The Arteta Thread

[Niall_Quinn]

There's nothing good left at the club. A handful of young players, maybe, but they'll be ruined or they'll leave.

As with anything touched by vulture capitals, everything good is eventually consumed. It's not just down to Arsenal. The PL, Sky, the FA, the media, the owners, the players, government and ESPECIALLY the fans have all contributed to this. The reason for playing the game has been ripped out and replaced with the profit motive - nothing else. Even in chavland and Manchester the ultimate goal is personal gain for the owners. And the fans are moaning now, but they all signed up for the Sky subscriptions and tuned in on transfer day to worship the transfer clock.

The answer, in football terms, is so simple it's painful. Put the kids in and let them play, win, lose or draw. These kids aren't old enough to be fully jaded and compromised yet. They'll still remember what it took to even get a shot. That's what we need to harness. The enthusiasm and, to a degree, the naivety. The older players don't give a fuck. They are just turning up to the office and going through the motions, and it has been like that for years. There's no penalty if they don't pay it back on the pitch for those horrific wages they feel entitled to. They'll sit on their arse if need be, why should they care? They earn stupid amounts whether they play or not.

You let people like Kroenke into the game and the outcome is inevitable.

[Letters]

Building the stadium was absolutely the right thing to do.

In a business sense yes, we had to do it.
And the fact we are so poor right now isn't because of The Emirates, we'd be equally mediocre were we still at Highbury.
It does feel like we lost the soul of the club a bit but I guess businesses don't have souls, so...

[Niall_Quinn]

In a business sense yes, we had to do it.
And the fact we are so poor right now isn't because of The Emirates, we'd be equally mediocre were we still at Highbury.
It does feel like we lost the soul of the club a bit but I guess businesses don't have souls, so...

In a business sense. And therein lies the death of football. You take something that's exhilarating and try to make it more based on financials alone. You can't put the culture and experiences linked to Highbury on a spreadsheet, but you can make a crude and vulgar calculation and say that all the success (tangibles and intangibles) that attracted 40K people into the seats and a waiting list of 20-30K day-trippers translates to higher profits. Sensible, in financial terms. But when you then make the new stadium the very centre of existence for the club, as we did, everything else takes a back seat. The stadium was one of the factors that made Arsenal less. Plenty of clubs do okay with 40K stadiums. There was never any hope of the levels of investment that would have filled up an 80K stadium on CL final night (like Real or Barca), so the whole stadium project was about paying bums on seats and profits, rather than a footballing progression for the club. Maybe that was not the intention, but that's how it worked out. Pretty sure it was the intention though.

[Chippy]

Look! Do you want a world class stadium or a world class team?
You can't have both, greedy!

[Ollie the Optimist]

on that being Smith Rowe's first of many Premier League goals...
It says a lot in terms of where we are. He's having an incredible season ever since he started to play in December. But he's scoring his first Premier League goal. An incredible season for a No 10 of Arsenal means he needs to score 15 goals and give 10 assists. Then you are right up there with the top guys in Europe and in the league. He's got the ability to do it but he hasn't done it. We need to stay calm with him, give him the right support and step by step I think he will be getting there.

on Willian scoring his first Arsenal goal...
Willian has done it in the past, that's the big difference. He's done it for many years and has achieved everything in the game. Somehow this season we haven't managed to get the best out of him. He had some spells where we could see highlights of things he can do and today was a good example of that.

What the fuck is Arteta thinking? ESR has probably been one of our best players but Arteta decides to talk him down yet with Willian, who has been shit all season, its ok because he’s done it in the past.

[Letters]

Yes, strange comment about ESR who has been consistently excellent, one of the few positives from the season. If I was ESR that wouldn't exactly make me feel appreciated.

[Ollie the Optimist]

Yes, strange comment about ESR who has been consistently excellent, one of the few positives from the season. If I was ESR that wouldn't exactly make me feel appreciated.

It’s not hte first time Arteta has said something like that.

When Pepe got his red card against Leeds, Arteta went ballistic in the media at him (it was a stupid red card so at the time, i could understand the anger) but then 3 days later Xhaka gets an even stupider red card and Arteta says nothing in the media.

It just plays into the idea he has favourites

[I am invisible]

If you want those kind of no.10 stats from him then maybe play him as a 10 consistently, and stop relegating him to LW to accommodate a loanee or have him fill in as a false 9 when there’s actual strikers available?

Also, just a thought, but maybe play him with strikers who can actually score if you want more assists from him, and strikers that he can play off if you want more goals?

[Mac76]

he's a shocking manager and needs o go

if they leave him in charge you can forget about next season

in theory next season could be a real opportunity - with no European football we could focus on the league and on building a proper game plan and getting players used to their positions with time to coach in between.

leave Arteta there and we can look forward to bad results, a sacking mid-season and then a new manager trying to effect repairs while trying, most likely, to stave off relegation...

[Marc Overmars]

Couldn’t resist defending his big hope Willian could he. His continued involvement and poor form is one of the reasons our season never got going.

Arteta can do one and take this bum with him.