Match Reaction v Citeh (away)

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Originally Posted by Letters

Well, looking at the 16 games before he joined:
W4 D7 L5
vs Arteta's games:
W8 D5 L3

It's been a bit better. We've moved up one place, we're a bit closer to the top 4 than we were. We're still in the FA Cup.
Nothing earth-shattering, I agree.

I don't particularly disagree with what you're saying, but he only joined late last year, with the enforced gap he's only been in charge for 16 games which have been a bit of an improvement on what they were before. Agree about the boring football.

TL;DR - I wouldn't sack a manager after 16 games unless it was a real car crash, which it hasn't been. I'm not 100% convinced by him but while we certainly let Wenger stay too long, we don't want to go to the other extreme and sack a manager after 16 games because he hasn't magically turned a deeply dysfunctional team into world-beaters. He deserves a transfer window and a season to prove himself - or not.

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Trouble is you're comparing a time when Emery had lost the team and was having a nightmare and when literally noone was happy, so years there's a marginal improvement on a guy who was struggling badly, that's not a good measuring stick, he should be doing a lot better.

I personally feels even in those 16 games he's shown he doesn't really know what he's doing and also you have to ask how he's turned a team with so much firepower (that's our strength) into a team with a tootless offence.

This season is beyond a write off so you have to just let things run their course and hope for some small nuggets of joy along the way.

I don’t think Arteta has made the kind of impact we had hoped for but I really feel like he’s working with scraps. Sure there are a few individual players with ability but I was going through the squad this morning and it is average as fuck really when you look at each player and compare with the better sides in the league.

Arteta can only reasonably be judged next season but I’d be lying to myself if I felt things were going to be any different.

We threw away top 4 last year, we choked in the EL final and we’ve been mid table ever since. We’ve been blaming the coaches for so long I think it’s time we look at the shower of crap taking the field.

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Originally Posted by Özim

Trouble is you're comparing a time when Emery had lost the team and was having a nightmare and when literally noone was happy, so years there's a marginal improvement on a guy who was struggling badly, that's not a good measuring stick, he should be doing a lot better.

I personally feels even in those 16 games he's shown he doesn't really know what he's doing and also you have to ask how he's turned a team with so much firepower (that's our strength) into a team with a tootless offence.

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You just asked if we'd improved :shrug:
I don't think we're massively disagreeing here. Arteta has talked a good game but there has only been incremental improvement at best.
But it seems downright silly to sack a manger after 16 games unless maybe we'd lost them all or something ridiculous like that.
Results have been OK, last night was grimly inevitable but we haven't won an away game against a top 6 for 5 years, that embarrassing record was never going to magically change. As MO says, this season is a write off. Arteta deserves a transfer window and a full season before we do anything too rash.

The squad is packed from top to bottom with shit players, like most mid-table squads. We've had a few talents arrive who quickly made the realisation there's no ambition here, and fucked off. That will happen again with Auba. The players who are past their peak or were overrated in the first place will linger on until their contracts have worn down and they've rooted out the last pennies. Then worse players will be brought in to replace them, but they'll sound like hot talents because the prices will just keep going up and up. 70mill for Pepe, for example. The guy can barely kick a ball. There's still a lot of cash to be earned from mid-table. Anywhere in the PL will do, even if you get relegated you get big cash. That's what the game is played for now, the cash. In 2018 the gypos banked £147mill in prize money, TV revenues, etc, for winning it. We banked £139mill for running in a distant 5th. West Ham, £110mill for 10th. Huddersfield, £94mill for being rock bottom and getting relegated. Where's the incentive to dump the hundreds of millions into this squad that it urgently requires? An investment of £200-300mill to rebuild the whole thing, just to make an extra few mills in return? Not happening.

I miss the days when there was no football.

Seriously, I do.

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Originally Posted by Marc Overmars

This season is beyond a write off so you have to just let things run their course and hope for some small nuggets of joy along the way.

I don’t think Arteta has made the kind of impact we had hoped for but I really feel like he’s working with scraps. Sure there are a few individual players with ability but I was going through the squad this morning and it is average as fuck really when you look at each player and compare with the better sides in the league.

Arteta can only reasonably be judged next season but I’d be lying to myself if I felt things were going to be any different.

We threw away top 4 last year, we choked in the EL final and we’ve been mid table ever since. We’ve been blaming the coaches for so long I think it’s time we look at the shower of crap taking the field.

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Aye, there are structural damages at this club on and off the field that are going to take a while to fix. Arteta isn't the solution, but he isn't the problem either...in fact if anything he at least has a vision of sorts and understands what needs to be done with the footballing side of things.

What he is working with is essentially a core bunch of players who are on the scrapheap, these are players that literally nobody wants to touch, that's pretty amazing given the money in football. Ozil & Mustafi are prime examples of washed up players who we have been stuck with paying huge salaries to. The remainder of our squad isn't great to look at aside from a few young talents who we will no doubt ruin in one way or another.

I have lowered my expectations so much for this club that I now talk about us like we are an established middle table team, why expect anything else?

I watched about an hour of yesterday's game and switched it off, anybody that saw that display yesterday won't have seen anything alarming. I am not even talking about Arsenal fans either, everybody knows what is wrong with Arsenal and that's just the football side, we as Fans see more and it's truly laughable how shambolic our club has become, it's embarrassing.

I literally don't care anymore, it's not even worth watching anymore games this season because nothing is going to change.

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Originally Posted by Letters

You just asked if we'd improved :shrug:
I don't think we're massively disagreeing here. Arteta has talked a good game but there has only been incremental improvement at best.
But it seems downright silly to sack a manger after 16 games unless maybe we'd lost them all or something ridiculous like that.
Results have been OK, last night was grimly inevitable but we haven't won an away game against a top 6 for 5 years, that embarrassing record was never going to magically change. As MO says, this season is a write off. Arteta deserves a transfer window and a full season before we do anything too rash.

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I think any new manager deserves more than a transfer window to put things right with the squad because it's a complete mess. We have some decent young talents to work with, Auba obviously, but Central Midfield & Central Defence need a complete rebuild. We have a number of players with a year left on their contract, that's not an issue per se, but it is when we are going to need to squad build with what I assume won't be a good budget. We are where the likes of Liverpool & Sc*m were prior to Klopp & Poch joining either club. I know the Sc*m now are on the way down too but they actually have some very saleable assets in their squad, we have who? We can't even get money for our best players!!! I mean how f*cked is that? We ALLOW, because it happens...our best players to walk away for FREE season after season, it's comical :wacko:

Let's not pretend, we have a massive rebuild job on our hands, it's gonna get worse before it gets better IMO.

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Originally Posted by Özim

Trouble is you're comparing a time when Emery had lost the team and was having a nightmare and when literally noone was happy, so years there's a marginal improvement on a guy who was struggling badly, that's not a good measuring stick, he should be doing a lot better.

I personally feels even in those 16 games he's shown he doesn't really know what he's doing and also you have to ask how he's turned a team with so much firepower (that's our strength) into a team with a tootless offence.

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I do see your side of the argument against Arteta, but i do feel for Arteta too. He's not perfect, I mean lately our best player, captain and only real offence threat has had to play out wide on the left to accomodate Nketiah. I like Nketiah, think he is a decent young talent...but move Auba outwide to give him minutes? :haha:

Yet the club wonders why Auba wont sign a contract extension? You couldn't make this shit up, only at Arsenal :haha:

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Originally Posted by selassie

I do see your side of the argument against Arteta, but i do feel for Arteta too. He's not perfect, I mean lately our best player, captain and only real offence threat has had to play out wide on the left to accomodate Nketiah. I like Nketiah, think he is a decent young talent...but move Auba outwide to give him minutes? :haha:

Yet the club wonders why Auba wont sign a contract extension? You couldn't make this shit up, only at Arsenal :haha:

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Yes also, Martinelli didn't even feature which is odd as well. Whilst it's not all on him, the basic errors he makes really don't help our situation.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Letters

You just asked if we'd improved :shrug:
I don't think we're massively disagreeing here. Arteta has talked a good game but there has only been incremental improvement at best.
But it seems downright silly to sack a manger after 16 games unless maybe we'd lost them all or something ridiculous like that.
Results have been OK, last night was grimly inevitable but we haven't won an away game against a top 6 for 5 years, that embarrassing record was never going to magically change. As MO says, this season is a write off. Arteta deserves a transfer window and a full season before we do anything too rash.

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Yes technically we have, but even if that's the case it's only marginally on a disastrous spell prior to his arrival, so it's not very good.

Maybe but did anyone really believe he was the answer, I certainly couldn't see the logic of bringing in a guy with no experience at all merely on hearsay, as it turns out he's not been very good at management so far (as expected), I forgot he also left Martinelli out, so he shifted Auba wide to play Nketiah and also didn't play Martinelli, that's an odd thing for anyone to do, especially after a 3 month break.

For me the fact he had no experience at all, it wouldn't be ridiculous to get rid of him at the end of the season and cut our losses, based on the fact he isn't a good manager and really hasn't shown anything of any promise. Better that than keep him a couple years, see us become mid table mainstay whilst losing all of our best players, because let's face it who is going to want to stick around for a rookie who doesn't know what he's doing.

I bet Guardiola was singing Arteta's praises yesterday for a free 3 points, won't get an easier 3 points, considering Arteta would have known Guardiolas methods better than most he did a very poor job indeed, according to him though it's down the bad luck!