Match Reaction - Arsenal 1-2 The Cavs and their ref

[Niall_Quinn]

Had to kick us to win. Had to buy the ref to allow the kicking.

Great performance by us, until we ran out of steam and the usual mistakes crept in.

[Marc Overmars]

Gutted.

Great effort but still no result. This team are hopeless.

[Gooner23]

We dropped off in the last 20 mins which invited pressure. But for 70 odd mins we looked cohesive in defence and attack. A huge upgrade on any of the dross Emery served us over the last 12 months. Some unexpected improvements in certain individuals like AMN and Nelson.

[Marc Overmars]

We dropped off in the last 20 mins which invited pressure. But for 70 odd mins we looked cohesive in defence and attack. A huge upgrade on any of the dross Emery served us over the last 12 months. Some unexpected improvements in certain individuals like AMN and Nelson.

Emery beat Chelsea at home. :ninja:

[Gooner23]

Emery beat Chelsea at home. :ninja:

Wasnt that beginning of last season? It all went down hill after Xmas.

[Bumble]

Great Performance is a bit much as we just tried to defend our 1-0 lead without really taking game to chelsea when we had the chance. We had a great chance to beat them and chucked it away in last 10 mins.

Blaming the ref is easy and distracts us from some improvement but still the weaknesses exist.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Took too long making changes again if you ask me.

I don't know why Willock keeps being the first alternative.

[rodders]

We lost and so we should have done Chelsea far superior, would have helped if we had not given the ball away at every opportunity.

[Bumble]

Although suppose it was a fitting end to 2019.

[Marc Overmars]

Great Performance is a bit much as we just tried to defend our 1-0 lead without really taking game to chelsea when we had the chance. We had a great chance to beat them and chucked it away in last 10 mins.

Blaming the ref is easy and distracts us from some improvement but still the weaknesses exist.

This was the issue for me. Good teams who sit back and defend still do something at the other end. We didn’t and because of that Chelsea could push further up without having to worry about being countered. It was a shocker from Leno but inviting pressure is never a good idea unless it’s methodical. For us it felt like we were hell bent on defending the 1-0 like our lives depended on it but gave no thought for what we could do to Chelsea to make them sweat.

[Master Splinter]

Chelsea were commiting a foul per minute and somehow ended up with only four bookings compared to five for Arsenal.

That tells you everything about this utter cretin of a referee.

This and the fact we're going through another injury spree will be overlooked by a mindless media feeding the crisis angle and fuckwit fans who had already set their agenda.

The most important thing is though, despite the limitations and difficulties he's been sledgehammered with in his first week in the job, Arteta has made an instant improvement to so many aspects of our play. And that gives hope despite the results being altered by the ref.

If he can do so much with this shit, it bodes well for what will happen when he's able to mould his squad properly.

[Chippy]

Had to kick us to win. Had to buy the ref to allow the kicking.

Great performance by us, until we ran out of steam and the usual mistakes crept in.
Is it just me who thinks we are in a relegation dog fight?

[Mac76]

It was almost inevitable once we lost Chambo, mustafi and luiz will nevwr keep a clean sheet.

Felt really sorry for Leno, but while i thought Chelski were a bunch of c**ts with all their cynical tackles you have to adm5 they built up huge pressure and we juat couldn't deal with it

Arteta has to ger the club to give him a budget for better CBs, and he has to play Auba in the middle, Laca is shot at the moment

[McNamara That Ghost...]

We should be able to eek out 16 more draws to reach 40 points.

[Niall_Quinn]

This was the issue for me. Good teams who sit back and defend still do something at the other end. We didn’t and because of that Chelsea could push further up without having to worry about being countered. It was a shocker from Leno but inviting pressure is never a good idea unless it’s methodical. For us it felt like we were hell bent on defending the 1-0 like our lives depended on it but gave no thought for what we could do to Chelsea to make them sweat.

Ha, ha. We're not a good team. What bit don't you get? We're starting from the very beginning. We're the Jamaican bobsleigh team. Think of it that way. Thanks Wenger.

[Globalgunner]

Nothing I've seen has convinced me that Guendouzi is ready for the big time. Plays like a rank amateur most of the time

[Niall_Quinn]

Took too long making changes again if you ask me.

I don't know why Willock keeps being the first alternative.

I think if you look at Nelson's performance today you will see why a coach with a bit of savvy like Willock. Willock is a very, very good football player. In a very, very bad team.

[Marc Overmars]

Nothing I've seen has convinced me that Guendouzi is ready for the big time. Plays like a rank amateur most of the time

If/when Xhaka is sold he will be one of the first names on the team sheet. Which sums it up.

[Niall_Quinn]

Nothing I've seen has convinced me that Guendouzi is ready for the big time. Plays like a rank amateur most of the time

I think today was about the team/. They played as a team, for the first time in - I don't know. We won that match quite easily, but the ref and the result book says otherwise. Unfortunately, it's the corrupt interpretation (like so much in life) that dictates reality. But leaving aside the fantasy of reality, we played very well. When's the last time you can say we played really well?

[Niall_Quinn]

Is it just me who thinks we are in a relegation dog fight?

We might be. And we deserve to be. You can't neglect a team so badly as Wenger did and expect no consequences. This is a big boy's league, with all the money and all the cheating and every other non-football factor that actually makes up the final points tally. You accept it and you learn how to compete in the utterly corrupt environment. Wenger never understood it. And, as paragon of football, it's maybe a good thing he didn't - in a fairy at the end of the garden sort of way. But principles don't change results. I liked the way we bossed the chavs today. It wasn't pure, it's wasn't Cryuff. But it's PL football. We aren't back to reality quite yet. But Arteta has shown he knows what reality is. This is very encouraging. I don't hate Wenger for his purity, in fact I love him for that, I hate him for his naivety.

[Niall_Quinn]

Nothing I've seen has convinced me that Guendouzi is ready for the big time. Plays like a rank amateur most of the time

Torreira is the problem. Watch his game.

[dostoy]

We might be. And we deserve to be. You can't neglect a team so badly as Wenger did and expect no consequences. This is a big boy's league, with all the money and all the cheating and every other non-football factor that actually makes up the final points tally. You accept it and you learn how to compete in the utterly corrupt environment. Wenger never understood it. And, as paragon of football, it's maybe a good thing he didn't - in a fairy at the end of the garden sort of way. But principles don't change results. I liked the way we bossed the chavs today. It wasn't pure, it's wasn't Cryuff. But it's PL football. We aren't back to reality quite yet. But Arteta has shown he knows what reality is. This is very encouraging. I don't hate Wenger for his purity, in fact I love him for that, I hate him for his naivety.

How many words can you type a minute ?

You write quite long posts one after another very quickly.

Its impressive.

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

First of all the positives, again a much improved performance, better than anything we've seen this year against the top 4.

Now the result was pretty predictable. I said something in the last game about Arteta getting the team to play at a high tempo and how that plays to the teams strength for now but I questioned how long he could keep it up. This game was a perfect example. Once we dropped the tempo and the players tired, their was only ever going to be one winner.

And for those who love the idea having a rookie coach these are the kind of games that will keep exposing him. Everyone, including the commmentators were crying out that the team was getting tired and Chelsea's goals were comming, yet he left the substitutions late and they were all ineffective by that time.

Conversely, Frank, the guy with the "small club" experience, used his subs perfectly as early as the 1st half to change tactics once he saw his team was struggling and it ended up working out for him even though his team was quite below par.

I remember winning games under Emery in the first year, where it was clear we played poorly and thinking to myself our weaknesses will soon get exposed for the world to see- which happened after the initial run and rightly so we didn't recover.

From what I've seen so far from Arteta, we're going to earn our points the hard way i.e. when we win, it'll be be because we outplayed the other team and we deserved all the points ( a bit like Citeh and Barca).

Now we need to judge for ourselves how realistic this is in the scenario we are in and the bunch of players we are saddled with.

In short, our climb up the table is going to be pretty slow and painful, and his inexperience is going to have a lot to do with this.

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

BTW I thought Luiz had a good game today, it really shocked me that he could raise his game (the winner was more of Mustafi's fault as DL had to keep his eye on 2 players while Mustafi just backed off like a wimp). Oh and the through passes from different players we've been seeing in the last 2 games have been pretty nice too.

The thing I like about this Arteta experiment is players are improving, or getting back to the form we know they once had, which really is a good thing if it can be sustained with the bad results that await us.

[I am invisible]

Gutted about the result, but tbh after just 4 or 5 training sessions I’m more concerned with seeing signs of progress for now. We know we’ve got a flawed, brittle group of players here, who have been poorly coached for a lot of years, and that the defence is being held together by masking tape - we were never going to become world-beaters overnight. At least you can see some kind of plan or vision being put into place, so you get a hint of where it’s going if we stick with it.

Anyone read Tim Stillman’s column on Arseblog this week? At one point he referenced this part of a chat he had with Joe Montemurro (Women’s team manager)...


“...To have a style of play that your players believe in, you need insurance policies. If you want your players to believe in your style, you have to give them something to fall back on, so they know that even if things don’t quite go for them in a given situation, they can still get something out of the game.

Once you’ve got that base and that confidence, you can make switches. You can move between systems, play with more width or more inside depending on what the game requires. We spent the first six months solidifying the core and from there, we made adjustments and started to develop...”

https://arseblog.com/2019/12/theory/

If I had to guess, I’d say this is what Arteta is focussing on to start with: building those insurance policies, and working on fundamental default behaviours and actions that the players can always fall back on. There’s already early signs of more structure and discipline there, but it’s clearly still a long way from automatic behaviour for this group of players - we can maintain it for long spells, but we’re having to consciously think about it, and as we saw today we can still lose it if our concentration wavers or energy starts to dip.

Promising though - it’s certainly the most confident and professional I’ve seen a defence containing Luiz, Mustafi and AMN look! Interested to see where this goes...

[I am invisible]

Is it just me who thinks we are in a relegation dog fight?
No, I think that’s probably most of us - it’s just the level of expectation and panic that varies...

[Bumble]

No, I think that’s probably most of us - it’s just the level of expectation and panic that varies...

we arent in a relegation battle, we are 6 points off 18th but also 6 points off 6th. proper mid table and while we have Auba we will be ok. He picks up an injury 1st Feb and we will be totally cattle trucked.

With the improved performances werent the early Emery performances the same though, playing higher tempo closing down from the front. Its just whether the players can keep it up if results dont pick up.

It was first time we lost after winning at half time for 9 years also first points Chelsea have got after conceding first.

Lampard made the changes but Chelsea didnt really look like scoring until the mistake, so Lampard is a rookie manager too and the fact they struggle when behind is when its shown up. i think arteta will be the same, we are fine when in front but chasing the game i think we will continue to struggle.

[Özim]

Another game another defeat. Poor result, but we allowed Chelsea to come back in the 2nd half and dominate and eventually paid the price. Arteta as very slow to make changes and didn't try and stem Chelseas' dominance early enough.

Not impressed so far to be honest, but what can you expect when you have a guy with no experience in charge, a game is 90 minutes not 35-45 minutes, we had the same thing under Emery.

[Özim]

First of all the positives, again a much improved performance, better than anything we've seen this year against the top 4.

Now the result was pretty predictable. I said something in the last game about Arteta getting the team to play at a high tempo and how that plays to the teams strength for now but I questioned how long he could keep it up. This game was a perfect example. Once we dropped the tempo and the players tired, their was only ever going to be one winner.

And for those who love the idea having a rookie coach these are the kind of games that will keep exposing him. Everyone, including the commmentators were crying out that the team was getting tired and Chelsea's goals were comming, yet he left the substitutions late and they were all ineffective by that time.

Conversely, Frank, the guy with the "small club" experience, used his subs perfectly as early as the 1st half to change tactics once he saw his team was struggling and it ended up working out for him even though his team was quite below par.

I remember winning games under Emery in the first year, where it was clear we played poorly and thinking to myself our weaknesses will soon get exposed for the world to see- which happened after the initial run and rightly so we didn't recover.

From what I've seen so far from Arteta, we're going to earn our points the hard way i.e. when we win, it'll be be because we outplayed the other team and we deserved all the points ( a bit like Citeh and Barca).

Now we need to judge for ourselves how realistic this is in the scenario we are in and the bunch of players we are saddled with.

In short, our climb up the table is going to be pretty slow and painful, and his inexperience is going to have a lot to do with this.

Great post.

Typical rookie manager game, naively comes into the game wanting to us to play a certain way and thinking that if we do we'll win, that won't happen, you need to adapt to what's happening in the match and make changes, this reminds me of what Wenger wanted to do, play your game and not worry about the opposition which is a worry.

I still stand by the fact we should have got someone experienced given our situation, we need results, not 35-45 minutes of decent performances.

[Chippy]

Great post.

Typical rookie manager game, naively comes into the game wanting to us to play a certain way and thinking that if we do we'll win, that won't happen, you need to adapt to what's happening in the match and make changes, this reminds me of what Wenger wanted to do, play your game and not worry about the opposition which is a worry.

I still stand by the fact we should have got someone experienced given our situation, we need results, not 35-45 minutes of decent performances.

Spot on. There were several experiened Manager's available and we went with a rookie. This may prive a very costly mistake.

[Bumble]

Great post.

Typical rookie manager game, naively comes into the game wanting to us to play a certain way and thinking that if we do we'll win, that won't happen, you need to adapt to what's happening in the match and make changes, this reminds me of what Wenger wanted to do, play your game and not worry about the opposition which is a worry.

I still stand by the fact we should have got someone experienced given our situation, we need results, not 35-45 minutes of decent performances.

that was Wengers style but if you have players like Vieira, Campbell, Bergkamp, Cole, Pires, Henry, Lauren etc then it doesnt matter what the opposition does. Playing your way will win most of the time. They were intelligent, powerful, quality footballers.

You want the team to have a style of play, but also adapt to the opposition. i dont think we have the players to actually adapt to the opposition. We need our own style but we arent able to keep the high press high intensity either. We dont have that sort of player. so it will just take time to evolve the squad to start taking steps forward.

[Niall_Quinn]

Spot on. There were several experiened Manager's available and we went with a rookie. This may prive a very costly mistake.

I've already seen enough to believe things are going in the right direction. For the first time in a decade. Anyone expecting more than that. given a decade of decline, is wishing for the moon. Look for the little things, the big things come later. We won't see anything dramatic in terms of results for the remainder of this season. But we have already seen some dramatic changes in terms of commitment, discipline and basic football requirements. We shouldn't get carried away. To move from absolutely nothing, which is where we were mentally and tactically, to the very basics is a baby step. But a step that Wenger and Emery refused to take.

We were robbed today. For once in a long time we can say we were the better team and deserved to win. Okay, saying that doesn't get 3 points. But being the worst team and in no way deserving to win doesn't get the points either. This way, eventually we'll start picking up the points. We just have to keep heading in the same direction. No back-tracking allowed.

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

Spot on. There were several experiened Manager's available and we went with a rookie. This may prive a very costly mistake.

TBH, if we had to rate Arteta on just these 2 games, their has been a marked improvement in general. Definitely his team's performances have been better than anything Emery or Freddie offered us this season.

The question is could this not have been achieved or even surpassed by an experienced manager who shared the same ethic of needing to get the team to work harder (e.g Simeone and half a dozen other top managers) and had other proven tricks in his arsenal.

Anyone being unbiased would point out that Lampard easily got the better of Arteta tacticaly today and it wasn't that difficult.

Like someone said in another thread, "in the end, it comes down to who is the best fit for a club at that time"... yes Arteta seems to be rebuilding the psyche of the team but what about the results we need to stay competitive? Bournemouth lost convincingly yesterday, Chelsea lost before they met us and should have lost today... how many more points can we afford to experiment with??

Like any true fan I hope our gamble with Arteta pays off,
I really do, and their are some encouraging signs, but honestly the guys running this club didn't need to take this risk at this time.... any serious person who loves this club wouldnt have done so. Simple.

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

I've already seen enough to believe things are going in the right direction. For the first time in a decade. Anyone expecting more than that. given a decade of decline, is wishing for the moon. Look for the little things, the big things come later. We won't see anything dramatic in terms of results for the remainder of this season. But we have already seen some dramatic changes in terms of commitment, discipline and basic football requirements. We shouldn't get carried away. To move from absolutely nothing, which is where we were mentally and tactically, to the very basics is a baby step. But a step that Wenger and Emery refused to take.

We were robbed today. For once in a long time we can say we were the better team and deserved to win. Okay, saying that doesn't get 3 points. But being the worst team and in no way deserving to win doesn't get the points either. This way, eventually we'll start picking up the points. We just have to keep heading in the same direction. No back-tracking allowed.

Spot on TBF.

We've already taken the gamble so we might as well all get behind the moving train.

Though I'm still calling them out now, because if the train derails I'm going to be as mad as hell!

[Özim]

I've already seen enough to believe things are going in the right direction. For the first time in a decade. Anyone expecting more than that. given a decade of decline, is wishing for the moon. Look for the little things, the big things come later. We won't see anything dramatic in terms of results for the remainder of this season. But we have already seen some dramatic changes in terms of commitment, discipline and basic football requirements. We shouldn't get carried away. To move from absolutely nothing, which is where we were mentally and tactically, to the very basics is a baby step. But a step that Wenger and Emery refused to take.

We were robbed today. For once in a long time we can say we were the better team and deserved to win. Okay, saying that doesn't get 3 points. But being the worst team and in no way deserving to win doesn't get the points either. This way, eventually we'll start picking up the points. We just have to keep heading in the same direction. No back-tracking allowed.

I'm not quite as lenient as you, we've had 2 games under him and picked up 1 point out of 6, sorry but for me that's not good enough, Ancelotti has won both his matches at Everton, Mourinho has been picking up plenty of points at Spurs and even Pearson has been picking up points for lowly Watford, it's not our fault the board decided to appoint a novice, so for me I'll be judgng him like I would any manager who I'd expect to come in now on results.

So we played ok for 35 minutes, so what, we ended up with 0 points and results are what matter, I'd rather play rubbish and have one shot and win one nil, this kind of thin is exactly what was happening under Wenger, playing ok but losing. Chelsea came out in the 2nd half and dominated and in the end got what they deserved the 3 points, Arteta didn't react to try and stop them dominating and he paid the price. Lampard said in his interview Chelsea were terrible for half an hour which says a lot as well.

The stats highlight this:

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20191229/331de4c04b9bfb0d8cd880db1008946a.jpg

So all we had were two shots on target and 7 off, Chelsea had double and they're the away team, even before the goal Abraham headed straight at Leno when he should have scored, the signs were there.

For me not good enough, what we're seeing is a rookie manager doing rookie things and not knowing what to do when things aren't working.

I'll also add I don't know what we're doing with Pepe, we paid 72 million for this guy only for him to sit on the bench, Nelson played well today but has been poor in the 2 matches prior to this so you can't say he earnt his place. If you don't play someone you're never going to get the best out of him and given how much he cost, maybe we should be trying to.

[Marc Overmars]

Good post Zim.

Standards are so low now that any sort of reasonable application is met with glee.

From what I was watching, I saw a team that tried hard but didn’t create much and just put all their eggs into defending an early lead because they didn’t have the confidence to try and kill the game off.

[Letters]

Does anyone know the last time we were this poor at this stage of the season? Till recently it was "the worst start for 35 years" but we've now managed to beat that record as the team from 82/83 had more points after 20 games than this lot.

I don't agree with NQ that it's been a decade of decline. You can cherry pick where you compare from and to I guess but the way I've always seen it the real decline happened between 2004 and 2006. That's when we went from the Invincibles on 90 points to 4th place on 67 points. Compared to Wenger's last season when we got 63.
In between those two seasons we kinda bumbled around in the top 4 most years. There were good seasons like 2007/8 when we were close to the title but that was the only time we threatened to win it, there were other bad seasons like 2010/11 when we got 68 points.
All in all though it's really hard to draw a sensible line through it all. Drawing it from 2005/6 to Wenger's penultimate season or last season would even imply a steady improvement which would be dishonest:

https://i.ibb.co/NYHtdr5/Arsenal2004-2019.jpg

Last season was somewhat of an improvement on Wenger's last but with 70 points it was still only marginally better than 2005/6.
I'd say there's been a decline in terms of how much I've enjoyed watching the games, in terms of end result there's been no steady decline and towards the end of Wenger's tenure we even picked up a few trophies. This season we've fallen off a cliff edge but the side Wenger left us with got to a European Final last year and went close to top 4 so I think pinning this all on him is a stretch.

[Mac76]

We need to accept the squad is painfully thin, our bench offered little today, the game was lost by the time Pepe came on

though for what it's worth i'd have brought Smith-Rowe on instead of Willock who did nothing as far as i could see

[Bumble]

One thing arseblog mentioned and i agreed with. Was that for first time in a while i was bothered by the result. So thats a positive.

I do like the fact arteta gets off the bench too and that freddie was in the stand for a different viewpoint. So small positives.

[Niall_Quinn]

I'm not quite as lenient as you, we've had 2 games under him and picked up 1 point out of 6, sorry but for me that's not good enough, Ancelotti has won both his matches at Everton, Mourinho has been picking up plenty of points at Spurs and even Pearson has been picking up points for lowly Watford, it's not our fault the board decided to appoint a novice, so for me I'll be judgng him like I would any manager who I'd expect to come in now on results.

So we played ok for 35 minutes, so what, we ended up with 0 points and results are what matter, I'd rather play rubbish and have one shot and win one nil, this kind of thin is exactly what was happening under Wenger, playing ok but losing. Chelsea came out in the 2nd half and dominated and in the end got what they deserved the 3 points, Arteta didn't react to try and stop them dominating and he paid the price. Lampard said in his interview Chelsea were terrible for half an hour which says a lot as well.

The stats highlight this:

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20191229/331de4c04b9bfb0d8cd880db1008946a.jpg

So all we had were two shots on target and 7 off, Chelsea had double and they're the away team, even before the goal Abraham headed straight at Leno when he should have scored, the signs were there.

For me not good enough, what we're seeing is a rookie manager doing rookie things and not knowing what to do when things aren't working.

I'll also add I don't know what we're doing with Pepe, we paid 72 million for this guy only for him to sit on the bench, Nelson played well today but has been poor in the 2 matches prior to this so you can't say he earnt his place. If you don't play someone you're never going to get the best out of him and given how much he cost, maybe we should be trying to.

42% possession and 7 attempts is preferable to 90% possession and zero attempts. It was a well organised and controlled first half. We looked like a real team for a while. It's a start. And we're right at the start. It appears we need to work on fitness levels too. I'm not sure what people were expecting at this stage? A sudden transformation of the results and a bid for the top 4? Led by a rookie manager who's learning as he goes and trying to bring a group of undisciplined and untrained players with him? Yesterday's showing could have been a lot worse. We could have seen a team with no clue, doing the same old things and no sign of improvement anywhere. We didn't see that. So we're already better off than we were. Big test now is to continue improving, rather than falling back into the bullshit we've seen for most of the season.

[Niall_Quinn]

We need to accept the squad is painfully thin, our bench offered little today, the game was lost by the time Pepe came on

though for what it's worth i'd have brought Smith-Rowe on instead of Willock who did nothing as far as i could see

Yep. And that's down to the board. If the manager and the players are ready to give this a go and the fans are ready to give them a chance, we'll need to see the board step up too. That's where it's most likely to fall down though. Unless Kroenke starts giving a shit there's a ceiling that can't be pushed through.

[Mac76]

Yep. And that's down to the board. If the manager and the players are ready to give this a go and the fans are ready to give them a chance, we'll need to see the board step up too. That's where it's most likely to fall down though. Unless Kroenke starts giving a shit there's a ceiling that can't be pushed through.

I understand the cynicism towards the Kroenkes but i'm not totally signed up to it

They did provide funds to buy Pepe etc in the summer, and i certainly heard that they started voicing doubts about Emery ahead of Raul and co

I'm not saying they're the best owners and they don't know much about football or the PL but tbh i've not seen them pretend they do, they've relied on Gazidis, Raul etc for that and have taken bad advice on signings like Xhaka, Mustafi and also hiring Emery

The real test i guess is whether they're prepared to fund more signings in the January window as we desperately need more quality and experience in defence and midfield

And such signings shouldn't depend on selling mustafi, we ahould just get rid of him any way we can

[Özim]

I understand the cynicism towards the Kroenkes but i'm not totally signed up to it

They did provide funds to buy Pepe etc in the summer, and i certainly heard that they started voicing doubts about Emery ahead of Raul and co

I'm not saying they're the best owners and they don't know much about football or the PL but tbh i've not seen them pretend they do, they've relied on Gazidis, Raul etc for that and have taken bad advice on signings like Xhaka, Mustafi and also hiring Emery

The real test i guess is whether they're prepared to fund more signings in the January window as we desperately need more quality and experience in defence and midfield

And such signings shouldn't depend on selling mustafi, we ahould just get rid of him any way we can

Don't think they did fund the purchase of Pepe though, the cost of the transfer was spread over several years, our spending last summer in total was something like 40-50 million as reported. They deferred in the hope they'd get CL football to cover the cost, doesn't look like it's happening. So basically they've probably crippled our transfer budget in the following seasons in the hope we'd get top 4.

[Mac76]

Don't think they did fund the purchase of Pepe though, the cost of the transfer was spread over several years, our spending last summer in total was something like 40-50 million as reported. They deferred in the hope they'd get CL football to cover the cost, doesn't look like it's happening. So basically they've probably crippled our transfer budget in the following seasons in the hope we'd get top 4.

Ok, that's a fair point, but it's presumably only crippled if they refuse extra funds to back arteta in january, or is thete more to it than that?

[Bumble]

Ok, that's a fair point, but it's presumably only crippled if they refuse extra funds to back arteta in january, or is thete more to it than that?

Aren't most signings paid for over the length of contract as opposed to one lump sum. Think that is fairly standard.

Still baffled why pepe doesn't play more. Although nelson on the right has looked lively in games. But surely laca could be replaced with pepe.

[I am invisible]

Don't think they did fund the purchase of Pepe though, the cost of the transfer was spread over several years, our spending last summer in total was something like 40-50 million as reported. They deferred in the hope they'd get CL football to cover the cost, doesn't look like it's happening. So basically they've probably crippled our transfer budget in the following seasons in the hope we'd get top 4.
Correct. Or at least that’s also what I’ve read. Basically, unless we’re sitting on more cash reserves than we know about, then it’s looking like a big chunk of next summer’s budget has already been spent on financing the Pepe deal, and we’re going to have to sell before we can buy* (*not necessarily a bad thing).

I do kind of agree with Mac in that I don’t think they’re the worst owners in the world because of funding. We generate more than enough to be self-sufficient, and have spent more than most in recent years - we’ve just spend it really, really badly. In that respect I think they’d be justified in expecting the people running the club to prove that they actually know how to handle a budget before giving them more money to waste.

Where I do think that they’re crappy owners is that they’re often casual and complacent to the point of negligence, and let bad situations drag on for waaaaaaaay too long before they take action. And what’s worse is they haven’t surrounded themselves with anyone who can advise them properly - at best they’ve got Raul, but who’s monitoring what he’s getting up to. This is where they really need to get their act together and freshen up the board of directors - at the moment it’s viewed as little more than a ceremonial body, when it should be providing vital insight and oversight for Stan and Josh.

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Aren't most signings paid for over the length of contract as opposed to one lump sum. Think that is fairly standard.

Still baffled why pepe doesn't play more. Although nelson on the right has looked lively in games. But surely laca could be replaced with pepe.
Who knows? Could be the pressure of his price tag getting to him? Could be he’s struggling to settle in a new league and a new country? Maybe both of these things combined with the hostile crowd and the absolute shit-show he’s walked into have shattered his confidence?

If I had to guess I’d say it’s because he maybe isn’t putting enough effort in defensively and he’s maybe a little too one-footed, which makes his actions too predictable. We know Arteta is demanding max effort as a ‘non-negotiable’, and from the training clips I’ve seen it looks like we’re putting a lot of work into drilling the players to receive the ball and play a pass in 360°, so perhaps he’s flunking both these tests at the moments (or simply isn’t doing them as well as Nelson)? Again, it probably comes down to confidence.