Morning all.
This time last week the critics were out with knives sharpened. Rightly so I hasten to add because Arsenal had shown all their worst qualities in 45 minutes of football. They weren’t an awful lot better in the 45 minutes which preceded our collapse but at least we’d scored a couple of goals.
Totally the opposite unfolded yesterday, although something remained the same. The football was woeful. But the fightback was unbelievable and no matter how much Unai Emery’s tactics, team selection etc is criticised today, the determination shown to drag a victory from the jaws of defeat has to be applauded. Especially with ten men so well done to all involved in that I say.
However, we’re in a mess, we’re simply not playing like a group of players who know what they’re meant to be doing. There’s no organisation, no plan, no direction and no defence and by defence, I mean as a team and not just individually. It’s nothing new though but something which really should have been improved by now. I know I/we go on about how poor Xhaka is but his effort to defend for Villa’s second goal, well I’ve seen better on a Sunday morning at my local park.
1-0 down, the team left the pitch at halftime with jeers ringing in their ears. The Emirates wasn’t a happy place that’s for sure. If Unai Emery struggled to hear the fans, I’m sure he wouldn’t have missed the cheers when he finally decided to substitute Granit Xhaka for Joe Willock. After Xhaka had been booked, part of me hoped he’d be sent off before the end because it seemed to be the only way Emery would leave him out of the team. Xhaka was booed as he walked back to the dugout and whilst it’s not great to hear that kind of thing when it’s one of our own, sometimes it’s inevitable as Mustafi found out in pre-season. Emery has to take some responsibility though because he’s the one selecting the players regardless of how poorly they’d been playing. Meanwhile, Torreira is being left out for reasons only Emery knows.
Moss gave us a lifeline by awarding a penalty which Pepe converted. A goal which despite not coming from open play, will hopefully kickstart a good run of goals, drew the scores level but no sooner had the last celebrations ended, Villa were back in the lead. Unbelievable!
Calum Chambers, who’d come on in place of Saka to fill the void left by AMN, and had struggled somewhat against Frankfurt on Thursday evening, became a sudden hero after coming up with an unlikely goal, a good goal too, and then soon after, Aubameyang lined up and executed a free kick with precision and that was that. The cajoles we’d lost last weekend returned in the nick of time yesterday. Better late than never I guess.
The Emirates was suddenly a happy place again but for how long though is anyone’s guess. As surely, is the length of time before Raul, Josh and Edu say enough is enough…
Keep playing Granit Xhaka and not improving the way this Arsenal team are playing and I’d say it won’t be long…
Catch up in the comments guys…
A good summary and exactly how I feel. Credit where it’s due the subs did help drive us to the win but I feel the players took it upon themselves as opposed to anything tactical the manager came up with. It was the initial team selection and lack of game plan that had us in that mess in the first place.
I personally no longer trust the manager and do not want to watch any more “Emeryball”, what ever that even is. Vast changes needed for him to regain the trust of a large proportion of the fanbase. We have a run of very winnable games, including next weekend. The team not only needs to pick up results but show some kind of cohesive strategy that we can get behind because watching this team without the ball at the moment bloody hard work.
Thanks B2W and morning to you, Adam, all.
I too think that comeback came from within the players rather than some genius halftime talk. It was almost like they were irked because of the sending off but we looked a little more serious once Xhaka had gone. We talk on here about Ozil being poor at tracking back and tackling etc, but when our CDM is the same, we’re always going to be in trouble.
Xhaka has to be dropped and then sold imo.
Torreira, Chambers, Holding, Willock, Ceballos for the trip to OT imo. Guendouzi too. In fact why not throw Mustafi in there too because against Frankfurt he was no worse than either Luiz or Sokratis. I’d say he was better.
Morning Rico and all. I agree. We won yesterday but it was a victory that required a spark. That was when Roly-poly Moss, despite not being able to see the incident, decided to send AMN off. Watch closely and you’ll see he won the ball first and the Villa player actually tried to ‘do’ him. I do wonder whether we would have found the resources to win with 11 men – and that’s ridiculous.
We’ve played a few games now with this group and things have moved from becoming suspicions to unavoidable facts. We all hope that Pepe starts to show why he was £72 million but our CM and certainly our CD is an embarrassment. Xhaka is not the right man to anchor the midfield for me. He makes bad decisions and is too slow to react. Torreira must be given a regular starting place which means he needs a partner, Granit really should be out at Christmas and either a new quality player or perhaps Willock could form a more solid and athletic partnership. The other area that literally screams out is surely the defensive pairing of Luiz and Sokratis. The former seems to have no sense of impending danger while the latter is an accident waiting to happen who is just about the worst actor I’ve seen on a football pitch. He easily could have conceded a penalty to cost us 2 points yesterday. Surely Holding and Chambers can’t be any worse.
Emery is stumbling along and in his post-match interview he looked stressed and blotchy. He got out of jail yesterday, perhaps by being lucky enough to have a man sent-off. Will he make it to the end of the season?
Adam. Seemed a good old fashioned tackle to me. Ball first that’s for sure.
Yup, xaka is gonna cost unai his job for sure. Torerra is much better option for midfield, chambers much better than luiz or sokratis n yet sit on the bench while those clowns put up an horror show. What was he thinking???
Xhaka for me would be an ok squad player, but certainly not a player you make captain and build a team around. The fact Emery sees him as un-droppable says everything we need to know about our manager.
Xhaka as captain says it all about Emery imo.
Agreed on the AMN tackle, IMO was a good ball first player after tackle. Guaranteed if that was against us Moss would have waived play on.
That said with ANM on the pitch we probably wouldn’t have come back. He another that probably needs taken out of the team, he isn’t getting any better at RB and it could really derail his progress if he has to play there much longer. Lets hope Hector can hit the ground running!
Emery loves Xhaka and it is going to be the death of him.
Xhaka is ridiculously slow. And since we are inviting teams to mount pressure on us with our insistence on playing from the back, his lack of athleticism is now more pronounced than ever.
I said yesterday, going forward, the midfield pairing in front of that defence should be Torreira and Guendouzi/Willock.
But we all know Emery is not going to ever drop Xhaka. And for some weird reason(s) he doesn’t seem to rate Torreira.
Henkamp, reap what he sows I say. He has other and better options so there’s no excuse to keep picking a player who simply isn’t good enough.
Emery should be fired as soo as possible. This’s team has no identifiable pattern of play after more than one year on the job. He doesn’t even know his best eleven. He seems lost these days as if the occasion is too much for him. There are very good coaches out there right now. #Emeryoutnow!
AlwaysG. Imo, if we were Chelsea, City, Utd etc, he’d be gone or going soon. It’s not just this season, it’s the last few weeks, months of last season too when we blew so much. Top four and. Big cup.
We’re and Aubameyang away from being a mid-table team
Lacazette too but I think we have other really good players too. Personally, I hope Holding comes back in, Luiz pushes into midfield where he can do less damage and Xhaka gets binned.
It`s obvious that Emery and Xhaka are lovers !……………………just admit it, I dont care, the more homosexuals in the world the better imo as it leaves more women for me.
Xavi is available and wants Barca or PL, so my manager wish list is now…………..Simeone, Arteta, Xavi, Freddie and one outside the box one…………….Oooh Santi Cazorla !
Wrote this very late last night. I think it’s relevant today. So, for those of you that haven’t already read it, here it is!
Having just watched MotD2 I have a slightly clearer idea of what happened today. In a highlights programme drawing conclusions is difficult simply because there’s not enough fluency or connection with the game. However, there was a bit of analysis showing our defensive ‘discipline’ or ‘organisation’. It showed approx 9of our players dotted about on the 18 yard line having conceded the 10/15 metres up field. The mid field had been absorbed by the back four none of whom were attacking the ball which was 10/15 metres in front of them. The Villa players just moved the ball forward with gay abandon through ‘no-man’s land’. They just let them come! Now where does the fault lie. The players for being naughty and not carrying out their duties or the coaches for forgetting to tell them where to be when the opposition attack them? Buggered if I know and the same probably goes for the players.
Kev, I have no real gripe with the ability of the players we currently have. Some are truly gifted, unlike some of the names you mentioned earlier. I saw Kiwomya and Helder make their debuts at Highbury. They were as good as you suggested! I think GG signed them and then got sacked, so they played and he’d packed his bag/desk! (Arsenal beat Notts Forest 1-0. The game was dire, but Merson was a revelation, he scored too). That side was awful.
I think we have some real quality players, it’s not their fault. I suspect they are being instructed to do stuff that is both unnatural and is way beyond their comfort zone and ,frankly they can’t achieve. Playing out from the back for example, or defending in two banks of four. Etc etc.
Returning to today’s theme, is it the players fault? Or, is it the fault of the coach who seems unable to transfer his playing demands to the squad who having processed his demands have not and cannot translate these into practical applications on the field of play.
I think Dick’s style of play cannot be put into practise because nobody knows what to do or indeed how to it! The only plan he seems to have is, no plan at all!
In my opinion, of course. Sorry to ramble and rant but you know….I want my Arsenal back and I’ve seen no sign of it arriving any time soon.
I`d like to know why we are playing Forest on Tuesday night after playing late on Sunday and other teams are playing Wednesday who played Friday and Saturday !………………….wtf !!!
Thanks Rico, good post…
I’m not sure about getting rid of Emery at this particular time, I know that some might say we can’t be any worse, but I’m afraid that we could easily be a lot worse…
There isn’t an outstanding candidate to take the job as it stands unless we fancy giving Mourinho a go?
Let’s see how things go when Bellerin and Holding return, as they surely must and that Tierney adapts to the EPL. Get those three in the team and then see how we go, because we’ve been playing all season with two guys patently unsuited to the full back role and that’s left us dangerously vulnerable on the flanks…
Thanks Kev, there’s always Big Sam?.. 😝
Seriously though, I wouldn’t want Mourinho anywhere near Arsenal. I just think we someone who sees defending as being as important as attacking and there are coaches in the Pl who have their players defending better than us and not with multi million pound signings.
If Emery and his can’t sort the defending out, then why not employ someone who can? Had Wenger done so he’d have been far more successful imo. Is Emery another guy who is too stubborn for his own good?
I don’t think that Xhaka is a bad player and I most certainly don’t agree with booing one of our own, but he isn’t suited to the way we want to play, if that indeed the style so well used by Liverpool.
Xhaka slows everything down just as Ozil does, both those players seem to appeal to the same fans.
And I’ve gotta say that I’ve not been hugely impressed with Cabellos, he’s won himself a bit of a fan club on the back of a stand out performance against Burnley and not much else that I can see?
Mmm, I agree with you as far as the full backs go, although I don’t think Kolasinac is as bad as folk suggest, in fact he’s excellent going forward, but often absent when he’s supposed to be defending! Well you can’t have it all. However, getting the FBs back doesn’t solve the midfield conundrum or their inability to defend together or even attack together. They are about as unconnected as my phone line. And, I think that is down to the coach. I’m sure with the right instructions each and everyone of them is intelligent enough to respond positively and to their performances and teams benefit.
There is stuff that is being left undone, it would seem that should have been addressed way before now.
But in fairness we all agreed that Dick needed two years before we ‘judged him in May’. When judgement day arrives I should like to think he’s done well enough to get another year, albeit only one at a time thereafter! At his present rate of progress I don’t think he’ll be working for us come next July, but we’ll see.
If there were signs of improvement, I’d not be so down on Emery but I can’t see any..
I agree Rico, although we play for at least half the game, we’ve just gotta try and play for the entire 90…
Adam suggested Allegri, but I wonder if he’d be prepared to work under the restrictions he’d have to at Arsenal, you know, expected to promote the youth etc, maybe he would and he’s available, but expensive.
I suspect that he’s an option for the summer.
Big Sam would be interesting for sure Rico… 😄
I think you put forward a case for Vieira next summer or Ljungberg as a caretaker for now?
Freddie is the romantic choice and he might be a sensation, he might also be an Ole?
You know, the easy part is sacking Emery, it’s what comes after that worries me and are we able to cope with so many young players and new players in our squad?
It’s just a view…
Freddie would be ideal in a way Kev, because he knows the younger players and I think fans would be patient with him. A bit like Lampard and Ole to a degree although the latter had a poor first stint as manager. If, and I know it’s a big if Emery were to go, I think Freddie and see how it goes before making a decision.
Allegri sounds ideal but didn’t he turn us down in the summer?
Re playing for one half, that’s one thing I really can’t get my head around.
Evening everyone. Well what an utter shambles that was! Can you imagine if we were playing City? Our defenders don`t know where anybody is and look shocked when somebody appears behind them. AMN has lost his spark and has become lazy looking when defending (although I think he was unlucky to get sent off), I don`t think we can play Xhaka and Guendouzi in the same team, they are both too slow. And I can`t believe I`m saying this but Mustafi could be a better option than Luiz or the embarrassing cheating liability that is Sokratis. I am feeling more and more like Emery is out of his depth!
Mike, is Guendouzi slow? I think is pretty quick across ground. He’s raw but there’s a cracking player in there imo..
Xhaka, well I think it’s all been said. Lol
allezkev I see what you mean about the young players in the sqaud . They have few mentors that can give them a good example apart from Auby and Lacca. I don`t know about managers, but I wouldn`t want to see Mourinho at the club.
Maybe give Arteta a go, I can`t stop laughing when seeing him after Le Coq Monsters Captain Black comments the other day.
https://www.football.london/premier-league/xavi-delivers-huge-liverpool-snub-16969169
I agree he`s a cracking player, and I want him in the team but he`s similar to Xhaka in a way. not really dynamic……. I don`t think he`s very quick though. Maybe it`s his lolloping style.
Maybe it’s his hair… lol
Kev,
I really like your comments. You always explore the upsides and downsides of the issues and add a lot to the discussion.
A rush to judgement on UE could be problematic right now imo. As I’ve said before lets get Bellerin, Holding and Tierney
integrated into the team. That should happen fairly soon and by Xmas Arsenal could have enough information one way or the
other. I’d like to see Winterburn as our defensive coach. I listen him on the Arsenal website and he talks a lot of sense. Will never
happen though.
Seems that we’re getting an evening audience on here now, that suits me just fine…
Wavy, when you look at the Liverpool full backs, you can see how key they are to modern football, our current full backs just aren’t good enough, if you recall how we played last season, the full backs were vital to how Emery worked the team.
Once Bellerin is back and we’ve missed him massively imo and we see Tierney up to speed then we can see for sure. If our defence is still a shambles after that, and not forgetting the return of Holding, then Emery will have nowhere to hide.
Mike, I think that AMN is a player who lacks a lot of confidence, playing full back hasn’t helped, it’s possible that he’ll never have the mentality to crack it at the very top level even though there’s no doubting his quality, but it’s between his ears that’s the issue.
I’d like to see him have a few games in midfield all the same, before we give up on him.
He’s been playing right-back for quite awhile now, since Hector did his ACL, and tbh he’s no better now than he’s ever been in that position, he just doesn’t have a defenders sense of danger and even though his pace has got him out of a lot of holes he still switches off too often for that position. Raul and Edu need to source another right back as cover for Hector, a youngster, maybe from the academy or bring someone in as understudy.
Re AMN. I think he’s been thrown under the bus and left there. Chambers was signed as a right back, Mustafi is better at right back than centre back yet neither have been used regardless of the struggles AMN has gone through.
I hope it doesn’t destroy his confidence because as midfielder, I think he’d be much improved by now.
New post up now
I wouldn’t be averse to giving Freddie a caretaker role Rico, if Emery loses it completely and the club remove him from his position and as you say the youngsters hold him in high regard, he’s well liked at the club and at least they’ll understand his instructions…
You know what, whoever is responsible for teaching Emery in his English lessons should seriously consider their position Rico, because I still haven’t a clue what he’s on about!
1.38 Kev.
I’d add to that that Freddie has would have nothing to prove as caretaker manager, yet everything to prove to himself if that makes sense. As you say, the younger players seem to love him, yet respect him highly too as a coach and man manager. All the skills required as much as the coaching itself. Longer term, perhaps with wiser heads around him, he could turn out to be a great success.
People mention Arteta, I’d rather Freddie..
Cheers Reg, this blog allows everyone to have an opinion, Rico runs a tight ship, it’s down to her that this blog is what it is, we have a nice balance of views and interests on here and good group of regulars.
Winterburn was my favourite player from that era, I loved his never say die attitude and his determination to maximise the ability he had, I’d love to have him around the club, a player who suffered rejection as a youngster but never gave up and had a successful career. He knows the value of being a professional footballer and would be great having him imparting that info onto our youngsters.
But as you say, it ain’t gonna happen…
Hey Rick, if you’re about later on, who do you think will get a run out from the Stiffs this evening, John Jules? Burton? Martinelli? Bola? Balogun? Olayinka? Harry Clarke even?
Kev, I think Winterburn would be a great idea. What a Fantastic attitude he had.I’m hoping that Tierney shows the same kind of attitude and from what I’ve read and seen I think he may have.
Emery’s English or lack of it could even have a part to play. I think you’ve mentioned it before in a previous post. I can’t stand listening to it anymore and I just wonder if the players are just as confused as I am when he speaks.