Every game from now on is a must win if we want to play in Champions League next season. Losing points to Crystal Palace was a set back but it’s in the past and we have a game against Brighton that we can win and go three points above Spu*ds.
It’s going to be an interesting game. Brighton is a well drilled team defensively but lacks the firepower to score. They have won only once in their last 12 games but then, they have shared points against Leicester, Chelsea (twice), West Ham, Liverpool and Arsenal this season. We share the same problem of not having a finisher. Laca can’t score for his life and Arteta will once again hope one of the Saka, ESR/Martinelli scores today.
Team News
Thomas Partey is carrying a significant injury and will be out for few weeks, confirmed on Arsenal.com. Tierney is out too for the rest of this season with a knee injury that required a surgery. That’s two of our starters and if you consider the back ups in Lokonga and Tavares, it’s a huge concern that we are missing them.
It will interesting to see what Arteta prefers defensively. He has subbed out Tavares twice in a row and he might go with Saka at LB. This means Pepe will be back at the Left Wing and we will see a midfield of Lokonga and Xhaka. Hard time create strong men – I’m sure we will see them picking up things like they did earlier in the season.
On Top 4 chances
Asked about the belief of finishing in top 4, Artea said –
[The setback] has happened and it’s happened with nine games to go and we have to react now. We have to show tomorrow the energy, the commitment and the passion that we want to play the game tomorrow in front of our fans.
source: arsenal.com
This is exactly how I used to answer in college if I knew nothing lol. Throw in some heavy words (energy, commitment, passion) and expect the invigilator (fans) is impressed. Talk about setting up a target, in a competitive, result driven game, in your second full season, after spending 150+ million eh?
Anyways, a win today means we go above Spu*ds in the 4th place with 8 games left. A must win again considering Spurs have an easy run of games left and we still have to play Liverpool, Chelsea and United.
Irrespective of injuries I am hoping we win all 3 points and get back the confidence. We require both along with some luck for the remainder of season.
It’s an afternoon start, hope you enjoy that sunshine in the stadium. Short one for today, see in the comments.
Kroenkephobe,
Enjoy the family time,hope you get some great weather. I like the sound of those cold beers…….
Will talk to you next weekend when we can go through it all again….
Almunia, I’ve already emotionally detached myself. Can’t help wanting the team to do well inside. But just know until we get rid of Arteta we’ll not get where we need to be.
Kroenke enjoy your break with the family.👍
Mark, it’s terrible really cos I want to throw myself into it,every match,scream and roar,dream and hope. I want that for my young lad too. Now I’m thinking, don’t do it, you’re only going to drive yourself insane. I genuinely get angry cos I feel like someone is stealing my club from me so I keep following and am driven insane or I withdraw and lose my club. And then venting about it all is described as not being a proper supporter but to me if you are a proper gooner you MUST be suffering because you demand what’s best for your club. It’s all very frustrating. Speaking of which,I’m going to bed,Lowry is going backwards in the masters……
Kroenkephobe, meant to say to you,that theory that it only takes 5 mins to know what we’re going to get from an Arteta team was spot on again today. You may have unearthed something there!
I hear you Almunia, no easy answers. Just buckle up it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.
For all Arteta’s talk about feeling sorry for Tavares and it was only a tactical switch subbing him. He then goes on to not play him. Destroying any confidence Nuno may have had and also to not trust anything his manager says.
Not a great way to manage your players. Laca stinking out the place offering no threat, Xhaka being Xhaka, both with no threat of being subbed or dropped. What message does that send to the other players?? So clear Arteta has his favourites.
So no wonder that Sambi played with fear, not wanting to be banished to Siberia for making mistakes. As that’s how it must feel,by the way he was treated.
The part of the role of the manager to nurture and encourage their players is severely lacking in Arteta, and he will not have success until this is addressed.
You can’t just buy your way to success. Much has been made about when we buy new players in the summer etc, we’ll be able to compete…etc
Well it’s more complicated than that.
A good/great manager has players willing to run through walls for him. The performance exhibited by the players says that they don’t feel this way about Mikel ! A manager who says one thing publicly but does another.
Players talk amongst themselves, they’re not blind to how their teammates are treated, and probably realise that it could be themselves. Publicly they won’t speak out, but it has an effect. A negative one imo.
Mark,
If you listed every player that was at the club or has come into the club during Arteta’s tenure I think it would be safe to say the vast majority have regressed. That doesn’t happen to good managers. Even the success stories of last summer, lokonga, tavares, white,ramsdale and ode are all on a downward trajectory. He has given away, devalued or simply paid to leave a huge number of professional players. It’s staggering that a new contract is being offered.
This season the crowd has done it’s best to keep things on a positive level at the Emirates. It’s almost an acknowledgement that the input from the fans is now an important factor and we can’t simply rely on having a good team and a good coach and letting them entertain us as we have in the past. Along with a lot of the older, more weary heads taking a break mean it’s generally been more fun than it has been for years.
Yesterday I got the impression the crowd felt the gig was up. We’ve done our bit but Arteta wasn’t helping himself and seems too stubborn to do so. This isn’t on the players, we know Laca isn’t going to get a goal, Xhaka isn’t a left back. The manager is responsible and aside from the games against Spurs, a half v City and a half v Liverpool, the football has been pretty average. It becomes dull, backing an average manager and seeing his averageness unfold in front of our eyes.
Only total idiots championed the crazy Jan window and this game was partly a result of that.
Aitcho,
That’s a very interesting comment. Watching on the tv you could hear the groans and the lack of enthusiasm and of course see the early departures. But you have to be in the ground to truly get a sense of it. If the crowd turns,the new contract might be halted.
Almunia,
I think what you heard was a fair reflection of where the fans are. More frustrated than angry.
Fans have been energetic this season partly because we realised we needed to, the football was unlikely to get us going by itself.
I think a lot of us bit our tongues on Arteta, the FA Cup 2 years ago, the run to fourth this year bought him time. There was also that wish to move away from being that toxic entitled fanbase who hounded out managers as par for the course
But the feeling I get is even pro Artetas who were more convinced on the back of his PR and ideological grounds are finding harder to justify the support they give him. None of the people I spoke to at the ground were putting forward reasons for giving him time except we might buy more players in summer
The crowd may not turn but it may just disengage and we go back to the empty seats of a few years back. For a business that, sensibly, relies a great deal on bums on seats and match day revenue, a season of fewer games, with no Europe, or budget level Europe and fans not renewing on the 4% ST price hike might end up being a factor in Arteta’s future.
Next season will be interesting. We’ll see if the ST holders who took a pandemic then a voluntary break come back when they have to decide whether to jump back in. I have a couple of friends with ST’S who all took a break this year and aren’t sure if they actually will go back, rent or just give up those STs
Aitcho,
That’s a very balanced and far more accurate reflection of how Arsenal fans are feeling than the pr we’re getting elsewhere. It also resonates with the Arsenal fans over here who are not supporting the retention of Arteta with any real belief. Some passionately want him gone but many are slipping dangerously towards the apathy zone again. Like your friends who are considering letting their st’s go, many of mine have stopped travelling over for matches. I’m not sure if the owners get it. The club can’t afford to create a disillusioned fanbase, they won’t win them back with token gestures. Covid created such a desire to get back into the ground people were willing to overlook a lot of flaws. That won’t last. The false hope that Arteta’s pr machine pumped into the ether will simply make people even more cynical and suspicious going forward. I really think renewing Arteta would be to sever some of the fanbase from Arsenal permanently in the long run when things ,inevitably, get ugly once again.
Poor old mb too despondent to pen a post-Brighton piece.
I feel your apathy, mate. 6 points dropped from our two ‘easy’ games into the final run-in does not inspire the confidence to knock out 500 words on Arsenal’s future.
This feels worse than the Emery choke. We had, what, 3 games in hand and were a few points clear of our immediate rivals, there was talk of a push into the top 3 given our ‘form’ (since Christmas, obv), followed by a catastrophic implosion.
We aren’t scoring, we’re conceding too many after having spend £100m on defensive players, our central midfield doesn’t function without an inform Partey at the base, and Tavares/Sambi are raw as when they’re brought in to replace their senior counterparts.
3 years into the job and Arteta is still making basic errors. Xhaka at LB is never the answer.
All that said, it’s really nice to read the objective content/comments on this blog. Keep it up.
Haha that’s one of reason for sure. My old man is a bit sick and I’m getting him tested for several things. Nothing major but it’s keeping me hectic busy, medical is a mess here. No access to wifi and laptop, but I will be back soon. Lots of frustrations to vent out.
Ah, sorry to hear about your dad. I hope he recovers quickly. Looking forward to your next piece when time allows.
Mb,
Hope your dad is ok,far more important than giving out about Arteta,there’s a queue of us here to do that for you! Get your thoughts together, then let rip!!!!!
Jamie,
Apathy,depression or anger. What are you drinking? Personally I’ve had a cocktail of them over the last week.
Almunia,
I’m swimming in all of them, mate.
Hard to believe we’re on track to hand 4th to Spurs. Giving Conte CL and the participation money is a catastrophe for our ambitions next season. Plus all the extra revenue from hosting games at WHL..
We had a free hit at it this season with no European distractions and early cup exits. We won’t get another golden opportunity like this one for a while.
What a mess.
Jamie,
Just about sums it up. The killer for me is that if we don’t get top 4 this year it’s even less likely next year. I don’t need to list how our rivals will improve,it’s beyond obvious. But Arteta will still be here regardless and that means the standards being set by the club are much lower than those of the supporters,that’s the real kick in the guts,those who run the club aren’t striving to return us to glory,they simply want the bare minimum to placate us. And what’s even worse is that with some fans that’s acceptable. Btw I’m not lumping all Arteta fans together,many are willing to support him providing there is continuous improvement, but there are those who will support him regardless. It is that perspective that stumps me.