We started our FA cup campaign in the third round and lost to Manchester United on the penalties. We did last a bit longer in Carabao Cup and reached to semi-finals when Newcastle thrashed us over 2 legs with a 4-0 aggregate. We simply didn’t have an answer to the Eddie Howe’s plan and Isak’s pace.
In the Premier League, we are sitting on 67 points with 3 games in hand. Liverpool has already won it and we will most likely finish in the top 4. We have finished 2nd in previous seasons consecutively and this would be the third time when we lacked that extra push to lift the trophy. I will talk about that extra push a little bit later.
Champions League provided some relief. I am contended with our run, PSG were simply brilliant over 2 legs and losing to them doesn’t bring any shame. The players will have more experience going into the big games and we will do better next time.
Positives, first. We are a serious team and we can beat anyone on a given day. We have a bunch of world class players who are still young enough to improve and get us some money if they decide to move on. Good for the business, good for the football. We made it to the semi-finals in two of the competitions, and we kept Liverpool on toes for almost 30 weeks. Anything can happen in a penalty shootout, so I will not give much importance to the FA cup defeat.
The players we have? Saka, Martinelli, Saliba, Gabriel M, Timber, MLS, Calafiori, White, Rice, Havertz, Odegaard (half-heartedly tbf)! All of them are on the positive side of their age and all of them are committed to win trophies at Arsenal.
Negatives? We won fuck-all again! The only ones who remembers when you come second are your wife and your dog (probably why we got win-the dog at Emirates). It’s not the FA cup or the Champions League that has rattled me.
Carabao Cup game against Newcastle was a failure from the manager. Over 2 legs, he couldn’t figure out a way to deal with their pace and counter attack.
We were sitting 2nd, very close to Liverpool in December. Everyone and their landlady knew we needed to sign someone who can score goals. Watkins was thrown at us for 60m, and we ignored it. We brought no one, when we were suffering from injuries and lack of goalscoring. It was the manager, the club and Kroenke’s because if you can’t see what’s in front of your eyes, you are either blind or you don’t want to. We needed a push and Watkins or a Gyokeres could have got us that.
Next, some of the football we are playing is very one-directional and boring. Sideways and back passes in the name of possession percentage is not good. Football is a robust game, let the players shine by not sticking them to the side line (Martinelli comes to my mind) and by not letting them express themselves (we saw what Declan Rice can do with those free kicks).
Next, we need improvements in some positions and we need to stop ignoring a CF signing. Scoring goals win you games. We did score a lot of them, spread among the Marts, Saka, Havertz, Trossard etc but you know what was the difference between us and Liverpool? Salah scored 28 goals, and won a handful of games for Liverpool on his own. We don’t do that here at Arsenal.
—
How to fix this?
Be more direct, develop a fall back plan when your usual strategy do not work, bring in a CF and a midfielder, rotate when playing 2 games a week because the likes of MLS can do better than Calafiori and Zinchenko, and get an Odegaard’s competition. As simple as that.
Right, we have a game today against Liverpool. India-UK have worked on a trade deal and that could bring Guinesse here, so I won’t complain much if we lose.
Hope you are doing well, see you during the game.
Hi NORG
You mean that former Chelsea and Barca player, ooh what’s his name… It escapes me.
Yesterday was the dullest of dead rubbers as far as I’m concerned. I actually switched over to watch the Cymru Premier euro eliminator between Caernarfon and Cardiff Met (Caernarfon won on pens btw) for the right to face the mighty Haverfordwest County this Sunday to see who takes the Europa Conference slot. It’ll be a great day and evening if County can pull it off. I may even look at some away travel if it’s sensible (last 2 games a few years ago were in Macedonia and the Faeroe Islands so not holding my breath).
If your TV gets S4C (the Welsh language channel), tune in at 17.10 on Sunday and enjoy. Expecting a record crowd of over 2500 people.
KP
We can get the channel – if I can leave the garden for a while then I will tune in.
According to the former Barca, Chelsea and some other London side players uncle (he came to London and they lived in Enfield when the player was 16) his ambition was at the time of his departure to manage AFC.
He is doing quite well at the moment – 10th in La Liga at a club whose ground can hold a massive 13,000+.
The best atmosphere is not far away at Bergamo. Not far off the noise at the Velodrome but with less than half the attendance.
What we all ( almost ) know,
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/arsenal-mikel-arteta-peter-schmeichel-35208533
Had to account for the sore thumb
TRVL
Flick has made Barcelona just as good as exciting as Guardiolas team and that is despite no Messi and Xavi and Iniesta all in his first 12 months.
Why can’t this cunt of a club of ours, have some fucking serious bollocks and appoint some serious people.
The club simply employs loser and after fucking loser.
This current cunt being the prime example.
Loved the scouce banner of him though. I would have chipped in with that.
Hoopah—good find…I had read the Carragher “fan” comments but that was the first I saw of PS’s “control freak” take…usually I won’t clip JC as he’s a little too much of a low hanging fruit quote muppet…btw I think Pricksy’s an AI bot fuck, as I’ve been planting vocabulary-based seeds, like the use of the phrase “flatter to deceive”, to see if it showed up in a subsequent post and lo and behold it found it’s way into his next word salad offering…Cheers
AF—Flick has come into Barca with a singular focus, to provide a tactical framework that focuses squarely on the offensive qualities of his best and brightest players, even if they have to pay a price from a defensive standpoint early on…those who don’t flourish within this particular script will be quickly replaced, which shouldn’t be difficult as the environment he’s cultivated will undoubtedly attract talented players from across the globe, some of whom might actually lower their demands simply to be a part of something special
on the other hand, our gutless fuck can’t seem to attract anyone of offensive consequence due to the dumbed-down tactics…it’s likely why there has been a decided shift in our approach following Xhaka’s exodus, which seems utterly ridiculous considering his obvious limitations and the unprecedented amount of monies that were spent in that window…somehow instead of simply upgrading our sloth-like former captain and bringing in a bona fide Striker, so we could continue on that more direct course, we spent 170+M on two players who made us decidely worse going forward…to make matters even worse, instead of correcting his mistakes, he doubled-down in the following summer and went into full-blown bully-ball mode…hopefully Berta has the fucking onions required to right this ship, but it’s not as if Atleti was known for their offesive prowess
TRVL
” as I’ve been planting vocabulary-based seeds ”
Ingenious , I look forward to your next ground breaking revelation..
take me to your leader
I read a few quotes by Wrighty today in which he expressed some trepidation about our Striker search, as he was quite fearful that we might overspend on an “unproven” option and end up in a similar boat to United when they invested heavily on Hojlund to little avail…typically I take his comments with a large grain of salt, even though I have nothing but love for the man, but he’s spot on in this regards and here’s why:
first and foremost, I don’t trust those in positions of power when it comes to the recruitment of a Striker…Berta has a spotty record in this regards, unless you include the insanely fortuitous manner in which Griezmann ended up serving two tours of duty at Atleti, and MA couldn’t identify a Striker if he walked straight up to him and punched him in the fucking face
secondly, if you look at the profiles of “all” the potential options, only 1 can be considered a “proven” entity and that’s Isak…all the others have serious question marks…Sesko looks the part on paper, but I’ve seen many more unimpressive performances by him than convincing ones…Delap’s only a viable option if you’re looking to buy 2 Strikers in this window and he’s only the back-up, unless you’re okay with having Havertz flopping about in the final third most of next season…whereas Gyokeres is just a difficult proposition to properly assess in that it concerns me greatly that no top sides appear to be battling tooth and nail to acquire his services, especially considering his output this season and last
btw my reasoning for not including the likes of David, Vlahovic or Cunha is as follows, the first two don’t move the needle enough for me to consider and Cunha’s not even a bona fide Striker…David is little more than glorified poacher, even though he’s performed admirably for both club and country, Vlahovic has all the markings of a high maintenance basket case and Cunha’s worst statistical performances have come with him being deployed as a traditional front man (he’s been far more effective tucked in behind)
so as far as I can tell, the only way you don’t go all-in for Isak is if you intend on getting 2 options, which seems a bit of a stretch in one window, as it will require a lot of roster shuffling, albeit I might reconsider depending on the specific duo in question and the underlying financials
just for interest’s sake, below you will find a list of those currently involved in the race for the Golden Boot…within this list you will find both some usual suspects, like Haaland, Mbappe, Kane etc and a former Arsenal employee who didn’t even get a sniff here even though we had lame fucks like Eddie and Jesus on the books:
1. Viktor Gyokeres
38
2. Mo Salah
28
3. Harry Kane & Robert Lewandowski
25
4. Biereth, Mbappe & Retegui
24
5. Alexander Isak
23
6. Dembele, Haaland & Marmoush
21
on a side note and pertaining to our seemingly neverending Zubi quest, I read the following quote today and it simply confirmed one of my greatest fears:
“While Zubimendi isn’t as physical as someone like Partey, he’s very Jorginho-like in his play style…he would give Declan Rice the freedom to play as the attacking number 8 on a more regular basis” (fuck me!!)
Mika Biereth – a white Wright. Compare his first touch to the giraffe.
Hi NORG
Nice one. I think there’ll be some drama on Sunday. I hope it’s the right kind…
I don’t know a huge amount about Italian Calcio but Atalanta must be a favourite for the neutrals. I remember back in the day of C4’s football Italiana with the brilliant James Richardson that Foggia were another of those clubs that broke the mould of Milan/Juve worship.
Cesc? I hope we don’t see it. I think he’d divide the fan base. He was a real arsehole after Spain won the world cup and he was itching to move to Barca. Gasparini? Si, signor.
Mika Beerbreath really should have been given a chance. He’s not only phobic about signing CFs, Arteta also had a terrible eye for knowing which ones to keep. Balogun and Eddie Unket being the prime examples. He also failed to give Khayon Edwards and Butler-Oyedeji a proper chance. And we should never have surrendered Chido to Manure.
To be a striker at Arsenal under Arteta is a thankless job. Arteta is more concerned with the striker’s ability to close down the opposition rather than put the ball in the back of the net.
The team are instructed to retain possession of the ball which leads to a lot of sideways and backward passing and it doesn’t matter how many runs the striker makes off the shoulder of the cb he will rarely be found with a defence splitting pass as there is too much risk of losing the ball leaving us open to the counter attack , in Arteta’s world that is a non-negotiable.
Put it this way, if Arteta had Thierry Henry to choose from I doubt he would get in the side as his work rate off the ball was virtually non existent , Henry saved his energy for when he needed it most but unfortunately the modern striker under Arteta uses copious amounts of energy without the ball and is then expected to make the run into the box to finish off a move.
The days of seeing a striker (Henry) stroll around in the opponents half in an offside position scanning the pitch in anticipation of a lightning breakaway are long gone I’m afraid.
So when the media and fans are up in arms with Arteta about our lack of striker , he doesn’t care as deep down he knows that he could put any player up top and as long as they can close down defenders and the keeper and make themselves a nuisance they will be keeping the manager happy, and that is why you never know what type of “striker ” Arteta would prefer to buy, an out and out goalscorer is probably not top of his list ….someone like Ollie Watkins would have probably fit the bill as he will run all day but he is close to 30 so is probably not an option…I’m not saying he would be my choice by the way , isak has always been my choice but we will need to break the bank to get him if he actually wants to come.
KP
Over the course of the last 17 years I have visited a friend who lives on the outskirts of Marseilles. My visit was always timed to take in a midweek home game at OM. Our early evening starter was followed by the game and then back to the restaurant for the main course. The atmosphere at the Velodrome (old and new) is electric.
Last autumn I went to Bergamo. One of my clients has a business there and she is also a season ticket holder. I saw AFC at one of the poorest games the locals have seen but the atmosphere was still much better than at the Emirates or the Library as Highbury was known. Gasparini works wonders at Atalanta – the fans adore him. I think the day he stops managing Atalanta will be the day they put him in his box.
It was Wenger who drove Cesc away – Cesc had always put a time line for when he wanted to play for Barca but the atmosphere between Wenger and Cesc meant he went 3 years earlier than planned.
Pricksy—today appears to be the first day of the rest of your life now that the chances of you being able to lean into your much desired “I told you so” narrative has gone the way of the dodo…don’t feel too bad if it takes us a minute or two to fully embrace this new, much more reasonable version of yourself, as the previous incarnation set such an objectionable precedent…of course, I’m sure you can understand…after all, the whole point of your presence here was to reap some sort of demented karmic justice against those of us who hold differing views, which was bound to rub some the wrong way…unfortunatetly for you, our loser of a manager couldn’t find a way to rewrite his Groundhog Day nightmarish tale, which in turn has left you with a shit ton of egg on your face…it will be interesting to see how your “new” persona navigates the coming weeks and months…btw a simple apology would have sufficed lol
TRVL
Wicksy is just covering his backside – the fanboys are squirming because even they know there’s no reasonable defence for the current season (a mate who’s been a ST holder for 40 odd years just used the “season on season improvement” on Sunday – when I pointed out less points, more goals conceded and less scored his response was “yeah but we got to a CL semi”) it’s all pretty pathetic. The likes of Wicksy will be critical for a few months and then will jump on a signing being a great move and how we need to give Arteta one more season.
The media are turning on Arteta and tickets haven’t been shifting like they were 3 – 4 months ago. Arteta’s in trouble and he knows it – it will be interesting if Arteta tries to turn the summer into a battle with Berta and scapegoat him.
TRVL
Arsenal finishing 2nd and in the top 4 in Europe doesn’t exactly leave me with “egg on my face” does it..
Anyway, upon reading your snarky post, I’m pleased for you that you have found such joy in Arsenal’s failed attempt to win a trophy , personally I think it’s a non negotiable to revel in the misfortune of the club you support…..
Looks like Marc has also jumped on the ” let’s celebrate Arsenal failing to win a trophy ” bandwagon…
Gloating is not a good look Marc and Vera…..what a dreadful state of affairs to finish 2nd with 2 semi finals whilst having half the team out injured and being on the end of so many horrendous decisions ….
Pricksy—don’t get things twisted, you were the only one looking to get his gloat on…that’s a classic last resort loser trope used by AKBers, both past and present…I can guarantee you this, I care infinitely more about Arsenal winning than your sorry ass, which is the reason I’m trying so desperately to raise the fucking bar…meanwhile you’re looking to enable another loser who isn’t up to the task…so keep the excuses coming you broken record muppet…have a great day
TRVL
“don’t get things twisted, you were the only one looking to get his gloat on”
Gloating when the team you support is doing well is hardly a crime.