The 20/21 Season

Sad times when the manager's entire gameplan hinges on two kids.

i've had enough
I'm officially #ArtetaOut

Since 2003, Arsenal have managed three or fewer shots five times in the Premier League - four of those have been in games under Mikel Arteta.

— Orbinho (@Orbinho) April 3, 2021

@Hapless_Hans wrote:Your club is finished isn't it

who is at the helm?
who is making decisions?
who is leading this club?
who is responsbile for Arsenal?

to think how aggressively negative fans were towards Wenger, who ticked all those boxes resoundingly

now I feel from you: apathy, hopelessness, lack of ambition due to complete disappointment

It's sad

Wenger didn't die on the cross for this

You need to do better, you need to make his sacrifice worth it

Yes, it's done at the top level for a long time.

The squad has a severe lack of quality and cohesion and the club does not have the funds to make drastic improvements in one go. Nor is the manager capable of doing more with less, it seems. Plus the key decision makers above the manager are inexperienced. It's very difficult to see how it gets better in the short-term.

The club was right to move on from Wenger because the entire structure cannot and shouldn't be supported by just one man. It was the time to get our shit together and put a structure in place than can endure for a long time, but these last three years have been tumultuous, to put it mildly.

Gazidis oversaw the restructuring then ditched the club for Milan.

Sanllehi took over, made a whole raft of dubious transfers, then suspiciously fucked off.

A whole bunch of guys brought in under these two have left the club.

And now the whole project is in the hands of Edu, who has no experience restructuring a club, and Arteta, who has no experience managing a club. Some of their early decisions are very concerning.

Signing the likes of Cedric and Willian on free transfers because "experience".
Giving Luiz a new contract.
Handing Auba a £300k p/w deal which seems to be a repeat of the mistake made with Ozil.
Thus far failing to secure good fees for unwanted players.
Spending an entire summer trying to buy Aouar then deciding at the last minute the deal wasn't doable, thus depriving us of a creative player for a half a season, necessitating a loan signing to repair the damage.
And right now, the £50m spent on Partey is looking like a mistake as well.

All during a pandemic, mind you. Good luck repairing all that damage when you've got emergency government loans to pay back.

Just to highlight how ridiculous Edu's job will be this summer:

Leno, Bellerin and Xhaka will have two years remaining on their deals. The club has to decide very soon if they should renew or sell. Selling means replacements because these guys are first team regulars and funds are tight.

Luiz's deal runs out soon but Arteta wants to keep him and wants a new centre back. His relationship with Saliba is iffy. That's 25m worth of player potentially binned without playing a game for the club, plus more money sunk into the defence.

Right back is troubling. Cedric isn't the one. Bellerin has been crap for ages and could raise funds. Chambers isn't good enough there either. There has to be a new signing here.

We need a back-up left-back. Kolasinac's deal expires in 2022 and Schalke won't want him after they're relegated so he'll probably end up staying another year.

Midfield. Oh boy. Elneny will get a new deal because he can make-up numbers and is cheap. Ceballos won't stay. Odegaard won't stay. Maitland-Niles and Willock aren't good enough. Torreira wants to go back to South America; no chance of a return on our 25m investment. Guendouzi . The bulk of Arsenal's budget has to go in completely rebuilding this part of the pitch.

Up-front, Lacazette and Nketiah have deals that are up next summer. Both need to go. Problem is, nobody is buying 30-year-old Laca on his salary during a pandemic, and Nketiah has lost so much value by not playing.

Basically, all these players need to go:
Luiz, Chambers, Bellerin, Kolasinac, Guendouzi, Torreira, Willock, Nelson, Maitland-Niles, Nketiah, Lacazette

And we need to get:
A starting right back, a back-up left back, three new midfielders, and a striker

Good fucking luck.

Partey isn't a mistake. The price of purchase may have been a bit overhyped. But he is clearly our best midfielder (not that he is Vieira mind) but he is good, he just needs to stay fit and get another good 8 and 6 to operate beside him based on opposition. Bissouma is my pick for the 6-type player. No idea about an 8

really think we need new owners too with football acumen and an invested interest in seeing the club succeed.
The Nigerian dude needs to come thru ffs

Tierney out for 4-6 weeks. Means he misses both quarter-final legs and the semi-final as well if we get through Slavia.

Cedric and Bellerin have to step-up big time.

yea we're not winning the Europa without Tierney

Back in the day when we'd stick five, six, or seven past the minnows in the CL groups. Have to say that the standard around Europe has improved since then, but they were fun times.

That was peak 4-4-2 Arsenal that gave no shits about defending and securing themselves against the counter. We had Flamini charging around as a ball-winner next to Fabregas who was allowed to go wherever he liked, then Rosicky and Hleb coming inside to become extra mids. Basically a 4-1-3-2 in possession. Then up front Van Persie dropped off and Adebayor drifted left which made space for Fabregas to come up late through the middle. Plus Sagna and Clichy going forward. Kolo and Gallas did all the defending on their own.

I remember being on forums back then and everyone saying we need a ball-winner to add "bite". Gokhan Inler, Miguel Veloso, Lorik Cana, Scott Parker, Yann M'Vila, Blaise Matuidi, Moussa Sissoko... just to name a few. In hindsight a player like that wouldn't have made much difference. Structurally, Arsenal back then were just a very open team who could be countered on with ease and they couldn't defend set-pieces at all. Still have nightmares of Denilson trying to track Rooney on the counter and Bolton/Blackburn piling in on our keeper during corners. But a fun team to watch when it was on it, for sure.

Fenerbahce 2 - 5 Arsenal from 2009 is another fun one if you want to see Walcott, Eboue, Ramsey and Adebayor at their best.

Leno; Bellerin, Holding, Gabriel, Cedric; Xhaka, Partey; Saka, Smith Rowe, Willian; Lacazette

Subs: Ryan, Hein, Lopez, Elneny, Azeez, Ceballos, Nelson, Pepe, Martinelli, Aubameyang, Nketiah

Very muted performance from both teams. Just nothing happening outside of Saka getting in behind, but nobody else in the Arsenal team look like they believe they can score. It's odd.

The ball behind Slavia's left looks on every time and Holding has played some good passes, but then nobody supports Saka. I'm not seeing anyone get into the penalty area. Smith Rowe has the beating of their defenders too but he's not getting enough of the ball. The left hand side in general just looks dead with the lack of a natural left footer and Willian's tepid performance. With the game being so compressed in the middle the run in behind looks the most dangerous option as Saka is proving, but he's the only one doing it. Too many players waiting to receive the ball in condensed space instead of moving.

Against the ball it's looked messy, too. Team doesn't look confident about who's picking up who. A few times Lacazette has complained about nobody coming up to support the press or players going too late. It seems Slavia could eventually drop one behind the press and get running at the centre backs if we don't organise ourselves better.

turned that shit off