Al right, I’m fed up of this ‘rebuilding’ narrative going on over Twitter and other social media. So much so, that I am awake on Friday morning to pen down this article.
You know who is in a rebuild? Manchester City. They won the league last season, and some of their playing XI have already moved on – Mahrez & Gundogan. Others like Cancelo, Laporte, Walker are expected to leave. They have brought in the reinforcements by signing Kovacic and Gvardiol, and are pursuing Olise from Crystal Palace, but that’s 2..3..4 players from their starting line up who have left (or in the process of leaving). Pep may be the world’s best manager but he will have to gel in at least a couple of players from game 1 – not by choice!
You know who else is rebuilding? Liverpool with a complete new midfield in Szoboszlai, Mac Allister and Lavia. Man United with a new GK, a new CF in Hojlund, and this is before they will have to replace the likes of Maguire. Chelsea – because they bought everyone available last season, and sold everyone they could this season; and they have got a new manager in Poch who would need to win the dressing room first.
Here’s the only team who is not rebuilding – Arsenal Football Club. We went in with a fixed starting XI last season for most of the games, and came 2nd.
GK – Ramsdale & Raya – We have submitted a bid for David Raya to Brentford and player has already shown his willingness for the move. Most likely, it gets done. But we are playing in 4 competitions this season, and having Raya DO NOT mean he will replace Ramsdale in the first game he plays in red and white. He will ONLY replace Ramsdale if he CAN perform better than him.
Back 4 – We still have White, Saliba, Gabriel and Zinchenko, who started most of our games last season. In fact, we have improved greatly in our back 4 department by getting in Timber, Kiwior, and with Tomiyasu & Tierney back to fitness. Again these are good choice to have, but no one is writing letters to Mikel to play Timber ahead of White only because he is a new signing.
Midfield – Partey is staying, and he will keep his #6 position. There is no way anyone could replace him in that single pivot role. He is brilliant, was one of the best players on the pitch last season and no way in hell is he going to be satisfied on the bench. Xhaka is gone, but we all wanted it. No? Havertz is decent enough player, ESR is back in the fold and Arteta has been trying Vieira in his position. There shouldn’t be a drop in performance because we are replacing Granit with Kai frankly.
Attack – Everyone who were available last season up top – Ode, Saka, Martinelli, Jesus, Trossard, Eddie, Nelson are still available this season. We wanted an improvement in the Striker position but it’s not happening I guess. However, how can not having a proper CF gonna affect us this season when it didn’t the last season? Goals were distributed between Ode, Marti, Jesus, Saka and Eddie and it’s going to remain that way.
In fact, we should improve even without adding a single new player in the team. Team has just finished second, they have grown a year older and wiser and have already lived the pressure of fighting neck-to-neck with one of the best teams in the world. They came up short, but I’m sure every ONE of them would have sat in the dressing room on the last day of last season, thinking they should have been the one celebrating and promised themselves that for this season.
Now, why did we fall at the end? We didn’t have answers to Saliba and Tomi’s injuries. So we have brought in Timber, Kiwior now and giving them gametime in the pre-season. We didn’t have a Partey’s replacement when we saw his form was dipping for couple matches, so we have spent record money for Declan Rice. We also saw Ramsdale can be a bit erratic at time and Matt Turner is not the answer so, we are going to bring in an experience head in Raya. Xhaka needed to go 4 season back, he has finally and we have spent a whooping 65m for Kai.
We have only improved our team from last season. We have closed the gaps we had last season and spent 200m in that process. And you are telling me we are rebuilding? Get out of my way man. You are just dialling down your expectations because you are used to mediocrity. A defeatist mentality because you don’t want to be hurt if we fall short (again). In a elite competition, where the only people who remembers you when you come second are your mom and your dog, you strive to win. If you fall short, you pick yourself up, fill those gaps and try again. That’s exactly what happened with us, we fell short and we are doing exactly the same – picking ourselves up and filling the gap.
We are going to try again. If you feel we are rebuilding, you are just giving an excuse. If we fall short this season, don’t forget to ask the right questions to the right people and demand an answer. We have a manager in his 5th year, who has spend 600m+ in building a team. We have just spent another 200m to ‘fill the gaps’ and we are in the ‘trust the process’ from god knows when.
Be hopeful and optimistic – I think something big is going to happen this season. Be critical if it don’t.
And if you hear someone say, we are in a rebuild – let me remind you back the British word you guys taught me – BOLLOCKS! And yes, I’m purposefully putting the Invincibles featured image just to remind you that we were/are not mediocre.
Ambarish
Bang on mate – we’ve entered into this crazy cult like zone where Arteta is bigger and more important than the club and results. The fan boys are lowering expectations hoping they can say “look what he did no one else could do that” but knowing that he’ll cock it up again.
This is all to protect Bumteta by the Kool-aid crowd. Fuck that sit.
Hi Almunia
Just dipping in and out because a friend is staying with us. The game last night was a travesty – that wasn’t a penalty. It’s especially galling because the winning club stood to make a further 500k from UEFA. Shit referees again.
KP,
That makes it all the worse. Didn’t get to see it myself but I was watching Dundalk v KA and I can tell you the refereeing was shambolic. Such a shame,didn’t realise the game was worth that much.
Killroy,
Where you at now? Hope you’re getting plenty of sun,alcohol and whatever else is going! Enjoy.
Ambarish/Marc,
Have to agree with you,I don’t see any logical commentary examing Arteta’s progress. To me it’s all very haphazard,almost waiting to see what he does and then finding a line to justify it. It really is all or nothing this year and the pressure of that is already unsettling some of his believers. Really strange times at our club.
Arrived today in Hamburg for the next 10 days. The German Raileay is no longer what it used to be, absolutely a disaster. 70 min late because unauthorized persons on the track and 20 min late because of repairs on the track switch plus to top it off a truck driver a week ago hit a railway bridge and damaged it so the train I was waiting for left from a different railway station and no one told me. Had to take a different train switched trains halfway and arrived in Hamburg 1 hour late.
Totally stressed out hopefully I will chill in the evening. And here I thought Spain and Ireland with Brit tourists would give me problems, no Germany disappointed to the max.
That sounds most un-german like. Good job you weren’t relying on the Irish rail system, our very own magical mystery tours.
Still,the beer in Germany is magnificent, even if their taste in music is inexplicably odd. Went into a pub a few years back,Stuttgart I think it was and the place was going mad to the sound of ‘happy birthday to you’,you know,the disco version. Good craic though, Easy to talk to aswell once they knew we were irish,know their football too. Yep,plenty of worse places in the world you could be right now,enjoy.
Marc-this is why I generally despise manager-in-training hiring practices, as the odds are never in your favour and there’s always a built-in excuse for failure, which is the last thing our excuse-monger of a manager needs…just think of how many times you’ve heard someone state that we need to be patient as our manager’s learning on the job, like that’s a fucking good thing…now if this was year 1 or 2, and he hadn’t already completely flipped his organizational script midstream, I might be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but not in year 4 of his 100 year plan…of course he’s not going anywhere, at least not for the time being, unless something totally unexpected occurs, but if he fails to take the next logical step we need to say thanks then show him the door
TRVL
Back on Le Bullshit the reason some of us were against the hiring of Arteta was his lack of experience but we were shouted down and told we were wrong because he’s a genius and has “sauce” (remember that it doesn’t get mentioned any more) as you say the narrative is constantly rewritten to match his most recent cock up. Some of his recruitment has been good, some is poor and some is just head scratching.
What the fan boys won’t get behind is I expect someone who’s close to spending three quarters of a billion pounds (current amount circa £685 million if the Reya transfer goes through at £35 million) to fucking achieve something, I expect someone who’s spent so much to have a squad that can compete on multiple fronts and not bottle it as soon as the pressure hits. All quite simply because it will leave Arteta standing naked having done nothing but spent a fortune as well as pissing a huge amount of money up the wall.
Killroy,
I just spent the last 10 mins really studying the groups and draw for the rugby world cup and I am absolutely dismayed at the absurdity of it. France and NZ are in group A, Ireland,South Africa and Scotland in group B. These make up the top 5 teams in world rugby currently yet one of them can’t even qualify from the group. Then two more of them will fall in the quarters as top 2 in A play top 2 in B. Take a look at groups C and D. Absolutely farcical.
Good start to the football league,lots of great games and goals. Actually looking forward to tomorrow now just to see us back on the pitch. Really hope he gives the likes of Trossard,ESR, Timber etc some game time. Particularly looking forward to watching Rice.
Seems Raya is virtually done. Can’t see this ending well, a keeper needs to know his position is safe. You don’t want him rooted to his line afraid of making a mistake. It’s the one position where normal rules of competition don’t apply because goalkeeping mistakes are almost always fatal. Those thoughts are not mine BTW although I agree wholeheartedly with them. They’re Peter Schmeichel’s.
I think if Edu doesn’t start shifting some players for decent money soon(NOT loans) his credibility in the market(and Arteta’s) will be seriously undermined. The word will be out,Arsenal are easy pickings. Let’s see how it goes.
Almunia
The Rugby group drawing was admitted by RWC to be a mistake by drawing them up too early. Next WC they will be drawn much later and yes the groups are a joke. On the other hand maybe the Brits did a bit of under the table business, ala FIFA & Qatar, to make it to the knockout stages 😆
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Ramsdale may have to get used to his new friend the bench. Over on LG a poster by the moniker of “Jeff” really spoke his mind and got attacked by the delusional usual suspects, but it is worth reading his comments as they are spot on like “truth hurts and puts the LG posters in denial”.
Almunia-no doubt Keepers are a fickle bunch and for good reason…one has to wonder what has so drastically changed between now and the time of Ramsdale’s massive re-upping that would require our oft-times short-sighted manager to “waste” such a sizeable sum on a supposed backup option, especially when we have bigger fish to fry…now if MA had moved Ramsdale, prior to his re-upping, then vigorously pursued Raya with the sole intent of making him the starter, the monies involved wouldn’t be an issue whatsoever…as it stands, this looks and feels like an unnecessary luxury buy…I can’t even think of another team of real consequence who currently employs/rosters two number 1’s, minus Bayern last year when Neuer got injured…without putting much thought into I can think of a myriad of much better ways to spend those funds…Cheers
Match day blog is out.