Mikel has spend money on these defensive players so far at Arsenal – White, Gabriel M, Tomiyasu, Tavares, Zinchenko, Kiwior, Timber, Calafiori, Mosquera. And it has costed the club around 230m GBP. That’s the back line. Lets include Goal Keepers and defensive midfielders to that list – Ramsdale, Raya, Kepa, Thomas Partey, Declan Rice, Norgaard and Zubimendi brings the total spend to about half a billion dollars.
While in attack, we brought in Willian, Marquinhos, Jesus, Trossard, Havertz, Sterling, Madueke, Gyokeres costing us a total of 234m GBP. If we include Central and Attacking midfielders – Odegaard, Vieira, Merino, and Eze the cost would be 396m GBP.
My point is, we have spent about 20% less in attacks than in defence. One of the reasons I can think of, is that we had Saka and Martinelli covering both the wings. Now, this spending and Mikel’s preference for defensive solidarity shows up in stats. We conceded 39, 48, 43, 29, 34, 27 goals across the 6 full seasons he has managed the club. It’s not surprising that we won the Premier League when we conceded the least of all 6 years.
It’s not wrong to say that defence has got us the title.
But, would you say that the football has become more exciting in recent times? I would say no. In the season 2023-24, we played some brilliant football and scored 91 goals. We finished 2nd, short of City but we used to score for fun. Everyone saw the glimpse of what Mikel brings to the table and everyone hoped we would go on to build on it. However, Mikel became too pragmatic for my liking.
In my opinion, this has to do with the risk and Mikel hates it. To score, you have to take risk in pushing your attacking players in the opposition half, which leaves you open at the back. Mikel wants his CF and wingers to be part of the dirty work, even if it costs us some goals. From an Arsenal fan’s POV, it won us a title after 23 years and fuck it, fuck the football we are playing as long as we are bringing the trophies. Pep left with a cabinet full of trophies at City and he is the one who invented this boring, passive football.
But, Klopp and Luis Enrique showed us a better way to win trophies. By playing some attacking football and keeping the ‘sport’ exciting. Jurgen’s Liverpool title winning team of 2019-20 scored 85 goals and conceded 33. It was one of the most fluid, attacking, entertaining team. A front 3 of Salah (19 goals), Mane (18 goals), Firmino (9 goals) helped and a defence of Van Dijk, Alison, Robertson, Alexander-Arnold helped them secure the title. There’s no reason we can’t do this with the players we have. We have the likes of Saliba, Gabriel and Timber in defence. And we have a front 3 of Saka, Martinelli and Gyokeres to score as many goals as Salah, Mane and Firmino.
So, it comes down the manager. Mikel, a disciple of Pep, wants to control the game and safety comes first. Managers like Klopp wants chaos while Enrique picked up some bit and pieces of the tracking back and ball possession but kept the good of both worlds. I want the later, and I don’t care if you don’t believe me but Mikel wants it too. He brought in Eze to get this sorted, and the club is now open to have a talk with Vinicius Jr. Eze has been good, but he is not the one who can score a couple of goals on his own every other games like Salah used to do. Vinicius Jr can do it and that’s one reason I think we are looking at that possibility.
Mikel Arteta is looking for a way out of that boring football, but he can’t achieve it without allowing freedom to the players and taking up some risks. We would faulter, we would concede some un-necessary goals but at the end football will be exciting and the likes of Enrique has showed that it will win you trophies too. They have 2 back to back Champions League trophies to show for.
Right, that’s my 2 cents for today. See you in the comments.
Wicksy
Have you ever stopped and thought why some of these players who weren’t injury prone before joining suddenly become injury prone when playing under Arteta?
For me there is no panic over transfers, last season we won the league by 7 points despite having many players out with long term injuries.
We won the league and reached 2 cup finals with minimal contribution from Havertz, Odegaard and Saka who are 3 of our most influential players offensively, those 3 have had very little football in the past 12 months so the expectation should be that they will have a big influence on the coming season.
Also Merino missed the majority of 2nd half of the season and for me is very underrated, he is a team player who can play a number of roles, has great movement in the box and is our best finisher, so I see no reason to worry about new signings as the squad is full of quality plus we have the likes of Dowman, Nwaneri and Skelly ready to make an impact.
I said from day one that Tzolis is a like for like replacement of Trossard , 2 footed , knows where the goal is, good work ethic and great team player.
If I was to pick a player who will have a massive impact on our season it would be Havertz, though of course he will have to stay fit , i see no reason why he can’t reach the 20 goal mark especially if we play to his strengths, last season he only started 10 games and managed 11 goals/assists whilst coming back from a major injury, so if we see a fully fit Havertz he may surprise a few people, especially his detractors on here who if we are honest have got very little right in the past 12 months.
Nice try you trolling fucktard…I would bet my left nut that Klopp is presently turning over every bavarian leaf in the hopes of finding a suitable replacement up top…putting our fate in the hands of this weak-ass flopping fuck would be a dereliction of duty
data tracking from FotMob shows he consistently ranks among the top players in the league for “Big Chances Missed” (he missed 12 big chances in the 2024–25 season)…his conversion rate went from “decent”, due to a late season purple patch in 23-24, to mediocre in 24-25, to abysmal in 25-26…from an eye test perspective he frequently flubs clear one-on-one opportunities or snatches at shots in high-stakes moments…he gives off the vibe of a player who lacks any natural killer instincts (minus on 2 occasions in his PL career, against Brentford and in the CL final for Chelsea)
much like with our manager, if we win it will be in spite of his presence…that’s why opposing sides never give him extra attentiom…in fact, they usually give him free reign and still his numbers are underwhelming…if you took away his ugly/unmarked tallies, he would average about 3 goals a season…no wonder you’re always propping-up Jesus…for the love of god take the strap off your helmet, it’s clearly cutting off oxygen that was destined for your already struggling brain…have a good one SC
Real Madrid buying the exciting talent, 19 year old Diomande.
And our moronic cunt spunking more millions on another old fat cunt , who can’t take pressure penalties or run or beat a man.
Fuck knows where this chancer will play.
Does he have a fetish for buying expensive, slow , boring cack or he is simply a clueless cunt?
Dowman and Nwaneri should get out, whilst they can.
Out of interest Wicksy those last 12 months that the fans boys predicted so precisely where did the previous 5 years feature in those predictions?
Losing 2 nil to Real Betis in Dublin. The solution?
Fucking sack Arteta of course!
KP—sounds as if Havertz got an unofficial assist on Fornals goal…after that one MA might target two CBs to replace Saliba
My son is trying to pique my interest in buying tickets for the community shield or whatever it’s called these days. It’s being held in the millennium stadium in Cardiff.
How much? I enquired of him.
‘180 to 200 sovs’ came the reply. I spat tea over myself. Just a few days earlier I bought a Haverfordwest County season ticket which gets me entry to about 22 home games. Total price? £80!
“I cannot talk about any news. You sometimes get it faster than me. I’ve been focused on the match so I don’t know what’s happened”
welcome to fake news central…so much so that our manager should immediately take a PJ to Turkey and get an orange comb-over, then put on his Make Arsenal Great Again hat…imagine this micromanaging fucktard actually suggesting that some outsider media fucks might know more than him about our transfer ongoings…save your breath you lying sack of shit…btw if he was focusing solely on our Betis friendly, he sucks at managing too
meanwhile back in the real world no one of any real consequence wants anything to do with this cunt…now that our fake-ass push for Vini is done and dusted, which was an orchestrated hoax from the get-go, let’s review what has really transpired thus far this summer…keeping in mind that we won the PL title win and “played” in the CL finals:
Real are going to have both Yan and Vini, Barcola would rather go to Pool, Alvarez said fuck you later, Rogers(amongst others) said it was a no brainer to chose another top side and we paid a record fee for a Greek forward playing in the 6th best League in Europe and above the number for Bruno, who wouldn’t even help us get his signing over the line…are we fucking Arsenal or Ipswich??? not to mention, we continually sell-on players for half the price we paid, if we’re lucky, and continue to pay big money for the same positional requirements year-in and year-out (teams were no doubt sniffing around on Zubi before the ink was dry on Bruno’s deal)
now I don’t know about you, but this looks like the actions of an amateur hour organization where the manager would rather waste a shit ton of energy selling fake-news narratives than putting the best possible product on the pitch…I guess this is par for the course in this darks arts set piece-dependent flop-heavy thin margins wet dream…let’s hope we get our priorities in order before the window fucking closes
stranger things have happened but imagine if we went from the likes of Vini to Everton’s Iliman Ndiaye…now he’s showed some silky glimpses, even when being thrust onto the right side to accomodate Grealish, but do we really want someone who played second fiddle to that 5 dressed up as a 9 fuck…lord knows the Artetites will always find a way to sugarcoat whomever their managerial overlord anoints…in reality we should hold them to the Vini standard they themselves set, even if it was a fucking ruse from the onset…do people really think that if Vini were to hit the open market that we would be a surefire bet…Jay-Z.used us as his bitch…he’s got 99 problems but Arsenal ain’t one
“Riccardo Calafiori believes Arsenal’s pursuit of the world’s best players underlines the club’s status among Europe’s elite”
two things: (1) you’re an elite club when you actually secure world-class players and (2) does Bruno really belong in that category, people have been plucking their best players for the past two years, but no one came in for Bruno this offseason or last(tbh I really like some of the things he brings to the table, but not after spending 250M on Rice, Zubi and Eze—maybe if we did this last summer instead of Zubi I might think differently)
the following was part of the BBC sporting news “fan” section, where they ask fans of a particular club their opinions on specific club-related matters…today’s question was about whether Vini used us and how you felt about him snubbing MA’s little project…in typical fashion the Artetite fucktards added their know-nothing thoughts:
“No, we weren’t used at all. He clearly took a look at Christos Tzolis and decided against having to compete with him for a spot on the left flank. That’s got to be the real story.”
one can only hope this was said with their tongue firmly in cheek, but I certinaly wouldn’t be surprised if that wasn’t the case
in other news, we appear to have some interest in both Kaua Elias and Pio Esposito…the former plays for Donetsk and the latter Inter…both are Strikers with the future in mind…don’t know enough about either to offer up definitivev opinion, but I will say that when our scouts went to see Kaua he happened to score a hat trick on that occasion…regardless they aren’t the kind of players that could realistically improve us in the now so I hope other readymade options are on our radar…Cheers
just wanted to state that I didn’t raise the whole fan sentiment gig as an attempt to disparage Tzolis…quite the contrary in fact, as I hope he thrives on the left, much in the same vein as Sanchez, but we know for sure that our club’s hierarchy never viewed him in such a light or why would they be attempting to lure Vini to North London (or maybe that was a bullshit move from the off and they’ve always envisioned Tzolis as the bona fide starter)
So with Vilnius jr the question has a couple of possible answers bearing in mind anyone who isn’t a complete halfwit knew his agent was using us:
1) Did Arteta genuinely think he was interested in leaving Madrid to play under him?
2) Arsenal knew they were being used and went along with it?
One of the answers is really really fucking stupid – the other even more so.
Marc
The soppy cunts actually thought Vicinius would sign.
Heard it all fucking before for, decades in fact.
You can actually count on your fingers the genuine world class players we have signed.
And didn’t we move ground to compete for the top players ?
We buy overpriced cack 95% of the time.
Real Madrid buy the talent.
Thats why their fans watch Mbappe , Bellingham, Vicinius and their new £100 million exciting teenager every week and pay 1/4 of the price whilst our cunts watch Gyokeres, the lanky Chelsea streak of piss and Madueke.
Real Madrid win European Cups , we win Charity fucking shields.
Of course , you can say I am negative cunt, but no one can tell me I am wrong, if they are being honest.
AF—I agree in part about the whole new stadium long con gig…if it’s so impossible to both build and spend someone should tell the fucking Spurs…they’ve never been more active in the market as since their markedly more expensive stadium was built…let’s face it Wenger used the frugality angle as way to both appease his absentee landlord and to prove to the world that he could do more with less…in return for his penny pinching ways he was largely left to his own devices, so long as he met the minimum standards…according to most reports the only time Gazidis went against Wenger wishes and won, at least in his first half decade or so, involved the acquisition of Lucas Perez and we all know how that went…blame Ivan if you must, but he resurrected a putrid AC program in a matter of 18 months
flash forward to more recent times and instead of maintaining the austerity of the previous generation there’s been unprecedented backing…during this period the issue has been the master of coin, MA himself…the Kroeke’s haven’t changed their ways…if you look at their North American sporting empire, it’s all about those in charge on the ground…in Colorado Stan’s spent above and beyond to bring championships to both the Avalanche and the Nuggets…in both cases he went above the “salary cap” to achieve this ends, so much so that he actually paid the NBA a luxury tax in the process…with the Rams, he’s spared no expense, even going so far as to trade away a shit ton of draft picks, which are gold in the NFL…in the latter case he did so on the heels of building the most expensive stadium known to man (how ironic)…so the blame should go squarely on the back of our MIT
so where did it go all wrong…firstly, he wasted considerably monies removing the supposed riff raff, some of whom he himself paid handsomely, and on hairbrain acquisitions who either didn’t fit the supposed script or had placeholder written all over them…this wouldn’t have been the end of the world if he didn’t provide them with untenable terms, salaries and oft-times assurances
secondly, where might we be now if he didn’t go into full gutless mode that fateful summer when Xhaka left…by opting for Havertz over a proper replacement, he sealed our tactical fate…if he had signed Rice for a few bucks cheaper, which might have been achieved with the players help, and deployed him deeper, then fulfilled his supposed transfer brief, we just might have enticed some world class talent our way by now
maybe after his first of many cock-ups he started to fear that ownership might handcuff him or worse, so he devised this blunt instrument plantard…all I know was that in Xhaka’s final season, ironically by far his best, I was actually optimistic of the possibility that the next phase would see us target the kind of players that could take our offensively-minded plan forward…instead this self-preserving managerial imposter flipped the script and our current Stokian plan was born, much to my chagrin…as such, I don’t blame the Kroenkes, who I generally despise for a variety of other reasons, I blame MA for his totally misplaced guile and his settling nature
simply put with him at the helm we will never achieve the highest of heights, as no European giant of the modern era has ever reached that rarefied air with such little flair on offer…his relative success speaks to the lack of true alphas, which could change rather quickly considering Real’s recent spending practices and with Flick’s continued employment at Barca…we all know PSG ain’t going anywhere as long as Enrique’s in their employ, unless they sell off too many too fast…Cheers
on a brighter note maybe Napoli will take fucking Jesus off our hands…I very much doubt we’ll be able to secure our usual half of what we paid deal
Arsenal management are such a bunch of fakey bastards. All their pre season marketing blurb looks Edwardian (like a cockney peaky blinders) and emphasises the club’s history, including its wonderful connection with the Emirates.
What’s the problem with that I hear you ask? Well, the Emirates only became an entity in 1971!
They’d have done better to have a 70s theme tying in the creation of the Emirates with our double win in the same year.
Fucking wankers.
TRVL
You’re wrong on the moving stadium concept – you’re looking at it from the current perspective. What you need to remember is when the move was planned etc match day revenue was much bigger part of club revenue – the TV money wasn’t anywhere near the levels its reached.
Now the club never told the fans there’d be an initial period of austerity we then hit that period where Wenger seemed to just refuse to spend money or at least the money available to him. I’ll always maintain that the Directors had no choice other than to remove Dein but the effect on not having someone to nudge Wenger when needed was hugely damaging – to both the clubs performance and Wenger’s legacy.
We’ve now managed to move into a situation where the cult of “Arteta” has taken over. As with all cults those on the outside (you know the ones who aren’t insane or morons) can’t understand how people fall for it and those on the inside can see no wrong or make excuses for the wrongs they can’t ignore.
All we can do is hope the penny drops this coming season when the field is substantially weaker than I can ever remember.
TRVL
Jesus is on £265k per week – unless he’s willing to take a massive drop in pay we’ll end up having to pay him off.