I'd go back to the back 5. It wasn't great and didn't offer enough goals, but right now, it is the less terrible option. And since the midfield is trash, it only requires 2 of them to play at a time. Drop all players on expiring contracts - Mustafi, Luiz and Ceballos. Drop Willian and Lacazette. Play Nelson, ESR, Nketiah and Balogun. AMN needs to play regularly. Turning down money for him over the summer and not playing him now is dumb. Whether it is LWB or RWB or CM, give him a position and let him play. I'd like to drop Xhaka, but options in MF are limited. I don't think these changes put the club in the top 4 or even top 7, but I don't think any changes will do that. I also don't think playing the kids leads to relegation. What it does do is maybe set the stage for improvement in 2021-22.
Ugh. From what little I could see from the wide-angle shot in real time, it looked like Luiz hit Raúl square on the side of his skull, just where it’s the most relatively paperthin. Sadly this may be career ending especially since he’s a forward player who needs to use his head a lot, u like Cech.
The trouble is, everytime we play badly, there is a new idea to play some other players, who then are just as bad Likely AMN and co are simply not good enough in training. Willock has never looked good enough. etc
My point is...so what? I don't care if they are just as bad. This team isn't competing for anything either way. Arsenal have dumped £20-30m players like Bennacer, Malen and Reine-Adelaide for nothing because they never played them enough to demonstrate their value. Wolves were willing to pay £20m for AMN last window. No one is paying that much for Luiz or Mustafi or Ozil or Ceballos or Willian, so what good does it do to play them? No one will pay £20m for AMN next summer if he barely plays this year. Play kids, if they are good, keep them. If they aren't good enough, at least you can sell them for something and buy players that are good enough.
If you are gonna go that route I would go with the 4-4-2 / 4-2-2-2. Offload Laca, Xhaka, Mustafi, Sokratis & Ozil in Jan if possible and look for a CM to pair with Partey, a RCB to pair with Gabi and possibly a backup LB that will allow AMN to spend more time further up field. You run a pressing counter-attack which should hopefully generate more opportunities and excitement without the #10. ST - PEA, Pepe, Eddie, Balogun, Martinelli PEA & Pepe at ST with less defensive responsibilities along with more fast breaks will hopefully open them up for more production. W - Saka, AMN, Nelson, ESR, Willian Saka & AMN are your defensive wings. Saka, Nelson & ESR your more offensive. Willian sticks around for vet depth. CM - Partey, Willock, El Neny , Dani New guy may be the key but as long as you can keep Partey healthy you should be ok rotating the other 3 with him. FB - Tierney, Bellerin, Cedric, AMN Solid starters but depth is weak. Would like a backup for Tierney. CB - Gabi, Holding, Saliba, Mari, Chambers, Luiz Who know s what you get from this group with 2 coming back from injury and Arteta not trusting Saliba yet. Ideally would add a strong player to pair with Gabi.
I'll take over this thread now, the Europa League vs. Rapid Vienna on Thursday, and then, the Derby on Saturday at NEW SHITE HART LANE!!!
Go for it man! And make sure you're still doing the business all the way to late December when we face City & Chelsea on either side of Xmas.
So... is relegation a legitimate concern? We are without a doubt one of the three worst teams in the league. We're currently 19th in the form table. There is no run of games that we can look at and think we're going to pick up consistent points.
This is what makes the Willian signing truly damning for me. Since he is essentially taking Ozil's spot in the squad, having Willian around is effectively costing Arsenal in the neighborhood of 500k/week. Now we don't know if Ozil would still be frozen out if Willian wasn't signed, but either way signing Willian without a move for Ozil locked in is just such gross incompetence that I have little faith anyone currently in charge squad-building can turn this around.
At the time I didn't think we should have, he's too injury-prone and hasn't been consistent. He was excellent for us that last season before he got injured - again. On balance, I think it was right not to, but we should have replaced him with a better player, not old dross on a high salary.
Yeah agreed. It was right to get rid, but stupid to then do the same dumb contract with an even older dude.
Relegation rivals Fulham are currently playing some solid stuff up 2-0 against Leicester. Concerned is an understatement.
If I'm KSE, I would not have enough faith in the decision making of Edu and Arteta at this point to back them with 2-3 new signings in January. I would want to see some reason for optimism or I would find someone else to rebuild the club before the summer. Finishing mid-table with a bunch of 30-ish yo players many of whom are leaving on a free would give me less reason for optimism than finishing lower in the table with a bunch of kids.
All I can hope for next week is that it’ll be our turning point match. We can’t be in a slump forever right?........
I think our only disagreement is the timeline then. I'm ready to cut bait, you might get there in the next six months. I honestly believe that another club playing like this would be looking at a Big Sam or Tony Pulis-like hire to rescue the season. There's nothing about the underlying numbers that suggests we're having bad luck.
Hard to argue with that sentiment. In that case, you can still sell the excess (may want to keep Laca and/or Xhaka hoping to raise their value) and fil in the holes with academy guys. Reassess Edu/Arteta as the season ends and make a decision on the future before the end of the season so we can spend some cash to fix issues in the summer.
What I find interesting is that Gazidis has been overseeing the rebuilding of AC Milan in exactly the way that many here wish Arsenal were doing (i.e. modern in-house recruitment department that is specifically trying to avoid the agent-driven approach that people worry Arsenal are falling into). In the last 2 years they've brought in a number of exciting young players for moderate fees that are thriving in their current setup, so why couldn't he make that happen here? That suggests to me that KSE are out of their depth when it comes to implementing that kind of organization in the world of European soccer. At least some of their US sports teams have been reasonably successful in recent years (Nuggets and Rams, don't really follow the others), so not sure why Arsenal seem to be run so much worse. Maybe they don't really care and just hold Arsenal as an investment whose value is mostly tied to PL TV deals, or maybe they don't know how to operate outside the franchise setup of US-based sports, but whatever the reason they don't seem to be able to get the right people in place to run things.
Before Leeds Arteta had a plan and a vision. A plan that doesn't seem to work well against smaller clubs. He switches it up against the smaller clubs and suddenly he has no plan? The argument is silly and lazy. Auba looks so limited without playmakers and runners surrounding him. He's lost his edge during this post United run. Willian hasn't been great, but decent and has been turned into a scapegoat. Saka is getting a pass for being young and english. He leaves a lot to be desired right now. Willock is a cup player at best. Realistically he needs a championship loan. Ceballos has eyes for the game and is the only midfielder who offers the threat of a dangerous pass. With that being said he hasn't been great either. Decent enough I guess. Xhaka is a waste. Wenger payed a hefty fee for a deep midfielder who is painfully one footed. Slow. Not great in the tackle and has just decent positioning. Now comparing our squad to Wolves gets me upset. Joao Moutinho, even at his age walks into our starting XI and is a huge improvement. Pedro Neto cost wolves 20m and looks to be a better player than Saka. That'll get people riled up, but the part that won't is that he's also better than Pepe who cost nearly a quarter less. F--k.
This is the stuff that annoys me. Clubs like Bayer Leverkusen or Wolves seem to manage to buy drones on the cheap who are better than the "talent" we pay huge money for
There's nothing like a really anemic home loss, after a string of anemic losses or draws in the league, and sitting in the bottom half of the table, to boost the matchday thread post-count up to a rarified 173! Yes it's a challenging time being our manager. Not to mention being a supporter. But we've had other rough times in the past decade or so. I'm not abandoning Arteta yet, and certainly not Arsenal. But please please stop the rot somehow boys. The mountain you're building for yourselves is going to be one tough climb!
Gazidis was pushing the same rebuilding model at Arsenal after he made the management hires. Gazidis probably envisioned Sven with his record of finding young prospects at BVB as key to that model. But then Gazidis left and Sven was pushed out.