Arsenal is hiring a corporate culture consultancy to help them with the mess at Arsenal HQ. I’ve been hearing rumblings for about 6 months about some of the things that have been going on, it’s not great, a lot of demotivated people, and some grim people fired and replaced already.
Man like Matt Kandela, a business owner and a corporate operator thinks this is a good thing. I can see the upside, there’s a messy corporate environment, and Arsenal is facing up to it and taking action.
However… the leak is there to damage Vinai. The reaction online today is probably what that person wanted. No one tells David Ornstein things are so messy on the corporate side we need a consultancy if they think that’s a positive story. It means there’s a lack of leadership and worse: the tools to repair it aren’t readily available internally. Ivan Gazidis has been gone since 2018, Don Raul has been gone since 2020, and only now are we getting to the business culture? Not great.
Anyway, better late than never.
The club is calling the program ‘The Arsenal Way’ which sounds like a pretty decent name for something that has certainly been lacking since Wenger went.
Before we get into it, I’m going to defend the company looking after the project. It does not matter if they don’t have football experience. It doesn’t matter if a strategist on their team supports Chelsea. All that matters is they know how to extract the right information that will help our leaders get to the best possible outcome.
As Arrigo Saachi once said, ‘to be a jockey, you need not to have been a horse.’
Some things to nail down before we get into this.
Culture is a set of principles and behaviors that guides the employees of a business. To be effective, they are usually closely linked to the mission of the club.
The Army builds its culture around discipline. Why? Because if you don’t listen to orders, someone might die. 30 seconds late to a meeting and you put your whole team at risk. If you are not prepared at all times, it’s life-threatening. The army in the old days would go out of its way to beat the individuality out of you so you followed orders without complaint. Everyone had the same haircut, everyone wore the same clothes, the same rations went to everyone, the same discipline was meted out if you broke the code. Thinking outside the box was not the job to be done, following orders was.
Facebook started out as ‘move fast, break shit’ because global domination could only be achieved if they grew at an exponential rate.
Netflix has a ‘no rules rules’ culture. They believed that to dominate entertainment and the tech that underpinned it, they need to hire the best people in the world, pay them more, and give them total accountability for decision making. They chopped back all the rules, reduced bureaucracy, and held great people to high standards. If you don’t hit the mark at Netflix, you get a nice severance and big ‘see ya.’
Apple worked off a Think Different mindset. When Microsoft was selling its software to go on other systems, Apple revoked all the licenses so they could control the whole experience. When companies were inventing MP3 players, internet machines, and dumb mobile phones… Apple put them all in one place on an iPhone. Everything they do is underpinned by elite design. I’ve pitched to them and if you have a single error on a deck, it will derail a whole meeting because they are obsessives when it comes to the details… because that is ingrained in their culture.
When you know what you stand for, you build a culture around that idea. You hire people that want to be part of that culture, that understand the rules, and want to live in that world. It’s a sorting mechanism internally, if you don’t agree, go somewhere else, because the reason for being is in a culture deck you live by.
I once wrote a culture deck and someone on my team said it felt like I’d written the rules for a cult, my response, ‘kind of.’
I’ve written extensively about the lack of honesty Arsenal have had for who they are and where they are in this modern world. We have gone through a very public identity crisis over the past 20 years. Ideals that kept us at the top for a long time changed because the world changed. Stability was a point of pride, but it eventually became the reason for stagnation. Class was used to differentiate us, but it eventually ended up as an excuse for not competing. When we slipped out of the top 2 clubs for wealth, we didn’t accept that drop in class, so sat in denial for many years.
To get to culture, we first need to know what the mission of the club is: GETTING BACK TO THE TOP OF FOOTBALL BY WINNING BIG TROPHIES
Nothing else matters. The number 1 priority should always be about what happens on the pitch. Football clubs exist to win trophies. A club as steeped in history as Arsenal needs trophies to progress and grow. If we’re not striving to do that, commercial revenue will dry up, new fans will stop feeding into the system, efforts in the community will be limited, our influence will wane, and we will eventually fade into the background of elite-level football.
We need to be honest about who we are:
- We are not the richest club in the world
- We will have to create a sustainable model of football. i.e. self-funded
- It will take time
What do we have going for us:
- 60,000 seater stadium
- A club name that still cashes cheques
- The best online fanbase on the planet
- A loyal IRL fanbase that will still buy tickets and support a project they understand
- We are based in London
- We have a prestigious history
- Players and managers still want to come here
- Elite London corporate folk would take pay cuts to work at the club
There are also softer elements that might play a big role in establishing some of our cultural pillars. The consultancy we’re using should meet with fans and ask what makes Arsenal special.
We are class. Arsenal do things the right way.
We are diverse. Our fanbase has always been reflective of London.
We are great in the community. Arsenal PR pays attention, we invest in locals, and we try and do the right thing.
These sorts of ideas might stop the club creating a WIN AT ALL COSTS culture deck. That’s not us and it’s not who we want Arsenal to be.
Some more truth:
To get back to the top, we’re going to have to innovate, we’re going to have to be smarter than our opposition, we’re going to have to make money work harder, and we are going to have to be fucking relentless in the pursuit of our objectives.
Football-wise, we’ve already moved to the honesty phase:
We signed a hot shit young coach with the hope of him growing with us vs signing Jose Mourinho or Carlo Ancelotti.
We signed young players with 2 years of experience under their belts with the hope of them reaching their peak with us in 3 seasons’ time.
We leaned into our brand to attract them, promising them a platform to succeed they wouldn’t get at other Premier League clubs.
If that is our football objective, what does it mean for our corporate culture? What does it mean for The Arsenal Way?
If you can’t be the richest, you have to be the smartest.
That means you have to hire innovators.
That means you need to create an environment where innovators thrive.
That might mean you don’t hire sportspeople who say ‘well, that’s just the way we do it’
That might mean the ‘Bank of England’ baggage of the past needs to be shaken from the board of directors because banks are not innovators, they are supposed to represent stability. Well, our stability has gone, so being likened to a bank has to die. Who are the best sports execs in world sport? Who is doing hot shit in football that is putting a small club on a higher level? Who is the best technology person in the game that can upgrade our app?
That will mean a different marketing story, that will mean a different pitch deck from the sponsorship team who have been selling the same boring story that hasn’t moved our commercial revenues in the right direction for a long time
If The Arsenal Way is about innovating our way to success, it shifts the entire vision of the corporate structure. It sets the tone for who you hire, how they operate, how they are rewarded, how they are judged, and the behaviors they need to elicit to win at Arsenal.
When you establish a clear vision, it also tells you who needs to leave a business. At a very famous hedge fund that has a book about culture, they have a process of ‘sorting’, they go through the literal scores of staff and clear out anyone not cutting the mustard. That might not be The Arsenal Way, but when you reestablish a culture, you need to be ruthless about who works in it. Because, like sport, a couple of bad eggs can bring down the performance of everyone else.
Arsenal are not risk-takers, we haven’t been demanding of ourselves, we haven’t been good at holding ourselves accountable to a higher standard, we haven’t done a good job with our fans, the most interesting thing we’ve done in 15 years was last summer on the sporting side. Stan Kroenke has treated Arsenal like a piece of property he has accrued, as long as it gains 5% every year, he doesn’t need to worry about what’s going on. Well, other clubs in the market are gaining 15-20% a year and we have been left in the mud.
Fixing the culture at Arsenal is about so much more than people feeling good. It’s about making people understand the direction of Arsenal and giving them the tools to succeed at delivering the vision.
… and I know there are a lot of people saying you don’t need a culture deck to succeed, which is true, but without doubt, the very best organizations in the world have the very best cultures. Customer service can be automated or it can be John Lewis. Payments systems can be something boring, or it can be Dan Price of Gravity payments who gets on the Good Morning America show because he believes paying all his staff $70k makes for better business.
Culture isn’t necessarily about feeling good, it’s about knowing what the job to be done is and what behaviors will be rewarded. All the best managers in the world of football will tell you that culture drives performance. Even the managers that aren’t good will tell you the same. If you think it’s just tactics and a smack on the arse that has Pep Guardiola’s team dropping 100 points per game you are very wrong.
So in short, it’s good that someone at the club has recognized the culture is bad, and it’s good they are moving forward with fixing it. I’m just not sure it shines the brightest light on our inexperienced leadership.
Pedro
Not like you to get so tetchy
TR7 has disagreed and agree with you over the years
We were all with you when you were bashing Wenger week in, week out.
At the end of the day, it’s all football banter.
Relax a bit and enjoy some of the Arteta resistance.
Pedro, Man, I am not trying to insult you, just pointing out how your use of statistical measurements can be used to validate any perspective. You seem like a good guy, and take a positive attitude into most things in life, which is healthy for your and yours. However, this is just futbol mate, and open dialogue, can as Tim talked about on “Consisitency” or having an open mind and changing one’s mind if new information comes to light. Will take a mellower route, this is Mikel’s countdown to extinction, if he does not improve during these last 7 games… Read more »
Pedro fighting the temptation to follow in Arteta’s footsteps and cull anyone who’s not sharing his vision.
That’s one of the simplest goals I’ve seen scored this season. FIFA stuff
Maguire isreally shit, utter turd
EdtheRed
‘Pedro fighting the temptation to follow in Arteta’s footsteps and cull anyone who’s not sharing his vision’.
Have to give you credit for that pretty funny comment On another note, you said Denver were terrible. A little harsh as they are missing their second and third best players. The NBA is even less forgiving than the Premier League with injuries because 2 key players out is 40% of your starting line-up and salary cap rules mean that you can’t overstock talent. A full-strength Denver team would be giving Golden Stare a run for their money.
Bacary
I agree, perhaps I was too harsh on Nuggets. GSW are decent team, so no shame in losing to them.
I’m Heat supporter when it comes to NBA.
The worst thing Liverpool can do is batter United and send them out extra motivated against us.
Can we get some of that Pool culture please
Seriously, if we can’t beat this garbage United side at home we don’t deserve a CL place anyway.
This United side are dire, luckily for them they have the gift that keeps giving this weekend next
I think we’ll go four, then five defeats in succession.
I almost feel sorry for United here.
Almost!
We need to hope we can get a plucky point tomorrow at least but Saturday, we need to take the game to this United side. There is no reason to fear them.
I have never seen United get battered in such dominant fashion in my lifetime than by Liverpool this season home and away.
The quality difference is literally off the charts and United have spent more than twice as much money to assemble their team as Liverpool have.
Van Dijk cost less than Maguire, just think about that alone.
United are bad but Liverpool have been electric.
They are a joy to watch when they are on it like this. Heavy metal football.
Has this been Thiago’s best half in a Liverpool shirt? I think so.
Yeah Chris I remember being really bummed out when Pool landed Klopp as manager.
Did I predict that he would be this successful? No, I think that he has surpassed even the most optimistic Klopp admirers’ expectations it is safe to say. This Liverpool side along with City may be the best PL side of all time.
I think I’m going to remember this season as the season nobody wanted the 4th place trophy. It’s been handed to team after team and they all keep bottling it. We are probably at the top of that list and yet we still have a chance. It’s crazy.
I do enjoy a good United battering though.. so I hope Pool pour it on.. like 4 or 5 goals.
Big ups ED for your “cull” analogy…on a side note, regardless of the Nuggets injuries, which didn’t stop them from performing admirably all year, they’ve played horrifically in the first two games, as you so rightly expressed…I would suggest that this is more of a “styles make for good fights” scenario and the Nuggets are least suited to play the Warriors, of all the Western Conference teams
Utd defending with bodies behind the ball, lol.
They have already waved the white flag here, they are just desperate not to have a repeat of the 5-0 at OT.
United xG of 0.
Wenger Eagle
Yeah I agree, not even the most optimistic Liverpool fan would have predicted how well it has gone I think, aside from the covid season.
This could end up being the greatest Liverpool team in their history, that’s not even remotely controversial I don’t think. They are just phenomenal.
Champagne football
WE, you mentioned the echo chamber earlier… go through the last 50 posts, count up how many of those echos reflect what I write about.
Or did you mean the conversation was all one way in the opposite direction of the blog?
Pedro
It is right now which is understandable given our collapse, certainly wasn’t that way a few weeks ago. And you are only removing posts from one side of the Arteta debate.
I work for a bank I won’t say which to protect any allegations of creating bad publicity and my subsequent parting. Suffice to say they have the same branded..(corporate name) Way. Arsenal have some links with this well known banking institution. The …..Way is all about ethics and is quoted whenever someone is in trouble for misbehaving. Pretty obvious my institution had some and continues to have some wrongun’s . Arsenal must have the same. What I would say is that though the odd bullying psycho has been sacked . The whole working environment is now dull as ditchwater .… Read more »
Chris
It would be shocking if they didn’t beat Villarreal in the CL SF and they are in the FA Cup Final and as it stands top of the PL table with a half a dozen games to go.
If City slip up and draw they could very easily win the quadruple which would go down as the best season ever for an English team, never mind just Pool.
MarkyMark, not to defend the name of the project… but getting to culture is going to be the same methodology at most places.
Thought you were going to fight me on banks innovating
Liverpool players were mid table level or thereabouts before klopp took over
How would he perform with our current or last 3 squads I wonder
WE
Given the oil money teams j was thinking a quadruple would be inevitable. Just thought it would be City who did it.
I know Liverpool haven’t exactly assembled their team on free transfers but in my view it would be a small victory for football if they did it first at City’s expense.
That’s not forgetting that City are also a joy to watch in their prime, KDB especially.
Pedro, Excuse me if I come across as being unreasonable but the onset of this “cultural review” definitely has something to do with the football prospects of AFC. If as you say you have “been hearing rumblings for about 6 months about some of the things that have been going on”, then why have the club chosen now to bring in a consultancy firm? Based on your statement, this has been a longstanding issue that has needed addressing for some time. Why wait till now? I just think this just another PR exercise by the club and a needless one… Read more »
IAT, the leak happened this week. The project was started when we were doing really well on the football front.
This was not meant to be a positive leak, it was meant to damage the CEO.
Crazy how Le-grove gets more comments/commenters when we are shit lol its been said before but its too true.
Anyway we ll win against Chelsea. Arteta has a habit of surprising you when the odds are against him.
Naija, yeah, he’ll beat Chelsea then lose to United
The Real Vieira Lynn As you’re obviously following NBA, then you’ll know that Play Off-s are completely different beast from Regular Season. This is when serious challengers turn on defence. Every team will suffer injuries, but it will be those who have the most balanced roster that will cope the best. Dallas without Doncic, 76rs without Embid, or Nuggest without Jokic are average at the best. But I look at my team, Heat, and think they will have a chance this season, purely because of the roster. Take away Jimmy Butler (my favourite player btw) and they’ll still be able… Read more »
Sly
Klopp is X factor manager so i have no doubt we ll be third ahead of Chelsea. Thats where we would be now if we didn’t crumble in recent games.
Sancho has made a huge difference since coming on it must be said, his best cameo in a Utd shirt.
Pedro
Pretty much, hahahaha
Arteta in a nutshell so far.
Too many ifs and buts with arteta Naija
Now the pivot is to talk about corporate culture
Arsenal deserves better
”But Suns are team to beat.”
Bucks are winning it back to back, you heard it here first. Giannis cannot be stopped.
Anyway we ll win against Chelsea
Who gonna control the midfield?
If Reece James is up against Tavares its going to be a mismatch.
Never thought in my lifetime especially after their dominance under Fergie that Utd would be on the receiving end of an 8-0 agg PL scoreline and have 25% in a match.
It’s enough to give an anti-Manure man like myself a semi.
Crazy how we ve lost 3 in a row, zero goals scored, yet we are still 5th.
Kinda shows you we were doing quite good until recently.
Arteta has a great eye for talent yet Jota and Diaz moved to Pool when we could have been all over them earlier. Let’s buy another CB I guess.
25% possession.
“We are class. Arsenal do things the right way” To reiterate the mantra of your article.We need to be honest about who we are. That above statement hasn’t been true for some years now. (+) We’re the same club that fired low-wage staff during the pandemic when no other EPL club did. (+) We’re the same club that revealed the identity of players who rejected a wage cut that was supposed to be voluntary. (+) We’re the same club that did not nothing to help its fans attend the furthest European final in club history (+) We’re the same club… Read more »
“we are still 5th”
————————————–
currently, we are 6th.
Sly
“Too many ifs and buts with arteta Naija
Now the pivot is to talk about corporate culture
Arsenal deserves better”
I hear Narcissists are good deflectors. I m just hoping he’s a right Narcissist for Arsenal.
Nelson
“currently, we are 6th”
We are 5th. Man U losing 0-3 to Liverpool in 6th.
Knew Salah would get back on the scoresheet today. 4-0.
LOL United, 9-0 agg now.
Yes Nelson is right, Liverpool have put us back in 5th and helped our goal difference in the process.
This Utd side is absolutely dreadful, if we don’t beat them on the weekend we do not deserve top 4 as somebody else rightly pointed out.
How many academy youngsters has Arteta blooded this season ?
It’s a rhetorical question my friend told me to ask
Hannibal lol
IAT,
I could list a whole bunch of positives about the club, but none if matters to the corporate culture.
We don’t need to pay for fans to get to cup finals
Our culture shouldn’t get in the way of business decisions
You will never stop leaks at a sports organization, nor can you be sure where they’ve come from
Culture is orienting behaviour around a shared mission, it’s not family therapy or an ethics workshop
Arsenal really had the chance to get Klopp but decided to keep winging it with a senile Wenger.
Lol.
Nah, we will never rise from the ashes.
15yrs from now, most of you would still be on legrove lamenting on how Arteta or some idiotic manager is trying to drag the team into 5th position.
Field the talk about beating United this weekend
We have to hope we don’t going into that game on the back of a Chelsea wipe out tomorrow
The only reason this Liverpool squad haven’t totally dominated England since 2018 is because of Pep Guardiola.
Take him out of city and Klopp would have won 4 straight PL titles by now.
I’d be amazed if Chelsea don’t beat us tomorrow Dissenter.
** For all the talk about beating United this weekend
We have to hope we don’t going into that game on the back of a Chelsea wipe out tomorrow
To remain 5th going into the weekend clash with United, we just need to protect our goal difference by not getting spanked 4 or 7 goals tomorrow at Stamford bridge
Of course Chelsea will beat us tomorrow, but the drop off between Chelsea and United is huge. We should be looking to take points off United as I said earlier.
Naija
I’ll hold my peace till end of season…or maybe the Chelsea game
We’ve had a very brief run of games with identity-5 or 6
The identity’s gone now due to fear and squad/player mismanagement
Prognosis looks gloomy
Arteta is a cheque book manager, needs his perfect compliant players from what I can see
Haven’t really seen any player development so far
His play book has been shown to be limited over 3 years
But still we persevere
Good article on how critical Partey is to us.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/who-scored-blog/2022/apr/19/thomas-partey-injury-arsenal-batlle-fourth-premier-league
Wenger Eagle
The loss tomorrow after losing three games on the bounce with only one deflected eyed goal scored and a crash midfield is not going to surprise
My fear is that we get wiped out in a way that makes this Wenger’s 1000th game not so bad.
Well that was enjoyable.. Win the next 3 and all is forgiven.. hahaha Oh man…
Threw NINE winnable points away to Palace, Brighton and Southampton.
How are people even making excuses for that?
Win 7 out of those 9 points and We’d be sitting comfortably in 4th spot going into the Chelsea and United games.
Do they do strategic planning in our dressing room?
I’m actually livid cause this was the season for us to get back into the champions league and I’m scared we may have spilled the milk.
Crazy the success Pool has achieved and the value they’ve extracted from the likes of Henderson, Robertson, Milner, Matip. Klopp’s hit rate is so high. Almost no big money wasted. Maybe Oxlade, which turned out not the best transfer as he’s always injured and because he’s not quality.
Can you imagine a prime Wenger Arsenal team, prime Ferguson United team and prime Mourinho Chelsea team competing with current Klopp and Guardiola teams? Damn, that would be an exciting top 5. I couldn’t come up with a prime Spurs team in the last 60 years that could even be added to that group 😂
bacaryisgod
Yes Partey is very integral to how we play but we knew this going into last summer transfer
We also knew that he was injury prone
So what did we do with £160 million to reduce the dependence on Partey?
We decided over-paying for a center back was the way to go, even though we had two spare center back that could be recalled from loans.
Never give £160 million to an inexperienced manager who feeds of grudges to spend
What must be going through De Gea’s head on a weekly basis to go from playing with Ferdinand, Vidic and Evra in front of him to Wan-Bissaka, Maguire and Lindelof? 🤣
Anyone can see Parteys worth to Arsenal, except Ishola lol
Man u are in dissaray we are by far in a better place than they are
What must be going through De Gea’s head on a weekly basis to go from playing with Rio, Vidic and Evra in front of him to Wan-Bissaka, Maguire and Lindelof? 🤣
Agreed Mr Serge but that are Utd and they will throw money at the problem and eventually get it right.
Rangnick will cull most of the current side and go to work with Ten Hag on rebuilding them.
Looking at the last few fixtures, I can’t see a plausible way we can overcome Spurs. Putting to one side our game against them for a moment, they will probably pick up 10 points from their remaining 5 games. (3 wins and a draw vs Brentford, Leicester, Norwich and Burnley and a loss to Liverpool). That will put them on 67 points with a better goal difference. For us to need just a draw against them to get 4th, we’ll need 14 points from our 6 other games. That’s 14 points against Chelsea, West Ham and Newcastle away and Man… Read more »
Bankz
People still don’t realize how huge Klopp is. For me he is hands down the best manager of his generation. He was the obvious Wenger replacement back when we played against his Dortmund side. He was just so similar to Wenger in many ways to me. Still we persisted with Papa Wenger and he went to Liverpool and the rest is history.
We have to sign two strikers this summer
Gabriel Jesus has to be one of those signings
He’s premier league ready and has to be champing at the bits to make a name for himself.
He’s worked with Arteta already and Edu in the Brazilian national team.
We have lots of Brazilians already so he won’t have any problems settling in.
Bacary
I ve been saying on here how critical Partey is to Arteta’s system. The proof is in the fact that he bought him first, paid 45 million for him lol.
We crumble every time he gets injured or hes in bad form.
What a terrible appointment Rangnick has been. Put Conte in his place and they would have been sitting in 3rd.
Going to be interesting to see what Ronaldo does this summer. Who else will pay him £600k a week to leave?
Sly
Yeah best to reserve judgment till closer to end of the season. I do think Arteta can turn things around still.
Honestly, permutations are inappropriate for us right now
First we need to stop this obvious free fall somewhere then you can start grinding out ugly wins again
Once that losing mentality sets in, it’s very difficult to shift.
This United team that lost to Liverpool very badly is still more balanced than our squad without Partey
God I hope we beat this pathetic Utd side. It’s become a tallest dwarf contest but even then I can’t let my brothers have bragging rights.
Dissenter I agree. A central midfield rotation of Xhaka, Lokonga and Elneny never looked strong enough to overcome an injury to Partey. At the same time, I can understand the logic. We needed to build from the back and so White and Ramsdale were brought in to remedy that. The assumption was that with more progressive passing from our keeper and defence then we would see more goals from Auba and Lacazette. When Auba won the F.A Cup for us, Arteta stated that he was going to build the team around him. We screwed up two summers ago and so… Read more »
Dissenter
Before you say we had Saliba, I’m just taking it as a baseline that Arteta decided to freeze him out.
Naija+soccer The fact lot of Arsenal fans who were brainwashed by Wenger couldn’t see why we needed a Klopp in 2014 still remains a mystery to me. Wenger was dead and buried as an elite manager as far back as 2011. We wasted 7 more years before finally getting rid of him and somehow have wasted the last 4 with both managerial appointments we’ve made. The future isn’t looking anywhere bright if we have to keep praying to get a 4th spot and not even having a conversation of competing. We used to be a MASSIVE CLUB, how did our… Read more »
You just know we’ll bend over and make this United side look half decent on Saturday.
i think Ronaldo is close to MLS time.. They will give him like 49% ownership somewhere to make up for the salary.
“Gabriel Jesus has to be one of those signings”
Diss,
I think GJ is a shrewd suggestion. Though I can’t help but feel Pep has killed off the selfish instincts you’d naturally find in a striker like Jesus. He’s merely a support player now and I struggling to picture him as the focus of an attack.
Lokonga is a failed transfer for now. We could have bought someone ready made like Anguissa for less money and we’d be several points higher now. He might turn out good but this season is almost over and it’s a fact that he hasn’t had the season we all hoped for. A lot of us expected that he’d be good enough to take Xhaka out of the starting 11. Not even close. We have never been this reliant on Xhaka as we’ve been this season, with Partey being a crock and absolutely zero competition coming from the other midfielders. It’s… Read more »
ED there’s no doubt that injuries matter, especially in a sport that relies so heavily on so few individuals, but the far more significant factor, which is why the Heat will struggle to win it all, involves roster construction…don’t get me wrong I’m a fan of Jimmy and appreciate both what Adebayo brings inside the paint and what Herro can do on the perimeter, but they don’t have the kind of players who can create their own chances when it matters most….I believe this is why they went after Lowry, as they see him as a first-class facilitator, who might… Read more »
We can’t lose to this shower on Saturday surley ?
Bats
“You just know we’ll bend over and make this United side look half decent on Saturday.”
They look absolutely awful. A team that has just given up on the season. Any adverse situation against them in a match and they just put up the flag of surrender.
Got to beat them.
Bankz I’m not saying Klopp wouldn’t have come to Arsenal but I haven’t seen any evidence that he would have taken the job. Wenger was in the first year of a three year new deal and knowing the kind of man Klopp is, I can imagine he would have found it difficult to be part of a cloak and dagger operation to remove Wenger. Don’t forget that from an objective standard (and certainly compared to today) 2014-2015 was a good season for Arsenal. It started with a 3-0 win over Man City in the Community Shield, we ended 3rd in… Read more »
Robbie
” It’s become a tallest dwarf contest”
lol that’s it,
This is what this race for top four is.
Partey is so integral because the rest of the midfield is dodgy.
Yes including Xhaka.