At least it's not as low as our lowest point. It's down there, but we've done worse.
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At least it's not as low as our lowest point. It's down there, but we've done worse.
Absolute garbage, can’t even navigate our way through this shit cup anymore.
Cannot wait for this season to be done and dusted.
Poor old Mikel probably underestimated the job on his hands. Bet he wishes he could go back to being Pep’s ball boy now.
Have we? We're not even good enough to be knocked out in the last 16 of a knock out tie now.
Arteta's sub were appalling really though.
All we can say positively is that Auba is scoring again and we just need to hope that continues, but i do really hope Arteta throws on the kids on Monday and gives people a rest
We need to throw the FAC and focus on trying to get up the table as much as we can
Lost but didn't go out to them.
Fullly deserved for Olympiacos.
It's on Arteta for continuing to persist with senior players who have shown over a long period and under different coaches that they're not good enough.
Lacazette, Pepe, Ozil and Bellerin were woeful today. You can give Bellerin the benefit of the doubt because of his injury problems, but for all of them we have really promising young players who have not only performed better this season but offer different qualities. The only reason we're seeing Saka is because Kolasinac hasn't been fit.
Arteta is another manager who rewards bad performances on the basis of experience. Martinelli instantly changed the game and apart from Auba, all our positives this season have come in games involving mostly the younger squad members. It's not a coincidence. You might get Ozil interested for a couple of games, but he'll eventually revert to his actual level. The Lacazette fetish is also beyond a joke now.
We're not going to do anything of note this season, so what sense is there in persisting with duds and players who won't be here next season. It's repeating the same things over and over again but it's maddening that another coach who you'd expect to be a bit braver falling into the same traps of mediocrity.
I wish he'd stayed at City putting out the cones and we'd got someone decent like Allegri or Simeone.
The guy makes mistakes left right and center and reminds me of Wenger with his favouritism, tactically he's been poor, doesn't understand how to make subs and his lineups are generally poor, the defence has improved I'll give him that, but at the expense of the attack.
Why? So we can get into the Europa Cup? Or if everyone collapses, the CL? Do we REALLY want to get into the CL? Wouldn't that be an embarrassment too far?
What we need to do is develop a whole new culture at the club (not a gay one either), replace half the team and develop a totally different style of play. Massive job to do here. That old goat devastated the club from top to bottom - the fucker didn't miss a nook or a cranny.
Should be noted that the Greeks are CL dropouts.
We’d be eaten alive in the CL now. Those last 16 exits under Wenger will seem like the halcyon days.
We’re such a poor team, in almost every facet of the pitch. Not fit for purpose.
It's lazy to continually cite Xhaka and Mustafi as the main culprits when they've been solid in recent weeks.
Obviously, Mustafi should have gone a long time ago, but it's the nothing senior players in midfield and attack that are letting the team down the most.
They probably all need to go anyway. We should focus on the kids. No big names will want to come here, unless they are YouTube talent like Pepe. And the senior lot have failed, failed and failed again. So start over with the kids. We should be getting ESR back. Getting AMN involved again. Giving Willock consistent game time. Getting Eddie and Marti settled as part of a 3 with Auba (until he goes). These players have shown more and done more in a much shorter time, and they don't carry Wenger baggage.
We're a mid-table team now and will be for the foreseeable future and we need to set our sights on the hard work of clawing back up the pecking order. If we somehow fluked a CL spot it wouldn't mean anything. It would just be a false dawn and another delay in doing what has to be done.
Sadly and pathetically, they are probably our most consistent two right now, in terms of players that aren't randomly benched for no reason. And they aren't particularly good players. They wouldn't get a sniff at a starting spot for Pool or the gypos. Probably not even Utd. But that's our standard now.
72 mill on Pepe. Fuuuuuuck!
Think we can write the season (and probably next) a massive re-build is needed as has been said start playing more or the kids get rid of the deadwood it's a shame we won't be able to keep Auba (after this he's going he's not stupid).
Only 4 points behind 5th so well within reach in theory but we dont win enough games plus still have Leicester spurs liverpool city wolves to play. Also dross sides like west ham Norwich Watford villa. We probably wont win half our remaining games. So might as well go for fa cup
Don’t want to be involved in this next year. Aim for 4th or stick with midtable for all I care.
“ A disappointing night at The Emirates.”
- Arsenal on FB.
Masters of the understatement, as always.
Wankers
Well that was truly worth freezing my knackers off and being a zombie at work tomorrow for. Arteta leaving Laca on for as long as he did would make you cry if you didn't laugh. His movement off the ball in attack was farcical today. The less said about Bellerin's performance today the better and Xhaka was doing his best to roll back the shit years.
I actually thought Pepe was our most dangerous player throughout but this horseshoe formation we were attacking with was really blunt at times. Today's game showed exactly why saying we are scoring less goals as a result of Arteta making us more solid defensively just not the truth. We were a severely blunt instrument today but for an inspired moment from Auba.
He's been really good this season but Leno taking a fuhking age to do everything finally came back to haunt him at the end today and Saka showed why being given 60k a week should not be a foregone conclusion. Far too timid defensively today and stifled too easily in attack.
Also there are far too many middle class fans more interested in practising their new amateur comedy show material than actually supporting the team. Olympiacos away support embarrassed the home support but I suppose that happens every week.
Anyways we are well on course to avoid Europe all together (which is what soo many of our fans seem to want) this season so we can have one nice lovely Saturday game in the sunshine next season. Only we still probably won't make the fuhking top 4 with that one job to do, so yes that's a great bleeding plan!
Well that’s Auba and Laca gone in the summer, fucking scary how far we have regressed since Stan turned up
I don’t really think we can blame Kroenke, he has been quite generous with funds the past few seasons and we have mainly spent it on duds.
Now you can argue that we have a coaching issue at Arsenal amongst a multitude of problems. It’s been stated by many others in this thread, outside of Auba, our best players this season have been Saka & Martinelli. How is this even possible? Most of our senior players are absolute garbage, they can all go if anybody actually wants to buy them!
Our starting CB Mustafi has been on the market for almost 3 seasons now and nobody wants him! We’ve not had one offer for him, not even a loan, let that sink in.
We absolutely need to blood youth now, in all of the positions bar a few, we also need to be a lot smarter and strategic in our recruitment for two reasons. We are not an attractive destination anymore and we need to focus on either buying young under the radar talents or blooding youth from the academy.
This season has been an abomination, an embarrassment of poor performances and poor results by a bunch of overpaid wasters.
The task in hand to rebuild not only the team but the rotten culture at this club is huge.
A cake taste good because of its ingredients. A solid house needs good cement and rebar. Our players are really poor. Keeper excepted. None of our senior players is worth 30m in any currency. Auba our most valuable player, yeah, but his penalty miss effectively cost us CL last season and he cant put away the simplest chance when the chips are down. Play the kids, we could be saving 4m per-week on wages and still be at the same performance levels this season, if only we had a more insightful manager and club management. Only in defence do we need to still with some has beens because all our kids there are crocks. We as a football club are akin to Mclaren in F1. Used to be a good team but no matter what they do now they are always also rans.
This team has no alternative attack strategy than give it to Auba....and when Auba goes missing then what. Other teams including lowly ones in the EPL can count on 1 or 2 goals from midfield or defence. We have literally nothing. So Xhaka has not been his woeful self. Can we not improve on him or stick with his stagnant passing from a static position for next season and beyond. Glad I didnt watch it cos it wasnt even shown in these parts. I was certain that we would win. I should have known better.
I have seen nothing from Arteta and these set of players that he constantly picks to see that next season would be any better than this. It could be worse as other teams will seek to improve while we only hope to keep Auba.
why would Auba stay though if he still wants to compete in the CL for last few years of his career. The only positive I suppose there are a limited number of clubs that could afford his salary and transfer fee. Real, Barca, Inter, Juve, PSG, Bayern I don't think he would go to another English club.
Problem for our defence is that Chambers, Holding, Tierney and Bellerin have been injured for significant parts of the season. So we haven't been able to let them play together and learn together. Nobody wants Mustafi, Sokratis has gone backwards and Luiz is Luiz. Saka is doing well generally at left back but he has only a handful of games there so will also take time to learn.
We have no goals from midfield and that is always going to cost you, you cant rely on goals from one player if you want to have a successful season. Should never have chosen Ozil above Ramsey for a contract renewal.
Quite sad watching Auba’s interview. Must be feeling the pressure now of carrying this bunch of losers.
This club is going nowhere, we're destined to be a midtable club, none of the guys at the top care, everything we do is mediocre including our searches for managers, not sure there's anyway back for us now, not until an owner with ambition takes over which may be a very long time indeed.
I'm guessing our share value must be plummeting.
But...but...anyone would be better than Wenger. You pwomised!
I don't think we're that bad, or that good. We lack creativity in midfield, we don't score enough and we are prone to mistakes at the back - fine lines in football, we were one mistake away from going through last night in which case the mood this morning would be very different. We were all cheered after the Everton result but we were very close to dropping 2 points in injury time there. We are just not solid enough. Last night they came for a smash and grab, it was defence vs attack for most of extra time and while we did score in the end it was only because of a moment of inspiration from Auba, not because we were creating clear chances. I'm not going to throw Leno under the bus for conceding the corner which led to the goal, he's the least of our problems, but we are just not good enough at defending these scenarios.
Last season we were close to a top 4 finish and we got to the Europa final, there's the makings of a decent team there. I'm not convinced we need a complete rebuild but there's definitely work to do. I'm going to give Arteta a free pass this season and I've pretty much written off the rest of the season but next year we need to push on.
I'll judge him at the end of the season ™. Next season.
As time goes on I’m really starting to appreciate what Wenger did during the early Emirates years. That Fabregas-led team may have choked when it mattered but the football we played week in, week out was still of a really high standard. Players who most would consider inferior to what we have now were playing great football, working seamlessly together and creating multiple chances a game.
Now it’s so disjointed and even creating one decent chance in a match feels like a chore.
i agree with a lot of that, we need to acknowledge it's a squad with a range of ability but teh good news is we have some very good and promising young players - if we can hold on to them
i am a bit concerned with team selection and some of the players Arteta's putting trust in. i'm hoping that he's just trying to keep the current squad thinking positively and getting as much out of them this season as he can, but i very much hope he has some marked down to shift out in the summer.
What Keown says below is spot on IMO:
Speaking on BT Sport, Keown said: "It was the first time I felt that the players were not responding to the manager and the manager did not know what changes to make.
"There were so many disappointments in that Arsenal performance. There were so many unprofessional performances from players. Such a poor game for Arsenal.
"If you break down the performance you could have looked at every single player and say that they could have all done more. Nicolas Pepe is going to have to improve. Gabriel Martinelli should have come on a lot earlier. Granit Xhaka was taking the easy way out. A lot of players were not playing their best."
Do you mean me? :)
I continue to be amused by people who spent years pretending Wenger was so bad that literally anyone would do better now 2 managers and 2 seasons after Wenger left, when we are clearly worse than we were in even Wenger's last and worst season, pretending that it's still Wenger's fault.
Fact is last season we were close to top 4 and we got to the Europa League final. That's what the squad left us with was able to do. Not sparkling but not mid-table and certainly something to build on. This season it has all gone to shit, I don't know if Arteta is the man to sort it out. To think that last night's debacle means he definitely isn't is as foolish as to think that the win at the weekend means he is. But he deserves some time to have a chance to.
As always, a well thought out argument :)
I was going to delete that as it really adds nothing to the discussion but I think I'll leave it as it shows how stupid you are and that you actually have no response.
Wenger took us backwards. That’s a fact. He took us from a position of relative strength, finishing 2nd to Leicester that season which was a sackable offence in itself.
He failed to sufficiently strengthen the squad after that.
That aside, despite our horrendous collapse at the end of last season and our embarrassing showing in the Europa Cup Final, Emery outperformed Wenger’s last season. Yes he messed up this season and yes he was rightly sacked, but I certainly don’t long for Wenger. He refused to strengthen the team / squad amongst a number of other issues!