Yes Pedro I agree that Arsenal are most likely to win the league this season. Nevertheless, Arteta needs to cut out loyalty to certain players and be ruthless in replacing them once he gets the opportunity.
Sentiments can ruin a title run and it's one of what killed Arsene Wenger
The highest rated player in Europe's top five leagues for 2024.
2024 has been Bukayo Saka's year.
Ahead of Musiala, Palmer, Kane, Yamal, Marmoush, Wirtz, Bellingham, Vinicius, Raphinha and every other player in Europe.
Wasn't even in top 3 for Arsenal's player of the season. I'm in disbelief. How blind are our fans? We want the opposition fans to respect him when we don't.
That Marmoush fella btw. 23 games, 18 goals, 12 assists for Frankfurt. The type of striker West Ham should have targeted instead of that old German lump they paid big money for.
Think they got their brand new stadium for £15m + some laughable £2m rent per year that will even be halved in 20 years. Unfair.
Our club had to deal with building a stadium that substantially limited our spending for players/wages and determined a rough future for many years.
West Ham had none of that. Because they didn't have to invest £500m-£1B to build a stadium + the sale of Rice, they could afford to spend big money. Which they did.
Thing is, they blew it all out to downgrade. Incredibly shit decision making and 100m down the drain along with a garbage DoF and manager.
It annoys me how they, basically for free, got what Arsenal had to suffer for two decades. If we weren't as financially limited at the time, we might have managed to push some signings like Suarez, Benzema, Mbappe and by winning big trophies /EPL + UCL/ we would have naturally get to pick between the elite players in the world. When it comes to scoring a lot of goals, it's all about how talented your offensive players are. Chamakh, Chu-young Park and Giroud weren't going to win us the big trophies. But it was the reality we had to deal with.
Club is in the market for another LB btw. Should have signed a traditional one with pace instead of Calafiori.
Have a feeling the club signed Calafiori in case they don't want to offer Gabriel Magalhaes a pay raise. Wonder if Kai Havertz leading salary will be a hindrance to negotiations with core players
At the beginning of the season, I thought that we could very well win the league with a bit of luck and avoiding injuries. Even if we had managed to persuade Sesko and Nico to sign, I don’t think we could have won without some luck avoiding injuries and getting reasonable referees’ decision going our way.
"Henry pointed out a big overlooked issue: the lack of midfield runners / runners from deep. Odegaard can’t/won’t run. Merino is slow as shit. Rice is a CB by education and you can’t expect him to make penetrative runs behind opp lines. Terrible midfield composition + recruitment'
The solution might be to play 1 6 (presumably rice as he is our future) the. Put Ethan at left 8. Have someone dynamic who wants to drive forward at pace and link up at every opportunity. Not someone who should aims to sit deep and control the game
I would like to see a diamond midfield with Rice at the base with Odegaard at RCM and MLS at LCM. Put at Ethan at the #10. Nwaneri is more of a second striker or wide forward imo. High quality ball striking and final action.
I said it around the time of the Liverpool draw with us at home, when some on here were calling it a good result - I’m actually less concerned about all the points we’ve been dropping and more concerned that we just haven’t played very well for many games. The points are closely matching the eye test. We are dropping points because we are struggling in most matches.
I can scarcely recall 3 league games all season where we’ve been good for a whole 90 mins. Even the good results we’ve had usually came down to a single half where we were flying, combined with another half which was meh.
If we were playing really well but getting denied by fine margins you’d feel confident that we’re about to turn the corner at any moment, but that’s not really what I’m seeing on the pitch. Fulham and Everton were both fairly calm results for them. Bournemouth found us very easy a man down. Vs Brighton the same. Pool we were flat as helm the moment Gabriel went off early in the second half. Newcastle we didn’t deserve a thing from the game.
Rather than believing the best is yet to come it’s turned purely to HOPING the best is yet to come. But that’s pure hope, and not based on any evidence I’m seeing this season
Below quotes from Kaya Kaynak are very interesting.
"The Arsenal boss is obsessed with control and dominance of the opposition. But within that approach there is little room for spontaneity or risk"
This explains things. No risk no reward.
Anti Wenger and ironically he played for him. Has Mike forgotten about how to attack in every sense of the word???
We used to put teams to sleep with Wenger era- 3 nil in the first half was not unusual.
Yes Wenger would overload the midfield with our full backs cutting in, but we dominated possession and passing was the real killer, chance creations. ITs a risk and we got burned a lot but at this point, this system aint working either.
I've said many times that Nketiah had to leave cause we found someone better than him in everything - Havertz.
Nketiah, a potential superstar for Palace, not for world football. Don't celebrate me being wrong too early.
Fabio was desperately needed and would have added to our points total if he was kept here. In that game against Everton, and in many other games, there was a good chance he would have provided the magic with a long distance strike or an inch perfect pass/cross.
Havertz is a borderline top 5 CF in the world. The people around him, minus Saka, have failed us.
If we had played that game against Everton without Odegaard and accomplished as little as we did, everyone would have cried how desperately we miss Odegaard. Posts like "raptora said we don't miss Odegaard btw" would have 100% been posted. Well, shit... Odegaard surely played the other day, or did he... I'm not sure.
I like Kai. I don't want to speak bad about him. He had a great 6 months last season. But he isn't top 5 CF in world football. At the moment Lewandowski, Isak, Haaland, Mbappe, Kane are clear of him by miles.
There is also arguments about others who are performing better than him. Even that Jackson dude at Chelsea is playing better. That Guirassy guy at dortmund, Vlahovic at Juve, Duran at Villa, Retegui at Atalanta, Gyokeres at Sporting are playing well at the moment.
The Fabio obsession is ridiculous. If he is as good as you say he is, he will perform at a top level for porto and get us a good fee. But he won't because he isn't a player that can cut it at this level. Nwaneri has done in 4 months what vieira couldn't do in 2 years.
Odegaard made some of the most ridiculous defence splitting passes to Saka in the first 3 games since he returned. Some ended in assists or pre assists to goals. Or atleast creation of dangerous situations
one: I don‘t remember a game in the past 2,3 months where we were able to isolate saka against one opponent as regular and high up the pitch as against everton. our problem is less the double teaming as we are able to get him isolated at least a couple of times per game but the fact that he isn‘t a robot. he had a bad day against everton - he is allowed to, no blame there.
two: we have a favourite side as any team have. our main problem is the fact that opponents tend to overload our prefered side that opens up spaces in the left and through the middle we are not using enough or even if we do we are unable to convert our chances (like against fulham or everton).
all in all - it is a combination of saka being human (at times) and the fact that all our other attacking forces seem to be in low form together - we aren‘t creating enough clear cut chances and if we do we don‘t score them. we are also incapable - at least it seems - to score a worldie or a lucky deflected shot or getting a dumb penalty
What he keeps doing is slandering Odegaard despite him leading the charts in most attacking metrics for mifielders. And added to that he is someone who ranks high in winning the ball back too. That is what I find annoying.
I agree about our left side. It has been impotent for atleast almost 6 months now.
Yes Pedro I agree that Arsenal are most likely to win the league this season. Nevertheless, Arteta needs to cut out loyalty to certain players and be ruthless in replacing them once he gets the opportunity.
Sentiments can ruin a title run and it's one of what killed Arsene Wenger
Mike racking up the trophies
Arteta actually said we have won three trophies under him during today's press conference
When asked about winning just one trophy in his five years at the club, Arteta responded: ‘The Charity Shield as well twice, no?
‘So it’s three (trophies). We need more. We want more and we want the big ones as well.
What happened to standards fc? ... because now it's reduced to delusional babble
One of those Charity shields was because we came second to city in the league and city did the double, so they used us to fill a slot.
This is not a good sign if Arteta is deluding himself like this.
Add in the Emirates Cups and Arteta is averaging a trophy a season. Generational.
It is a sign of how massively Arteta has underperformed so far, trying to claim CS as trophies that fans care about is just desperation.
Thank goodness we dodged the Murdyk bullet
If not for fate (and Todd Boehly's ego), Mikel would have ladened the club with another high transfer fee boondoggle.
Ah bro 👏🏾👏🏾 that’s the best bit of writing you’ve done this year. What has happened to some of these so called ‘fans??’
They’ve Lost their heads man?!
Look where we are? And look where we were before Mickey?? 🙃
Look where we could be! :) Weird getting obsessed with an ex-player manager that hasn't won the PL or CL in 6 years.
Appreciate? Apparently *
Mudryk caught juicing. Chelsea scum.
‘Talent is not enough’ says one of Mudryk’s neck tattoos.
I guess we know now what he meant by it.
Appreciate it was a substance not normally available in the UK. Think it was taken abroad. All over I reckon and bullet dodged
https://x.com/WhoScored/status/1868676205718757761
Bukayo Saka with 7.88 score.
The highest rated player in Europe's top five leagues for 2024.
2024 has been Bukayo Saka's year.
Ahead of Musiala, Palmer, Kane, Yamal, Marmoush, Wirtz, Bellingham, Vinicius, Raphinha and every other player in Europe.
Wasn't even in top 3 for Arsenal's player of the season. I'm in disbelief. How blind are our fans? We want the opposition fans to respect him when we don't.
How blind are our fans?
I don’t know raps, you tell me.
Has Eddie become to cult hero for Crystal Palace fans yet?
Perhaps he will……as soon as Havertz becomes one for Arsenal fans.
Seems as a top five CB in the world he’s well on his way.
That Marmoush fella btw. 23 games, 18 goals, 12 assists for Frankfurt. The type of striker West Ham should have targeted instead of that old German lump they paid big money for.
Purely out of boredom , but what’s you fixation with all things westham, raps ?
Do you have an uncle who lost his executive job there or something?
I’ve never seen an Arsenal fan dedicate this much time to transfers of a club literally no one gives a shit about
Think they got their brand new stadium for £15m + some laughable £2m rent per year that will even be halved in 20 years. Unfair.
Our club had to deal with building a stadium that substantially limited our spending for players/wages and determined a rough future for many years.
West Ham had none of that. Because they didn't have to invest £500m-£1B to build a stadium + the sale of Rice, they could afford to spend big money. Which they did.
Thing is, they blew it all out to downgrade. Incredibly shit decision making and 100m down the drain along with a garbage DoF and manager.
It annoys me how they, basically for free, got what Arsenal had to suffer for two decades. If we weren't as financially limited at the time, we might have managed to push some signings like Suarez, Benzema, Mbappe and by winning big trophies /EPL + UCL/ we would have naturally get to pick between the elite players in the world. When it comes to scoring a lot of goals, it's all about how talented your offensive players are. Chamakh, Chu-young Park and Giroud weren't going to win us the big trophies. But it was the reality we had to deal with.
Think you mean Arsenal should have targeted.
Club is in the market for another LB btw. Should have signed a traditional one with pace instead of Calafiori.
Have a feeling the club signed Calafiori in case they don't want to offer Gabriel Magalhaes a pay raise. Wonder if Kai Havertz leading salary will be a hindrance to negotiations with core players
At the beginning of the season, I thought that we could very well win the league with a bit of luck and avoiding injuries. Even if we had managed to persuade Sesko and Nico to sign, I don’t think we could have won without some luck avoiding injuries and getting reasonable referees’ decision going our way.
From twitter
"Henry pointed out a big overlooked issue: the lack of midfield runners / runners from deep. Odegaard can’t/won’t run. Merino is slow as shit. Rice is a CB by education and you can’t expect him to make penetrative runs behind opp lines. Terrible midfield composition + recruitment'
The solution might be to play 1 6 (presumably rice as he is our future) the. Put Ethan at left 8. Have someone dynamic who wants to drive forward at pace and link up at every opportunity. Not someone who should aims to sit deep and control the game
I would like to see a diamond midfield with Rice at the base with Odegaard at RCM and MLS at LCM. Put at Ethan at the #10. Nwaneri is more of a second striker or wide forward imo. High quality ball striking and final action.
I said it around the time of the Liverpool draw with us at home, when some on here were calling it a good result - I’m actually less concerned about all the points we’ve been dropping and more concerned that we just haven’t played very well for many games. The points are closely matching the eye test. We are dropping points because we are struggling in most matches.
I can scarcely recall 3 league games all season where we’ve been good for a whole 90 mins. Even the good results we’ve had usually came down to a single half where we were flying, combined with another half which was meh.
If we were playing really well but getting denied by fine margins you’d feel confident that we’re about to turn the corner at any moment, but that’s not really what I’m seeing on the pitch. Fulham and Everton were both fairly calm results for them. Bournemouth found us very easy a man down. Vs Brighton the same. Pool we were flat as helm the moment Gabriel went off early in the second half. Newcastle we didn’t deserve a thing from the game.
Rather than believing the best is yet to come it’s turned purely to HOPING the best is yet to come. But that’s pure hope, and not based on any evidence I’m seeing this season
Below quotes from Kaya Kaynak are very interesting.
"The Arsenal boss is obsessed with control and dominance of the opposition. But within that approach there is little room for spontaneity or risk"
This explains things. No risk no reward.
Anti Wenger and ironically he played for him. Has Mike forgotten about how to attack in every sense of the word???
We used to put teams to sleep with Wenger era- 3 nil in the first half was not unusual.
Yes Wenger would overload the midfield with our full backs cutting in, but we dominated possession and passing was the real killer, chance creations. ITs a risk and we got burned a lot but at this point, this system aint working either.
Nice propaganda/excuses Pedro.
Arteta has no sauce, is not a winner and is not lucky either.
He is decent but not PL CL winning good.
Half of our team is not good enough, especially attackers bar Saka.
Our finishing is embarrassing for top team.
Really like the look of Semenyo.
Plays both sides very well.
"Odegaard x Saka ‘linkup’ is just odegaard passing to saka and wishing him luck against 3 players."
Yup.
Jeez you used to make a lot sense, what'd happened here rap
You are boring.
Your opinions are ridiculous.
Kai Havertz top 5 attackers in world football,
Eddie Nketiah is a potential superstar
Fabio Viera is an elite talent
Yikes.
I've said many times that Nketiah had to leave cause we found someone better than him in everything - Havertz.
Nketiah, a potential superstar for Palace, not for world football. Don't celebrate me being wrong too early.
Fabio was desperately needed and would have added to our points total if he was kept here. In that game against Everton, and in many other games, there was a good chance he would have provided the magic with a long distance strike or an inch perfect pass/cross.
Havertz is a borderline top 5 CF in the world. The people around him, minus Saka, have failed us.
If we had played that game against Everton without Odegaard and accomplished as little as we did, everyone would have cried how desperately we miss Odegaard. Posts like "raptora said we don't miss Odegaard btw" would have 100% been posted. Well, shit... Odegaard surely played the other day, or did he... I'm not sure.
I like Kai. I don't want to speak bad about him. He had a great 6 months last season. But he isn't top 5 CF in world football. At the moment Lewandowski, Isak, Haaland, Mbappe, Kane are clear of him by miles.
There is also arguments about others who are performing better than him. Even that Jackson dude at Chelsea is playing better. That Guirassy guy at dortmund, Vlahovic at Juve, Duran at Villa, Retegui at Atalanta, Gyokeres at Sporting are playing well at the moment.
The Fabio obsession is ridiculous. If he is as good as you say he is, he will perform at a top level for porto and get us a good fee. But he won't because he isn't a player that can cut it at this level. Nwaneri has done in 4 months what vieira couldn't do in 2 years.
"Nwaneri has done in 4 months what vieira couldn't do in 2 years."
We should put this on a bumper sticker
Explains it in a nutshell
What Vieira couldn't
An out of form Mbappe has outscored a lot of strikers. The talent is undeniable.
Having Havertz and Mbappe in the same sentence should be a crime. And I like Kai.
Odegaard made some of the most ridiculous defence splitting passes to Saka in the first 3 games since he returned. Some ended in assists or pre assists to goals. Or atleast creation of dangerous situations
two things
one: I don‘t remember a game in the past 2,3 months where we were able to isolate saka against one opponent as regular and high up the pitch as against everton. our problem is less the double teaming as we are able to get him isolated at least a couple of times per game but the fact that he isn‘t a robot. he had a bad day against everton - he is allowed to, no blame there.
two: we have a favourite side as any team have. our main problem is the fact that opponents tend to overload our prefered side that opens up spaces in the left and through the middle we are not using enough or even if we do we are unable to convert our chances (like against fulham or everton).
all in all - it is a combination of saka being human (at times) and the fact that all our other attacking forces seem to be in low form together - we aren‘t creating enough clear cut chances and if we do we don‘t score them. we are also incapable - at least it seems - to score a worldie or a lucky deflected shot or getting a dumb penalty
What he keeps doing is slandering Odegaard despite him leading the charts in most attacking metrics for mifielders. And added to that he is someone who ranks high in winning the ball back too. That is what I find annoying.
I agree about our left side. It has been impotent for atleast almost 6 months now.