Arsenal v Man City. 15th Feb. 19:30

[Mac76]

Massive Confirmation Bias but never had that feeling. I felt that we hadn’t been properly tested…(still haven’t come back from going a goal down away from home)….and just felt that Arteta’s idiosyncrasies and personality deficiencies would haunt us.

Losing becomes a habbit, and losing ten times in a row to City before tonight means we just don’t have that belief that we can beat them or even get a draw against them.

We had to have everything go perfectly, won the two previous games, have our strongest available XI and we had neither of these.

Also there’s an argument to be made the players just aren’t good enough. Some of them have the potential - Martinelli, Saka, Jesus, Odegaard. But there’s just things that aren’t right, Ben White has been shite for a while now, Saliba looks like he needs to be dropped, Zinchenko is stinking the place out.

And let’s be fair even Ramsdale has been poor.


Need wholesale changes for Villa

Drop Zinchenko, drop Xhaka, drop Saliba, drop Eddie


Put in the Polack defender, put in Tierney, put in Vieira behind Odegaard and have Trossard and Martinelli play interchangeable between left wing and centre forward.

prior to the Everton game I thought we'd give Citeh a really good game but we've collapsed as Letters says.

on the points people are making about the squad I actually think it's better than Spuds for sure, Chelsea is hard to say as they're all over the place - Man Utd have some very good players and clearly a manager who can turn things around.

While we're not really comparable in lots of ways, it's worth looking at Leicester City who obviously won a title out of the blue - firstly they had some very good players (e.g. Vardy, Kante) who, crucially, stayed fit through the season and secondly created a great team spirit.

We have been unlucky with injuries, particularly re attacking options - Nelson, Jesus and ESR all out at the same time

I think Arteta has created a better spirit at the club but I fear he is a bit robotic with his team structure and it's starting to show - his failure to switch formations, try different things when Plan A isn't working is a real issue.

Martinelli's a good example, I actually don't think he's having a dip in form as such, I just don't think he's being used intelligently enough.

Arteta gets slavishly attached to some players, we've seen it with Xhaka and now Zin and Eddie, both of whom are failing now but being played time and time again without even being subbed during the game.

Arteta's inexperience and intansigence is for me our biggest weakness, another coach could win the title with these guys, a lot of them are extremely talented.

He can now put this Citeh game behind him and use these last three games as a lesson in how sticking to what you think is your best 11 isn't always the best policy.

We won't win the league now and I think even second is a big challenge - it's essentially all about top four IMO

To reinvigorate the team Arteta needs to cut loose a bit and start changing things.

I thought when Vieira came on, he and Trossard really started to create some quicker moves and be more incisive - the game was already gone by then of course (an example of Arteta using his subs too late btw)

Tomi messed up a bit and I think White wil come back

I agree with your suggested team changes though I'm not sure Saliba's any worse than Gabriel who was lucky not to concede a pel yesterday- we need something like this against Villa:

Ram
White
The new Polish guy
Saliba
Tierney
Georginio
Odegaard
Vieira
Saka
Trossard
Martinelli

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

prior to the Everton game I thought we'd give Citeh a really good game but we've collapsed as Letters says.

on the points people are making about the squad I actually think it's better than Spuds for sure, Chelsea is hard to say as they're all over the place - Man Utd have some very good players and clearly a manager who can turn things around.

While we're not really comparable in lots of ways, it's worth looking at Leiceseter City who obviously won a title out of ths blue - firstly they had some very good players (e.g. Vardy, Kante) who, crucially, stayed fit through the season and secondly created a great team spirit.

We have been unlucky with injuries, particularly re attacking options - Nelson, Jesus and ESR all out at the same time

I think Arteta has created a better spirit at the club but I fear he is a bit robotic with his team structure and it's starting to show - his failure to witch formations, try different things when Plan A isn't working is a real issue.

Martinelli's a good example, I actually don't think he's having a dip in form as such I just don't think he's being used intelligently enough.

Arteta gets slavishly attached to some players, we've seen it with Xhaka and now Zin and Eddie, both of whom are failing now but being played time and time again without even being subbed during the game.

Arteta's inexperience and intansigence is for me our biggest weakness, another coach could win the title with these guys a lot of them are extremely talented.

He can now put this Citeh game behind him and use these last three games as a lesson in how sticking to waht you think is your best 11 isn't alwys the best policy.

We won't win the league now and I think even second is a big challenge - it's essentially all about top four IMO

To reinvigorate the team Arteta needs to cut loose a bit and start changing things.

I thought when Vieira came on, he and Trossard really started to create some quicker moves and be more incisive - the game was already gone by then of course (an example of Arteta using his subs too late btw)

Tomi messed up a bit and I think White wil come back

I agree with your suggested team changes though I'm not sure Saliba's any worse than Gabriel who was lucky not to concede a pel yesterday- we need something like this against Villa:

Ram
White
The new Polish guy
Saliba
Tierney
Georginio
Odegaard
Vieira
Saka
Trossard
Martinelli

I like your post, we clearly need to shake things up , I'm just losing faith that there is much room to do so because of our players obvious limitations.

Anyway, Arteta needs to earn his keep and do something different till our game changers get back from injury. Lets see if he'll bother.