No room for error with Artetaball.
(With the 5 subs coming next season- its an obsolete way of playing anyhow)

AND its so Bloody boring to watch.

Naija+soccer

Dissenter

My issue with Arteta is that he’s improvements seems slow . He’s getting better but it seems to be at a snail pace. Tuchel came in at Chelsea last year and he immediately improved them. Conte is doing the same at Spurs.

Feels like we ll get there but it will be much longer

Naija+soccer

his*

TheBayingMob

“Just think back to Tomi. He was overplayed, he broke down…”

He’s played like 16 games. Overplayed!? Or just another sicknote in a long line of them that have dragged us down for years and continues to do so.

Nelson

Leicester is getting gems from nowhere. Dewsbury-Hall is someone we should definitely trying to target this Summer.

Tom

Eriksen still levels above anyone on the pitch in the Brentford West Ham game.
Another player who would’ve been just fine bench warming at Arsenal and happy given any minutes.

salparadisenyc

Look long term White may prove to me a master stroke but when you look at our need and other options in Saliba or Mavro it didn’t make sense from that stand point. At the time I was convinced the owners we’re going all in and funding something further for the attack as well otherwise it didn’t make sense. From a loan standpoint Saliba’s has been excellent, what loans are for. But then begs the question if he was that far along why not keep him and put that cash into the business end of pitch. Tom I was shocked… Read more »

Ishola70

We can talk about names for striker that would have improved us and Abraham was an obvious one but I don’t think he was attainable.

Very unlikely Chelsea would have sold to us at that time and even up in the air that Abraham would have wanted to leave Chelsea in an outright sale rather than continuing to learn his trade with a loan deal somewhere else which we saw materialised.

Dissenter

WE
I’ll be savaged for this but if Conte gets Mr Levy to spend massively like he got the owners of Inter to spend then all bets are off. It’s highly unlikely that Daniel Levy will spend that type of money.

Spurs have two elite whorled class goal scorers and two good creators in Dejan Kulusevski and Moura. Their attack is set.
Bentancur has also been decent.
They have an elite defender in Christian Romero who relishes in physical challenges and is settling into the league.

Will Conte’s relentless mad spirit be enough to drive them to a league success?

Naija+soccer

WengerEagle

If they can buy in those positions you highlighted CM, Right-back, with 1 or 2 CBs they can challenge for the league. Their front 3 is so strong that they don’t need much to get even better.

Naija+soccer

It was just a few games ago that their GD was -4 and we were like +8 or +9. In just 5-6 games, they ve gone from their deficit to +19. Thats a front line thats figured it out.

Dissenter

Will Arteta survive the amazon prime documentary
That’s the final nail in any myth that was building about him.
Amazon will have some editorial independence about what content they will eventually finish with even if Arsenal exerts some veto. They are paying Arsenal as much as £10-15million for the documentary.

I want to see what Auba did to earn that pariah status?
Talk is that he made a joke at Arteta’s expense during a team meeting to defuse a dressing room tension. Arteta lacking the capacity to be self-deprecating, took offense and never let go of the slight.

Mr Serge

World class front line wins you games we have to grind out 1 Nils how many games we have come back from a goal down and won ? I think 1 maybe 2 spurs 7 times this season

Naija+soccer

We need a striker that the opponent think might score as opposed to one that Will not score. That alone halves our attacking output/ability.

salparadisenyc

Ish

Players name not really point, was the obvious was from his wanting Arsenal and vice versa more about proper squad building addressing overall needs.

That said at £40m to Roma there was a deal to made there if pushed.

Tom

“I was shocked Spurs didn’t go back in for Eriksen, would of slotted right into our side as well.“

Sal, yep, I was surprised too, especially since Conte’s idea of Kane isn’t to have him dropping deep in a playmaker role.
Against Newcastle Kane’s through balls from deep leading to goals saw him repeatedly behind four/five teammates when the ball hit the net….that’s just crazy play from a number 9 perspective.

Mr Serge

Diss I know full well what a first of iron does to a team I had a manager like that we ousted him in the end
My concern like I have said many times before is you piss him off you are gone
No let’s discuss it etc to the detriment of the team
Really worried saliba is not treated the same way
Pique left United as a 21 year old and look at the career he had

Dissenter

Nelson
You keep talking about us stealing gems from other clubs.
The other day you’re talking about taking Olise off Palace and now Drewsbury Hall from Leicester
How about we keep what we already have first?
How about we become the club that buys Olise from Reading for £8.7 million because Reding were in financial trouble. Palace or Leicester won’t sell their best young talent to Arsenal, that ship has sailed.

Naija+soccer

Mr Serge

Our business this summer should be mostly attack-centric. You know strikers, attacking midfielders, wide forwards, inside forwards.

The last thing we need is stocking up on more defenders, since Arteta has barely bought in attack positions in almost 3 years at the club.

Pierre

Sal
“I was shocked Spurs didn’t go back in for Eriksen, would of slotted right into our side as well.”

Don’t be silly , Arteta looks at what a player does off the ball rather than what he can do on the ball

Ishola70

Sal

The 40m is just a token figure that went with the loan deal for Abraham because Roma as everyone knows are paupers now and would not be in a position to splash that cash.even if they qualified for CL which they are not going to do.

Very unlikely there was a deal there for Arsenal regarding Abraham.

Pierre

Dissenter
“Reading were in financial trouble. Palace or Leicester won’t sell their best young talent to Arsenal, that ship has sailed.”

They will when Viera becomes manager …

Dissenter

There’s a snottiness amongst gooners I remember the outrage here when Tammy Abraham was mooted. Arteta wanted the board to sign him but Chelsea insisted on a buy-back clause so it was a no-go for Arsenal. Roma made it harder for us because they were all in with the buy back clause. There was pandemonium here, lots of contrived outrage about Tammy’s quality. The same way many dissed the EL when Emery was here for a club with a bare European trophy cabinet. Now we have two strikers who have less that three months on their contracts. I’m surprised Laca… Read more »

InsideRight

englandsbest – “Of course, Arteta will be blamed for mistakes – for example, why hasn’t he given Eddie minutes, and why didn’t he play Holding yesterday? – but panic-buying second-best in Jan is not one.” Nice strawman. Calling it “panic buying” suggests bringing players in would have been the wrong thing to do, But where your argument fails is that we sent out so many players on loan and let others leave on perm deals, which was Arteta’s plan. That plan included a need to bring in upgrades as a strategic imperative, not a panic measure. To claim leaving the… Read more »

Dissenter

InsideRight
You’re talking about the chair person of the Arteta-ultras
That one is a true believer and I don’t mean it as an insult.

Mr Serge

Diss i really like Tammy there are not a lot of strikers that would suit our system out there he is definitely one of them

Dissenter

…’a squad capable of challenging Europe’s elite”

salparadisenyc

Ish

We’ll never know and hardly the only option.

Pandemonium? Dissenter true to his form.

Ishola70

Correction.

Roma did buy Abraham outright rather than a loan which surprised me as we kept hearing how poor they were in relation to the Xhaka deal.

Still I think it was a case of Chelsea prefering to sell outside of the EPL rather than to an English rival club.

Dissenter

Mr Serge
That’s was not the overwhelming sentiment here when he was linked with us.
I think that’s why Arteta was sounding like a jilted lover at the start of the season.
Arteta wanted him
Tammy wanted to come and was delaying talking to Roma because he had spoken with Arteta. Chelsea were insisting on a buy back clause which was £67 million to be activated in 2023.
The buy-back clause didn’t make sense to Arsenal because we can’t become Chelsea’s feeder. club. I wouldn’t be surprised if Chelsea activate that clause in 2023.

InsideRight

I’m always cautious of kneejerk reactions about who should be Arsenal manager. It’s with that in mind that I note Leicester are currently 2-0 up on Palace and controlling the game. Perhaps Paddy had a way of getting Palace worked up for our game last week, but not for this one at Leicester. Or perhaps the Arsenal side is even softer than many of us thought it was. Either way, much as I love Paddy for what he did on the pitch for Arsenal, I am nowhere near sold that he has what we need in a manager.

Dissenter

Sal

There was probably CC, myself and maybe two others who wanted Tammy here. The rest of this blob was loudly and demonstratively vocal about their displeasure of getting “another Chelsea reject” just as we were getting rid of Willian.

Pandemonium is probably too soft, wish I had a stronger descriptor. It was the stuff of pitch forks

Mr Serge

Diss I know it wasn’t many turned their noses up at Tammy

Saying that I like DCL and I would not touch him with a barge pole now god was I wrong on him

Dissenter

*this blog

Ishola70

I always thought Abraham showed some good attributes and was seen as promising. Think Weagle had reservations about him initially before taking more of a shine to him later on.

This buy back clause which Dissenter mentioned could be seen as a form of loan then really.

salparadisenyc

Diss

It was more a debate of who should come in, if framed Tammy or nobody pretty sure the entire blog would of backed him. Clearly with knowledge of this season, Tammy would of been a great choice. Not recalling any pitchforks and sorcery but I could be wrong.

Not even touching on not strengthening the mid further than Ø which was required as we’ve seen.

Mr Serge

The big mistake was not selling xhaka when we had a solid offer and not bringing in Neves

Ishola70

I fully expect Xhaka to carry on with Arsenal until his contract expires so that’s another two seasons of him at the club so another two seasons without CL qualification.

As night follows day.

salparadisenyc

West Ham loosing is good, gives us hope for that last Europa league spot.

Mr Serge

Sal that’s great news they lost

Aaron

Europa league spot, my goodness the bar keeps dropping.

Not worth the time, money, resources and wear and tear on the team, we will NEVER contend for League with that on our plate with Arteta.

Emery died on the road, but Mikel dies at home.
“Arteta has now lost more Premier League home games in (20 months) than Arséne Wenger did in (6 years) at the Emirates.”

It will get worse next year if AFC reup this guy!

Guns of SF

Mike does not need an extension right now. That is a big mistake.
Let this season play out first.

InsideRight

EdTheREd – Two pieces of inside the club info, and you can quote me on it: 1) The club’s no1 target this summer is to KEEP Saka. Yes, you’ve read that well. 2) Martinelli gets regular coaching tips via texts….from Klopp. In the words of my source: “He’s all over him” ——————– Point 2 would not surprise me at all. When Liverpool signed Luis Diaz a big deal was made of the fact Spuds had offered more for him but saw the bid rejected in favour of Liverpool’s bid. Liverpool had played a long game with Porto and apparently the… Read more »

David.D

I’d rather take Europa then no europa at all.
Hate the Thursday Sunday sequence but bloody miss my regular Arsenal midweek fix .
Plus it’s a chance to win a trophy and another route to qualify for champions league.
Yes we all prefer 4th but no way we should be turning up our nose at europa league.
Delighted to see west ham lose today.

David.D

The thing is I can’t see klopp being at Liverpool for more than 3 more seasons so if as expected Martinelli signs a new 3 to 4 year contract then that takes him out of Liverpools reach.
If they really want him we can play hardball. 100 million…..

Sly

We are moving in the right direction as a club with the emphasis on youth and wage structure revision Criticizing arteta or looking at potential replacements for him is not a knee jerk reaction The appraisal of his capabilities on LG is pretty spot on He’s a decent coach but not top tier He’s also not the youth developer championed by Pedro He needs his key experienced personnel in place or the team craters He remains risk averse To move forward we need to look at coaches who can work with youth and have a progressive vision with the style… Read more »

Mark

@Upstate

That article was spot on! Pedro should read it and digest.

Mark

Watched s few of Arteta’s pressers since the match. Worryingly he has not acknowledged any part his choice of set up had on the game and imbalanced the team.
It’s like he just spoke about what they did (as if we couldn’t see for ourselves) and has no answer for it. Like it’s just happened again. That is worrying.
A good coach would admit they got it wrong, the subs wrong..etc.
But it’s all a mystery to Mikel.

Expect to see more of Xhaka at left back 🥺😠

Andy

this is amazingly defeatist coming from you pete. considering we are 3 points off fourth with a game in hand and still have to play spurs i find it hard to understand why everyone is all of a sudden writing us off. in the last two games we were nervous and jittery and we had too few players willing to take a chance and make something happen. *BUT* when we threw caution to the wind in the late stages of both games we absolutely battered both palace and brighton. there’s a lesson for these guys to learn there, and it… Read more »

EdTheREd

Inside Right

All Klopp has to do is send Martinelli following text: “Hi Gabi! Another soloid performance yesterday! I promise I will never ever ever ever play you as a left back” – and the deal is sealed.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but wasn’t it indicative that Martinelli sprinted right past Arteta into the arms of some other coach on the bench, when celebrating disallowed goal yesterday?

EdTheREd

Andy

Pedro and likeminded Arsenal supporters spent months building Arteta’s house of cards. It fell apart last week, because it was the house of cards.

Even if Tottenham drops considerable amount of points, we will not be able to capitalise on it.

I keep saying it and I stand by it, Vieira finished Arteta’s elite coaching career the other night.

He is not messiah, he’s a very lucky boy with a relentless PR machine behind him.

No credible stat backs up Arteta on anything, quite the opposite.

stubertio

I get it we’ve lost back to back games and Spuds look like they’ll kick on for 4th…… but why all the drama… suddenly the world is ending and Arteta is the worst coach in the world, again!?! We’ve massively improved this season. For the first time in a very long time we have an identity that can be seen. Mistakes have been made but a young team managed by a young manager means not much wriggle room or safety net. If our bar is so high that we’d only ever lose to the top 2-3 then we’d be damn… Read more »

Omozuafo Frank

It seems as if the writer do not know where he stands. Aleays wavering inn his opinion. No club will survive the players we are missing. He said. We are where we are today because of no rotation which no reasonable club would have done. When players are over played then injuries are inevitable. The top four is still achievable. The only thing is that the coach should be wise in his team selection.