Pre-Season 2025/2026 thread

[KSE Comedy Club]

It’s preseason, relax....

It’s game week 3, relax....

It’s game week 12, relax....

We’re gonna go on a crazy run in the 2nd half of the season....

season ends trophyless

Injuries, ref decisions, rain, etc - we go again!

[KSE Comedy Club]

Completely agree with this.
Chatting to a Gooner in the office last week, in the halcyon days when I had a job.
She’s very much “Arteta Out”.
I’m not but this season is very much last chance saloon for me.

I think most of us are or starting to lean that way.

Which is why what I am seeing in preseason is almost alarming.
Ok we will be in the mix, I have no doubt about that, but it could be a fight for top 4 instead of winning the prem.

The main thing I was looking for in preseason was us sharpening up at the back and being more focused, relentless and quicker in attack.

Instead it's been the opposite of those things. A fifteen year old is outplaying our senior players and making them look pathetic.
Surely, it is not an over reaction to be worried when I am seeing 24/25 season part 2?

[KSE Comedy Club]

If the room is getting hotter, the air is getting harder to breathe and your eyes are stinging from smoke…there’s a good chance that what you’ve got is a fire on your hands

Your argument that it’s pre-season so it doesn’t count, would make sense if we were somehow playing differently to how we were especially at the end of last season, but we aren’t…what’s scary about these defeats is how familiar they seem.

And we can go well we need to wait and see if this player comes back from injury, or this player beds in well. Horse shit. To use a Simpson’s analogy we are stuck in a tar pit trying to use our arms to pull our legs free.

We could miraculously start playing purposefully at Old Trafford making the stodgy ineffective mess that’s been all four pre-season games an aberration, ask yourself this…how likely do you think that is?

Agreed, but that could also be a couple of youth's 'hot boxing' some marijuana from a bong they made out of a coke bottle, in a cupboard.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Agreed, but that could also be a couple of youth's 'hot boxing' some marijuana from a bong they made out of a coke bottle, in a cupboard.

Who the hell are you sub letting to?

[Ollie the Optimist]

Pre season is about getting the players fit and used to each other rather than results. In previous years, we have had great results and shocking starts to the season and vice versa.

when you look at the starting line ups for most games so far, I dont think any of them have been the side you would expect to start at Old Trafford (assuming everyone fully fit). Each game also sees pretty much everyone get substituted at some point so major changes are made which isn't easy either to fully assess the current readiness.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Pre season is about getting the players fit and used to each other rather than results. In previous years, we have had great results and shocking starts to the season and vice versa.

when you look at the starting line ups for most games so far, I dont think any of them have been the side you would expect to start at Old Trafford (assuming everyone fully fit). Each game also sees pretty much everyone get substituted at some point so major changes are made which isn't easy either to fully assess the current readiness.

The results aren’t what worries me, the performance…the stodginess, the slowness….different players, same constipated football.

[KSE Comedy Club]

I’d caveat what you’ve said by saying looking at it in terms of last three seasons, first season no one expected us to make a title challenge, there was significant doubt about finishing 4th. Second season, well the second half of the season…that’s probably the best I’ve seen an Arsenal side being in about twenty years (there’s been no other time where we’ve come close to winning 16 out of 18) so I’m not prepared to pick holes there either.

I would isolate it more at a malaise that’s taken hold since the beginning of last season where it’s obvious that sides know how to neutralise our attacking threat and that’s why 91 goals in 2022/2023 became 69 goals in 2023/2024. That and our defensive solidity has turned to complacency and laziness

Yep I would agree with all of that

[KSE Comedy Club]

Who the hell are you sub letting to?

Letters

[KSE Comedy Club]

The results aren’t what worries me, the performance…the stodginess, the slowness….different players, same constipated football.

Yup.

[KSE Comedy Club]

Pre season is about getting the players fit and used to each other rather than results. In previous years, we have had great results and shocking starts to the season and vice versa.

when you look at the starting line ups for most games so far, I dont think any of them have been the side you would expect to start at Old Trafford (assuming everyone fully fit). Each game also sees pretty much everyone get substituted at some point so major changes are made which isn't easy either to fully assess the current readiness.

My big issue last night was Arteta playing Gyokores to start the game, with half the staring 11 on the bench.

Then when he brings on Odegaard, Rice, Zubimendi, etc - they guys that you would expect to start feeding Goku some through balls and the like - he takes him off and puts Merino up front

Managing Goku to bring his fitness levels up is fine and understandable.

Not having him play with the main players that he should be is inexcusable.