A.R.T.E.T.AOriginally Posted by Letters
A.R.T.E.T.A
Arteta is like hiring the football equivalent of Gordon Ramsay's assistant to revive your failing restaurant. At least he will have the swearing down pat
Make 2mrw better than 2day
Dude, we were very shit this season before Arteta took over, that’s why Emery was sacked.
You can argue that Arteta isn’t the right person to turn things around and that is getting harder to argue against, but you can’t blame Arteta for this awful season when he’s been in charge for less than half of it.
Wouldn't really matter who managed the club. The core problems would still be there. The squad has been allowed to go to ruin over many seasons. Sub-standard players who will always fall down when the major challenges arrive. Guaranteed. We've seen it for years, under 3 managers now.
Für eure Sicherheit
*sigh*
but you CAN blame him for all the mistakes I listed elsewhere, about playing the wrong players in the wrong positions
the Auba on the left thing is just the biggest example but there are others
and WHY do people like Ozil and Pepe get cold-shouldered? Ozil would have done a much better job of keeping the ball against Citeh
i'm convinced the reasons is this pathetic 'doesn't work hard in training' bullshit which small-dicked managers like Emery and Arteta obssess about because they know they're incompetent and so have to throw their weight around extra hard to compensate
Ozil has the ability we need but lets not pretend he wasn't rubbish when he was last playing regularly. Which seems like an age ago now.
We will not be able to even start thinking about moving forward as a club with him hemorrhaging us money with no return.
Yes, you can. No dispute there. But my original question was how did we manage to go from a squad which just last season got to the Europa League Final and finished 5th with 70 points - we were only 2 points off 3rd, the top 2 aside we were as good as anyone (or bad as anyone as the top 2 aside no-one looked much good). How did we go from that to the utter shit we are seeing this season? And the answer to that is not "Arteta". He took over a shit show and hasn't turned it into anything much better, admittedly, but he didn't cause this. MO alluded to this above but last season maybe our final position flattered us somewhat. They say the table never lies but if you remember we had that good run of wins at the start of the season and in many of those games we really weren't that good, a lot of those results could have been different. And Auba and Laca bailed us out a lot, Auba has continued to, mostly. Laca not so much.
I don't think our squad is that good but I don't think it's that bad either. We seem to be significantly less than the sum of our parts.
There are more extreme examples of teams dropping off a cliff the following year, like United in 2014 and Chelsea in 2016, after previously winning the title, it can happen for any number of reasons. Obviously we were never that good to begin with so it stands to reason that we probably hit our ceiling last season and our position now is more reflective of where we are as a team. We were also a distant 6th in Wenger’s last season so there’s more evidence of us being shit than there is any good over a 3 year span.
Last edited by Marc Overmars; 22-06-2020 at 09:22 AM.
i think Laca losing the plot has been a big factor but it's only accentuated the folly of not playing the one remaining in-form striker through the middle - it might sound like one small detail but to me it speaks volumes about Emery, then Freddie and now Arteta's ability to see what's going on in front of them and do something about it. It would have been such a quick win for him as manager but he's not done it
as for the wider picture, i've said elsewhere our transfer 'policy' is at least part-run by Raul's agent friends filling their pockets but for all that we are getting some good players - Teirney, Mari looks good and hopefully Saliba - plus Pepe showed on Saturday what he can do given the opportunity
I still think even now Arsenal has the standing, facilities and history to get good players, but every season we underperform it's pushing us further back and that's why Arteta was too big a gamble against getting an Ancelotti or similar
I agree our midfield is weak, not everyone will agree but i still think Ozil can play a role but you need a high-class well-organised enforcer in there to counter him roving around.
We've missed Torreira in these two games - Ceballos isn't substantial enough and Guendouzi is a very raw talent, and i can't stand Xhaka and won't be happy until he and Mustafi are gone
i can see it both ways on whether we keep Auba (although i think it's academic as he will surely leave) but in the very short-term, i.e. this season we should be making the best of him - whether he's played through the middle elsewhere or not, are you seriously saying Nketiah or Laca are a better shout than having Saka on the left and Auba in the middle? - that's the point, if Auba's on the left then Saka is not in what seems like his best position
Martinelli should definitely be getting more game time too but I'm not sure how you fit him, Pepe, Auba and Saka in - as you say if Auba goes then that will be solved for next season, i'd be perfectly happy to see Saka, Martinelli and Pepe line up
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