Morning all.
Mikel Arteta was not top of my list of contenders to replace Unai Emery but then neither was Unai Emery to replace Arsene Wenger. What I do believe though is that regardless of what my opinion is, or yours for that matter, everyone deserves to be given a chance. A proper chance.
Aubameyang, Lacazette, Xhaka, Ozil, Mustafi, Kolasinac, Holding, Bellerin, Chambers, Mavropanos, Elneny, Mkhitaryan, AMN and a few other younger players who hadn’t really played for the first team so I’ll keep them away from this for now.
Be honest, how many of the above list, did you want gone whilst Arsene Wenger was manager? A new start under Unai Emery came but did your opinion of the same players change? Mine didn’t. What about now, even though it’s only been weeks since Mikel Arteta took over? My list has increased although perhaps a few question marks are hovering over one or two who I thought would be better off playing elsewhere.
I know Aubameyang has been the main source of our goals but if a big offer came in from an overseas club, I’d take it. Same with Lacazette. Any half decent offer for Ozil and I wouldn’t need to think twice before saying yes. Mkhitaryan, Elneny and Mavropanos might be on loan but they still costing the club money. The former two need selling, as does Mavropanos if he flops on loan. My question marks hover over Xhaka and Mustafi leaving AMN, Holding, Chambers and Bellerin as the ones I’d keep. Before you question my sanity over AMN, he’s versatile and every club needs one or two of those. Plus, I think he’s underrated.
On to the signings made under Unai Emery. A good offer for Guendouzi and I’d wish him well whilst shoving him into the back of Kev’s Heathrow bound cab. If Luiz, Sokratis or both were handcuffed to either side of him, I wouldn’t shed a tear, not when Chambers, Holding, Saliba and perhaps even Mari are our future.
I suppose what I’m alluding to, or rather asking myself is, how can you or I expect Mikel Arteta, or anyone else for that matter, to vastly improve in 6/7 weeks, what has been rotten for such a long time. I know comparisons will be made with what’s going on at the Toots, Chelsea and even Everton but all remain inconsistent. One was a Champions League finalist, the other a Europa Cup winner with the latter being at our expense. I don’t think their problems were as deep rooted as ours either.
Yes, we are miles away from the level Liverpool are at but how long has it taken Jurgen Klopp to get them there? Klopp took over from Brendan Rogers on the 8th October 2015, so there’s a clue. Nearly £500m spent on 23 players since his arrival and he won the Champions League in his fourth season at the club. His fifth season is highly likely to end being Premier League champions.
During that same five year period, Arsenal regressed under Arsène Wenger, became even worse under Unai Emery and yet all of a sudden, miracles are expected of his replacement. An easy target for criticism because he’s inexperienced. Yet, he’s having to work with a group of players who wouldn’t/couldn’t perform for at least one of his predecessors.
Arsenal are in a horrid situation right now in my opinion, mostly of its own making because of poor recruitment and contract management has allegedly left us broke. Or rather, unable to spend because of FFP. We need Champions League football for the money so we can reinvest, but we need to invest to increase our chances of securing top four.
Interestingly, regardless of Jurgen Klopp’s vast experience and success in Germany with Borussia Dortmund, his first season saw Liverpool finish 8th place in the League. He sold Benteke for £32m, and raised another £46m by selling the likes of Ibe, Skrtel, Smith, Alberto, Canos and Allen. Sadio Mane came in. That’s how things continued up there, sales were made to fund signings, the biggest of course being Coutinho for £142 million. In essence, his sale, plus a few others like Sakho, paid for the final pieces of his jigsaw. Liverpool then went from 8th to 4th, 4th, 2nd to where they are today.
I think it’s a misconception that the Fenway group are better owners that Stan Keonke’s KSE and by better I mean as far as expenditures go, as I think they’re pretty much on a par. Liverpool simply had assets, and they sold them for the good of the club. To raise money in order to spend it.
Liverpool under Jürgen Klopp has bought 23 players for £424,000,000
Liverpool under Jürgen Klopp has sold 39 players for £352,650,000
Total spent – £71,350,000
I think we need to do something similar. Yep, even if does mean selling our top goal scorer, Lacazette, Guendouzi etc. And before you bite my head off about Aubameyang, he can’t be that committed to Arsenal, otherwise he’d have signed his contract extension by now.
#justsaying….
See you in the comments guys.
Hi All as I said before I did not want Arteta as coach but agreed I would give him a chance and this is why I believe Arteta has given all players a clean sheet and is giving all players a chance to prove them self and at the end of this season I think he will have a better I deer of who he keeps, sell’s and loans out. I would still sell Aubameyang don’t like him as captain or striker s
Rico, you’re right but my point really was that the club just stuffed up lol
Not their best moments……
Martinelli Minden, Eddie too perhaps and whoever we sign to replace him.
Won’t Aubameyang, Lacazette and Ozil be entering the final year of their contracts next season? We really can’t afford to let them leave on a freebie. Imo.
Being pedantic, we didn’t sell Alexis, we made that stupid swap deal instead of taking the rumoured £60 million offered by City. We should have taken the money, let Ozil run his contract down or sell him and reinvest the £60m.
Same with Ramsey who we allegedly received a £50m offer for. Others too who had no intention of staying.
Hindsight is such a wonderful thing.
The club had to retain Ozil as we’d sold Alexis and one or two others around that time.
They backed themselves into a corner and paid dearly for it.
If we sell Auba then where do the goals come from. If it were not for his goals we would be in relegation, heck we are nearly there already.
They were, or as some might say, Ivan’s lol
At that time selling both would have been too painful for Wenger. Weren’t they his two biggest signings?
Or sold both Cicero. Alexis didn’t want to stay apparently.
Too many Ozils there, we should have sold them both 😉
It all goes back to the sale of Alexis Sanchez in my opinion, we should have sold Ozil, the player who had nothing left in the tank after twenty minutes, Ozil, not the one that acted like the Duracell Bunny and never stopped running.
Thanks Lc.
Top four under Wenger wasn’t the issue, the football was. Invariably we finished top four because other clubs were worse than us. Now though, other clubs are improving whereas we stood still.
I still maintain bad recruitment has got us where we are today and the dreadful management of contracts.
Kev, I th8nk we’ll beat Liverpool at The Emirates. Yes, I’m being serious.
Cicero, I suggest Guendouzi as being a seller because he could get a big fee in. But, he’s further down the list than Elneny, Mikki, Lacazette, Auba, Ozil, Sokratis, Luiz etc etc.
I’ve given up on crystal ball gazing when it comes to forthcoming fixtures, I’m just grateful that there are three clubs below us who look nailed on for relegation.
I know you have done some terrific posts in the past, Rico, but this one is probably the best I`ve read………………..if only our team was as consistant on the pitch.
There`s a lot of players to potentially sell, but the worry is are there any potential buyers for some average players ?
Oh for the days when Arsene got us top 4 and we(me) complained!
I`m still in the Arteta camp and the only problem for him(us) is the owners with their excuses of FFP!………….as I`m sure if the rumoured take over of Newcastle happens the Arabs will find a way around FFP, it seems to me that FFP is a great justification for Kroenke not to fund the team!…………………..he`s a rich intelligent man and I`m sure someone in his organisation could find away to invest IF they wanted too, but they are glad to hide behind tnhe FFP argument!
Should I make my future grandson a Gooner and make his life a misery or make him a Man C supporter guarenteeing him a happy football following…………………….f##k it!………… I have to suffer so will he ! hahahaha
Good afternoon all.
I believe that we should make a determined effort to sell both Aubameyang and Lacazette this summer. Both players have dropped off alarmingly in the last season and a half. Neither is reliable in front of goal nor are they showing any meaningful response to Arteta’s coaching. Get what we can for them before their age and lack of form drastically reduces their value in the transfer market.
Just as Arteta deserves time to improve things, on the pitch, so does Guendouzi. He never fails to give 100%, yes he is liable to the rush of blood and occasionally loses possession, but he never gives up. Perhaps with a more reliable midfield partner, than Xhaka, he would not have to do so much fire-fighting and could afford to calm down a bit.
I don’t know how much, if anything, Mkhitaryan and Elneny are costing us. Do we contribute to their wages? Either way there seems to be no future for them at the club so they too should be sold in the Summer.
I think AMN is worth persevering with, every club needs a utility player, perhaps he could forge a partnership with Guendouzi given time.
It looks as though we are stuck with Ozil, we can’t afford to buy out his contract, Arteta continues to start him and I doubt if the Qatari’s will come back for him.
Hi Kev, I think you’ve got that about right. Everton worry me a bit now though . We should be beating Brighton and Southampton , even if it is away, but with our soft underbelly a draw is a probability.
This is how I see us doing:
Newcastle…..h…..W
Everton………h…..W
West Ham…..h…..W
Brighton……..a…..D
Southamptn..a…..D
Norwich……..h…..W
Wolves………a…..D
Leicester……h…..D
Tottenham….a…..D
Liverpool……h…..L
Aston Villa…a…..D
Watford……..h…..W
Man City……a…..L
What do you lot think?
Looking at our fixtures, we have 3 successive home league games when we return from Dubai and we should win all of them, but overall I reckon we’ll manage 21 more points from our remaining 13 EPL games so if we were to finish in the top four, it would be a miracle.
12.57 Mike. Spot on. Top four and continued improvement would be ideal. I seriously don’t expect much more. Not for any other reason than the mess Arteta inherited.
Everton will be moving into a new, state of the art stadium in the next 18 months, their income will rocket and that’ll be another competitor for the european spots, I wouldn’t underestimate them, we aren’t a lot better than them atm.
Then long term, imagine the Saudi take over of Newcastle, add money to that fan base and ‘Houston we have a problem’ – meanwhile Arsenal are not moving forward under our ownership but are continuing to fall further and further behind.
So yeah, I think a half empty Emirates is a strong possibility despite the hard work of Arteta and our youngsters, so unless Raul and Josh begin to take our mediocrity seriously KSE May find that there’s not an awful lot of difference between mediocrity and decline…
That’s true Mike, but really, we need to be putting these sides to the sword, yet we keep playing them back into the game.
2-3 up after 30 minutes and most sides fall apart.
When we can’t kill the game off, yep, we panic.
Scott, I agree with you, the trouble is we only dominate the game for 20 minutes, then teams press us high and fast and we panic. It all goes to pot.
Rico, the way other clubs are atm, and we know things can change quickly, top 4 next season should be the target and to challenged for the League is a few years away yet, maybe more 🙂
Couldn’t agree more Scott.
Rico, I think a top 4 spot is looking the best we can hope for in the next couple of years. That is fine, as long as we can at least look like we can play decent football and have some gumption about us.
I want to scream every time we pass backwards! Even when we have a free kick high up the field, we pass it backwards! Every other team hoists it into the box. At least there’s a chance of something happening that way.
Morning all.
Once again, our failure to finish relatively easy chances has killed us.
How often have we led, the concede one or even two goals to draw or lose in recent years after dominating the game?
Put a fit and healthy Van Persie in our current squad and we’d be 20 points better off this season.
13 draws and many blame our defence.
Again though Adam, play sales is just as important as who we sign. We have to remove the bad apples from the squad. Those who really couldn’t give a toss other than how much they earn. Take the money and give it all on paper to Arteta and in return, get his wish list and start rebuilding.
Makes sense to me because the sensible heads amongst us all don’t honestly expect Arsenal to be challenging for the league for another 4/5 years. At least.
For now the focus is all about returning to a top four spot, which is achievable much sooner I think.
Afternoon Kev. I’m in agreement with you there. There’s a lot of Hope pinned on the younger players and I know there will be mixed views about them playing because Arsenal are ‘better than them’.
Liverpool, Leicester, Toots etc, all have players in their squads who were once youngsters but have proved themselves. Willock over Guendouzi every day for me, over Ozil too. Nelson would get the nod over Pepe too. Probably because they have the skills, just need the experience because their effort really can’t be criticised imo.
Rico. I think that you, I and most others, are sick to death of games like yesterday really.
If Arteta is the radical coach/manager we hope then the summer is going to be vital. The mindset has to change. Would he, I wonder, have spent £70 odd million on Pepe? Or more importantly, can he get the bloke to produce proper performances on a regular basis? Why is it that there is so seldom a forward pass available to our midfielders who seem programmed to pass backwards, even when we are well up the pitch? WTF has happened to Lacazette? Is Auba committed to Arsenal? If the Ozil rumours are true, then why did the club veto the possibility of getting him out and moving on? Is Raul any good at all or just a mover and shaker, out of his depth in a struggling club, trying to re-establish itself? All these questions are going to need some sort of reconciliation soon because another season of this and the club will haemorrhage even more fans and be a north London circus act playing to diminishing crowds.
Afternoon Rico, thanks for the post.
This has been a strange season, with only Liverpool playing anywhere close to their perceived level, Man City, Man Utd, Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal have all been bang average, even the early season sparkle of Leicester has faded, unlike the sparkle of Brendans choppers.
Everyone is playing the pressing game and it’s been a major leveller with Sheffield Utd and Wolves flirting with a european place.
Arsenal are stuck in mid table alongside Palace, Everton, Burnley, Southampton and Newcastle and it’s where we belong to be based on our performances this season.
We’ve had three managers and the results are still the same, the only thing that’s remained unchanged is our players and how many of them, I suspect, will have an eye on their last big transfer and payday rather than Arsenal success, as do their agents.
How the club, Raul, Edu and Arteta negotiate the next year is going to be vital as to what level Arsenal attain over the first half of the roaring twenties, but I’m not expecting this Arsenal will get anywhere close to the present Liverpool standard of consistency in performance, not unless our youngsters can develop into a group similar to the Adams, Rocastle and Keown class of 35 years ago. Arteta remains the one bright light to me, he will be sussing out his squad, who he can depend on and who he can’t, which players could cost him his job if he trusts them.
Mikel has a big couple of summers coming up!
Arsenal are closing in on the record of 18 draws in an EPL season, but even a small spurt, maybe a three game winning run and we’d be on the cusp of the Europa places, it’s that tight.
We’re probably not as bad as we think nor as good, we’re just very very average.
Adam, that’s kind of my point in the post really. Just because it’s another new guy coaching, we’re suddenly expecting much more from players who quite frankly have been garbage for so long. I see a lot of positive stuff from Arteta but he is no miracle worker. Lacazette, Aubameyang, Ozil, Luiz and others are experienced players, yet week after week, game after game they disappoint.
Id like to meet the man or woman who could change that. Imo, sell them and sign younger and more enthusiastic players who will learn, who can improve and most importantly, want to.
Rico. Perhaps that’s the point. There isn’t really anything to discuss because the problems this morning are essentially the same as they have been since the last seasons of Wenger although the names are different. No other team fears us because we aren’t that good. I’m not saying that there are no tiny shoots of hope under Arteta. The club have hooked their wagons to him and he seems to have direction, but so few of the players are listening it seems.
Should this group of players be doing better than any of the teams above them in the league? I reckon they should but meeting the expectations of the fans is going to be a long and painful experience, with casualties. The good ship Arsenal is like a leviathan, ploughing on and on in the same direction and until someone takes a firm hand at the wheel and ships the under-achievers out I can see it’s going to continue to devour itself by eating up and spitting out new managers on a regular basis.
The other problem that we don’t like to admit is that the club makes Gods out of players like Ozil, Auba, Laca etc but the reality is that Arsenal are a boring and stale institution, hamstrung by FFP apparently but with the added complication of rudderless leadership.
Nothing, it seems, is going to happen very quickly and certainly not quickly enough for the fans until we get rid of the Ozil-shaped albatross around it’s neck and get the balance between the absurd greed of the players, their massive egos and their real-world ambition to be part of a winning and successful club realigned.
Jimmyb has gone in the bin for good. Something I should have done yonks ago.
Mike, maybe it’s something Arteta feels he has to do before making his own mind up about the players under his management. Pep did the same at City before binning the ones he didn’t want, Klopp did the same so it makes sense to me. I wouldn’t judge another person on what someone else told me about them because I’d want to form my own opinion first hand. Maybe that’s what’s going on now when as far as the league goes, there’s little to play for. Ish.
His team selection for the Europa league fixtures might give us more of an idea about what he thinks about who. Purely because there’s a much bigger prize at the end of it.
We’re all bound to crow on though Adam because otherwise there would be nothing to discuss. People on here who know more about tactics than I could talk about that each day but in the end, it’s all down to our opinions surely.
The mindset is as it is because of the personnel and because they lack confidence imo. Only winning can change that I think. Which brings us back round to the players we have being the right ones, with that desire to win regardless. Imo of course.
Thanks Rico, pretty blunt and honest post there.
It does seem odd to me some of the team selections that Arteta made. Why did he think that Ozil was right to play in that game ? Torreira is our most tigerish midfielder, and was on the bench !!………Maybe in training Arteta sees something I don’t.
I think you mentioned this in your last post but…………..Mustafi makes a mistake and is absolutely slaughtered (by me too). Our strikers miss absolute sitters, and the majority of us just think “oh well”. They do get a much easier time of it than the defenders.
I agree with Adam where he says the problem lies within this group. It seems instilled in them to be fragile and is almost impossible to knock it out of them.
Thanks Samuel. Liverpool’s way seems the most sensible to me.
It’s the wages too I believe Martin, I read an article, no idea if it’s true, but I our wage bill is a real problem. Money has to be an issue and unless Arsenal cheat the system or Kroenke pays off the stadium debt, I’m not sure much will change on the transfer front.
A big plus of course is the youngsters we have, if they continue to improve, they’ll save the club a lot of money..
True Potter, a lot depends on how much we raise but then the club has said its to be smarter with its transfer dealings so my guess is more Martinelli kind of players bought which would suggest the money raised on sales would be enough.
I’ve not given up on Pepe but between him and Martinelli, who’d think it was Pepe who cost more? Not me.
Thanks Pete. As far as I know, Liverpool didn’t have a hefty stadium bill to pay either.
It’s the antics of Guendouzi which irk me, I hope Arteta can get this side to his game drilled out of him because it lets him down. Also, I wish he’d be more positive like Willock when he came on yesterday.
Morning all. Sorry to those stuck in moderation for the last hour, itsonly me and I had to be elsewhere…
Regardless of the personnel – and we could crow on about who should stay and who should go, I would say that the biggest problem remains within this group. The will to win has become a commodity of unbelievable fragility at Arsenal and we only seem to able to summon any sort of bloody determination when down to 10 men. Against mind-numbingly ordinary opposition, like Burnley, we resort back to the all-too-familiar Arsenal blueprint.
20 minutes before KO: We should win today. Why not?
15 minutes in: We should be at least a couple of goals up.
25 minutes in: Why have we gone sideways and backwards?
2nd half, first 10 minutes: They’ve come right back into it. We’re riding our luck here.
75 minutes: We we’re lucky there. Perhaps a draw might be a good result now.
90 minutes: FFS referee, blow the whistle. We’ll take the draw.
After the whistle. We should sell ***** and ******.
And so it goes on and on and on.
Can Arteta break the slow spiralling descent?
Well the reason why Emery got the job was because he said nobody had to be sold. The reason the likes of Luis Enrique didn’t want the job at the same period was the club wouldn’t be able to deliver on his targets. Same with allegri. The rumour when arteta was initially favourite for the job before the greasy vampire came he did players needed to be sold to the board and money had to be spent on his choice.
People go on about the regression under wenger but fail to acknowledge the board isn’t willing to spend. Wenger from 2005 onwards bought average players and still managed to get into the top 4. Yes they bought players such as Sanchez and ozil but they were to play alongside mediocrity as mertsacker , giroud etc
Even when the board did make signings this year – apart from martinelli who was deemed one for the future has been excellent – the rest not needed – all the chase for Tierney and no researching into his injury problems at celtic
Until the board decided to spend money this will continue. Players to leave this summer mustafi, Socratis, kolasanic, – along with lacazette and aubemeyang – due to contract expiry in 2021. Possibly Luiz but I expect him to stay another year at least
Saliba isnt going to hit the ground running. He too had had injury concerns
I still expect xhaka to leave – with the above mentioned to most likely leave if arsenal buy well then it could be a good season but they need to work with the manager on targets of his choice
We have our own youth products coming through so in all honesty it’s a case of getting rid of mediocrity and players who don’t wish to stay
As for AMN he needs a run in midfield as for guendouzhi- arteta needs to coach him or loan him out – he is effective at looking as if he is doing something but it’s always not much. I blame Emery for that as he just played him without any instruction
Liverpool’s model is built on Arsenal’s and wengers early years – develop and sell for big money and the re-invest in the squad. Fenway sports visited arsenal and spoke to Wenger when they first took over Liverpool
Sir chips kewsick is right about someone being brought in over Raul and vinai they are unanswerable to anyone.
Edu has done well so far but Raul shouldn’t have much involvement in player arrivals
I think this would go down as one of the best articles I must have read about @Arsenal. And, rightly so, the comparison with facts and figures in @Liverpool shows how far we’ve derailed as a club. And unless we tow that same part as them and move on these big names, then we in for a continual downward trend. Not even with a master tactician or technician in @Arteta would our fortune improve for the better. The board needs to be pro actively on point and to precision.
Another inciteful reply from Jimmy B.
Rico it’s a question worth raising , we all know that we need new players and we all know that the KSE group is not going to raid it’s piggy bank to get them . So the question has to be picking the players we want and then on one side of the balance sheet putting the cost and on the othe the value of the whole squad.
immediately we have to ask whether selling both Auba and Lacazette would firstly raise enough and secondly would Martinelli and Nketiah be enough to carry us through . I think not , Auba could go for money now but we would need to keep Laca for one more year until perhaps John Jules or someone else comes through .
The interesting one is when we use Martinelli to be our Couhtino or Anelka if you like. Forwards and goalscorers always fetch more cash and pobably in a 3 /4 year plan we must accept the fact that financially he will be the current player to raise the most.
It will be a bitter pill to swallow but Anelka’s sale produced Henry and a training ground . It is a fact that without a lottery win the club will have to sell to buy and that’s not Arteta’s job .
Over to you Sanhelli , do the plan it’s your job to get it right.
Sensible article full of obvious truths and did not pull punches.The only player I differ on is Guendouzi, I think we have definitely got a lot more to come from him with experience. To write him off so early is an Arsenal thing. I also agree that it is players sales that creates most money for rebuilding although the Champions League helps a lot. Our problem is that our board do not grants a ‘loan’ for buying top players in adavance (say £300m) so that the manager can get the top quality we need to add to the very talented 6/8 we already have. This loan would be subject to repayment by selling top stars that you list above. It is the only way to shorten the usual 4/5 years of waiting time that even Klopp had to put up with.
I totally agree with you. We get told that we spent over £100 million in the summer, but let’s look at that figure, most of it has been spread over a number of years, so in fact we didn’t spend £100 million, we have also only been able to sign loan signings in the last few winter transfer window, get rid of the bad wood (even if we only get a small percentage of money back) and actually invest properly in the summer with top quality player’s that are going to help better the club and who when putting on the shirt want to give 110% in every match and want to fight for the position they make their own.