Morning all.
Today is a look back on 2015-16 and 2016-17, starting with 15/16 and the transfer window.
- Petr Cech
Yep, that was it. An awful transfer window is the only way I can describe that summer. Mo Elneny joined the following January. What a missed opportunity that season was because we ended up finishing second behind Leicester City, the club who we did the double over.
Arsene Wenger started the new season by getting one over Mourinho at Wembley in the Community Shield thanks to an Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain goal.
Another opening day defeat, this one at the hands of West Ham at The Emirates, was hardly the ideal start to the new campaign but we didn’t lose another game until the middle of September, which surprise surprise, came at Stamford Bridge. Another good run saw us go unbeaten until the middle of November when West Brom dealt us 2-1 in the Black Country. Boxing Day and I remember this one like it was yesterday. Southampton at St Marys and a 4-0 thrashing by the south coast club. Embarrassing. Clubs sat in the bottom half of the table were causing us problems. Draws at Stoke and Southampton at The Emirates in January really dented our Premier League challenge, as did another defeat at the hands of Chelsea. Two wins in February followed by two defeats, the first at Old Trafford, the second at The Emirates against Swansea City and the three draws in April pretty much gifted Leicester City their Premier League trophy. We finished second.
Any hope of making it three in a row in the FA Cup was dashed by Watford in the quarterfinals, whilst Sheffield Wednesday dumped us out of the League Cup in the fourth round. As for the Champions League, those pesky Catalans did us again…
2016/17
The first new player through Arsenal’s door was Granit Xhaka, followed by Takuma Asano, Rob Holding, youngster Kelechi Nwakali, Lucas Perez and lastly, Shkodran Mustafi. I still can’t believe that Arsenal paid £35 million for Mustafi. Anyway, barring Xhaka and at a push, Holding, they were all a waste of money.
This season turned out to be a bit of a turning point for Arsene Wenger. It was the first time Arsenal finished outside the Champions League places in 5th. Bayern Munich battered us in the Champions League by a 10-2 score line over the two knockout legs, a 5th round defeat in the League Cup and the unrest amongst fans was growing. The bright side of the campaign though was a FA Cup Final victory over Chelsea. Not even that though was enough to prevent demands for change.
The decline of Arsenal Football Club was evident both on the pitch and off it. Despite spending money on new players, the quality of a number of them had not been good enough. The ownership battle needed resolving, as did the position of Arsene Wenger. A great manager, of that this is no doubt but the game had been passing him by for a while.
The 2017/18 and 2018/19 seasons turned out to be about changes at the club but more about that next time.
The transfer window is officially open now and Arsenal are being linked to a number of players. Christos Tzolis, Jeremy Monga, Morgan Rogers, Ayyoub Bouaddi, Morgan Gibbs-White and Bradley Barcola to name a few. All attacking players which is music to my ears..
I didn’t watch Sweden’s game overnight but apparently Isak and Viktor Gyokeres linked up really well in their 5-1 defeat of Tunisia. Both scored and assisted each other, but what made me laugh in the report on Sky Sports was this sentence “They are two of the finest forwards in world football” – would this be the same player whose been slated throughout the season by his colleagues on the same broadcasting channel?
I did watch Netherlands play Japan and thoroughly enjoyed it. Japan are just great.
Catch up in the comments.
https://x.com/_Afcbanks/status/2066208168690995693?s=20
😂
Some folk are like that Kev, they just can’t see the problem is them. A bit like Starmer 😂
Yeah Rico, Wenger really should have moved on after 2015, but by then the offers from Real Madrid etc weren’t probably on the table anymore, knowing when to bow out, as Guardiola did this summer, isn’t something a guy like Wenger understood as he was the ultimate controlling personality. In the end he basically had to be forced into retirement by all the empty seats at the Emirates, I mean how can you not be able to sense that it was over when the club was announcing 60,000 capacities with only 45,000 in the stadium.
By then Kev, his guarantee given to the stadium loan investors was up, as was his Arsenal days. Great shame how he moved from what made us successful to what we became.
Morning Limey/Kev.
Mourinho and Crystal Tips are a match made in heaven. Ghastly, the pair of them.
2015/16 was really the season that did it for me regarding Arsène who I’d previously supported staunchly, his transfer business that summer of 2015 was frankly pathetic and bordering on irresponsible. Like you Rico that 4-0 defeat at Southampton was when I realised that Wenger was a busted flush, it was never the same after that and even now remembering that period just makes me angry.
Morning Rico and ya’ll.
Mustafi wasn’t Wenger’s worst signing over this period but he, along with Sylvestre, really put paid to the ‘Arsène Knows’ narrative that carried us through some dark times. The jam tomorrow theme kinda died with that overpriced calamity of a defender.
Wenger really had the Midas touch when it came to the FACup and that kinda extended his stay way beyond what it should have been.
Morning Rico/all
Those were some dark days and as you say as soon as we finished outside the top 4 Wengers days were numbered. Ironically now 5th is probably good enough,maybe even 6th.
I see the most annoying player in the league has joined the all time most annoying manager. I’d hoped we had seen the last of Mourinho,at least if we play Real Madrid now we will be favourites.
Morning Cicero, thank you.
I could never understand why when money was tight, so much was wasted on really poor signings. I think Wenger missed a trick with Xhaka, which he probably realised after Arteta joined.
Good morning Rico.
Thanks for an interesting post, I can’t help wondering how much our transfer team took in back handers from agents etc for signing some truly awful players.
Granit Xhaka turned out, eventually, to be worth his transfer fee despite his magnetic attraction for both yellow and red cards.
Thankfully the ownership shambles got sorted and things calmed down a bit.
Five stars again!