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.
Looks like we’ll keep our 1 point a game with 2 more points dropped.
Over his dead body??? he must have a fucking death wish
Fucking woeful. As Art Fraud will doubtless say, get this cunt out of our club…
Madhu made a lot of sense the other day. It’s a fool’s errand to invest any time in this club while Arteta remains. Every fucking season…
TRVL
Yes agree we always drop our levels as the game goes on.
City winning making up the deficit from us with 2 more points to there tally.
Pool beating Newcastle so potentially Pool being 13 points ahead.
Agreed KP
What happened to over my dead body
Pool 2:0 up no chance Newcastle now
as I spoke of the other day, only a simpleton manager would read so much into Merino’s late game heroics…there’s a massive difference between coming on late, when we were chasing the score, and being deployed as the starting Striker
even the commentators were off their game…they kept suggesting that our performance was miles better than on the weekend…what the fuck were they watching???
Arteta is the enemy within. Imagine how the last few years would have planned out with a proper manager.
Dear friends I didn’t watch the match as I went for my midweek badminton games. Looks like it was a usual Arteta fair. It’s been a long time since I missed an Arsenal game and didn’t even have the urge to check the scores. I don’t think this will get any better with this manager. He is incapable of anything more and he is running on empty tank. Is it a coincidence that both the master and apprentice are struggling for some inspiration? Offcourse the master has won many things and pretender is just that. If we don’t look out for alternatives we will never find one.
KP—funnily enough, if we were to interview 1000 managerial applicants I dare say each one would devote the most time discussing our need to add not one but 2 “real” Striker options, which speaks to MA’s abject negligence…I likewise have no doubt that many of those same individuals would put the kibosh on our longstanding shoehorning tradition for fucking good…it’s one thing to do so in a pinch or for some well-reasoned tactical situations, it’s another thing altogether when half your fucking squad is square-pegging it on a fucking whim
“A chorus of “Mikel Arteta, it’s happened again,” greeted the Gunners boss at the City Ground and he would certainly have experienced an element of déjà vu in this performance”
When the opposing team’s fanbase revels in your perrenial ineptitude and they’re a side who barely survived relegation last season, you know you’re a fucking joke…of course, this sort of orchestrated banter is by no means novel, but usually you don’t offer up this sort of bulletin board material if you’re concerned whatsoever about the potential on-pitch consequences…fuck it’s only February…I can only hope someone with access to Stan’s wannabe Bond villian son forwards him a clip of this…tbh I’m not convinced he would give a flying fuck
as for the match itself, it wasn’t as if we didn’t try some different things, the most successful of which saw Cala setting up shop at the edge of the box and Ethan roaming onto the left on occasion..unfortunately they were the first two to be subbed off, which seems laughable for a team struggling mightily for goals
I know Cala was sitting on a yellow, but after surviving that in-box non-incident, he was our most effective player in the final third…it would have made inifinitely more sense to have Tierney replace Tross(or Merino), to maintain some much-needed width, which would have allowed Cala to continue to wreak havoc inside…once Cala wasn’t required to fulfill his original LB defensive duties, the possibility of him getting a second yellow was exponentially lessened, so it was well worth the risk
as for Ethan, even after he toyed with Milenkovic at the edge of the box, with the slickest of turns, we never provided him with another similar opportunity, even though it was clear that their double-team plans for him brokedown whenever he travelled onto the left side…so instead of adapting our tactics according to what was working in real time, it was more of a throw a bunch of shit at the wall and see what sticks…this is the kind of tactical naivete that will likely derail our title hopes once again…so be prepared for a shit ton of “it happened again” chants until this bottling narrative ceases to exist, which likely won’t occur until we sack our managerial halfwit
Although we were the better team away to 3rd placed forest , it was still a disappointing performance that lacked the desire to score in the knowledge that 3 points was a must to retain any (very) slim hopes of winning the title.
For Arteta to not try something different to change the course of the game was baffling as it was clear yet again that odegaard and Rice were struggling to create anything of note and have become so predictable..
Of course Arteta was restricted in what he could do to affect the game but surely it was worth nwaneri more centrally as his creative instincts and sharpness of passing are above those of Rice and Odegaard who again were reluctant to take risks with the ball. The reason players like debruyne and trent Arnold have been so prolific over the years is because they are not afraid to fail , the killer pass is the most difficult to play and also can be the most damaging if it doesn’t come off as it leaves the team open to the counter.
The Arteta brand of football is all about retaining possession which allows the team to control the game.
Yesterday was a perfect example of this as we controlled the game from start to finish and but for a couple occasions later in the game avoided being countered.
However , controlling the game and actually trying to win the game by taking risks are 2 different things , Odegaard is the perfect Arteta player , a player who rarely takes risks with the ball unless we are 2 or 3 goals up , he is a recycler of the football and what the recent months have shown is how reliant Odegaard was on saka to make him look a better player .
Odegaard without saka looks lost , if we are honest 80% of odegaard’s passes were the 5 /10 yards pass to saka on the right, odegaard’s first train of thought when receiving the ball was where’s saka and in all fairness it worked as it meant saka was regularly on the ball in the final third .
We had 2 young strikers on the bench last night , surely it was worth trying something different in the last 10 minutes , what did Arteta do , bring on partey and white , 2 defensive minded players.
In defence of Arteta and the team , the horrendous refereeing decisions are the reason we have been playing catch up with Liverpool all season , people can talk about our lack of discipline but I actually think our discipline has been excellent considering the red cards and pens we have received this season.
It looks like commentators , pundits and fans have given up on questioning ref decisions when it comes to Arsenal as shown last night in the opening minutes when Chris wood defending a corner never once looked at the ball and jumped elbow first into merino as he was ready to attack the ball 5 yards from goal, it was in clear view of the referee and cameras and wasn’t deemed worthy of a mention. If you take your mind back to the Brighton game and saliba making contact with the ball and conceding a pen 16 yards from goal , whist Wood never attempted to make contact with the ball and deliberately making clear contact with merino…nobody really
expected the ref to point to the spot did they , it just doesn’t happen in favour of Arsenal.
Anyway I digress , what I would like to see for the remainder of the league is for Arteta to allow the players more freedom on the pitch to express themselves, the league has gone , champions league qualification is a near certainty so why not give e Nwaneri a run centrally , give Odegaard a rest in the hope he can produce in the champions league, maybe try an academy play up top , who knows it may be the answer for the remainder of the season.
Unfortunately I can’t see too much experimentation from Arteta as it’s not in his nature , the players are too programmed so consequently feel lost when they are out of their comfort zone..
Guys
I have given up on the season the minute we lost to West Ham. Let us concentrate on Champions League, see how far we get and whether it brings joy or the usual sorrow.
–
I’m an Arsenal through and through, this does not mean giving up on the team or the club. We will pick ourselves up, and we will try again next season.
May be with a central fucking forward.
Pedro’s Bot is ghosting us again with interspersed whataboutery as drawstring to hold up ElB boxers up.
Naturally AI can also be got to mimic the Convo on the blog for acceptance.
Artificial Intelligence is really smart , must say.
Hoopah—good call on the fence-sitting AI fuckwad….it was like a hybrid wet dream of points already made, to fit in, and a heaping helping of tin foil hat officiating conspiratorial banter…if anything the ref favoured us, especially with Cala on a yellow at the time of the “incident” in the box, which if called on the pitch could have seen us down a man again…thankfully the right call was made from the off…Cheers
Evening all
On our flight back to the UK we met a ST Gooner we talked to at length. I emailed him as he was going to the WH game, and I found what he replied as very interesting. I don’t know you you would concur here Marc?
“Yes, it was a very depressing game to watch. At no point did we even threaten their goal. Not surprising, our squad looks so bare.
Tonight I was listening to us away at Forest. Same again really, just one shot on target. Still, I was half expecting to lose this one. Two goals in four matches, nbg.
Most noticeable on Saturday was the lack of atmosphere. The previous 2 seasons and last autumn have been the best of times at the Emirates, it’s been great pre-match in the North Bank, the bar areas absolutely rammed and loads of singing etc. for an hour or more before k.o, carrying on to the match itself. That’s really died off since Christmas, the lack of a signing in Jan has killed things.
I had a read of LIR and saw the comment that we should give up any thoughts of the title and just enjoy the remaining matches. Agree that’s the best policy now. Let’s try and hold on to for second.”
would you.*
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-14443727/Arsenal-shortlist-Edu-plan-sporting-director.html
Worth a read but I’m not up on these people so will leave others to comment, TRVL any of these on your short list?
Wrighty thinks Isak will go to a rival where it’s reported we have to sell Marts or Trossard to get the funds to buy Isak or another striker.
I doubt we’d get much for Tross, but we might get a decent amount from the Saudi league for Marts who’s been blamed for a poor season, which is mostly El B’s tactics of our right side centric attacks through Saka.
I think Marts should think before jumping to Saudi football unless money is his goal nd not his football.
Besides Jason Ayto, “the report says Arsenal are also considering Real Sociedad’s Roberto Olabe, Atletico Madrid’s Andrea Berta, Monaco’s Thiago Scuro and former Manchester United and Newcastle chief Dan Ashworth”
after what transpired in January, Ayto is out of the question or it’s a same old, same old scenario…so there’s that…now this list would have made perfect sense in the early days of MA’s tenure, with our pending contractual and roster construction issues, which ultimately led to a more youth-oriented initiative, but we should be in a different DOF headspace nowadays…this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be hiring the best and the brightest scouting minds, as the unearthing of gems should always be a higher priority, but it shouldn’t be the determining factor in our search for a new DOF if we truly have championship aspirations in mind….just look at the former employers of the above names involved and ask yourself have any of them won anything at the highest of levels, minus maybe Berta, or have they simply helped “pretenders”, of varying degrees, to remain somewhat relevant…every single one of them have been employed by clubs that have ultimately prioritized selling for a profit over buying, at least at the higher end of the market…so we need to decide what kind of club we want to be and the very fact that Campos isn’t on this list speaks volumes about our main objectives moving forward…as such, if we hire any of these individuals we had better find a new manager, as he doesn’t have the acumen required to take a BHA, Newcastle, Monaco, Sociedad or even an Athletico to the next level without us purchasing the kind of players who can win in spite of the manager
on a final note, I would avoid Ashworth like the plague after what was revealed during his rather brief tenure at United…he’s not a “football” man at heart, as we all know by now that he wasn’t the brains behind BHA’s more recent ascendancy, which is why some mistakenly saw him as such an interesting DOF proposition…btw AC tired to lure Berta to the San Siro and it was reported that he rejected their advances because he “already had an agreement abroad”
Thanks TRVL a good enlightening read.
Tony
No way Martinelli goes to Saudi – this is a guy who Klopp was salivating over a couple of seasons ago.
My fear is Saliba leaving – he’s going to have Madrid sniffing around him again and as much as it would hurt to see him leave if I were his agent I’d be screaming get away from that useless cunt of a manager.
Tony
I didn’t go to the West Ham game (I haven’t been for months I just can’t be bothered to spend more money to sit in that cunts presence) I bought the ticket next to mine for my nephews birthday (I’ve taken him on his birthday for a few years now) and gave my ticket to my brother who hasn’t been for years – thought they could have a good day out.
My brother’s been mostly pro Arteta – he seems to be changing his mind now though!
Nice one Marc. It must be good to have a Gooner as a brother albeit one that has taken his time to see the managerial light.
My brother is a fucking Chelsea fan by contrast…At least we never mistakenly used each other’s toothbrushes or nylon y-fronts. I had to have everything red and him blue of course…
I don’t think we fully recovered this season from the 3 contentious red cards in 6 games at the beginning of the season.
I think those decisions have had a massive bearing on how we approached games, we have been too timid and not aggressive enough probably from the fear of getting another poor decision to further derail our season, for example the joke of a penalty away to Brighton and the red card for Lewis skelly away to wolves.
These sort of decisions halt the momentum of a side , especially as they have cost us points whilst Liverpool were on a 24 game unbeaten run.
It hasn’t been a particularly enjoyable season as we have fallen at important hurdles in the season, Newcastle in the semi final …united in the fa cup …west ham in the league and who’s to say that next week v PSV may not end the same way.
PSV are not what I would consider to be a top side but they are very strong at home so we must be very good defensively as I can see us creating very little in the first leg, I feel it is a game for experienced players as the atmosphere will be red hot , a draw would be a good result.
The season can’t end quick enough if we go out of the champions league as the meltdown from entitled fans will be embarrassing .
Arteta was correct when he said to be 2nd in the league and top 3 in the champions league group after our set backs is not a failure, his and the club’s failure was not strengthening in the January transfer window.
Next season will we be back stronger and I believe we will win the league as Arteta will buy a striker (isak hopefully) and will also buy a left sided wide player , defensively we are strong and Nwaneri and skelly have saved the club millions after their breakthrough season.
Kroenke
Could be worse – your brother could be a Tory!
Wiksy
Timidity develops without fail when the cojones are lopped off.
Are you suggesting that ElB has been similarly done ?
His timidity percolates over the squad.
A ray of hope. ElB™ is just the furniture piece in the article
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/arsenal-ethan-nwaneri-myles-lewisskelly-34768865
What the fuck was the tackle by the Millwall keeper on the Palace player?