Yep, there’s still 12 games to play and Liverpool are ‘just’ 8 points ahead with their next 2 games against City and Newcastle. Yep, they can faulter towards the end when VVD, Salah, Trent would have in mind to end the season injury free for their final pay checks. Yep, West Ham can do to them at Anfield what they did to us at Emirates. Nothing is absolute except two thing – We will fuck up again & Mikel will fuck up again. So yeah, get over with it and enjoy the rest of the season without any hopes and Champions League run while it lasts.
Liverpool dropped points against Aston Villa, and in a game at home against West Ham – who were 17th before the game – we were expected to win and close that gap. With City and Newcastle next, Liverpool can drop more points and we could have taken advantage of it. But hey, we don’t do that here. You drop 2 points, we drop 3 and we let you take the title home. We have been very consistent in throwing it away, doing it the third time now in last 3 seasons.
Lets get back to the game. We started the game with a midfielder as a striker. We substituted a midfielder with a left back who can’t get into the team even AS A LEFT BACK. With 1-0 down and 10 minutes left on the clock, we were craving for a goal so we bring in Raheem Sterling – who has scored exactly zero goals and assisted just one in 294 minutes in 11 games, 4 of which he started; Sterling, who plays in the front line but has twice the amount of back passes than passes forward in red and white shirt.
This is only from the West Ham game. Lets not forget that Thomas Partey – one of the best DMs out there – started as a RB in multiple games. When Odegaard was out-injured, we were playing with 3 DMs midfield – Partey, Rice, Merino.
So, we have spent north of 700m Great British Pound, and there were 3 positions where we didn’t have players. Also, I am totally ignoring that Odegaard needed to be subbed at half time and we didn’t have anyone on the bench to replace him with. No wonder we are only the second best from 3 seasons in a row now, and no wonder we have fucked up when it has mattered the most.
Lets get to the dumb part of all of this.
Everyone, including me who doesn’t know shit about football management and only been watching football for about 15 years, were calling out that we need reinforcements in the front line. Havertz hardly won us a game on his own but even if he was the Benzema of Arsenal, we needed his back up. We also needed a Xhaka’s replacement, a box to box midfielder who is more attacking minded, because our left side was disjointed and we were attacking from the right for like 100 games now.
When Declan Rice was brought in, everyone thought he was a like for like replacement of Thomas Partey, but the latter decided to not give up and kept his position. Mikel, in an attempt to prove himself right, gave Declan the left side attacking midfield role. Mikel, to accommodate another of his poor signings, moved Havertz up top and totally forgot to bring a specialist. He let Eddie Nketiah go, he paid Aubameyang to leave but didn’t get anybody. He brought in Mikel Merino and things got even more complicated for him because he had to accommodate his third signing, what did he do? He put Thomas Partey at RB, played Rice as DM, Merino as LCM, and Havertz up top. That’s 4D chess, and all of it to lose games.
What could have been done?
Again, I’m just stating the obvious. Only one of Declan Rice and Thomas Partey should start a game. Ollie Watkins was available for 60m and could have done the job for 2 seasons, we should have paid. Havertz should have been put back in the midfield to compete with Merino. We should have got a competition to Odegaard and let Nwaneri and Trossard back up for Saka and Martinelli. Gabriel Jesus and Zinchenko should have been sold. Tierney should have been sold. If you can’t find a good competition to Odegaard, you should have called Vieira back. MLS is keeping Calafiori, Zinchenko away from the starting line up, there’s was no point in trying Thomas Partey at RB when you could have just trusted him and put Timber on the right side. Nwaneri was the answer when you were playing 3 DMs in the midfield.
What can you do now?
Nothing. We have lost it this season. For the next one, stop trying square peg in a round hole. Here’s a bitter truth if you are reading this Mikel – I will prefer Wenger’s attacking football over your JDP shit if it means doing enough to finish in top 4. You were brought to win us trophy, and it has been 6 years and 700m GBP. I don’t care if we haven’t lost a game against top 6 in last 30 matches if we can’t beat West Ham and Villa at home when it matters.
Champions League – round of 16 – an easy one but I don’t have much hopes after that too. We pick ourselves up again in the summer and we start again, but let me tell you we will win nothing without a striker, without a Odegaard’s improvement, with Thomas Partey at RB, with Declan Rice as an attacking midfielder, with Havertz up top and with your controlling nature. Oh, and you don’t win trophies from corners.
Over to you guys.
Thinking about just how poor our players were at the weekend – and the more senior the worse they seemed to do I can only think of two possibilities.
1) Arteta’s penchant for bottling it has gotten worse and the players are beaten before they step on the pitch.
2) Is it possible that Arteta is losing the players? Ode looks lost, Rice had to be yanked off, our usually solid CB’s looked a bag of nerves, Raya spent more time near the halfway line than his goal line and so on. At some point Arteta blowing it again will become a thing with the players as well as the good people of LiR.
Good post Marc your second point I hope is the case that filters up to Lewis and Garlick.
AF—whereas I can’t say that I haven’t harboured some negative feelings towards some of those former managers you named, only the disdain I felt towards Wenger, during his final years that is, comes remotely close to my present state of mind…to be fair to Arteta, most of those individuals weren’t truly public figures, at least not in the most modern of senses, so they faced considerably less scrutiny…of course that doesn’t excuse him whatsoever for his myriad of fuck ups, but in order to fully comprehend his misguided journey one must give it the proper weight…with this in mind, I can totally understand why he comes across as such a fraudulent prick, especially to those of us who’ve lived a little, as we know his dirty little secret, that he’s an imposter who’s simply masquerading as a seasoned professional…so every time there’s a decision to make we know full-well that he simply looks in the mirror and asks what would Wenger or Pep or Moyes do, seemingly without taking into account the uniqueness of our particular set of circumstances at that time…it’s like he’s the leading actor in a movie about a manager and not an actual manager, which is why he cares infinitely more about headlines than his professional development…how else could one explain his short-sighted transfer decisions and lack of tactical ingenuity…the only silver lining in this whole mess is that there’s still time to save us from this Wenger Cup reboot…so here’s hoping that if we come up short AGAIN the powers that be will take the required measures and fire his fucking ass
tony – I have been through the Wenger years true it was gut wrenching and some results and seasons were more particularly the last season before Wenger left. But yet in those days I could enjoy the football, enjoy what little a young team achieved. You could see the freedom with which they played and particularly the 2008 season till Birmingham’s Elliot broke Eduardo’s leg right in front of the whole world. I remember I was travelling back from Las Vegas and was tranistting in Singapore when I saw the highlights in the Changi airport. The look of horror and pain on the face of Cesc said it all. I was connected with the team and felt the pain myself. Then there years of Wilshire and Ramsey. The magical years of the midfield full of midget magicians. The Carling cups belonging to youngsters and FA cup runs ins in between. Ramsey’s ryshawcrossed leg all those moments were my personal ones thats the connect I had.
Lately iam sorry but iam devastated by the callous way the fans and MA has behaved with our academy kids. That has really shocked me and made me ask the question what is real Arsenal. I love the club and every team in the club watch Thier matches and documentaries. Yet the narrative against our own academy players calling them names and using the term dead woods hurt me the most. The sell of ESR scarred me the most. I cannot for my life understand this attitude. Something in me has snapped. If a kid who is probably in top 10 percentile of premier league in terms of talent is thrown away and some rejects from Chelsea are bought in to the side then what is that we are calling Arsenal Football club. How does anyone with genuine Arsenal love allow that. What is the message to the club and others. I will never warm up to MA and his dealing and his pathetic robotic football. His and Peps JDP is pathetic and no wonder both of them are struggling and don’t have a clue how to fix it. I love Arsenal in it’s entirety for a reason but this season and the way MA has dealt everything Arsenal has killed something in me.
Very eloquently put Madhu and Art Fraud (who might be going soft given the lack of c-bombs in one or two messages…only to be swiftly made up for by my favourite Sweeney influenced use of the word ‘slag’ to describe MA). You need to be on here more AF. Your comment about feelings given off by previous managers is spot-on.
It talks to how fragile the collective mindset is at Arsenal too. Every year it seems we fail to cling onto the shirt tails of another club playing far superior football to the cold sick served up by Arteta. Once we get behind, there’s no fight or sense of a new strategic direction to stop the rot. Unlike last year, this season’s sojourn in Dubai has placed everyone on the beach. Even Win the Labrador seems to have got sand in his mottled, pink ring piece which possibly looks like the sandblasted end of a greasy sausage roll after it’s fallen off the picnic blanket. Sorry people, it’s the Arsenal anti-depressants I’m taking.
He’s a perennial failure, as a player and a coach, who has spunked the old man’s millions for nothing other than looking like a financially well run organisation on paper. Taxi for fucking stubborn el Bastardo.
I always remember laughing at how that Nigerian guy Sid on LG had a man dem ting sized boner for Per Mertesacker as a possible replacement. Maybe he was right…
Morning all
I know it’s the Mirror but……. it’s the first anti El B price since our title race has been conceded.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/arsenal-mikel-arteta-title-race-34738574
One thing I’ve always complained about our club since Wenger arrived is summed up in one word: accountability!!!!!!!!
From Bruce Rioch going back through our managerial years, the board have always sacked managers for not delivering, as is the way in football.
However, since Wenger’s deluded last 12 years of FA cups and CL birth placements, there has been none. You might say what about Emery, but he finished 2 points off 3rd and 1 point off 4th being derided for his lack of English and failure to get top 4, as the reason he was fired.
The simple question here is what if Emery had been given just £100m to buy his own players instead of being given players he didn’t want?
Didn’t Emery at least deserve our board’s support with something like 22 games unbeaten having inherited Wenger’s squad of pets who were all comfy & safe in their 4th-is-a-trophy acceptance of Wenger’s edict, with zero accountability from the club or Wenger unless you did the unthinkable, such as Wally Walcott did, when he said they wanted it more than us after a game.
Wally was sin binned pretty much until he was sold by a manager living in his glory days, only in His head 100% of the time. He was the great Arsenal Messiah who couldn’t win a European trophy to save his life or a PL league win for his last 12 years. Played wonderful football for 10 years, then lost the tactical plot while new managers surpassed and improved upon his early decisively new nutrition and training ideas that gave Wenger his trophies.
That and inheriting the meanest back four in world football of course.
Now, I ask KSE, Garlick and Lewes some simple questions:
“Are you going to make Arteta accountable for his poor unbalanced TW dealings, which have now led to 3 capitulations, each year capitulating earlier than the last?”
“Do you think Arteta has done better than Emery did in his first season with £800m spent?”
“Does PROFIT overrule ACCOUNTABILITY now as a team and £multi billion company?”
“Why is the Mirror asking questions you should be asking?”
“Are you, as the owners and key boardroom members, happy with the losses Arteta has cost the club to the tune of £150m+? Alba, Ozil and others et al”
“How do you feel how £800m+ has been spent with zero return in trophies leaving an unbalanced squad?”
“In the absence of a DoF or TD why didn’t you force Arteta to buy a bone fide 9 last summer after realising, as we did, Havertz is not a 20+ goal a season striker?”
“Why do the players we really need who Arteta goes for all snub him?”
“Is 85222( I guess 5 for this season) the level the board and owners are happy to achieve each season?”
Lastly, “Why has every prediction LIR has written here come true whilst KSE and the board only see Arteta and his excuses through rose tinted glasses and deaf ears?”
It gives me no pleasure to push the point that our combined LIR input has come to the fore. I would happily be wrong on every count, and buy shares in the local humble pie shop, as I know my esteemed colleagues would, too.
Against West Ham the tell tale signs of the Arsenal faithful leaving early spoke volumes to me; the ST holders are not happy, except on Le Grove: the KSE mouth pice for Arteta with Pedro-Pete being among KSE’s chief PR spin doctors.
The way I see it, and I’m sure I’m not alone here, KSE is still just in it for the profits, where winning is secondary.
KSE, Garlick and Lewes if I’m wrong on that last point then your actions will tell me and others if you are the winners club owners should be ?
Are you going to hold Arteta accountable for almost 6 years of pain and angst where once again a manager is likely to divide your fans?
I can see now the Emirate’s ST holders’ are showing discontent, as they did when we lost to a dire West Ham, due to poor tactics once again, where as we said here: 352 was the way to beat the Hammers by containing their counter attack tactics, fans bar Arteta could see.
I want to see accountability now, and a new manager brought in. Three capitulations in a row should be enough for fans to endure: Arteta’s cup is half full playing must-not-lose football.
Madhu
I agree the early years of football with Wenger were sublime and where project youth was worth a shot even if Hanson was right in the end.
I’m happy if you found your nirvana with Wenger’s football, as I did for 10 years. The last 12 should have never been allowed where the manager was bigger than the club and deriding fans who could see the rot settling in and wanted better.
That’s just my single view, I speak for no others here. Generally, in senior management they last for 3 years as CEOs, and less for non performing 2nd tier and first level managers. Normally gone in 12 to 18 months depending on their lack of success.
I loved Cesc and RVP not so the one season Ramsey who left gaping holes in our midfield being replaced by the great Xhaka another one season wonder from 9 seasons footballer.
Wenger lost too many great players and disbanded the Invincibles too early and was a poor reader of players from our keepers and back line. Midfield and attack was what Wenger wrongly relied on when other clubs built from the back first.
Wenger, in his mind was the savant of world football only world football had moved on and left him behind. Fans will cry out what about the 7 FA cups?
My reply is nice day out at Wembley and to watch at home and in pubs but the reality is winners are respected by winning major trophies not cups any club with good draws through the round could win. Didn’t Hull or similar win. Wimbledon beating Pool. They were cups of giant killers that gave the completion its magic.
I never put down a fans genuine love or any of our conquests, as we are all different in our views of The Arsenal. However, we are not winning so, as with your thoughts, I do want a new manager to give us belief and hope again.
Loved GG and all he stood for with the rag tag team of heavy drinkers and other addictions, but their addiction for winning was the best we’ve seen as they won a Euro cup and PL trophies.
Good stuff KP remembering some of the good the bad and ugly can make is feel better when seeing the funny side.
Tony – Wenger had many flaws and the fact that he overstayed is not up for debate. In an ideal world he could have given the mantle to a Klopp or Pep and left. I dont know if he even tried and whether the ownership battle between Kreonke’s and Usmanov were even bothered. We have never heard his side of the story and whatever you say he has been dignified from the day he left Emirates and never allowed his shadow to loom large. Look at that dinosaur Fergie in each and every match at Manchester surely no body wants that. Did Wenger wielded lot of power, is that justified. Hell no, but he saw a vacuum and jumped on that. As i say often with all his flaws he is still the last manager of arsenal to have won a Pl. Let someone else win the damn thing then we can bury him forever.
Kroenke
Agree with 99% of what you say – what doesn’t add up is your talk of profits against results / achievements. We are and have been showing significant losses if the Kroenke’s were creaming off huge dividends the fans would be going apeshit – the truth is they allowed the club to spend huge amounts of money and piss further massive amounts up the wall through poor practice etc.
When you consider that Slot spent £40 odd million in the summer I think Arteta’s going to find himself under a very bright spotlight.
Just seen a report of El Bastardo’s presser in which he said he’d give up the title chase over his dead body. It’s a shame he wasn’t holding a voodoo effigy of himself when he said it. What as phoney bastard.
Madhu—I so wished that Wenger had walked away right when Klopp was looking to land in the PL…now that would have been a succession plan…he would have quickly reenergized a program that had become stale…not only that, he was an admirer of our club, so we would have got the best version of him
Hi Marc
I think Ambarish’s recent piece on financials suggested we were making profits as a result of CL qualification and that the overall debt was gradually diminishing. But I may well has misunderstood. Frankly, it counts for nothing yo me whether the krankies are gaining or losing.
Stan is in it for the duration – no idea when he retires probably when he has breathed his last breath.
Wherever the top league is he wants to be there. Tim Lewis was taken on to make sure Stan sits at the top table. Any doubt that AFC qualify will be a major issue. Finish below second this year and the worry lines will show just below his syrup. El B’s arse will be making buttons.
NORG
Stan-k as a cryogenically preserved 126 year old wrapped in Walmart branded polythene chewing the fat with his 86 year old bastard son Josh from within a plastic bubble.
Y’know what Josh? After all these years spent fucking people over financially, profitting from selling cheap Chinese-made shite to idiots, sucking Trump’s orange, shit-flavoured micro penis whenever he’ll let me, oh and running various sporting franchises into the ground including the one belonging to those sad deluded fuckers in London, I think I’ve decided that I’m going to shun capitalism for the rest of my life because it’s pernicious and greedy….ughhhhhhhhhh I’m having a heart attack! Stan-k keels over
KP
Shucks I missed his 125th birthday. I understand he decided to expose his bald pate and sell off his prize collection of syrups. Sum received – 10cents.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/156443582#/media?activePlan=1&id=media2&ref=photoCollage&channel=RES_BUY
Was looking through UK properties and junior found this one, which was ok size wise until we came across the horror room of eat sleep support spuds on the wall.
So game over on that one…..
KP
Can you check your email please. Things have happened quickly here. Thanks.
LIR
What do we think for tonight? Forest looking to bounce back with El B’s body on the line as he stated. Sword of Damocles kind of thing?
I think we might scrape a draw but Forest counter so fast a high line will kill us. No Skelly out best LB and our back line have been nervous.
Looks like Ricehino is at 8 with Trossard, Merino and Nwaneri who I hope isn’t still carrying a knock.
Stupid yellow by Cala
Cala can never be a LB on a championship level squad, but he definitely has something to offer going forward…maybe he should be playing in Rice’s more advanced role and Declan should drop deeper for coverage purposes
Tony-agreed…that was an amateur hour early yellow…he’s got red card written all over him
we’re in full-bore corner and crosses bully-ball mode…thankfully Forest has been very timid this half, likely due to how they were ripped apart by Newcastle on the weekend (in the first half)
they’re starting to figure us out when it comes to our set piece antics…we’ve got to clean it up or find another way through without all the obvious heavy contact
A typical display by us with Cala hitting the post with any of note. Forest are playing counter football with us pushing 10 players in Forest’s half to nullify the counter.
Both sides cancelling each other out but our high line could come unstuck in n the 2nd half as we’ve done before.
Hi Tony
I’ve emailed you
Unable to watch but is this one of those games where we look incapable of scoring?
KP—are you sure you’re not watching, as you seem to have a real feel for this one shot on target slogfest
I get why you might replace Cala, as he’s on a yellow, but you had taken most of his defensive responsibilities away so why not let it ride for another 10-15…the more baffling decision was why would you put Tierney in a more central role (just as I was writing that MA brought in Zinchenko and shifted Tierney out wide, where he should have been all along)
maybe MA’s just trying to get his money’s worth from the 17 LBs he’s signed…talk about a short fucking bench
TRVL
Same shit different day for me.
thank God we’ve now taken off the two most likely to score
Tony—I agree, but it didn’t have to be…and I’m not just talking about our lack of squad depth…certain things were generating opportunities and we should continued to lean into them even if it required us to risk a second Cala yellow