I totally agree, how the hell has this happend?
Once we get Saliba in, Chambers back from Injury (although Mustafi and Holding are doing well at the moment) we are getting a decent defence in place.
Oh no.........I have once again discovered optimism around Arsenal Football Club! It can only end in tears
Damn you optimism
i know what you mean, i'm trying to tell myself that yesterday's performance from auba was just a flash in the pan rather then him and the team gelling, and getting progressively better...
i still think we have a tough run of fixtures from now though and it will be a miracle to get anywhere near fourth - i still wouldn't assume EL either
Building blocks, for sure. A lot of this group will need to be replaced, but you can start to see that there's bits of a side there, and a few starting points.
I keep thinking back to the first half of the season, when teams like Watford were raining 30+ shots on our goal, almost completely unopposed... we're still a long way from perfect - even on a good day, our defenders could simply be outclassed by better forwards, and most of them will probably always have a self-destruct switch in them that could go off at any moment - but at least we've cut the number of heart-attack moments down from about 40 per game to about 4 or 5. At least it's not open season on our goal for 90 minutes of every game. Sure, we still have the odd horror show of a game in us, but I don't think that will change until the personnel change - there's a lot of damage there that probably goes too deep to coach out of them at this point.
Definite progress since Christmas, though. For me, anyway. Probably about as much as I was hoping for given our shell-shocked, incomplete, unbalanced side, that doesn't have a central midfield or a playmaker, is full of flawed players and is now largely being propped up by kids. Tbh, I was never really expecting Arteta to start implementing his own ideas (not in any significant way) until he'd had a chance to go shopping, and bring in some of the attributes he needs to make them work. If you listened to his interviews then the rest of this season was always going to be about re-establishing professional standards, getting a grip of the piss-poor culture at the club, giving the players a crash course in shape, positional discipline and pressing, getting them fit, and basically seeing what is salvageable for next season.
there was a time when i was worried that no european football might mean we lost some players, but apart from Auba (and for him it's more of a question of the CL anyway) i'm not sure there's anyone that fits into that bracket now, so yes i probably feel the same, and not having the EL to contend with would really help Arteta i think - it would also be a good excuse to get rid of a few more players as we wouldn't need quite the same depth of squad
he plays when he gets the chance - it's not his fault if we handed him the contract, though i'm surprised he doesn't want to leave to get mroe game time, that is disappointing but i guess he's happy in London and being at the club because it still pampers players a bit i think - hopefully Arteta might start to straighten that out a bit over time
Özil's done here - he'll either sit on his contract or we'll agree to terminate early, but either way I don't see him playing another game for us. Arteta isn't bending on his 'non-negotiables' and I genuinely don't think Özil has the motivation to respond - he knows he gets paid either way, and he knows he can walk into an easy retirement in Turkey whenever he wants, even if he doesn't play for a year...
The EL can do one. We won’t be finishing 4th so where we finish now is of no concern to me. If we win the cup and qualify that way then so be it, but the league is dead to me unless we go on some crazy winning run.
I don’t think we’ve got the squad depth or quality anymore to deal with the extra games. A season of just 38 league games plus cup games sounds just fine to me and I’m sure Arteta secretly wouldn’t mind either.
No player of note aspires to be in the EL, so I don’t think our transfers hinge on that.