Morning all.
Two weeks without a fixture and the best the club can manage is a miserly four days away. Tight lot. Lol.
Mikel Arteta and his merry men land in Dubai on the 7th before returning home on the 11th.
Mikel Arteta:
As we prepare for several key fixtures, we are looking forward to a change of routine with some warm-weather training.
Dubai is a fantastic place and the football facilities there are first class. It will do us good to experience a change of environment before we enter a crucial part of the season.
Critical it is too, the final few months of the season with an FA Cup trophy to fight for as well as the Europa League Cup. No more breaks, just four months of exciting football. Ok, four months of football.
Kev asked a good question yesterday, one which didn’t get much of a response so I thought I’d ask it again today. Following the winter break, our fixtures don’t look too bad. At least on paper they don’t.
The performance against Burnley was pretty grim but I’d expect there to be a response in our next match. Mikel Arteta said he was pleased with the way we’d started as well as the way we finished, as well as saying we could so easily have been two goals up early in the game. I’d say we ‘should’ have been. Or at least 1-0 up. Our goals ratio must be as concerning for him as it is us. Improve that and we start winning matches and yes, it is that simple because finally, the defence is doing its job. It’d be easy to look back on the City v Toots game and say ‘but look how many chances City missed’ in their 2-0 loss but there’s a big difference. Aguero and co aren’t wasting opportunities in most of their other games. A one off is understandable, but Arsenal must be creating records they really don’t want in the opportunities squandered in the record books. The solution might be Eddie Nketiah, but it’s always easy to suggest an alternative when there’s absolutely no guarantee he’d be the answer.
Anyway, here’s the question. How many points do you think we’ll earn from the below fixtures?
Newcastle – H
Everton – H
West Ham – H
Brighton – A
Southampton – A
Norwich – H
Wolves – A
Leicester – H
Toots – A
Liverpool – H
Aston Villa – A
Watford – H
Man City – A
What a horrid fixture to end with. Still, City might be thinking about a Champions League Final by then and us a Europa League Cup Final so it could be two second string sides thrashing out the final fixture of the season…
30. I reckon we’ll earn at least 30 points from the remainder of our fixtures..
On that note of optimism, I’ll see you in the comments.
Hi Rico and Kev I will guess 6 wins 6 loss 1 draw total 19 points best win arsenal 1 Liverpool 0 as we play them at home what a way to stop Liverpool run
Hi Geoff.
I think we have a chance to beat Liverpool at home. The Emirates will be buzzing that’s for sure.
Morning Rico. I have no idea whether we will or won’t win any of the remaining games. I’ve tried speculation before but this current Arsenal are eminently capable of losing (or drawing) to any team, at any time.
What Arteta needs are wins and he needs them quickly. Whatever affection we feel for him or however well his post-match analysis sounds, he needs to convert all that to 3 points and he needs to do it quickly. Because, if he goes on like this, with the same appalling win ratio, he isn’t going to make it. Most of this stuff about giving all the players a chance is nonsense I think. He knows, better than us, what he has and what they can do. He can see that the on-field in-game psychology is very wrong indeed and he saw, as we did, how quickly the shred of confidence that we started with against Burnley evaporated. He will have noticed that our default sideways and backwards movement that has been going on for years and years is a sure indicator of the team’s mental turmoil. The question is how he is going to deal with it and eradicate it. That is surely his job as manager and he needs to work out a way to get the team over this mental hurdle that we can all see.
He has experience in the squad and perhaps he needs to remind those players of their responsibilities.
Unless some of them are eying pastures and supercars anew that is. Personally I fear this is the case.
Morning Adam.
A lot to digest in there. 😜
Perhaps the things you highlight will be discussed/sorted out over the next two weeks and throughout the rest of the season.
I differ to you though with my view, barring the backwards/sideways football which if was followed by a purposeful move forward, wouldn’t be an issue.
Guess I just don’t expect miracles from a group of players, many of whom have been fragile and average for a long time.
Those who are thinking about anything else but Arsenal need moving on in the summer imo.
Morning Rico, thanks for the post…
If we somehow sneak into the top six I will consider that Arteta has saved our season.
Player contracts are paramount for me this summer and for as much as I like Aubameyang I’d understand it if the club moved him on. We can’t allow him to walk for nix and maybe we can’t afford the wages he wants?
Wenger allowed Walcott to hold us over a barrel following the departures of Nasri for free and on the back of Fabregas forcing his way out. Then RVP forced a move (maybe I’ve got those mixed up, but you get my drift).
Wenger showed the side of his character that drove us crazy, he didn’t learn from that situation and allowed Alexis, Ozil and latterly Ramsey to run down their contracts.
We’re still paying for those decisions, decisions that the ownership allowed through their chronic lack of involvement. Decisions that had everything to do with Wenger and his ego and Gazides failing to take the difficult decisions…
Alexis not being sold cost us £60m and ultimately saddled us with Mkhitarayan and his inflated wages. I have no idea if Arsenal are still paying a part of his wages so he can play at Roma?
His contract runs until 2021, that’s why we have to take players on loan – thanks for that Arsène!
Then the Ozil decision, mega wages for a guy who never scores and now never makes an assist, remember when his apologists droned on about his assists, well he’s not made an assist in the EPL, away from the Emirates in years, but the decision to give him a gold plated salary is affecting us and has done for the last two years. We’re stuck with him until 2021, thanks for that Ivan/Arsène!
Letting Ramsey go was just the first stage of the club trying to gain control again, but it’s still been a rocky road and more difficult choices need to be made this summer…
Raul was Don Raul last summer, he had a good window, but his wish to give Emery a new contract has stripped away any good feelings the fans had for him as our season unraveled and the involvement of ‘super agents’ isn’t helping his reputation.
He needs a big big summer.
Morning all.
January will never see wholesale changes so really, Arteta has little choice but to see what he has on and off the pitch.
Pretty much everyone agreed Emery needed at least 3 transfer windows to be judged fairly, Arteta needs that as well.
We’ve already seen an undoubted attitude change but yes, points and results are what a manager is judged on.
13 draws is bloody terrible and I just can’t see why our defenders keep copping the blame.
Seek Auba and Laca In The summer, that’s easily 70-80 million to go hard for one top
Class striker.
SELL Auba and Laca-stupid bloody phone.
Morning all Rico, Adam and all.
I, like Adam have no idea of how many of our forthcoming games we shall win. Hopefully there will be enough to avoid relegation, so we need another 9 points, minimum. 40 points is usually the ‘safe house’! Although unlikely our 9 points minimum could come from another 9 draws, actually that scenario would not surprise me,
The mindset of the squad has been set by our previous managers. Wenger ball became the ‘way forward’ …..eventually! Emerie ball was shrouded in mystery and non existent tactical muddleheadedness. Too much for our simple minded players to comprehend, that’s for sure. Arteta’s message and management is far more straight forward. However, the players can follow his instructions for about 30 minutes, usually at the beginning of a game, thereafter they lose the plot, concentration and control.
I don’t believe the individuals are poor players they just had no plan before the Arteta reign and although they may have been set patterns to play and guidance of how to achieve a positive outcome, they still fall short. Mindset or incompetence, I just not sure, but they certainly need a huge injection of confidence building elixir and a little bit of good luck. Once they ‘learn how to win’ again I think the corner will have been turned. We should go from strength to strength. Only question is, when will they learn to win again???
Well I can dream, I suppose. 1-0 to the Arsenal sounds really good to me, really good indeed!
Morning Kev, agree there.
Where did the Emery new contract rumour come from, any idea?
Aubameyang is 31, with one year left on his contract.
Lacazette is almost 30 with two years on his contract.
Decisions have to be made this summer Scott or we’ll be buggered again.
Raul has to be super smart in the market to extract value for either or both of them. The fact that Barcelona only wanted Auba on loan was a worry especially with PSG wanting a fortune for pensioner Cavani.
Whose going to spend big on a Lacazette?
5 goals this season, a year ago he was our player of the season?
Wavy, maybe a win or three in a row will help build confidence, and confidence is a wonderful thing.
We can’t jumpstart a winning run though 🙂
I don’t think they are now Scott, they certainly shouldn’t be.
Kev, Barca have no money to spend and their arrogance had them believing Auba may be interested in the loans deal.
At a guess, Auba would attract 50 million in the summer if he’s in from, and Laca 20-30.
It’s turning, Rico, and rightly so.
The defence is looking better, the attack isn’t.
I don’t know the exact source, but that rumour has never been refuted and it’s been repeated on several reliable blogs/pods/Twitter accounts, so I guess no smoke eh?
Then, you can see how long it took Raul to remove Emery even when it was clear it wasn’t working and you have to wonder how much of Raul and his reputation was tied up in the hiring of Emery and the rumours of agent involvement?
Then you think back to when Mislintat was forced out, a competitor for the ear of KSE.
Edu looks a good appointment, but then we had the stand off with Keswick over the O’Leary situation, did Raul see O’Leary as a threat?
My 12.04 was for you Rico
Morning Wavy.
One thing I would say is that Arteta has done more in seven weeks than Wenger did in around six years and Emery in 18 months and that’s improve our defending.
If Auba, Ozil and Lacazette weren’t so inconsistent, or rather, crap in the case of the latter two, the kind of discussions were having wouldn’t be taking place I think.
Arsenal don’t usually confirm or deny rumours though Kev. I just can’t see a guy who witnessed first hand the great team of Barca, would think Emery was doing a good job.
I believe that, looking at other clubs, our players are much better than the results suggest. I think that Mikel blinked on Sunday and over-egged the pudding by worrying too much about the threat that Burnley posed. But, we aren’t taking our chances and that is killing us. I expected far better results than we are seeing, as did Mikel I imagine.
Afternoon Rico/everyone
I would estimate 20 – 25 points from our remaining 13 League games.Even that is optimistic,at present we’re on course for 47 points, so I’m hoping things improve to low 50s points.Rico you must be super optimistic ! I hope you’re right, the 30 points must equate to about 9 wins out of 13, seeing as we have 6 out of 25 so far that’s asking a lot.
Kev is right that our next 3 home games are vital,win those and hopefully we go on a run.Have to agree with Adam too,it’s hard to predict Arsenal at the moment, confidence is low,we can manage to drop points from any position.
Fingers crossed.
PS I hope Spurs lose tomorrow in a penalty shootout, after going down to 9 men, they must have used up their luck on Sunday.
Afternoon Limey. Optimistic perhaps but I think this break will do some good and they’ll come back all guns blazing. Ok, I’m pushing it a bit there.
Surely if Arteta overly concerned himself with Burnley, Ozil wouldn’t have started and Torreira would?
He’s said that his focus is on how we play and to be fair, had we taken our chances, our game would have worked. We missed them, nerves kicked in and the rest is history.
What surprised me more was Ozil staying on the pitch for so long when Pepe might have given the Burnley defence something to think about.
Yeah Rico, I understand that, but they can get it out there via trusted journalists like Ornstein even if they don’t want to comment themselves.
Tbh, if you think about it, after we beat Napoli in the QF and Valencia in the SF last season, if someone had suggested that Emery is getting a new contract, most of us would probably have said yes. Of course a few weeks later after our end of season collapse in the EPL and capitulation in the Final, that all changed…
We actually had a good pre season and everything seemed positive after the signings of Pepe, Saliba and Tierney, then we beat Newcastle away and kept a clean sheet, so at that time nobody imagined that the wheels would come off so badly, I certainly didn’t see it…
It’s been a very odd season…
Rico. Possibly, but perhaps he was concerned with Torreira’s lack of height as Burnley like to keep the ball in the air. From defensive situations Guendouzi’s height might have been seen as an advantage.
Ozil is an easy target but, early on in the game he drifted wide and was responsible for linking defence with attack on a few occasions. Who else does that for us? But, as ever, he fades quite early and Arsenal definitely need to find an alternative.
Arteta inherited a dysfunctional squad, devoid of tactical nous and confidence, a defensive shambles, players looking haunted and a fan base in rebellion.
He took over on December 21st, took his first game as a full time manager on December 26th and has taken change in total of 9 matches in little over 5 weeks.
We’ve gotta remember where we were, this ain’t gonna take a few months, it gonna take a couple of years to repair, players have to be moved on, finances have to be balanced, new players have to be brought in, confidence has to be repaired and an awful lot of coaching has to be done in order to just make Arsenal a functioning top six club again.
Arteta has gone some way in repairing the defence, despite injuries, we’ve kept 3 clean sheets and even Mustafi is looking a player again – that’ll increase his value and make him a more saleable asset in the summer…
Young players are coming through, some will stay and become regulars, some will stay and be squad members, others will be moved on, but I’d like to see what Arteta can do with them before we get rid.
Arteta has, in only a short space of time, repaired a worrying rift with the fans, I mean they’re even chanting for Mustafi..!
Of course when we draw so many games it’s frustrating, I feel as fed up as any other fan, but let’s see where we are in May before getting the pitchforks out – again…
Kev, I was thinking about that too and perhaps that was the time frame when the extra year to Unai’s contract was being considered. The way it kind of came out on good old NN, it more or less alluded to the offer being made just before he was dismissed..
Adam, I think I suggested something similar on the day as it was the only logical explanation for leaving Torreira out, although I’m still trying to find a morsel of logic for including Ozil. 😆
3.06 Kev. In a nutshell. Totally agree.
Thanks Rico
Judging by our recent form and obsession with draws I predict we will draw them all!
Hey Kev, I think they are talking about you on AA 😆
Good cup tie between Oxford and Newcastle.
rico, depends if Ozil play or not in the inicial line up or not be a enter sub.
In this sense, there is a difference between fighting for points for not be relegate or to climb up at the table.
27 points is my tip.
Rico, we need to keep score hahahahaha
Yes LC, I did read that on AA, but it wasn’t me, there’s no way that I could have afforded a season ticket in the Upper Tier of the East Stand, that area is for wealthy middle class types, you know accountants, lawyers, bankers, media types etc, the sort who never create any atmosphere. I always sat or stood in the Clock End with the working class fans, the ones who cheer and sing, or the Lower West Stand (Family Enclosure) with my Dad and sons…
I think we can remember each other’s predictions Scott. Lol
New post up now
Newcastle – H 3
Everton – H 3
West Ham – H 3
Brighton – A 3
Southampton – A 3
Norwich – H 3
Wolves – A 1
Leicester – H 3
Toots – A 1
Liverpool – H 0
Aston Villa – A 3
Watford – H 3
Man City – A 0
29 points
Jesse, seems you and I are the most optimistic…