Edu and Arteta took over from Emery and Co more than two and a half years back. We saw some fresh faces coming in, in the hope of winning Champions League in 3 years time – Willian, Cedric, Mari and Partey. That hope crashed like no one imagined. Willian was one of the worst performers of the season even after playing 37 games. Cedric turned out to be okay-ish, Mari was so poor he is on loan to I don’t remember which club and Partey is injured most of the time.
Not so surprisingly, ones who saved Arteta’s career were the hale-enders. ESR broke into the team because of injuries and got him out of that winter misery. Last season when we lost 3 easy games against bottom half teams, Laca’s sickness allowed Eddie some game time and some relief to Arteta and Co.
Soon AFC realised what was done initially was just replacing old dross with new ones. So, someone at the club took a notice of it, decided there won’t be crap signings anymore and we only are going to invest in players with potentials and in the right age-frame. I suspect it’s Edu because of the Brazilian collections we are doing.
We went ahead and brought White, Tomi, Ramsdale, Sambi, Tavares and Odegaard.
How did that turn out? Not that great. Someone, again, at the club realised buying young players doesn’t guarantee success. It should be ‘good’ young players. We are back in the market this transfer window for a Left Back and targeting Lisandro Martinez who has a much better profile and would be an upgrade to Tavares. We are trying to bring in Tielemans because Sambi didn’t turn out to be the next big thing and we already have invested in Vieira who plays the same role Odegaard does – after noticing Odegaard’s little contribution in games when it matters.
We realised, yet again, that hale enders are much better in producing output than veterans we have. Eddie signed a 5 years contract and is given one of the most important numbers of all time #14. I hope he continues it’s legacy and make us forget TH14 with EN14. After letting go Guendouzi, the hottest prospect in world football at some point, we realised our mistake and are now adamant to keep William Saliba.
We also realised the priority. Fixing midfield and CF positions is (and was) more important than buying CBs when we had better than average players in Holding and Gabriel (and Saliba if we had not sent him on loan again).
If you are a ‘glass half full’ person, you are most likely excited for another season noticing all these realisation at Arsenal Football Club. You are happy we are correcting our mistakes and trying to be more competitive.
I’M NOT. I am more than excited for another season of Arsenal, I’m a gooner till I die. What I fail to understand is how can a club this big in history and values, is allowing people to learn on their job, things which are pretty basics for anyone working in the industry!
I guess someone will realise ‘yet again’ that some targets should be set for a manager, failing which there should be consequences. Three years of millions spent and finishing 5th is not a process, making mistakes and correcting it is not a good thing if those mistakes ‘shouldn’t’ have been made in first place.
Short one today, monsoon has arrived in this part of the world. Hope everything is all right for you, thank you for making LiR a better place for Gooners.
Howay the lads. Half boy – half fish. I should have sussed you as a viz reader. We’ve got the same pedigree. I still have loads of old annuals, top tips specials and a profanisaurus kicking about. Rude kid takes some beating in my book but I used to like the slightly deeper stuff like the art critics and modern parents as well as San and Tracy and all the others. Maybe there’s a Viz all-time XI in the offing?
And you were a GK eh? That explains the Almunia obsession a little more…. Plus goalies were always the weirdest lads in any team I played in! If we’d ever played in the same team, I’d’ve caused you no end of headaches (and lack of clean sheets) as a CM turned CD.
OK. I couldn’t resist. Here’s my viz team off the top of my bored old head.
GK Felix and his amazing underpants. Those y-fronts would be a brilliant shot stopper. I think I’d play Billy le poisson further up the pitch and make him the (mud) skipper.
LB Big Vern. He’d get the 12 bore out if any cunt bore down on goal.
CF Johnny Fartpants. Guaranteed to clear the box before any dangerous set pieces, especially if he’s had an egg curry and some rancid hotdogs.
CF Mr Logic. Sure to bore attackers to death with his pedantic bullshit.
RB Not a well known character, but it has to be Fatty Bulatty, the creepy driving instructor who always got his junk out when teaching young ladies how to do reverse parallel parking.
CDM It’s gotta be Rude Kid, abusing the opposition and the ref with gems like, big dog’s cock, and the timeless fanny batter!
CM 8 inch scaly Geordie maestro Billy the fish bought on a free from Charlton Athletic (the Addicks – boom boom).
LW and RW Tracy and San. Gamming and fucking the opposition and helping the manager pull players off in the second half.
CF Paul Whicker (the tall Vicar). Viz’s answer to Olivier Giroud.
WF Terry Fuckwit or Major Misunderstanding. Two twats of the highest order. They’d both fit in in Arteta’s backroom team after they retired.
Beat that mate.
“Regarding Arsenal profligate transfers, agent of Vieira George Mendes reportedly got 3.4 million out of the deal, 10%.”
Can you imagine the 3 month rant Pedro would go on if that had happened under Sanllehi?
Under Arteta I guess its the normal price of doing business,
Hi Marc
The words ‘back’ and ‘kick’ cone to mind (although possibly not in that order). High level football is a deeply bent sport. It could be so much more if governance of the game was in the right hands.
Kroenke
We all know football is deeply corrupt whether it be players getting hold of tickets to the FA Cup final and selling them, corrupt refs and that’s before we get to UEFA or FIFA (the upcoming World Cup is going to see officials sent to prison).
I’d love to see football cleaned up but my point was just another case of Pedro’s bullshit and double standards.
Marc
Just some of his betes noires.
Don Raul
Mislintat
Conte
Unai Emery
Yves Bissouma
Wenger
Tuchel
Emi Martinez
Guendouzi
Saliba
Aubameyang
Me and you!
At least he’s not the sort of tw*t to hold a grudge eh?
Kroenkephobe,
Giving you a walkover on the viz 11,really have very little memory of the characters. Then got worried about my memory and tried to pick a roy of the rovers 11( my staple diet when I was younger). Got about 7. Now I’m just happy I can remember the kids names…
Fair play mate. About my only talent these days is remembering the most trivial of shit from the past.
Unlike you, I do have trouble with the kids’ names but it’s more to do with the fact that the twins are identical rather than onset dementia.
Kroenkephobe,
Before you hit the hay,a man utd mate of mine sent me this. The one thing we have in common( aside from love of footie,pints and an aversion to Liverpool) is a deep dislike and distrust of Sky. Found this really interesting.
https://youtu.be/gK4DVWfyeFs
I’ll always remember Sky’s coverage of the infamous 50th at OT and their desperate refusal to engage with Riley’s abysmal and fraudulent display. I knew from then on that whatever corruption was in football,they could never be considered free of it.
They are typical of everything going wrong in football and society on general.
Hiya Mate,
I’m no fan of Sky either to be honest. Although not possibly THE main protagonist, they certainly deserve a good part of the blame for the corruption and general waywardness of football in the UK. The inequality that they’ve overseen between the PL and all other divisions has greatly diminished football. I also dislike their news coverage as it patently favours one UK party/ideology over another. And the BBC and ITV are complicit too. Our media scene is completely fucked over here. I won’t even talk about Fleet Street.
Before all that kerfuffle with Le Tissier, I have to say I admired the guy for his loyalty and for being such a talisman and a hero. Its a bit odd on his part though bleating about losing his job for failing to do what his bosses asked him to do. We all have to make compromises at work irrespective of who we are. I travelled the world for thirty years swallowing various colours and varieties of shit. If he wanted to stay, and he was an OK pundit (not in the Dunphy/Giles/Chippy league of course!), he probably should have swallowed his pride and quietly got in with it. On the specific thing about BLM, neither he nor the presenter (who came across as a right wing Freddie Mercury with that appalling jacket), as two white middle aged gammony men, aren’t qualified to talk about BLM and why it matters to some people including many footballers.
But yeah, Sky, and Kay Burley in particular, are fucking rubbish. And don’t get me started in those transfer deadline sagas…
in more recent days, there has been plenty of speculative banter surrounding the notion that our absentee landlord and/or his wannabe Bond villain son want “final” say when it comes to the acquisition process…of course, this is their prerogative, I just find it difficult to believe that this could be a stumbling block considering the fact that we just paid over the number for someone who appeared to be off most people’s/team’s radars…so if this is the case and the Kroenke’s are balking at the notion of making more substantial investments this off-season, why would we pursue this course of action before properly redressing our most pressing needs…the whole argument seems incredibly counter-intuitive, in that if I was MA and I knew that I had a finite amount of funds available to me, I would logically prioritize those positional needs that were of the utmost import…as such, the Vieira buy suggests that either this whole argument is bogus or maybe MA’s earlier statements weren’t to be believed, regarding our TW objectives moving forward…another cake and eat it too PR-contrived moment of nonsense, I would suspect, meant to provide our MIT and his administrative sidekick with another built-in excuse should they fail to meet expectations
as for the whole top 5 gig, in no particular order, Dortmund, Sevilla, San Siro, Monaco and for some old school reason, Craven Cottage
TRVL
You’re right. It’s as if anyone with even a tenuous connection to Arsenal can see we need a striker but Tets and the Director of Bunga Bunga know better and are looking elsewhere. I just read some typical BS that we could be signing de Tomas from Espanyol however…
Nice club choices by the way.
Vow, what pub banter. LONDON IS RED and now the most beautiful blog to come to. Open your IPad and the pint lads, the good times are on.
Thank you Ambarish
Thank you all guys who post here
Kroenke
I always thought Pedro was a little bit holier than thou and too impressed by anything that is the latest fad but I always knew he loved Arsenal.
Now he’s an Arteta supporter first and foremost and anything or anyone who gets in the way or disagrees is a threat.
It’s a pretty sad way to exist.
Vieira oh oh
Vieira oh oh oh oh
Thank God in Portugal
Never saw Artetaball
Vieira……….
I do like technically gifted midfielders. If we get a couple of physical,yet mobile, players to support saka,esr,Vieira, Ode, it will be interesting to see if Arteta can evolve his footballing style. Big if on the DM though,can’t help but feel that Xhaka and Elneny are all we’re going to have come the start of the season. Would be very worried about having Eddie or Jesus( if he even comes) as our striking options. Both can disappear for long periods. LB and keeper are also big problems for me. Need more than just a constant buy a new toy policy. A playing style would be nice.
” it will be interesting to see if Arteta can evolve his footballing style”
Arteta has a footballing style? – must have missed that during one of those naps at the stadium that seem to have started hitting me during the last 2 1/2 years.
Marc,
I’m going to say it one more time ala Mel Gibson in ‘conspiracy theory’. Someone at the club reached out financially to the influential bloggers,whether that was with promise of ‘contacts’, future roles or benefits of some kind,they were bought!! Hang in there Mb,we’re putting together a package to keep you on the side of good. Remember,if you’re reading this,you ARE the resistance…….
Cheers Kroenkephobe
ever since we lowered the organizational bar, visa vie the “self-sustaining” stadium ruse, we’ve constantly tripped over our collective dicks whenever we’ve had a built-in excuse for failure…whether it be the refs/VAR, shoehorning players, late TW recruitment practices, never properly replacing Vieira, selling our best and brightest, oil-rich clubs, not buying in January, claims about there not being “good enough” players to purchase, hiring a system-based coach yet giving him no say in personnel and, among others, appointing a novice manager to undertake a massive “rebuild”, there’s been a whole host of self-inflicted scenarios that have been subsequently used to explain away our shortcomings…so when I heard this whole ownership “stumbling block” narrative, it made me logically cringe.
Almunia
like yourself, I’m very skeptical of MA’s ability to get the best out of his players, tactically-speaking, as what we’ve witnessed thus far certainly doesn’t imbue me with confidence…simply put, if we don’t rid ourselves of our on-field tactical albatross, Xhaka, and he’s still the first or second name on the selection sheet, I don’t see us competing for anything minus a late season push for 4th or 5th again…of course, this is a quite worrisome proposition considering our late season schedule, which doesn’t favour a team who isn’t willing to shore things up in the winter window…I likewise worry about our potential diminutive Striker pairing, for a variety of obvious reasons, and I just wish we had tabled the “luxury” buys until we addressed our most glaring needs, which I hoped would include a Striker with size and pace
“Hang in there Mb,we’re putting together a package to keep you on the side of good. Remember,if you’re reading this,you ARE the resistance…….”
Haha, I would rather put a ‘Buy me a coffee’ in the sidebar and ask them to jog off.
I agree with your point though, someone’s reaching out to ‘influencers’ to paint a good picture of what’s going on. Could just be a conspiracy theory but some people I know who were critical of finishing 4th under Wenger with free flowing football with ‘young’ players, are now happy with mediocrity.
8th/8th/5th.. with a first half display against City in a game we lost?