Match Reaction v Liverpool (home)

[McNamara That Ghost...]

That went well. :lol:

One of the worst displays this season which is impressive.

[Xhaka Can’t]

I guess Xhaka wasn’t the problem.

[Mac76]

Arteta 100% to blame, you could see he'd told them to be really defensive

No one's scared of Liverpool anymore - except of us of course

[Gooner23]

Utter shite. Tactics all wrong and too many half assed performances.

This season can't end quick enough. Miracle needed in the Europe League.

[dazthegooner]

Think Arteta should have stayed a #2.

[Bumble]

I guess Xhaka wasn’t the problem.

Even worse it makes xhaka look like a key player for us.

We were awful. Arteta is lucky there are no fans in the stadium to watch this.

We are 9th and i think we will do well to finish higher

[Niall_Quinn]

Losers.

And good at it.

Losers last season.

Losers this season.

Losers next season.

Losers.

[Chippy]

That went well. :lol:

One of the worst displays this season which is impressive.

Fuck off Arteta 😠

[Chippy]

Arteta 100% to blame, you could see he'd told them to be really defensive

No one's scared of Liverpool anymore - except of us of course

Who can replace Arteta?

[Letters]

We are 9th and i think we will do well to finish higher

You look at the teams above us and the gap to them we have no real chance of finishing higher.
We are the mid tablest we’ve been for years.

[IBK]

Difficult to be objective after witnessing that.

The way I feel ATM is that we have to face facts. Arteta has been given every opportunity to show us who he is. And what he is is a promising young coach who could be good if he cuts his teeth properly. But his inexperience is directly reflected in the complete inconsistency that his team has showed us - and in the decisions that he has taken. It is extraordinary that he could have found himself as not only coach, but manager of a team of Arsenal's stature, and having been one of those who gave him the benefit of the doubt, I am afraid that I no longer believe that he even has the capacity to get us back into the top 4. This is not a knee jerk, and its not even about being 9th after the majority of the season has played out. Its about the decision making; the mentality of his players and the lack of the one thing that I wanted to see most of all - an identity that runs through whatever team and whatever personnel that take the field.

The limited successes that we have had seem increasingly to be down to chance - and the brilliance of certain players at certain times - than any real plan. Tonight has been humbling and disillusioning, and I think I've lost the faith. Where we go from here fuck knows.

[Letters]

Can I do a

AnYoNe WoUlD bE bEtTeR tHaN wEnGeR?

No?

[Niall_Quinn]

The only Godsend thing is we'll never be a mid table club. Some people need to get a grip and stop exaggerating about stuff like that. Poor old Zim, eh? Saw the writing on the wall - read it - got shot to shit for stating what was obvious.

[Niall_Quinn]

Wenger is at the root of all of this. He destroyed every aspect of the club. Every move he made in the later years baked failure into our fibre. We've had a so-called winning manager and a rookie manager and neither of them could make a dent in the shit pile Wenger slaved to create. The next guy won't make any impact either. Wenger ensured everything was catastrophic before he eventually fucked off.

[Letters]

:lol: We were never a mid table team till someone left.
And the season after he left we got 70 points, a few points off 3rd and got to the Europa League final.
So spare me the nonsense about what a terrible squad we were left with.
Things really fell apart under Emery. I don’t know if Arteta is the right person to sort it out. There have been some encouraging signs but we are bang mid table.
He always felt like a gamble. I’m not sure replacing him now is going to do much good though.

[Letters]

Wenger is at the root of all of this. He destroyed every aspect of the club. Every move he made in the later years baked failure into our fibre. We've had a so-called winning manager and a rookie manager and neither of them could make a dent in the shit pile Wenger slaved to create. The next guy won't make any impact either. Wenger ensured everything was catastrophic before he eventually fucked off.

The later years when we won 3 FA Cups in 4 years? Those ones?
You were the one saying that anyone would be better than Wenger.
And you said that when Wenger left you’d be expecting a title challenge in 2 years.
Now it’s all “well of course no one else could do better”

:shrug:

[Niall_Quinn]

And there it is. The excuses. Passing the buck. Refusing to accept that under the great man himself there were plenty of people saying we were going to end up a mid-table team if somebody didn't step up and put the incompetent out of his misery. But he dragged on for years and that's where the damage was done. That's where the soul of a competitive team was ripped out. It's odd that people were saying it at the time - myself included - and it has come to pass EXACTLY as predicted.

Must be a coincidence. Couldn't possibly be anything else.

When things are predicted and work out exactly as predicted, it can't possibly be because it was always so predictable. It must be down to something, anything else. A lucky guess? Based on that shitty sideways tip-tap, do nothing, go nowhere shitball that Wenger trademarked?

Tip tap. Tip Tap.

[Letters]

The only Godsend thing is we'll never be a mid table club. Some people need to get a grip and stop exaggerating about stuff like that. Poor old Zim, eh? Saw the writing on the wall - read it - got shot to shit for stating what was obvious.
Yes. Zim, the wise seer

Zim (and others) 2006: We’ll be a mid table size if Wenger doesn’t leave.
Rinse and repeat every year.

Fast forward to 2021: Aha! See! Told you so!

:sarcy:

And note, the slide to mid-table has happened after he left.
I’ve noted above how we did the season after, we were well placed to push on for top 4.

[Niall_Quinn]

It's like the car going off a cliff. If the driver keeps his foot on the pedal and then leaps out at the last moment, don't be blaming him for the fireball. Blame the people left in the car. Makes perfect sense.

Decline always happens instantly, never by stages. If somebody takes something good and fucks it up but rides the inertia, they are a hero and the fucker who stumbles through the wreckage afterwards is to blame. Provided the culprit is never blamed all is well.

[Letters]

It's odd that people were saying it at the time - myself included - and it has come to pass EXACTLY as predicted.

Must be a coincidence. Couldn't possibly be anything else.

You literally said that a new manager coming in should have us challenging for the title in 2 years...

Do you want me to find the post? Stop pretending you had a crystal ball, you said anyone would be an immediate improvement on Wenger and we should be challenging in 2 years

:doh:

[Niall_Quinn]

Ah, turns out it's MY fault. Now I get it. Provided we never talk about that monumental fraud Wenger, everything else is on the table. But at least we know why we're shit - it was my posting here on GW that did it. What sort of a cunt am I?

[Niall_Quinn]

Well I'll say it if nobody else has the grace.

YOU WERE RIGHT ZIM. RIGHT DOWN TO THE FINAL DETAILS.

Not that it took a genius to work it out mind you. But at least some people had the honesty to speak openly. Especially given the barrage you face on here if you criticise the great fraud Wenger.

[Niall_Quinn]

This is just another loss, among many. A normal thing these days.

But it's also a continuation of a trend that Wenger made a tradition. When we play our supposed rivals we lose. And there's absolutely no sign of that changing. That's the problem. Nothing has changed, in years.

[Marc Overmars]

Forgot it was on, couldn’t be bothered to watch and only just seen the score.

Arteta. :haha:

Not many excuses left for him really. There are teams and coaches who had a worse starting position than us yet have made many more strides forward. David fucking Moyes has West Ham dreaming of a top 4 finish while we’re supposed to accept that we’re mid table shit because we were already crap before Arteta turned up?

If he was any good there would have been a difference in league performance by now but there hasn’t been anything. We are arguably worse.

[Letters]

Well I'll say it if nobody else has the grace.

YOU WERE RIGHT ZIM. RIGHT DOWN TO THE FINAL DETAILS.

Not that it took a genius to work it out mind you. But at least some people had the honesty to speak openly. Especially given the barrage you face on here if you criticise the great fraud Wenger.

Zim: Red! (Ball lands in black!)
Zim: Red! (Ball lands in black!)
Zim: Red! (Ball lands in black!)
...
Zim: Red! (Ball lands in black!)
Zim: Red! (Ball lands in red!)
NQ: Zim woz rite!

:sarcy:

And no, obviously none of this is your fault. Stop the straw manning.

IF you now think that the current malaise is Wenger’s fault then that’s not unreasonable. I disagree because of how we did the season after he left. To me that seems good evidence that we had a squad capable of pushing on. But if you see it differently, that Wenger had set in a lot of rot which took a while to be fully evident then ok, it’s not an unreasonable stance.
But just don’t pretend you saw it all coming when you kept posting about how anyone would immediately improve us and you said that a new manager should get us challenging in 2 years.

[Niall_Quinn]

He can't help himself, can he?

[Mac76]

Think Arteta should have stayed a #2.

he is a #2

[Chippy]

hi is a #2

Wenger in! 😁😁

[Mac76]

Forgot it was on, couldn’t be bothered to watch and only just seen the score.

Arteta. :haha:

Not many excuses left for him really. There are teams and coaches who had a worse starting position than us yet have made many more strides forward. David fucking Moyes has West Ham dreaming of a top 4 finish while we’re supposed to accept that we’re mid table shit because we were already crap before Arteta turned up?

If he was any good there would have been a difference in league performance by now but there hasn’t been anything. We are arguably worse.

:gp:

(I switched off after the first half - i've never done that before...)

[dazthegooner]

Arteta went into this match scared of Liverpool he's even said they're better in every department (great way to inspire your players) , if your manager doesn't have faith in you :shrug:

[Marc Overmars]

So Arteta has a worse record after 50 games than Emery & Wenger’s last 50. It is only goals conceded where we’ve improved, however that is offset by a huge downturn in goals scored, we’re a poor attacking side now and constantly fire blanks.

We finished 8th last year after a season of huge disruption, that was the free pass. If you told anyone then we wouldn’t better that this year it would have been deemed a huge failure.

If by some miracle we win the EL then of course we can look to move on to better things but I don’t see how we’re ever going to really improve without finding some consistency in the league again.

[Marc Overmars]

Arteta went into this match scared of Liverpool he's even said they're better in every department (great way to inspire your players) , if your manager doesn't have faith in you :shrug:

Every team in the league would have given Liverpool a game. Except for us.

Arteta is lucky there are no fans and also he seems to be a nice guy with a lot of pals within the game and media. It’s basically why Ole still has a job at United, although at least he’s got them competing higher up the table.

[Letters]

So Arteta has a worse record after 50 games than Emery & Wenger’s last 50. It is only goals conceded where we’ve improved, however that is offset by a huge downturn in goals scored, we’re a poor attacking side now and constantly fire blanks.


That’s pretty damning.
Auba is a big factor, having spent 2 seasons bailing us out he’s been awful this season.
Another player who, having got his big pay day, mentally checks out?

Personally I think we might as well stick with Arteta now.
But if next season starts poorly we should look elsewhere.

[Mac76]

That’s pretty damning.
Auba is a big factor, having spent 2 seasons bailing us out he’s been awful this season.
Another player who, having got his big pay day, mentally checks out?

Personally I think we might as well stick with Arteta now.
But if next season starts poorly we should look elsewhere.

i'm not sure i agree with sticking with him though i'm sure we will

there's so many things that could be done better - team selections, tactics, squads, rotation, in-game management - he's learning on the job but stubborn with it, which holds up his development and i still think we should look to someone with more experience

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

Forgot it was on, couldn’t be bothered to watch and only just seen the score.

Arteta. :haha:

Not many excuses left for him really. There are teams and coaches who had a worse starting position than us yet have made many more strides forward. David fucking Moyes has West Ham dreaming of a top 4 finish while we’re supposed to accept that we’re mid table shit because we were already crap before Arteta turned up?

If he was any good there would have been a difference in league performance by now but there hasn’t been anything. We are arguably worse.

There isn't even a need to over analyse.

Anyone who has followed us this season and had the misfortune of watching us yesterday will know clealry that the Rookie is not for us.

He is bog standard coach and needs to go, simple.

To think he and Emery were the first 2 choices on the list to replace AW shows how far this club sunk under the stewardship of the latter.

Kronke, the terrible board that sold the club to him, his accomplice AW and foolish AW loyalist are all responsible for this dross.

We need a proven world class coach ASAP and we have had many chances to correct the mistakes we've made and rid ourselves of this wretched mentality we currently have.

Sack Arteta, end of.

Selling the club to someone who actually gives a hoot and loves the game would also be a massive plus

[Letters]

i'm not sure i agree with sticking with him though i'm sure we will

there's so many things that could be done better - team selections, tactics, squads, rotation, in-game management - he's learning on the job but stubborn with it, which holds up his development and i still think we should look to someone with more experience

I’m not sure I agree either :lol:
I keep changing my mind, but right now I don’t see much value in replacing him. At times it seems like he’s been taking us in the right direction and given us more shape. Overall though the results have been patchy. There’s certainly a case to be made to replace him. But Emery was “the experienced manager” and that didn’t work out.

[selassie]

I have no words for that display (if you want to call it that) last night. A complete horror show from start to finish.

[Bumble]

we are now 10th but on the plus side we only play two teams above us and the bottom 5.so i am sure we will finish well and everything will look rosy until next season starts.

[Letters]

we are now 10th but on the plus side we only play two teams above us and the bottom 5.so i am sure we will finish well and everything will look rosy until next season starts.

Thing is, even if we “go on a run”, the gap is such we are unlikely to finish higher.
10th or 11th seems likely which is pretty pathetic.

[Bumble]

Thing is, even if we “go on a run”, the gap is such we are unlikely to finish higher.
10th or 11th seems likely which is pretty pathetic.

10th or 11th is pathetic and there can be no excuses. Arteta probably has about 10 games at the start of next season and see where we are. i dont see us as a top 4 side but we need to recruit the way liverpool did, sell a player for alot of invest it well

[Marc Overmars]

He may well go on to do big things as a coach but if we persist with him we could be out in the wilderness for a few more years while he cuts his teeth. If the board are happy for us to be used as a project then fine, but it has to come with a timescale and accountability.

[selassie]

10th or 11th is pathetic and there can be no excuses. Arteta probably has about 10 games at the start of next season and see where we are. i dont see us as a top 4 side but we need to recruit the way liverpool did, sell a player for alot of invest it well

One of our biggest problems is the amount of garbage players we have on big wages, these players are going to be almost impossible to shift, we certainly shouldn't be sticking with them given their woeful displays this season. Willian, Xhaka (he's been relatively good lately) & David Luiz come to mind. Laca isn't far behind even though he has had a relatively OK season, Auba looks like he has mentally checked out, he has been awful this season.

We basically have big problems in pretty much every area of the team, I don't think next season is going to be much different with Arteta in charge unless we get lucky with our recruitment in the summer.

If i was in charge, I'd basically start again and build with the youth, we basically need to build the team around them with a few smart low key buys.

[Ralpheroo72]

Project Arteta not working out. Add to that the amount of woeful players we have, it’s a recipe for mediocrity. A club of our stature, we really should have an established, top drawer manager. We aren’t the sort of club that should be experimenting with a novice coach, as much as I do like Arteta. Whilst I accept that Wenger was an experiment, I can’t see history repeating itself this time round.

[LDG]

It’s a long haul dragging is back from Wenger. It was always going to be, but it was the right thing to move on, and the club has needed rebuilding to operate in the current climate, boyh on and off the pitch.

When you have someone in place for so long, who had say so over everything, it’ll take some time to get out of old habits.

The most important thing, is that the shape of this Arsenal team is far better than it has been for a very long time, but some of the personnel don’t fit.

Smith Rowe and Saka are big misses, because they take the game to the opposition. I would argue that the introduction of those two, Tierney, Mari and Garbirel are regular first teamers now...so in a year we have half of a new team. Add Partey to the mix (I think we’ll see more from him next season), and we’ll start pushing forward I’m sure. We just have to have some patience, because I do enjoy watching the aforementioned players far more than those we’ve inherited from past regimes.

Pepe is a huge disappointment, the purchase of Willian was ridiculous. And the persistence with Xhaka and Cabellos is infuriating. But I would argue that we don’t have options in that position at the moment, and we are strapped for cash big time.

For what Arteta has at his disposal, I’ve been largely impressed. I wasn’t expecting to move forward instantly. The best teams are built over time, and for me, there is enough identity in this set up to give me cause for optimism. But he does need to know when to make more ruthless decisions, and he needs a transfer window with full backing, and further clearing of the decks. For me, his next moves in the summer are the key to deciding whether he has the ambition, as the lokes of Xhaka should be either relegated to the bench as back up, or sold to funda suitable replacement.

Lastly, we need to find consistency in our intensity, as it’s not right to push Man Utd about, and back off Liverpool. They didn’t work anywhere near hard enough the other night.

[Mac76]

Xhaka (he's been relatively good lately) .

if giving the ball back to the person who just passed it to you or giving the ball away or being too slow means he's relatively good then fine...

all this crap about him improving basically mens he's not been sent off lately - otehr than that i see nothign of worth

it's a shame that we were so bad on Saturday without Xhaka, as now Arteta will be more convinced than ever Xhaka is indespensible, but in fact it was his decision to play Ceballos and the fact Partey is increasingly crap that's the problem - he should have played Chambers in DM although Chambers is good at RB so a bit of a dilemma there i admit - maybe Elneny then

[Mac76]

Project Arteta not working out. Add to that the amount of woeful players we have, it’s a recipe for mediocrity. A club of our stature, we really should have an established, top drawer manager. We aren’t the sort of club that should be experimenting with a novice coach, as much as I do like Arteta. Whilst I accept that Wenger was an experiment, I can’t see history repeating itself this time round.

Wenger had done very well at Monaco and also managed other big clubs abroad, no experiemnt there except to the narrow-minded insular british press who saw him as a know-nothing johnny foreigner

[Bumble]

Wenger had done very well at Monaco and also managed other big clubs abroad, no experiemnt there except to the narrow-minded insular british press who saw him as a know-nothing johnny foreigner

no he hadnt. managed 2 french clubs and one japanese club. no big club experience. but what Wenger had was exceptional knowledge of french football at a time they were riding high on the international stage. this gave him a competitive advantage of most in the league. he improved the life style and diets of players as has been credited as well. but he joined us at a time we had a solid defensive unit and he added what he did best the attacking side.

[Letters]

Wenger wasn’t an experiment.
He’d been successful elsewhere at 2 clubs. Sure, not one of the really big ones, but he wasn’t some rookie with no experience of managing a club like Arteta.
And while Wenger inherited a great defence, the Invincibles was entirely Wenger’s squad, so any assertion that the only reason for Wenger’s success is a bit simplistic.
He was a revolutionary when he came, but football moved on and he didn’t.
Arteta was always a gamble. Personally I’m not willing to cash in the chips just yet, but if next season starts poorly we need to get rid.

[Xhaka Can’t]

Who can replace Arteta?

Be careful what you wish for.

[Ralpheroo72]

I wish someone at the club actually knew how to run a football club.

[GP]

I wish I was a little bit taller

[Letters]

I wish someone at the club actually knew how to run a football club.

We aren’t a football club, we are a business.

[IBK]

3 days later and I still feel despondent. I think that its because Saturday's game encapsulated so many of the real problems with our team and manager. It wasn't the loss - Liverpool were very good. It was the way we failed even to compete in any department.

- Decision making #1. Arteta's set up was a disaster, and I worry that our previous improvement since Xmas was reliant more on individual players - Saka; ESR; Tierney and Odegard - than any settled system. Without 3 of them it was back to November and the mess of a team that we witnessed then.

- Decision making # 2. F*ck Aubameyang on the left. In fact he shouldn't even have been on the pitch. Extraordinary that his previous favourite, Willian, was dropped just at the time when he had been showing a small bit of form, for the execrable Ceballos who has shown the oppposite. All of the best bits of this season have been made by our young; upcoming and hungry players. The manager is without 2 of them and loses a third but still won't play Martinelli - who has (with 1 exception) only done good things when he has played. Arteta seems incapable of following the simple formula of playing players on form and dropping those out of form, and can't even show consistency with the likes of Aubameyamg who was controversially dropped for the Spurs game, but then that event is undermined by continuing to play him when he has stunk up the place playing wise.

- Decision making #3. Arteta's best performances have come when he has been positive/aggressive in taking the game to the opposition, but he reverted to a negative mindset in this game - and basically invited Liverpool to do what they do best. The result was predictable from the moment this team took the field.

- Failure to adapt. We have a manager who (IMO) tries to be too clever and over-analyses the opposition (in this way, he is the opposite of Wenger who gave little thought to the opposition's strengths and weknesses). Yet despite this, he seems not to understand his own team's weaknesses. We have seen this with Leno, who is clearly not comfortable with playing out from the back, and in the Liverpool game in the absence of Luis, he seemed to think that Holding can play a passing out game. He can't. he does basic defending. Similarly, against West ham, Arteta tried to be too clever in setting up a team to play against a West Ham team that tends to play on the counter, and Moyes owned him in the first half by pressing likel hell and waiting for us to self-destruct, which we duly did. This lack of flexibility worries me - and I feel that Arteta confuses our players by continually trying to second guess the opposition - which leads to muddled thinking and is a potential reason for the errors we keep making.

- Mentality. We have a team whose confidence is brittle; whose concentration levels are poor and whose individual players' decision making is suspect. Plus we have few leaders able to pick the team up when things inevitably turn against them. This has dogged Arenal for years - and we thought this had reached its nadir under Emery, but the past month has seen us drifting back to pre Xmas, and I wonder whether Areta has what it takes to change this on a consistent basis.

Yes - we have Slavia Prague this week, and we all hope that we see a different team then. But if we are honest, we are more worried about serving up another shit show than confident of a good result. And that's the crux of it for me. Results aside, after 15 months we do not know what team we are going to see, game on game, at Arsenal. And that for me is a real indictment of Arteta. My faith is definitely wavering, and that is a bad place to be in where realistically we are stuck with this manager for teh forseeable future.

[Marc Overmars]

Plenty of coaches don’t always get what they want/need due to things out of their control but they work with what they’ve got and with a sprinkling of new faces here and there, it is more than possible to compete. I cannot accept the notion that Arteta needs more time and money. Whatever happened to just a bit of coaching? Everything I hear about Arteta just sweeps what he’s actually doing with the team under the carpet. Who’s actually improved under him? I don’t count the young players in that because they would have exploded anyway. If anything he’s actually overseen a decline in the majority of long established players.

It’s our responsibility as fans to not normalise mid table and accept this is part of the process. It’s about moving forward and it’s quite obvious this team is going nowhere. Quite frankly it is embarrassing that we will probably finish lower than last season, which was a year of huge disruption yet we can’t better that after a somewhat settled season, albeit with no fans but everyone is playing under the same conditions anyway.

Our squad has had enough money pumped into it for them to be competing higher up the table. Even in the unlikely event of winning the EL there has to be a massive improvement next season in the league for me to even consider the option of him being the right man for the job.

Sooner the fans are back the better. This team has been sleep walking through the season and it’s about time they were woken abruptly.

[selassie]

if giving the ball back to the person who just passed it to you or giving the ball away or being too slow means he's relatively good then fine...

all this crap about him improving basically mens he's not been sent off lately - otehr than that i see nothign of worth

it's a shame that we were so bad on Saturday without Xhaka, as now Arteta will be more convinced than ever Xhaka is indespensible, but in fact it was his decision to play Ceballos and the fact Partey is increasingly crap that's the problem - he should have played Chambers in DM although Chambers is good at RB so a bit of a dilemma there i admit - maybe Elneny then

Mac, I know you hate Xhaka and I am no fan of Xhaka either, but the alternatives are not better than him.


Ceballos is a complete waste of space, he doesn't do anything other than repeatedly get caught by the press or spin around aimlessly and pass the ball sideways. Chambers is OK at RB, he has had a few decent games recently but was really poor on Saturday, constantly caught out of position and his distribution was shocking.

Elneny has had a few decent performances this season but isn't the solution. Aside from Partey who I agree has been poor lately, our midfield needs to be completely rebuilt, it's a complete mess.

[Mac76]

Totally agree with everything MO and IBK say above

I really hope the Kroenkes are watching this and starting to talk to any established managers who might be available in the summer, although i doubt it somehow

[IBK]

Totally agree with everything MO and IBK say above

I really hope the Kroenkes are watching this and starting to talk to any established managers who might be available in the summer, although i doubt it somehow

They won't. We have put all our eggs in one basket with Arteta, and doubled down on this by making him manager. I think it was le Grove last week who said that the real rot set in at AFc not when Wenger left but when Gazidis did. There was then no leadership for an executive team that he put in - and was a structure that should have worked with his firm oversight. Instead it went to shit.

The Kroenkes are still hoping for the magic bullet that sees us back to top 4, and don't understand that they need in fact to have a team in place to build from where we are - mid table. I thought that Arteta - at least as a coach - was the man to do this. But his player recruitment; the fact that most of the success stories in our team seem to have come about more by luck than from judgment, and his craven reliance on so-called senior players in the face of evidence that they, not the youngsters, are the problem suggests otherwise. I thought that we were seeing the blueprint for the future after Xmas, but that fact that despite biggish spending we are still 2 injuries away from the team that was a few points away from relegation in mid December is really, really worrying.

[WGC Goon]

After watching the game I just felt incredibly sad, what the hell has happened to this great club I've invested so much passion, time and hard earned money in? I'm tempted to turn my back on them even though I know I can't, just like everyone that posts on this forum can't and won't.
Arteta it appears want's to cut off his nose to spite his face, his negative tactics against an out of sorts Liverpool side were just cowardly. Why pick an out of form Ceballos? I don't even know what to say about Aubameyang anymore, surely he understands his attitude and performances have been woeful? Too many ageing players on high wages will continue to hold this team back unless we appoint an experienced manager who has the guts to look at the squad and make changes for the better, someone who is not blinkered by favouritism. I've wanted Arteta to succeed so much but it appears he isn't ready to manage a club of Arsenal's magnitude, his lack of experience really is starting to show now.
I said from the very first day that Stan Kroenke took over Arsenal that we would be in trouble, he has no concern for our beloved club and will be more than happy just to keep us ticking over. We can only hope that someone with a passion for success comes in with a ridiculous offer to buy him out, until then it's more dark days ahead I'm afraid :(

[Ralpheroo72]

We aren’t a football club, we are a business.

We are worse than Enron if that is possible

[IBK]

After watching the game I just felt incredibly sad, what the hell has happened to this great club I've invested so much passion, time and hard earned money in? I'm tempted to turn my back on them even though I know I can't, just like everyone that posts on this forum can't and won't.
Arteta it appears want's to cut off his nose to spite his face, his negative tactics against an out of sorts Liverpool side were just cowardly. Why pick an out of form Ceballos? I don't even know what to say about Aubameyang anymore, surely he understands his attitude and performances have been woeful? Too many ageing players on high wages will continue to hold this team back unless we appoint an experienced manager who has the guts to look at the squad and make changes for the better, someone who is not blinkered by favouritism. I've wanted Arteta to succeed so much but it appears he isn't ready to manage a club of Arsenal's magnitude, his lack of experience really is starting to show now.
I said from the very first day that Stan Kroenke took over Arsenal that we would be in trouble, he has no concern for our beloved club and will be more than happy to keep us just ticking over. We can only hope that someone with a passion for success comes in with a ridiculous offer to buy him out, until then it's more dark days ahead I'm afraid :(

Agree with much of that mate. I have really tried - and am still trying to take the view that we are where we are and that the damage done to the club will take a while to sort out, so be patient. I was in the LDG camp for a long time this season - ie Arteta is quality if inexperienced, and we need to give him time to turn this team into what we need it to be, and I still feel that getting rid of the manager will simply prolong the transition. But while I still believe that Arteta has something about him, and will probably be a success long term, I am concerned about what he is showing us - and some of his decision making seems to be poor. The worst thing the club could have done, IMO, is make him manager as well as coach. He should have been left as coach for a few years with a proper director of football calling the shots on transfers. This would have given him the support he needs, while mitigating the damage that he could do.

Listen - we have to understand that the reason Liverpool have been ordinary of late is because of fatigue - magnified by the style of football they play - and they were always going to be back to their normal selves after an international break. This was the worst time to play them. But its the way we set up, showed up, and played that has really exposed our manager. As matters stand I can't really see this pattern changing - play well but flatter to deceive and revert to type over a 10 game period. I hope I'm wrong but the evidence sadly suggests otherwise.

[selassie]

3 days later and I still feel despondent. I think that its because Saturday's game encapsulated so many of the real problems with our team and manager. It wasn't the loss - Liverpool were very good. It was the way we failed even to compete in any department.

- Decision making #1. Arteta's set up was a disaster, and I worry that our previous improvement since Xmas was reliant more on individual players - Saka; ESR; Tierney and Odegard - than any settled system. Without 3 of them it was back to November and the mess of a team that we witnessed then.

- Decision making # 2. F*ck Aubameyang on the left. In fact he shouldn't even have been on the pitch. Extraordinary that his previous favourite, Willian, was dropped just at the time when he had been showing a small bit of form, for the execrable Ceballos who has shown the oppposite. All of the best bits of this season have been made by our young; upcoming and hungry players. The manager is without 2 of them and loses a third but still won't play Martinelli - who has (with 1 exception) only done good things when he has played. Arteta seems incapable of following the simple formula of playing players on form and dropping those out of form, and can't even show consistency with the likes of Aubameyamg who was controversially dropped for the Spurs game, but then that event is undermined by continuing to play him when he has stunk up the place playing wise.

- Decision making #3. Arteta's best performances have come when he has been positive/aggressive in taking the game to the opposition, but he reverted to a negative mindset in this game - and basically invited Liverpool to do what they do best. The result was predictable from the moment this team took the field.

- Failure to adapt. We have a manager who (IMO) tries to be too clever and over-analyses the opposition (in this way, he is the opposite of Wenger who gave little thought to the opposition's strengths and weknesses). Yet despite this, he seems not to understand his own team's weaknesses. We have seen this with Leno, who is clearly not comfortable with playing out from the back, and in the Liverpool game in the absence of Luis, he seemed to think that Holding can play a passing out game. He can't. he does basic defending. Similarly, against West ham, Arteta tried to be too clever in setting up a team to play against a West Ham team that tends to play on the counter, and Moyes owned him in the first half by pressing likel hell and waiting for us to self-destruct, which we duly did. This lack of flexibility worries me - and I feel that Arteta confuses our players by continually trying to second guess the opposition - which leads to muddled thinking and is a potential reason for the errors we keep making.

- Mentality. We have a team whose confidence is brittle; whose concentration levels are poor and whose individual players' decision making is suspect. Plus we have few leaders able to pick the team up when things inevitably turn against them. This has dogged Arenal for years - and we thought this had reached its nadir under Emery, but the past month has seen us drifting back to pre Xmas, and I wonder whether Areta has what it takes to change this on a consistent basis.

Yes - we have Slavia Prague this week, and we all hope that we see a different team then. But if we are honest, we are more worried about serving up another shit show than confident of a good result. And that's the crux of it for me. Results aside, after 15 months we do not know what team we are going to see, game on game, at Arsenal. And that for me is a real indictment of Arteta. My faith is definitely wavering, and that is a bad place to be in where realistically we are stuck with this manager for teh forseeable future.

:gp:

Great post, totally agree with this.

[IBK]

:gp:

Great post, totally agree with this.

The sad thing is that, in a 'must win' game 5 days later - many of the same points could have been made about last night's game. It was indeed largely the shit show that we feared it would be - and that is where we seem to have come to with Arteta - only ever 2 or 3 games away from the debacle that we saw pre-Xmas. 15 months into Arteta's management this is not the progress we need or hoped to see. It is almost precisely our pattern under Emery.