Haha I am loving getting shredded on other sites for daring to suggest this is our ceiling under Arteta and a better manager would get more out of this squad, and one of the counter arguments was that 1-2 loss to City. Can't make this stuff up.
So, it sounds like the level of performance was more an indictment than the final result. Fair assessment? While I wouldn't have said Arsenal is at Liverpool's level, I sure expected a better showing at home, in a cup tie, against a Pool side missing key players. Heck, Arsenal with 10 players showed more resiliency last week than the full side did today. (Yes, I know last week was all about defending.). Not sure if this is about the side's lack of creativity, talent, leadership, focus, or heart? Or a combination of the same? Bottom line, still some work to do. Well, at least now the goal for the rest of the season has been made clear.
We play like Man City lite, but lack the players to do so, and Arteta is horrendous tactically and with substitutions.
Unless we have our very best XI*, the team is pretty much hopeless. The question is whether you put the blame for that on Arteta for being unable/unwilling to adjust, or on the people who have built this paper-thin squad over the last 5 years. * - choose between ESR and Martinelli, no argument. The other 10 - Ramsdale, Tierney, Gabriel, White, Tomiyasu, Xhaka, Partey, Odegaard, Saka, Lacazette - are non-negotiable.
There's no shame in losing to Liverpool, but there is shame in going scoreless against them 5 times in a row. In those 5 games, Liverpool have scored 9 goals, while Arsenal have had 10 shots on target.
True. Lokonga was improved tonight too. And Saka was his typical quality of late. The problem is that none of those individual performances actually had any tangible positive impact on the outcome.
Arteta would win more games with better players. Thats not that impressive. I could coach Man City. The question is, if all teams had even teams, would Arteta be enough of a difference? I don't think so. We could have a better team than City/Pool/Chelsea and we would still lose. Artetas tactics don't stack up. He is too slow to make subs.
We have played 4 games this year, picked up 3 red cards, scored 1, won 0. The season is going to unravel quickly barring some major incoming transfer business (not clowns like Melo).
one thing that always bothered with wenger was his subs were almost always reactive, whether us going down a goal or giving up a tying goal in, say, the 75th or 80th minute. when arteta started, he briefly had a period where he'd make more timely (which, in my opinion, is in the 60-65) changes proactively but that was a brief, brief period. last year or two, his subs feel like they're super late. i hates it.
Super late, super reactive and at times he brings on players who contribute literally nothing. How many times is Nketiah going to keep doing nothing before we sell him/let him go? I was surprised he subbed Tavares off early and hoped that was a change in his man management style but no he has reverted back.
Criticizing his substitutions generally is arguably fair. But what was he supposed to do last night as far as generating more offense? No Pepe, no Auba. Pretty limited options.
Makes you wonder why we didn't have signings ready to go in early January. Cedric and Chambers are the only unexpected omissions from the squad, and under more normal circumstances, we wouldn't have even had Partey available. Or why didn't we hold on to AMN until after this Burnley game?
And how many people, before the season started, said "wow come January when there is fixture pile ups and AFCON we are going to be short." Answer is, well, a lot of pundits and I was saying it too. We made some good purchases but not enough. We had to rush back Tomi and had a hole in MF after we loaned someone who can play both roles. We went into the season with a dangerously thin list and we are now punished for something that was insanely obvious.
Well to start with Nketiah for Laca is horrendous. Would rather have tried Martinelli in the CF since he was shut down on the wing, push ESR to the left, push Ode further up the pitch and bring on Holding for Laca. Holding to CB and White into midfield.