To be fair they signed players in a load of positions too. Martinelli, Saliba, Luiz, Torreira and Tierney were all signed. Plus Ceballos came in on loan. They were trying to plug holes all round but we needed a big attacker. Its just turned out that its the one we signed for £6m rather than the one we got for £72 thats actually our new saviour (maybe).

Rest of our January fixtures look easy (West Brom/Newcastle/Crystal Palace/Newcastle), so I'd imagine the pressure will slide off Arteta.

Be interesting to see what happens in late January (Man United) and February (Wolves, Villa, Leeds, Benfica and Man City).

Can Arteta build something fluid by February? Or, will we see a pragmatic approach in Feb, which will be judged by results and how quickly we can revert to something more fluid/adventurous against less opponents.

I really don't think we should be classing any of our games as easy, right now...

yup could just as easily end up with 4 points from those 4 games.

goon wrote:

I don’t think he was a sure thing either. You have no idea how he would cope under different tactics, or under a different sort of pressure etc.

IIRC that's the primary reason you scout a player - oh wait...

speedy wrote:

Qwiss! wrote:

You say that but when we were buying the likes of Xhaka, Mustafi, etc in that fashion people were saying we should just get a big star for the combined price. You either get the signing right or you don't. We way overpaid for Pepe but there is nothing to suggest we wouldn't have just signed 3 other overpriced players last summer instead. He was a risk worth taking at the time, he'd been the second best players in France that season and was the type of player the squad needed. It hasn't really worked out for him but he's been far from terrible either. If we had a decent attacking manager he'd probably look better too.

Sure if your incapable of scoutjng then no strategy is going to work. But you've essentially given up at that point. When you've 5-6 massive holes in  team the solution isn't to blow all your cash on a single winger with some flair. Its a real pray for a miracle strategy. 

Hail Mary type.

Qwiss! wrote:

To be fair they signed players in a load of positions too. Martinelli, Saliba, Luiz, Torreira and Tierney were all signed. Plus Ceballos came in on loan. They were trying to plug holes all round but we needed a big attacker. Its just turned out that its the one we signed for £6m rather than the one we got for £72 thats actually our new saviour (maybe).

IMO the error was/is they didn't effectively replace Ozil despite selling every other am/#10 type we had in the senior team.
Instead of buying a wide forward they needed to sign someone to provide creativity from CM or CAM such as seen with Fernandes currently, or as in either rendition of Fabregas as CM or CAM.
Instead they went BIG on a late developer wide forward after 1-2 seasons in top flight whose game is based upon flair and confidence in open spaces.

Fix the foundations/structure first and then add the gloss.

Just thinking if this bad run we’ve had (and we still not out of the woods) could prove to be a blessing in disguise for Arteta.

To learn to win again in a crisis/adversity will do wonders for him experience wise. Also, he must have learnt a hell of a lot about his players during this period rather than his honeymoon period.

Sicario wrote:

Just thinking if this bad run we’ve had (and we still not out of the woods) could prove to be a blessing in disguise for Arteta.

To learn to win again in a crisis/adversity will do wonders for him experience wise. Also, he must have learnt a hell of a lot about his players during this period rather than his honeymoon period.

Question then being what can he do about it if he feels he still need to bin off half a dozen or more.

Reports yesterday he has been told he needs to sell before he can buy in Jan, which is much the same as was required last summer.
Time for Edu to show what he is made of. 

Sicario wrote:

Just thinking if this bad run we’ve had (and we still not out of the woods) could prove to be a blessing in disguise for Arteta.

To learn to win again in a crisis/adversity will do wonders for him experience wise. Also, he must have learnt a hell of a lot about his players during this period rather than his honeymoon period.

I fail to see how its a blessing in disguise. He's made a mess of things and it will take a super human effort to save our season. Are we supposed to be impressed he managed to win a couple of games?

A good rule of thumb is that it's rarely a blessing to lose football matches.

Qwiss! wrote:

Sicario wrote:

Just thinking if this bad run we’ve had (and we still not out of the woods) could prove to be a blessing in disguise for Arteta.

To learn to win again in a crisis/adversity will do wonders for him experience wise. Also, he must have learnt a hell of a lot about his players during this period rather than his honeymoon period.

I fail to see how its a blessing in disguise. He's made a mess of things and it will take a super human effort to save our season. Are we supposed to be impressed he managed to win a couple of games?

This is the first time he’s experienced such a thing in his short managerial career to date and its important to be able to come out on the other side of it. He will be a better manager for it.

Did you think a novice coach would just come in and it would all be upwards trajectory and we would win the CL in 3 years with no bumps on the road?

There might be some outcomes that don't involve neither CL in 3 years nor 15th after November.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

There might be some outcomes that don't involve neither CL in 3 years nor 15th after November.

How about potentially being only 3 points behind Chelsea in early Jan who were apparently title contenders as recent as earlier this month?

You can re-frame this argument either way. Did we over achieve with Mikel last season by winning the fa cup?

Sicario wrote:

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

There might be some outcomes that don't involve neither CL in 3 years nor 15th after November.

How about potentially being only 3 points behind Chelsea in early Jan who were apparently title contenders as recent as earlier this month?

You can re-frame this argument either way. Did we over achieve with Mikel last season by winning the fa cup?

The problem is we are 10 points out of the chase for 4th. Chelsea themselves are messing around.

The league is full of mediocre teams. If our manager and midfield were at the right level, we would be in a top four chase.

The fact that Arteta is a novice coach may explain the results and performances of this team, but it does not justify them. Our form was unacceptable and it is astonishing that the Club did nothing at all.

That said, nobody sacks a winning manager. If Arteta keeps winning matches, long may it last his reign. Still, the last two results cannot hide the fact that our team seems poorly managed.

Sicario wrote:

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

There might be some outcomes that don't involve neither CL in 3 years nor 15th after November.

How about potentially being only 3 points behind Chelsea in early Jan who were apparently title contenders as recent as earlier this month?

There's no need for reforming. I used our placement on the table, you used "we're only three points behind a team that were supposed to be good, but are really bad now", which is an incredibly convoluted way of describing our current situation. Three points behind Chelsea would only mean something if they they were doing well now. I don't think winning the cup competition was over-achieving. We defeated a couple of sides better than us, but it's a cup competition and hardly over-achieving if someone else than the best team wins it.

Qwiss! wrote:

Sicario wrote:

Just thinking if this bad run we’ve had (and we still not out of the woods) could prove to be a blessing in disguise for Arteta.

To learn to win again in a crisis/adversity will do wonders for him experience wise. Also, he must have learnt a hell of a lot about his players during this period rather than his honeymoon period.

I fail to see how its a blessing in disguise. He's made a mess of things and it will take a super human effort to save our season. Are we supposed to be impressed he managed to win a couple of games?

The only thing I can think of that's a blessing in disguise is if he learned big time from what happened to the fallout of players and subsequently cost this historic losses, and become the Alex Ferguson for us.

If he can turn things around to finish the season in top 4 for example it would already be miraculous and him a managerial genius. There's not many manager who can turn so many losses around in a big club, or that they rarely have the time

Sicario wrote:

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

There might be some outcomes that don't involve neither CL in 3 years nor 15th after November.

How about potentially being only 3 points behind Chelsea in early Jan who were apparently title contenders as recent as earlier this month?

You can re-frame this argument either way. Did we over achieve with Mikel last season by winning the fa cup?

No. Lots of midtable and lower teams win the cup. Its the nature of the competition. Emery was sacked when we were 8th in the table. We finished the season 8th but we allow for that because Arteta needed time to get to know the team and get them playing well together. That time has passed though and now we are 13th. Finishing 8th again this season would be a failure by any reasonable level of expectation.