Klaus wrote:
I agree that the argument starts and stops with points on the table, and this is a sackable performance, no doubt about it.
When Arteta took over we talked about the importance of handling - and motivating - different personalities in a squad, and he stressed the importance of giving everyone equal opportunities to prove themselves. He talked at length about not being interested in history, in what people had done in the past, he was only interested in going forward and he would play anyone who proved they were worth it.
Fast forward a year and we have the squad full of aging Kia players instead who have been tied down on longterm contracts, and we're no better off for it. Several players have been dropped or ostracized at various points and you've got the likes of Cedric vacuuming up minutes that should go to Maitland-Niles, Willian is keeping not just Nelson but Pepe, our biggest investment, out of the side, Luiz has had like five really good games in total and yet it took forever to stop using him as our resident playmaker, etc.
I think this has been Arteta's biggest failure. There's no bloody ambition, and no inclination to change anything either. We can all see who the players are that make the most of the chances they get, and they rarely end up being rewarded for it. There's no longer any open path to the first team. At some point that venue closed, the team is what it is now; no matter how badly Xhaka and Willian perform they will be back the next weekend to ruin it for everyone, and when there's no carrot but plenty of stick people will stop responding eventually.
Why was Xhaka playing instead of Maitland-Niles today? Why has Saka, who's still a teen, been put in a role that limits his creative influence while he's getting kicked to pieces every fucking week by players twice his size? Why do we have a striker who can't trap a bag of cement playing as a #10 on paper but taking up positions more like a #6 in reality, when Smith-Rowe is sitting on the bench and Özil is sitting at home? Why did Willian start? Where's Nelson? Why didn't we put on another striker when we took off Lacazette? It's actually insane to go a man and a goal down and still only give Nketiah (who for some reason was the only forward option on the bench) 8 minutes.
Someone pointed out in the match thread that we went for protecting goal difference rather than trying to win the game at that point, and after thinking it over I'm sure it's true. We preferred -1 rather than throwing on more attackers and risking conceding more. Against fucking Burnley.
