Since Cech became our number one we had been hoofing it quite a bit, in Cechs case more often than not to an opponent.

Wenger’s tactics in recent years has definitely been to hit it long and wide from goal kicks when the opposition press us high.

Emery seems to have eased off from forcing the keeper to play out from the back pretty much every time too though. It’s seems much more balanced now.

Wenger introduced tradition centre forwards like Chamakh and Giroud as he changed his style to hoof it up and win knockdowns for those around him.

So that we could mix it up and play like that. We didn't make it a routine however. Under Wenger we always played with intent and scored goals in the worst seasons. It was always the balance between attacking with more players as individual quality declined and defending with numbers in transition.

Anyways, I don't think Emery lacked intent. It was the defensive players trying to execute football with intent which made it an eyesore.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/9210754/arsenal-skint-tv-money-champions-league-liverpool-spurs/

The cost of being chumps. Liverpool made a whole Pepe more than us this season. Fucking Kroenke better pay-in.

Champions League football is my requirement for him next season. Preferably through fourth place, but through EL will also do, I guess.

I’d toss out the EL and just go for it. Save the team. Nights in Baku did not benefit us. The EL is an al or nothing tournament. We HAVE TO make the final, running all over Europe. Why not just save up our energy for the league. If we but well this summer, we should be able to pout in a decent challenge for 3rd if we aren’t distracted

We should have made Europe in the season just gone—it's very frustrating to have missed out by a small margin.

My criteria for Emery to continue:

• signs of resilient morale and fitness in the squad, no two month form slumps
• more respectable away form
• a more respectable tactical identity

I’d add 2 more

• top 4
• at least 2 more youth players successfully integrated

flobaba wrote:

@[deleted]!

I don’t think it’s fair to say Unai has no system. When he came in, we were not playing out the back or down the wings. That’s a system. We literally cannot play through the middle because we lack the quality of player to hold and control things in the center of the park.

We are at the stage where as you have said “weaknesses in player personnel were identified”. Now we have to see if we have the structure and funds in place to rectify perceived weaknesses. If not, then I can only see us making slight improvements (tactically speaking) on our performances this season. Keep in mind that we’ve also lost or are losing both Ozil and Ramsey - basically our only two capable midfielders. Right now it’s on senior management to walk the walk. Next season is another season of transition as I see it.

I agree that the way we have played out the back has changed, there is more of an emphasis on it. We are really trying to play from wing to wing, to find space and build up from the back. Also the fullbacks certainly have been utilised a bit more in an attacking sense.

But those are basic instructions.

In a back four or back five, he tries to play that way, other than that what is his system? The mere fact he constantly changes his formation, shows that a structure and system is not in place. We are in constant flux.

For me we should always try to be attack minded, but Emery has shown so far he is not that guy.

Let’s see what happens, as it does seem like a lot of players of leaving, and I suspect the budget will increase once wages are out of the door. My fear is, I would invest in a different manager than Emery

Ohboy. Which managers would you invest in that are attainable, and why? What systems are they bringing in, and how would they build up their squad? Share your vision of Arsenal's resurrection please

Rohit wrote:

So that we could mix it up and play like that. We didn't make it a routine however. Under Wenger we always played with intent and scored goals in the worst seasons. It was always the balance between attacking with more players as individual quality declined and defending with numbers in transition.

Anyways, I don't think Emery lacked intent. It was the defensive players trying to execute football with intent which made it an eyesore.

IMO we lost our way post Fabregas (& more so post Arteta and Cazorla re his injury), resulting in our play being the worst example of tiki-taka and pointless possession.  Our stagnation on the pitch was further achieved by the use of Giroud as TM looking to play in the runners playing off him, except there weren't any as they were usually injured.   IMO perhaps the most telling comments regarding our shite play was made by Neville when he was talking about our previous creation and exploitation of space off the ball.

Claudius wrote:

I’d add 2 more

• top 4
• at least 2 more youth players successfully integrated

What are the measures regarding the 2nd point as I'm concerned that we are talking of potentially repeating AW's youth project integrating teens into the match day squad / starting XI.  My preference is for them to gain such status on merit & I'd accept them as integrated into the team as bench players to begin with.

Claudius wrote:

Ohboy. Which managers would you invest in that are attainable, and why? What systems are they bringing in, and how would they build up their squad? Share your vision of Arsenal's resurrection please

First it starts with an identity that the club are trying to cultivate.

So if you say that you are an attacking club, and you want to entertain, firstly align your values along with a manager who you believe can provide that. Emery came into the job saying all the right things, but turned a coward by the end of the season.

So if I were making the decision, I would go after Ten Haag with everything I have. But it has to be said, Overmars has been probably the most important figure in the structure Ajax currently has, why we haven’t gone after him, heaven knows.

So Ten Haag comes in, he sits down and the first conversation you should be having with him, before asking him how are you, should be how do you intend to play?

This should in theory marry into what the club are looking to implement as well.

So Ten Hag says, I intend to play 4-3-3, you say right, “what type of players are looking for? Will you play traditional wingers? Do you want more of a wide striker type? Do you like your wingers to cut inside? Or do you like playing more wide playmaker types?” Etc.

Once that has been established, the club (Football director or Director of Football) then goes and together with the scouts should compile a list of suitable targets, of the managers get informed, but ultimately it should be the structure you have in place that dictates the players coming in.

Ten Hag then should work with the players he has currently, and the new ones who come in, on his preferred system and style of play.

So Saka would actually get to play more at left wing, Willock in the middle, Maitland-Niles would actually play in midfield instead of right back etc.

So for example, last year we could say, we played 4-3-3 predominantly, here were our strengths and our weaknesses, players x & y need to leave, players a & b need to come in to make the system work better.

Now Ten Hag could come in, play his formation and get players in, and fail. That is football. What we have now is the worst of all situations. We are constantly taking about buying players, buying which players? Which formation are they going to play? Are we playing with one striker up top again? Or a back five again? Or is it a back four? We want wingers? Really? Are they playing ahead of the wing backs?

This year was a complete waste of everybody’s time. Who developed? What did we come out of this season knowing that we didn’t know already? That was the whole point of changing manager in the first place. To change from Wenger, get the best from the squad and improve our style of play.

We have not done that at all.

Worst of all, we have a complete mystery in Emery. Hey, it could turn out he has a master plan up his sleeve, if he does, he must be keeping really close to his chest, because no one else, including the players can say what it is. He came into the team, with supposedly his best formation being a 4-2-3-1, actually a formation which might suit the players we have. How many times did he play it? To be honest if we were told we were getting a manager who bloody want to play five at the back and be dour, we may as well have gone with Conte who can play that way.

I fully understand that a lot of people feel people like myself are impatient and should give Emery a chance. I respect that.

For me with only one year on his contract, and the lack of any forward progress, I would swallow that year, and get a manager who would be more in line with my ideals and how I see the game being played.

For me that is Ten Hag, others may well want Jardim, or Hütter etc.

I guess it comes down to how much impact we feel the injuries in December had on Emery's plans for the team and season, or if they should be of any consideration at all.

ohboy!!! wrote:

What did we come out of this season knowing that we didn’t know already? 

This is where I think you are wrong. Emery had never trained with our players before, he had not seen how they worked out in his systems, what they were like in the dressing room, etc. You find out what's going on by experimenting and trying different things.

This season was a chance for him to understand what he was dealing with, and it was close to being a decent season for us. Now that he knows, we'll find out what he has decided to do about it next season.

I don't understand what's so difficult to understand: Wenger's first season was a learning season and his team improved greatly the following season. Klopp's first season was a learning season and his team improved greatly the following season. Guardiola's first season was a learning season and his team improved greatly the following season, etc. This is standard in football, for the most part you do not build a team overnight.

Occasionally a coach arrives and has a big impact, but that rarely happens without substantial changes in personnel to go with it. 

I'm not saying we should have as much patience as manU had with Ferguson when he almost sent them to second division after 3 seasons in charge, but at the very least withhold a final judgement until we've seen what the coach has in mind now that he will have had first-hand experience with the players he's supposed to manage and a summer to plan accordingly.

RC8 wrote:

ohboy!!! wrote:

What did we come out of this season knowing that we didn’t know already? 

I'm not saying we should have as much patience as manU had with Ferguson when he almost sent them to second division after 3 seasons in charge, but at the very least withhold a final judgement until we've seen what the coach has in mind now that he will have had first-hand experience with the players he's supposed to manage and a summer to plan accordingly.

This.

But it feels like even this is too much to ask for some sections of the fan base.

manu is a poor example as the accepted story is that Ferguson would have been sacked if they had been knocked out of the FA Cup by Nottingham Forest in January 1990. They were still a whisker away from sacking him even though he had done alot more than what Emery has done. He had revamped every aspect of Ron Atkinson's nonsense, from training regimes to the scouting network and youth set-up, breaking up the boozing antics of the team and bringing discipline to the changing room. He signed well bringing in Steve Bruce, Brian McClair and Viv Anderson.
If Emery had done similar, only DKF would be calling for his head as a wind-up.

And you call me a nitpicker.

Emery has overseen, or at least been part of the management team, during a period of radical transformation of Arsenal's setup.

I cannot think of even one benefit of sacking this guy now, at this moment, as we approach this window. We are still waiting for a technical director, we've seen an unbelievable amount of change across the back room, and now we are cresting the wave which will see, potentially, our biggest squad overhaul since the invincibles left. Maybe bigger.

I, for one, see no value at all in doing that without a head coach. Whoever we bring in, it will be far too late to influence our transfer window in any meaningful way (much like Edu, who has to play catch up), and we'll see another season where we don't actually get to judge results without endless caveats. It'll be really tiresome. We need at least one season with this team of people to settle the soil.

We should be talking to a lot of managers behind the scenes, of course. Young guys with potential, rising stars, and old heads. Whoever comes in next, they should come in with a reasonably complete team (even if the quality isn't quite where we want it to be) with players that have something to prove, and who are not anchored by the baggage of the previous setup.

In the next year, Edu will work with Emery to develop youth, along with Per. They'll have discussions about who should play, who should be loaned, who should be released. They'll talk about number of minutes, subs vs starts, etc. If you keep pressing reset, and you can't buy a few 50m pound players to inject some quality and freshness to your squad, then you're digger the grave deeper. It might feel better to go around sacking people, but it won't be. 

I'm actually afraid that Emery might go too soon. It'll be a step backwards, make no mistake. There would have to be someone truly brilliant lined up for it to make any sense, and I highly doubt there is. Even if there was, it seems impossible that we could go much further.

All of Poch, Klopp, and Pep walked into a project that had been ongoing for some time, that was building towards bringing in a manager who could bring the club to a more consistent, higher level. We are so far behind, at all levels of this club. Honestly, all we need is a competent, warm body filling the role of head coach at this point, which has never existed here before. There's too much work to do before any kind of magic can happen.

With that said, I think Emery would have to deliver a title challenge that went to the last 2 or 3 weeks of the season. Otherwise, we should move on. Top 4 and the Europa League would do nicely, and he could leave with his head held high, but I'm not expecting it. Raul and Edu (or whoever it ends up being) are going to have to work very, very fast.

If results are horrid at the beginning of next season, or Ozil is still moping around, or we are still playing we 3 CBs (god fucking forbid), we may need to sack him midseason. As tumultuous as that can be, I'd prefer it over sacking him now and leaving Raul as the only football person employed at the club apart from the players and the kit man.