SPRING HAS SPRUNG where I am today, it’s p*ssing down with rain, but it’ll be a balmy 22 degrees later. Are we close to complaining it’s too hot, yes we are people. You can take the boy out of England and all that, but you’ll NEVER take my right of weather complaint.
Complaining about Arsenal? I’m not sure I can muster it today.
I saw people sharing a GFFN x Guardian love piece on Matteo G yesterday. The Frenchman has pulled up his socks this season and he’s doing a great job. I think he has 14 or so assists, a bunch of goals, and he’s being described as a leader. It’s easy to use that to point to his form being a Mikel Arteta problem, I did briefly yesterday, but I’m told the biggest problem Matteo had at Arsenal is the other players couldn’t stand him.
I worked with a woman once, she was a lunatic, lovely, but very inappropriate. Old school New York type, would blithely offer out bad things in the office, once came to my desk and asked if I like getting spanked because she did. It didn’t work out for her at our place, the fit wasn’t correct… now she’s running shit at a massive organization because the vibes connect. Right time, right place, right energy, right culture. She’s basically working in a pro-spanking agency. Was it the fault of my agency and their leadership that we were anti-spanking? No. But life goes on, you have to be happy for people.
It’s a similar thing for Auba. He’s scoring for fun at Barcelona. Good for him. He was terrible for us. If you had to choose his lack of goals or Lacazette’s, the data would suggest Lacazette’s was a better type of zero threat.
Where Arteta has to watch things is that there was an impression before he was a bit too ruthless for his own good, now that ruthlessness has cost him Top 4 this season. There are plenty of managers that fall out with players, all the best do, but they can usually prove the point out the side of it. Thomas Tuchel has decided he doesn’t like Rom Lukaku, his team has been pretty average by Chelsea standards, I suspect if Roman was in charge, an exit from the CL this week might cost him his job. Jose Mourinho would always fall out with players, he was usually wrong, it was always a power move, but he won things… and winning things means people overlook your flaws.
Arteta has exposed himself as a spanker this week… the question is, can he pump Arsenal up a level so no one noticed the belt-affixed-spanking-paddle when he’s marching the halls of Colney.
Ok, ok, I will stop with the spanking references.
Arsenal are still competing for everything we wanted to compete for this season.
You wouldn’t think after the last few days of ‘BURN IT ALL DOWN’ but the people at the Arsenal training ground don’t think the season is over and nor should you.
We have to beat Southampton. The way to do that is to put out a normal team and control the game. No galaxy brain.
Then we have a cup final run of Chelsea, United and West Ham. Take 4 points from those games and we’re up to 7.
Then, by my calculations, I think we probably need 2 points from our remaining 4 games.
Yes, 9 points gets us into Europe. 16 might get us into the top 4. There are 24 to play for.
We have to take it one game at a time. It’ll be tough. But remember… our financial and squad planning was always built around Europe this season, top 4 next season, title push the season after.
We are on track if we can take 9 points from 24. Anything else is a bonus.
Summer has to take Arsenal to the next level. If we can do to our attack what was done to the defence last summer then we will be in very good shape next season if we can get off to a good start.
Expect Arsenal to add at least two high quality midfielders. It is not a surprise to see Neves linked, we are most certainly courting Tielemans, and I wouldn’t be shocked if we moved for Renato Sanches who has looked great when fit this season.
We’re going to have to reshape our forward line. How aggressively remains to be seen and probably boils down to a few things:
- How ready is Folarin Balogun next season
- What we do with Lacazette and Eddie
- Whether we can extract a fee for Nico who earns about £140k a week
There will be a blockbuster forward signing. The profile is pretty clear. Young, tall, powerful in the air, decent link up play, with goals, goals, goals. This is the most consequential signing of the next 10 years. We cannot miss here. If we can make it happen, I wouldn’t be shocked to see us sign a goalscoring wide player. This won’t be blockbuster, it’ll be rehabbing a broken player (Rashford) or picking up a free transfer (Dybala). We don’t score enough goals, we need someone that can change that, and do the things needed in the system.
There might also be some opportunistic upgrades in defence. Cedric probably won’t move because we have Norton-Cuffy developing at a rate of knots. But the left back position will see some action if possible. Kieran Tierney is turning heads, he’s at the peak of his powers, I’m not sure we could afford to say no to £50m from Madrid. If we could replace him with someone more robust, we will. I’m not sure what we do about Nuno Tavares, it looks like it’s over for him, unless Arteta has a change of heart.
Then there’s William Saliba. On paper, he’s perfect for our system. He’s a French international, he’s tall, great with the ball at his feet, he’s hard to go past, and he can move through midfield with his surging runs. This is a test of Arteta. Clearly he doesn’t fancy him, the press all say he hasn’t spoken to him… but can the club afford to let Arteta’s ego rule the roost on this one? Especially after losing Guendouzi for pittance and Mavropanos for similar amounts of money
Ishola,
I didn’t know that a manager needed to “be ordered” to make a team defensively solid.
It toke Arteta two years to come up with a system of attack. The problem is other EPL managers know that’s all Arteta can do. Like Patrick Vieira, they’ll set up to stop us. Crystal Palace played us out of the park. Arteta has no Plan B. His galaxy brain toke over. As expected, it goes de pire sen pire.
When Emery came in he said he realised what was expected at Arsenal playing wise following on from Wenger and we know what that means. Attacking progressive football. So in that sense Emery wasn’t the right fit from the start. What is ironic in all this is Arteta getting a defensive structure and really concentrating on it was seen as great and of course Arteta’s only notable real success to date with Arsenal was winning the FA Cup where underdog tactics were used plenty of men behind the ball along with defensive structure. Emery could have done that easily. Easily.… Read more »
LoveSausage
You like everyone else knows the image Arsenal had under Wenger and what the club were known for and celebrated for playing wise and defensive structure wasn’t top of the list was it. At least in Wenger’s second period.
Edu
You are not addressing the fact that Emery’s Villarreal side are being absolutely praised to the skies rearding their defensive structure.
So it was clearly in Emery’s locker to be able to set up a good defensive structure to a side. Not just good. Excellent.
Nelson
I definitely fear Arteta might not know how to properly set up an attacking team. There are definitely signs ;
Auba struggling for goals in our attack then becomes prime Lewandowski at Barca,
Lacazette not scoring,
Martinelli was free scoring before Arteta then Arteta joins then all of a sudden, Martinelli ain’t ready yet,
Etc.
But I am hoping that I am overreacting and he s a genius of an attacking coach.
Emery is doing well but he was never the right fit for Arsenal. It’s not even the language issue. Person/Environment was a mismatch.
Think Moyes at Man U then think same Moyes at West ham.. Similar situation to Emery.
“”””You are not addressing the fact that Emery’s Villarreal side are being absolutely praised to the skies rearding their defensive structure.So it was clearly in Emery’s locker to be able to set up a good defensive structure to a side. Not just good. Excellent.”””” All credit to Emery and his villa real , absolutely. But you can’t tell me he just didn’t focus much at all on defensive structure at arsenal – after conceding 9.8 million shots to Watford , do you not think he might have thought , hmmm we should probably work on our defensive structure a bit… Read more »
The Real Vieira Lynn,
For me, Arteta is only still in this job because:
(1) He is in Josh Kroenke’s good books
(2) He was a cheap hire.
Many of the other reasons being mentioned by his supporters is just conjecture sandwiched with vanity metrics. His contract is worth less than Rodgers, Lage and the now departed, Bielsa.
Hopefully, when the Board of Directors look at the dreadful mismanagement of player value that has occurred. They’ll rethink dipping into the bargain bin to recruit the likes of Edu and Arteta in the future.
If you have just had a spanking
If confidence is low
And you need a win
Maybe you should play, the Arsenal…
(spoken as per the A-Team them song)
Ishola70
That defensive structure of his had us conceding like 20 something shots against the likes of Watford in the league . Which proves the point he was the wrong fit for Arsenal.
Glad he’s doing well again.
Just want to make it clear that I’m a fan of the pre Arsenal Emery and the post Arsenal Emery – just not much of a fan of the one in between all of that. But he is absolutely NOT a bum , not at all , just not the right guy at the time – who knows , maybe it was just a bit too soon for him after psg – let’s say he skipped us and went to villa real – if we were about to get him now we’d all be loving it
Ishola, Yes, we had an image for attacking football and I’d love to have that again. And there’s always a trade off between attack and defensive solidity, unless you’re Pep. My point is that a new coach’s job isn’t to live up to his predecessor’s image. It’s to do better than him. Considering that we were undone by our lack of solidity in Wenger’s last 8 years (at least), Emery should have focused on that without needing to be ordered. That’s what you do when an organization is facing a crisis. You stop the bleeding and then you work on… Read more »
Edu Again you are not adressing the fact that Emery is getting massive plaudits for the defensive structure that Villarreal are showing. Not just that they are getting through ties in this CL but the fact that their defensive structure is absolutely paramount in all this. So you just want to blame Emery one person for failing to bring this excellent defensive structure at Arsenal when he was here rather than look at the whole picture and the mindset of the whole club and it’s “philosophy” before Emery came in? It was said before that Arsenal don’t play little club… Read more »
Naija, Your comment about the environment and personality is spot on. This is what so many people fail to understand. I’ve hired hundreds of people in my career. Some of them succeeded and some failed miserably. Some of those who failed were extremely talented and had all the hard skills for job. But they weren’t right for the environment. I’d go as far as to say that this is a much more common reason for job failure than the lack of hard skills. I’ve never worked at a football club but I don’t see any reason why it should be… Read more »
Arteta: Don’t give freekicks outside the box especially as Ward-Prowse is a set piece specialist
Can see Him scoring a freekick against us for some stupid holding a player or silly foul in and around our box. Hopefully we beat Southampton but the draw is also on. Two teams out of form.
“”” Again you are not adressing the fact that Emery is getting massive plaudits for the defensive structure that Villarreal are showing.””” Ok what else other than “” all credit to Emery and his villa real”” Do you want me to say , in order to address his outstanding defensive structure at Present? 😂 Again – His villa real have shown a serious amount of defensive know how , all credit to them – but to sit here and suggest he just wasn’t focused on it at Arsenal , is complete madness. It was said he had a file on… Read more »
I take it nobody has seen the Xhaka interview with his relationship with Arsenal fans? iNTERESTING READ- THE GUY JUST DON’T GET IT.
Ishola What ever emery’s defensive ideas were at Arsenal – they clearly didn’t work , for what ever reason – I wouldn’t even say it was the players as he’s working with a lesser group now than when he was here – he’s in a set up now that suits him and his methods and we’re all seeing how harmonious it is for them – long May it continue And who cares about the tactics Arteta used to win the fa cup ? We won it , that’s all that matters , yet another fa cup final we beat Chelsea… Read more »
Listen, the cards have always been part of my game. They were in Germany, too. Remember the 50-50? I’m all in, and it’s the same in training. If I elbow a player, I’ll be the first one to say, ‘I’m sorry.’
“But a tackle? Come on, guys. This is not ballet.”
You are too slow to make the tackle you are not a tough guy you are a brainless idiot with no dicipline
Edu
Defence is obviously worked on but we have to go back to what the footballing philosophy was at Arsenal when Emery first came in and that can hinder in this respect.
We then celebrated that Arteta when he first came in concentrated heavily on defensive structure.
The scenario had changed in regards the club in comparison to when Emery first took over and when Arteta came in.
The grandiose we play the best football had been dropped by the time Arteta came in. We celebrated defensive structure.
LoveSausage
Yeah bro, the environment is extremely important. We dont talk about it enough but we really should because it matters that much. Torreira is another example.
Football and the world in general is getting to this micro manage stage where we are now looking deeper and underneath things to truly understand how they work/function.
Clubs will soon start considering how compatible a player might be at their club or League before signing them.
“””Defence is obviously worked on but we have to go back to what the footballing philosophy was at Arsenal when Emery first came in and that can hinder in this respect.”””
Yep you’re spot on here , no doubt. He even said he wanted us to be the protagonists. Really did hinder him considering that’s not what he was known for
Ishola,
I think you’re overstating the philosophy aspect. We the fans certainly had expectations. But there was no philosophy at the club level. Arsene has a very strong philosophy but he was gone. The rest of the club were a bunch of bland bureaucrats who had neither football knowledge nor a philosophy. Our owners only philosophy is to reach 4th so that the club can maximise revenue.
So if Emery felt that he needed to live up to the fans’ expectations around football style at the expense of defensive solidity, then that was his choice. And a poor one.
Pretty sure none of the players we have signed are inexperienced or haven’t been playing top flight football before joining and pre Arteta. This young players excuse is getting boring.
Naija,
Yeah, that’s happening more and more. I read somewhere that Juventus were pioneering that sort of evaluation already back in late 80s / early 90s. They didn’t want any party boys at the club so they would do extensive due diligence on a player’s family, values etc. And more often than not they would pressure their players to get married and have kids ASAP. Not the most modern approach and not something I’m advocating. But it illustrates how important the environmental fit is to some clubs.
Love Sausage I don’t disagree with much of what you’ve written above However you’re wrong in the assessment that Emery failed because of a lack of fit. If you were doing management review of Arsenal and that’s what you came up with then all bets are off. Arsenal had an all powerful manager for 22 years who dominated every aspect. We didn’t have any semblance of good management behind the scenes. It was all one man. Then we hired a linguistically challenged HEAD COACH who was accustomed to working under a director of football. I doubt that Emery had ever… Read more »
LoveSausage makes fair and good points in his most recent posts.
Emery was not the right fit.
That’s what it boils down to.
I myself was not overly enthused when Emery was announced as Arsenal manager.
In the long run though Arteta rather than being seen as not the “right fit” may ultimately fail for just not being good enough.
We will see.
Izzo
There’s top flight football , then there’s playing top flight football for a massive club like Arsenal. The pressure and expectations are completely different- but the experience these boys are getting right now will only be better for us going forward.
Auba struggling for goals in our attack then becomes prime Lewandowski at Barca,
Lacazette not scoring,
Martinelli was free scoring before Arteta then Arteta joins then all of a sudden, Martinelli ain’t ready yet,
Etc.
__________
Lol peak Henry would struggle to get to double digits in this setup
Those folk who still feel that Arteta is doing a great job are delusional.
This has nothing to do with two incredibly poor performances either.
There is a systemic problem in Arteta’s methods that is detrimental to a natural progression.
Yep, he’s just not good enough.
Dissenter, I agree with everything you’re saying in your last post. I think we’re just using different words to describe a set of circumstances. Your description of the situation Emery stepped into is what I mean by “the environment”. And maybe I wasn’t clear about this but I’m not arguing that Arteta stepped into the same environment. Emery had the harder job by a country mile. Everything was much more dysfunctional than when Arteta took over. The owners were just waking up to the fact that they needed to be involved, something they’d never done before. Political power struggles all… Read more »
Xhaka: “When I close my eyes now, I can still see their faces. I can see their anger,” “The passports were out. I was done with Arsenal. Finished.” “I had barely begun to move when I heard the boos. And it was not just a few guys in the corner – it was a lot of people. I was shocked. I had never experienced anything like this,” said Xhaka. “This is hate. Pure hate. I am really not exaggerating this. I’m not a Xhaka basher and understand the human par of his reaction but he’s not telling the truth here.… Read more »
Dissenter
The worst part in all of this is that GX is still at the club.
He should have been kicked out there and then.
Arteta sees him as the lynchpin.
I see him as the core of many of our problems.
Love Sausage
Conte would never has signed unto Arsenal in 2018.
We didn’t have the personalities to deal with an exuberant character, Everyone knew we didn’t have know-how in the back room Wenger’s long stay atrophied every aspect of football management/know-how that we had.
Our backroom was a mess from 2018 to probably maybe, just recently.
Conte would have done to us what he did to Spurs initially. He would have walked away.
Dissenter,
I think he (or someone like him) might have considered it. Back then, most people saw us as a top club that was just temporarily out of the CL. And we were already spending plenty of money on players (Auba, Laca, Ozil etc). It was basically an opportunity to become Wenger for the 21st century. That’s an attractive proposition for any megalomaniac. He would have installed his own back room, from CEO down to the tea lady, just like Wenger did.
Anyway, I’m not saying this would have been a good solution. Just speculating about what type of manager could have come in back then without falling on his face immediately. It was a borderline impossible job.
Dissenter If an Arsenal star player was in the same situation as Xhaka was in regarding that infamous episode then he would not have been given the same vitriol as Xhaka. The initial reaction may have been to boo because Xhaka was taking too much time to get off the pitch but when fans saw it was Xhaka this was mixed with not being happy with him overall at that time so he sees more vitriol. Xhaka should look at it more closely and realise why he saw such vitriol but self inspection can be difficult for some. I fully… Read more »
just saw the results from yestetrday, sucks to have to eat my words about emery/bayern haha, but congrats to him – can’t help but enjoy the underdog knocking out a monopoly like munich. congrats to villareal, it would certainly be nice to see them go even farther at the cost of another fucking one horse league fav. hope artetas ego gets checked hard, but really, who the fuck in our organization can do that if he’s got a blind spot? stan? josh? fuck them in the ear. worst owners possible-more money than god, we were rolling hard in january –… Read more »
If Pepe had a bit of Guendouzi’s spikiness and vigour we may have seen a better career from him at Arsenal.
As it is Pepe looks stoned a few too many times.
Ishola,
I think you’re spot on about Xhaka. Going back to our earlier discussion about football philosophy and identity- Xhaka has come to represent how far we’ve fallen as a club for a lot of fans. He certainly has for me. We’ve gone from midfield intelligence and flair (Vieira, Cesc etc) to two wooden feet and stupidity. He’ll always get it more than other players, fair or not.
Arteta is a luckier manager than Emery. If it wasn’t for covid and no fans in the stadium he would have been sacked when he set all thise disastrous negative records.
Emery wasn’t backed like Arteta, and didn’t get the budget or players he wanted. Do he had a harder job at arsenal.
Great post earlier Inside right. 👏
The best part abut Guendouzi was never his technical nouse It was the fact that he never hid from responsibility, If something needed to be said, he would wait for someone else to do it. If his team mates gets needlessly injured, he wasn’t going just sit still Wenger understood this from the likes of Viera but Arteta lack this capacity. Arteta lacks the ability to be self deprecating, so when a player raises his voice back at him in a team meeting, it’s an unforgiveable slight. I gather that Auba made a joke at a team meeting at Arteta’s… Read more »
Everton were on a shit run
They ended it against us.
Palace hadnt won at home in the league in 2022
Step forward us.
Brighton hadnt won in 7 fucking games
We are the gift that keeps giving
If you havent won in yonks or scored in yonks we are everyones dream to play.
Southampton will be licking their lips.
That first 5 minutes and how we start will tell us if we are going to have the apetite for that game and the remaining fixtures.
It will simply beggar belief if Lacazette starts up front and Xhaka up front.
David D
Yet another sackable offence?
It’s hard to credit the talk on here about Arteta’s ‘ego’. He doesn’t nod wisely as if he were ex cathedra like Wenger or tell the world he is the best like Mourinho. On the contrary he openly admits to his mistakes. Nor does he brag about victories, he hands the accolades to the team and the coaching staff.
In fact there is no real evidence of ‘Arteta ego’. If anything, he is too humble. His differences with players – like Guendozy, Ozil – are deliberately misinterpreted by some as ‘ego’. Don’t lets fall for such nonsense.
“ It will simply beggar belief if Lacazette starts up front and Xhaka up front.”
Xhaka up front would certainly be a head scratcher!
Conte and one of his player have been tested positive. There is still new twist on the top4 race.
englandsbest
It’s all very well admitting your own mistakes but if you keep on making them, then it’s self-defeating.
Nelson
Lasagna gate all over again
englandsbest – “In fact there is no real evidence of ‘Arteta ego’. If anything, he is too humble. His differences with players – like Guendozy, Ozil – are deliberately misinterpreted by some as ‘ego’. Don’t lets fall for such nonsense.”
Top quality trolling. Funniest thing I’ve read in days.
“I can’t believe that Edu and Arteta [two rookies at the time] brought Guendouzi into a room to try to extract an apology from him. That in itself was poor management 101.”
Arteta is nothing more than a self-served mug who couldn’t put out a a proper and functional starting eleven, to save his own life. He’s the king of trying capture lightning in a bottle.
EnglandsWorst, finally came out from underneath that rock and keep eating those mushrooms or whatever it is you smoke because it will help you to cope with the reality that the present Arsenal is and the failure of their manager.
Mikel Arteta:
Looks the part, well educated, speaks well, probably smells good!
Ivan Gazidis:
Ditto.
Common factors obviously are appealing to some.
It’s a great shame that judging peoples character isn’t one of their strengths.
InsdeRight
Full marks for avoiding the issue
Oh my, the anti-arteta brigade out in full force!
The reality is that the process is well on course, heading for the elite.
Only those comfortable with mediocrity give a damn about coming fourth this season
Graham62
IG may have been a snake oil salesman but he did have the same desires as many of the posters on LG – to get rid of Wenger.
i meant Xhaka at left back!!
lol
englandsbest
There was nothing to avoid. There was no issue up for debate. You were talking unreconstructed rubbish.
You are the one who claimed Arteta’s differences with players “like Guendozy, Ozil” are being deliberately misinterpreted as ‘ego’. OK, what is the correct interpretation then? Over to you.
David. D
Left Back at London Colney whilst the rest of the team visit Southampton would be a better bet.
Let Me Set a Few Things Straight
Today I know I made the right decision, absolutely, because I’m still here. But I can’t pretend that my relationship with the fans will ever be the same, because that moment will always be in my heart.
– Granit Xhaka
https://youtu.be/ochcH6Pa2IQ
So he’s basically playing for just Arteta then. Nice.
And when he says his relationship will never be the same with the fans after that incident well I think he is over-estimating what his relationship was with the fans at any point because most can see he is a Europa League level player albeit one who puts some effort in.
Dissenter “Drop this silly ‘he was bad for us’ nonsense. He came up two points short of 3rd place in the his first season and got to European final.” It’s not silly at all, he was. There has been far too much revisionary bollocks about Emery on here that isn’t honest. Of course, It’s all part of the agenda game so I get it. Falsely painting Emery in a positive light allows you to discredit Arteta. It’s a sad way to behave because this is a football blog for good honest conversation, not somewhere to play childish finger pointing games.… Read more »
Apologies for the length of that!!!
Exactly our performance was getting worse game to game. Averaging 20 something shots against you by opponents for multiple consecutive games is not a sign that things are going well and that it is a match made in heaven.
Long post AFC but nice, you pulled a Rich there.
AFC,
it’s not dishonest to say both Emery and Arteta are/were shite for Arsenal
And then literally all your points resemble parts of Arteta’s tenure