Well, I took a week off from this excruciating heat and my hometown didn’t disappoint. For all the urbanization and industries, there is still some forest left and the breezes are better than the so called recycled, smell-nice air conditioners. We will survive but what about the next generation(s)?!
So, a lot has happened since I went missing. Man City has lifted the Premier League and will probably finish with 10+ points more than us. Newcastle has made it to the Champions League and the almighty Liverpool will most likely play in Europa. For Arsenal, we lost a golden chance to lift the trophy. Saka signed a much needed contract extension in the range of 15m / year, Martinelli, Zinchenko and Saliba were ruled out for the rest of this season due to injuries but are expected to join back before pre-season. There is a good possibility that Xhaka will leave this summer and The Athletic guys are linking us to Rice, Caicedo, Mason Mount and Gündoğan.
First thing first, after leading the table for almost all of this season, the season was ours to lose and we did exactly that. We threw away 2-0 lead against Liverpool and West Ham. We let Southampton score 3 against us at home and settled with one point. City beat us, which was expected, but these 3 draws proved very costly. Adding insult to the injury, we lost our last 2 games against Brighton at home and Forest away. It didn’t matter but the game against Forest was a prime example of brain fart from Arteta.
In a good news, Saka signed a 4-year contract extension that runs till 2027. He will be paid somewhere around 15million / year. Frankly, I don’t get the criticism of putting him into this salary bracket. He has been splendid for us whole season, had few rough games at the end but you can’t really blame the kid when he is being played every game and kicked and pushed throughout. My belief is that, if you buy a high profile player like Antony at United, pay a fee of 80m and then offer him another 300k/week, it’s not sustainable. We must understand that we are saving the need to find this 80m to buy a player of Saka’s calibre. This is also different to what we offered to Ozil. Ozil was past his prime, everyone knew he is only going to get regressed and it led to a situation where no one was happy. Saka’s case is different, so was Martinelli and if Saliba signs, I won’t mind if we offer him a 200k/week wage. These group of players are young, they can be the best player in their positions and winning ‘with’ them is more important than encashing them now and then bringing someone else hoping they turn out to be equally good.
We have some injury concerns, Zinchenko is out, Saliba’s back injury is taking time, Martinelli picked up a knock and is ruled out for the rest of this season. Not that it matters now, but hopefully they will all be back by next season.
It came out as a surprize to me when various media outlets linked Xhaka with Bayer Leverkusen. He is getting a 4 – year contract, and is almost a done deal. I don’t mind it, I have been asking for an upgrade to his position from god knows when, and if it’s ending in a happy way for both the parties, it’s a good thing. I must also applaud Xhaka for his service this season, he has made a lot of us eat a humble pie with his performance in lots of games. We mustn’t discredit him, he was part of a team that stayed at the top for more than 30 weeks against the likes of Manchester City.
So, whom are we getting? There’s been a lot of rumours, Rice, Caicedo, Mason Mount, Gundogan but I will keep this part for the next articles. Wrapping up for now, hope you are having a good week. If not, there’s a thing called mid-week beer and Wednesday qualifies for that.
Cheers!
Good post Ambarish and I echo KP’s sentiments for being a lenient and at times patient Blog owner, as occasionally we can let our emotions get the better of us all here.
Sunday’s game is a formality in that winning or losing doesn’t change our position.
I think Xhaka stole a living from us over his 9 years here with only one half decent season – this season. Arteta re-upped him instead of replacing, so that’s not Xhaka’s fault. He was never right for the PL. So, I’m ecstatic the balkan bone head is leaving for Germany, where he’ll do well with a slower pace if no one tackles him. Sorry Ambarish but that is Word!
Happy you got to get back to your family and hometown. The heat here is constant 45+*C like an oven outside with around 70% humidity. I feel for you when you’re in a large city that keeps the heat in long after the sun has gone down.
I thought I’d post the last part of my earlier post to see how you lads feel the managerial league will end up at the end of next season?
Reading all the posts from last night kind of got me to consolidate last night’s thinking and suggest balanced posts and a review in December where hopefully we are once again sitting at the top and ready to show us all how a run in should be.
From a human psychology aspect Arteta’s stress is there for all to see. Scratching his head unconsciously on the touchline eyes glazed looking into the distance far beyond the game; the first sign of cracks of disbelief in himself because he just couldn’t believe why the collapse had happened.
I’m not sure Arteta could take a 3rd collapse in a row. I think he would be too proud to stay if that happened.
My way of dealing with this balance is to only write about players we have bought or re-upped. We can only suppose how well the incoming players are going to work out, but our pre season friendly games will be anything but friendly with our old foes of Manure and Barca, so, a baptism by fire for new incoming players from outside the PL.
I know we’re all intelligent enough here to keep our personal feelings about Arteta the person out of our posts where judgement is purely on his footballing nous and results.
The below managers will all want to finish with a Euro Cup birth and win the league:
Pep
Klopp
Mikel Arteta
Ten Hag
Howe
Emery
Pochetinho
Emery
Arne Slot
It’s a formidable managerial line up (Arteta is there for achieving 2nd) – just for fun add your line up for finishing managers for May next year.
Mine is above.
Hi Tony
You praised Ambarish’s leniency so now I’m going to praise yours. Arteta third? Really? I hope you save me some of what you’ve been toking this evening! But fairs do’s Tony. Feeling any love for Tets after the last few weeks is admirable. I heard even his family were ready to send him to Coventry after the Southampton game!
It might be useful to recast those managers’ rankings against the money they’ve been gifted to spend on players, their overall success in that particular team, and the mess that they inherited and how quickly they turned it around. Also, you’ve not mentioned De Zerbi who, with Howe and Emery have helped their teams punch above their weight
PS
The Bournemouth guy (O’Neil) also deserves some recognition after the utter fucking cardigan wearing shitshow that was Scott Parker. They looked dead certs to drop when Parker was fired.
KP-just wanted to make a brief statement of support regarding the despicable manner by which our former echo chamber Commandant chose to remove those who didn’t prescribe to his tunnel vision script…in my case, he conjured up a completely false narrative, by suggesting that I was some sort of homophobe, after quickly erasing my post so that no one could decide for themselves, then removed me from the equation…as per usual, he followed that up with a disingenuous rant about what would and wouoldn’t be considered acceptable behaviour, thereby hanging me out to dry once again, then enagaged in a completely contrived back-and-forth amongst his various online personalities…I was never offered the opportunity to respond, except by private email, in which I informed him that he was lucky that I didn’t use my actually name online or he would have got an intimate view of my more litigious side, especially considering the rising tide of the cancel culturists at that time…just so you know, my posted comment was rather innocuous in that I simply said that Nigel was so in love with himself that if given the chance he would hire himself as his own personal fluffer…hardly a homophobic slur
I too want to personally thank Ambarish for his continued efforts and for providing us with a forum for discussing a plethora of matters both Arsenal related and beyond…I’ve been excommunicated from several prominent Arsenal blogs for expressing my oft-times contrarian views, since Arteta’s arrival on the scene, even those sites where I was a fairly regular article contributor, which speaks volumes about the changing nature of Arsenal’s PR landscape over the last couple years…Cheers
Bob-I hope you were able to read my response to you on the previous thread…take care
Tony-as per usual, your flattering words are always much appreciated…I likewise think that a more balanced blogscape would be the best case scenario, but that seems to be a bridge too far for those who’ve been inflicted by Artetamania, as most of us didn’t leave LG of our own accord, in fact, we were summarily dismissed for speaking our particular truths…hopefully those with differing views will continue to visit this venue so that we can partake in some potentially meaningful and highly nuanced debates
wouldn’t
as for any predictive managerial lists, I will wait until I see how this next window shakes out before offering up my two cents worth, as that could be an incredibly fluid proposition
“Thomas Partey is attracting interest from clubs in Serie A as Mikel Arteta plans his summer rebuild at Arsenal”
3 quick notes:
(1) really worried if we sell Partey, yet keep Elneny and Jorginho, regardless of who we bring in…this was one of my chief concerns when we settled for another Chelsea spare part in January
(2) “rebuild” why oh why would this term be floating out there if all the Kool-Aid crew members feel that we’re on the supposed precipice of doing great things on multiple fronts, especially after all the monies that have already been spent during Arteta’s tenure
(3) I’m not convinced that we’ll get any of our supposed rumoured targets…since our move to the Emirates I can only remember 1 logically conceived transfer of an individual who would have been coveted by others, if he hadn’t been signed before the opening of the window, and that was Sanchez…I would suggest that we should start looking way down our proverbial list to those sitting in the 8th through10th slots, as they might be the more likely transfer candidates…even Jesus’s transfer negotiations were a ridiculously lengthy endeavour, which was only secured once we sweetened the pot on two separate occasions
TRVL
He’s a level 6 arse.
Nothing to do with homophobia but a welcome and damming indictment of his Nigel alter ego, sentenced as a total wanker. Pedro falls into the same trap as a lot of people who publish things. They start to believe they’re cleverer and more relevant than other people and so their ego takes off. He’s a fraud and a bullshitter with a nasty streak when people school him.
Right, I’m going to attempt my managerial pecking order based on who’s still around at the end of this season and using my earlier criteria) . Fingers crossed Tony (and Bob) will still talk to me.
Guardiola
Klopp
De Zerbi
O’Neil
Tets (grrrrrrrr!) jointly with Unai (!)
Frank
Howe
Woy the (geriatric) Boy
Ten Hag
Cooper
Marco Silva
Dan Ackroyd lookalike Lopetegui
Moyes
Dean Smith
Dyche
Fat corrupt Sam
Not even quoted
Fat Frank
Ryan Mason
The Southampton guy
Pick the bones out of that!
The thing that annoys me most about being banned from Le Grove?
I’d gone head to head with him on loads of stuff, called him out for allowing the racist shit about Emery and god knows what else and then he banned me after I made a basic comment about generating revenue from sales was going to be tough after COVID with so many clubs (especially in Europe) struggling for money which wasn’t even something in Arteta’s purview.
My guess is he knew I wasn’t going to stop, that I was right and he can’t take handle it. If I’d have known he was going to ban me I would have explained in great detail precisely what a cunt he is.
If you’re going to be banned at least be banned for doing something full on is my view!
TRVL
I can’t remember who’s behind it but there’s a saying about as soon as someone brings the Nazi’s into an argument they’ve lost. Pedro’s a complete snowflake who will argue about the importance of freedom of speech, about how resorting to slurs or insults is the lowest form of intelligence and then be the first to start applying labels to people.
It’s just the modern version of calling someone a Nazi.
“(2) “rebuild” why oh why would this term be floating out there if all the Kool-Aid crew members feel that we’re on the supposed precipice of doing great things on multiple fronts, especially after all the monies that have already been spent during Arteta’s tenure”
Yep complete bullshit how can you rebuild a team that isn’t complete yet? Strengthen the squad – yes, improve the team – yes. Start selling the players you brought in because they’re not good enough? Then why the fuck did you buy them for so much money?
Rant over!
For me too early to call a next may finish because of what will happen in the summer TW as well as the different clubs buying and selling of players. In addition I am a bit leery about Saliba because of his injury will it plague him next season plus will he sign a new contract..
However I will say if Pep wins the treble, for me he is manager of the season, if not Howe would be my choice closely followed by Di Zerbi and ETH then Arteta. Arteta would have been higher would it not have been for the implosion at the season’s end.
KP-funny thing is, if Nigel were an actual living, breathing human, he should have been even more pissed than me by Pedro’s erroneous claims, as either he was just “outed” or meant to look as if he needed Positive Pete to swoop in and save his fragile ass (oops, was that homophobic LOL)
Marc-if it makes you feel any better I spoke directly to Pedro about his seemingly incessant cuntitude, then I reiterated this fact on another high traffic Arsenal site…unfortunately I was subsequently excommunicated from Just Arsenal shortly thereafter, as they too started to adopt a similar Arteta-based double standard when it came to admonishing posters…if you were a pro-Arteta poster you basically had carte blanche, whereas if you fell on the other side of the equation you couldn’t say jackshit without being publicly scolded
Marc
I think you’re referring to Godwin’s law.
if for some reason LG’s not so intrepid representative, Senor Aitcho, makes his way back into the LIR fold, I just want to make note of Pep’s views on the manager you were so disparaging about, “Roberto is one of the most influential managers in the last 20 years.” He then went on to shower this same individual with a whole host of superlatives usually reserved for those on the Mount Rushmore of managers…just saying
otherwise known as Godwin’s rule of Hitler analogies…spot on once again KP
TRVL, you’re just trolling. I hope you are.
I was banned from LG years ago, start of the Arteta regime as it happens, for being less than convinced about Arteta’s potential. The circumstances were relatively humourous, you may disagree if I told you.I just don’t take my appearance on a blog as seriously as you seem to and moved on.
Relax on the Zerbi love in. Like I said, it’s way too early to say. Brighton are doing well, they did well under Potter. It’s no more than a deluxe new manager bounce. That’s not disparaging, have some proportion. I’m just not going overboard for the latest shiny new manager. Anyone on here or elsewhere who says categorically they’re convinced Zerb would do a better job at Arsenal, at this stage, is nothing more than another blog worthy waffler.
What would be nice is less of the binary nonsense. LG made its name from telling us Wenger was a senile c*nt for years and couldn’t manage for toffee. That was rubbish as evidenced by Tet’s first two seasons. Tets being the ‘future’ and ‘generational’ was also rubbish. His football in seasons 1-3 was evidence of that. He’s got better, he’s had assistance. For what it’s worth, I still believe Emery is a better coach, I long thought Howe was too and advocated for him the last two times. I accept the Howe was based on how he did with Bournemouth, a slightly larger sample than Zerbs had but including a relegation. He’s also done well, as Emery seems to, by being a coach.
Anyway, if you want to call me out, don’t base it on a bullshit quote from a manager who goes where, to quote Jose, the ‘tea lady’ can win the league.
And if you want to label someone an ‘intrepid representative’ of a site, check they’re not banned from same site.
Ultimately, maybe take your participation on any blog less seriously, you’re giving off jilted boyfriend vibes. Emailing blog owners? Grow a backbone.
now that was the most noteworthy post you’ve ever offered up…as such, I’m happy that I took a shot across the proverbial bow…at least now your LIR persona has some actual depth and context…now your chirping game leaves much to be desired, but that certainly wasn’t an epiphanic realization, as you’ve tried a similar tact in the past and failed rather miserably then too…I will say this, what Pep said about DeZerbi went far beyond the usual pre-match lip service banter and it’s clear that he’s drawn Pep’s attention long before he arrived on Brighton’s shores, so I think your “bullshit quote” take will fall on deaf ears…btw the email, as you remember, was the only way to have a back-and-forth as I was banished from the site. so I’m not sure how that could possibly infer that I was lacking any backbone…sweet dreams little guy
after a brief sidebar it’s time to get back to the matters at hand….I have some real skepticism surrounding the possibiity of us getting Rice and/or Caicedo…I strongly feel that in order to get Rice several things must occur: (1) the Hammers having a genuine desire to make this an amicable situation, (2) Rice choosing us as his clear choice, (3) these first two things making it possible for a less traditional/preferred course of action being pursued, which might include another player(s) and/or a more flexible payment schedule, (4) us not taking this unique situation for granted and trying to lowball them at the table anyways and (5) us not dithering so much that it opens the door for another team to make them an offer they simply couldn’t refuse, which is a very real possibility…all in all that seems like a lot variables to maneuver
in regards to Caicedo, as I’ve mentioned before, I have a strong suspicion that we ruffled some serious feathers in January and this might make it increasingly more difficult to make a return trip to the bargaining table…this might be a moot point if this player didn’t have other suitors with deep pockets, as we’ve been known to give them everything they want and more, but with the monies being bandied about I highly doubt we’ll being going in with the kind of bid that will scare others off