Shocking right. Like the Capt on the Titanic when he was warned Abt the storm...he ignored it and the ship sank
I’ve said it before, the first mistake Arteta made was talking Xhaka into staying last January. I have never been a Xhaka fan, he’s to frigging slow with both his feet and his ball movement. Arteta may be gone, but with the rest of the schedule this month there is no time for an incoming manager to make tactical changes.
Attitude of players amazing. Hundred per cent dominance. We had the moments. Playing with energy. Arteta, really??????
Frankly I'm gonna go back to the locker room issue and the team's inability to offload rubbish. Put simply, the decision to not get rid of bad/ unwanted players because of finances meant the roster would still have too many weak-willed characters capable of the stupid errors we've seen, while also handicapping the team in terms of leadership value. No one on the team is holding players accountable for dumb s--- like we've now seen multiple players pull off. So long as there's no sense of pride in playing for Arsenal, or at least a sense that you can't get away with slack, then the dumb crap will infect the team on the pitch eventually. There is a value in throwing out the trash, even if you don't get paid to do it.
Good news, everyone. Bellerin is out for the next game because of yellow card accumulation. Not one, but TWO instances of addition by subtraction.
He should go back to playing. If Kia is his agent, Arsenal would probably give him a 3 year contract.
Then they’ll offer us £15m to make it permanent, we’ll turn it down asking for £25m. We’ll then loan him to them again next year, and let them keep him for free in summer of 2022.
saka has been the one attacker we have who seem to be able to switch flank without losing effectiveness.
Somebody posted a video on Reddit (I only saw it when @DaPrince84 posted the Van Persie interview the other day) pining for the kind of off the ball movement on display in it. It was a really nicely worked goal. And it involved Elneny and Coquelin. It made me remember how, for all his other faults, Wenger could make even seemingly useless players create good chances. Arséne never did us like this.
Actually I thought Arteta's post-match interview was about as good as could be expected. He didn't try to sugar-coat much, kept his emotion in check, kept his answers short, stuck to facts (e.g. we can't find the net and we were dominating the match up until the point Xhaka lost his head), threw a player under the bus who deserved it, and took some managerial responsibility of his own (although maybe he needs to do this a bit more TBF) The real question is what does he do going forward? How can he get his players to rise above this ditch we've dug ourselves into? Or in fact can he do this?
One last thought for the time being... We're probably going to get more TV time this month. E.g. we're the one they chose of 3 simultaneous matches Weds 1pm. We're now drama... a car-crash that NBC is going to offer up to America their for rubber-necking pleasure.
i am not defending xhaka THIS time (i promise). that was inexcusably dumb. it is the same as what pepe did - it may not have amounted to much but those specific motions are always going to get you red. that said . . . how in the fuck is it okay for someone non-involved to just rush in and knock xhaka down like westwood did and referee just not even care?
https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/mikel-arteta-arsenal-future-crisis-19451929 While my experience with Football London suggests it isn’t particularly reliable, they have made some interesting claims about Arteta losing the senior players. They say that Xhaka is unhappy with the way he is being used (to bad), that Luiz and Arteta aren’t speaking, that the decision to exclude Ozil and Sokratis from both the Premier League and Europa League rosters were never explained to the team, and that part of the reason Saliba is not getting a chance is that he was an Emery signing. The last one seems like nonsense, but when you look at the the current status of the signings during Emery’s tenure it begins to seem plausible. Torreira and Guendouzi are on loan, Sokratis isn’t registered on the roster, Pepe is in Arteta’s dog house, and per above Luiz and Arteta aren’t speaking. The only Emery signings consistently in the team are Leno and Tierney.