mdgoonah41 wrote:
Ricky1985 wrote:
Arteta has specifically said our finishing has not been good enough and needs to improve. But it's also true we have had rotten luck, as usually happens when things go wrong.
I hope reports of the club gutting the squad in January are true. Perhaps I'm alone in this - and that doesn't bother me at all btw because I am pretty stunned how the fanbase has gone after him and seemingly overlooked, or at least minimised, the shit show that is, and has been, Arsenal football club for the past... well, for too damn long - but I have seen more than enough good from Arteta over 12 months to want to see what he could actually do with a proper team, minus the pathetic wasters that make up half of our frankenstein squad.
i just cant buy into this line of thinking.
we are 10 points below fucking southampton in the table. how many points do you think arteta would manage with southampton's squad? west ham, aston villa, newcastle are all above us in the table, with far inferior squads. we have a lot of poor and underperforming players in the squad, but it is the manager's job to maximize what he has and get performances out of players. arteta did that right when he got appointed, but he hasn't done it at all this season. the team has tuned him out, there is no other explanation for it.
the squad needs to be gutted, but if arteta needs a team of 11 perfect footballers to play his brand of football, then his brand of football is a fairy tale. there is enough talent in the first team to finish 6th. the fact that we are scraping the relegation zone is an indictment on his management ability. the answer isnt more of that.
Southampton is a well run club, they use their resources well, and their squad, limited in quality as it may be, is fit for the coach's purpose. Cedric Soares' switch from there to here perfectly illustrates the different approach of both clubs - and obviously does not reflect well on the idiots running ours!
Just saying "is our squad the 15th best in the League? No! So he has to go". Is the sort of unidimensional analysis I didn't think I would see on here. And certainly the line that also crops up about Arteta needing "11 perfect footballers" is an absurd way to look at a squad that has the paltry midfield options we have.
Arteta is struggling with this lot badly. Obviously that is true. But is it because he's suddenly a bad coach or not able to motivate players to play for him? Because that clearly wasn't true for the 6 months prior to this run of terrible results. Could it be that he has a poorly put together squad that are mostly very happy with being overpaid underachievers? Or is it some of both, and if so to what extent? How much of the chaos is due to the turmoil off the pitch caused by the global pandemic that has killed the transfer market and altered the dynamics of top level football to an extent not seen before? How much has the club-created turmoil contributed, driven by the utter ineptitude of those above Arteta that have run the club in the past few years? And that's a long list of decision makers that have added to the chaos and then promptly left the building.
We were incredibly well organised, tactically spot on, exhibited a very, very well coordinated press, had clear and effective attacking patterns, even if they were mostly based around counter-attacking, and the players were clearly putting a lot into every game - that was the case for the overwhelming majority of the first 9 or 10 months of Arteta's time here. I'm not sure what has happened since, and it is slipping away from him for sure, but basking in the glory of a bit of success is hardly new to players that make up most of this squad.
January is pretty much here - big things have to happen. One of the effects of pandemic has been for us to limp through half a season with 10 players on the books that know full well that Arteta doesn't want them here, some of which have been completely ostracised because of their shit attitude too and are no doubt causing big problems - the club need to back the manager and get these players out of the club, give Arteta a chance of moulding and then controlling a squad he actually wants, that is fit for his purpose. And Arteta, for his part, needs to demand exactly that and nothing less from the club. Edu and the board cannot get away with the sort of arrogance we saw from Gazidis and others previously when they patted themselves on the back and pretented paying £70m for Mustafi and Xhaka weren't terrible mistakes that, along with 15 other mistakes, needed immediate and financially painful rectification.
