QuincyAbeyie we need a stat of % league wins with Partey at the base of midfield and Partey not at the base of midfield. The drop off is huge.
Official: Mikel Arteta is the new Arsenal manager.
We are never winning the league if we beat the drums we are around lack of time on training ground and injuries of we fail to beat and be scoreless against a really poor Everton at home. A lot of the talk is justified but not after this weekend. We need to be winning those.
Qwiss That's a pretty big assumption. Merino has been fit for quite a while now and this is the first time we've seen that midfield. Its pretty clear Arteta sees Partey, Rice and Odegaard as his best midfield 3.
I don't think it's that big an assumption. Arteta said this, literally last week:
“There have been a lot of new units recently. Certainly, that was one. That’s one that obviously we have planned and discussed and I think they can play so well together. And they did a really good job.
“They will play again together for sure in the near future and I think they complement each other really, really well.”
There's more if you want to read it here:
https://arseblog.news/2024/12/arteta-happy-with-new-midfield-trio-doesnt-mind-attacking-imbalance/
It's not that surprising Merino's introduction has been gradual, given the injury he suffered almost immediately and then adapting to the way we play football as well as a new league.
And no, I don't think it's just one midfielder causing us all these problems. I think it's the injuries we've had, the form of our attacking players, Saka excepted, Odegaard being out, the red cards we've had and, nobody wants to hear it, but a pretty punishing away schedule this season. How many teams have had weeks like this on the schedule? We've had two of them...
Spurs - Atalanta - City
Newcastle - Inter - Chelsea
Arsenal are a big club. I get it, there shouldn't be excuses for losing games, but it's asking a lot to expect us to come out of these weeks unscathed.
Rohit and I agree with that. 100%.
RocktheCasbah I don't think it's that big an assumption. Arteta said this, literally last week:
“There have been a lot of new units recently. Certainly, that was one. That’s one that obviously we have planned and discussed and I think they can play so well together. And they did a really good job.
“They will play again together for sure in the near future and I think they complement each other really, really well.”
That doesn't mean it was his first choice 3 at all. And if he has been bought to be in the first choice midfield 3 thats a big problem. Merino is a fine 4th choice mid but if Artetas long term plan is the midfield we seen this week then we are truly screwed.
RocktheCasbah Arsenal are a big club. I get it, there shouldn't be excuses for losing games, but it's asking a lot to expect us to come out of these weeks unscathed.
Its one thing if you have issues causing you to end up with draws against Liverpool and red cards costing you vs City but the results against Fulham and Everton back to back are not good enough and you can't blame Odegaard being out or whatever else.
The form of our attackers is a problem because we don't have the quality or depth there, nothing else. Thats on the club and the manager.
All these excuses only get you so far.
Again, I'm not gonna argue that.
I do find it very difficult to believe that Mikel went into this last summer though, thinking, "I know who we need to tip us over the edge - Raheem Sterling..." Something obviously didn't go to plan and we don't know, exactly, where the blame for that sits.
IF Arteta is ultimately responsible for the fact that we let Nketiah, Smith Rowe, Nelson and Vieira leave the club and only brought in Sterling, then I would have a different view, because even with the limited minutes those guys had last season, that's clearly insane. But I do wonder whether Edu's departure from the club is in some way linked to how the summer went for us.
The summer sales we actually achieved were a big success I reckon. I sorely doubt any of the players moved on would help us much in our current predicament.
I'll repeat that I don't think we're doing much worse than last season. We've had some bad luck and just as many rough or bogus decisions, and we haven't pulled out a couple of wins. Our trajectory is only painful because of the way it's interacting with the oscillations of City and Liverpool.
Truth be told it's bloody maddening City can't buy a win now when we just needed them to drop two or three points across months earlier in the year. 2023–24 could just as easily have been "it's up for grabs now" and it's leaving a sour taste ...
RocktheCasbah To be honest, other than ESR, none of the others would really have changed anything off the bench. My point would rather be why sign Sterling at all if you won't throw him on when we are desperately searching for a goal and should just throw in all our attackers? what's the point of numbers if you don't use them, or use them so conservatively? Unless there are injury/load concerns for Ode and Rice, to replace them seems odd, and to do it with Nwanieri and Jorginho (both of whom I like), is incomprehensible to me. Put Ethan instead of Merino, if Ode or Rice have issues that necessitates them coming off, throw Sterling on. This defence first approach, while on occasion does yield us goals, is clearly not working recently.
As others have said, it's about control over anything. I read Arteta saying to see a winger track back 70m to defend made him happy. That's the crux of the problem.
FEBravo I read Arteta saying to see a winger track back 70m to defend made him happy. That's the crux of the problem.
It's so cringe. Omg.
Qwiss Its one thing if you have issues causing you to end up with draws against Liverpool and red cards costing you vs City but the results against Fulham and Everton back to back are not good enough and you can't blame Odegaard being out or whatever else.
Agree that those last two results aren't good enough but I'd also highlight the fact that they're made to look a hell of a lot worse as a result of the bad luck we've had earlier in the season with red cards and injuries. If we draw against Fulham and Everton in a season where we're already leading the league (for example), then those results are frustrating but not as calamitous as they feel now because the margin for error feels so fine.
Don Pacifico I think the way we've approached these fixtures is a bit too cowardly. We are playing teams that are unlikely to be pinning us back at we should release some of the control ball for more offensive threat even if it means we are slightly more at risk because that's what the game needs. I don't feel Arteta is willing to do that good whole game is focused on zero risk give the opposition no chances and we'll probably win maybe with a set piece. That is just not good enough for titles, maybe 1/50 you might get a perfect storm for it to come good but it's such a hard low probability outcome it's not a good approach for dealing with all the normal variance that happens in sport.
- Edited
awooga83 I don't disagree but I'd add two points.
- The margins have been fine at times - we've all commented our profligacy of late.
- I'm willing for you/others to disagree with this but I'm not convinced Arteta's expressed desire is to be defensive, per se. He's commented in the past to that fact when things haven't worked in games. I think the main issue here is less about level of risk and more that the way we play is so dependent on all parts of the system working that when one part doesn't, it falls apart. It's why I'd like an Alexis 'Plan B' to be recruited as I think it's really tough (unrealistic) to expect our system to operate effectively 100% of the time
- Edited
I really struggle to read some of the excuses conjured up for our inability to win against Everton at home, a team that just shipped 4 goals at goalshy United 2 weeks ago.
Every season the same few excuses will be made for our team and manager, as if we live in a vacuum and these same reasons does not affect other teams. I remember vividly when we went out against Sporting Lisbon few years ago, some mentioned that because we lost Saliba through injury, there's no way we could play well against them at home. Completely ignoring the fact that Sporting was missing half of their entire first team through injuries.
It's the same now, because we are missing Ben White, and also missed Gabriel for 2 games, it's understandable we can't score or create chances much. Completely ignoring the fact once again that our inability to create much chances in open play has been a constant under Arteta's reign. Our structured and controlball is the main reason we generally don't pepper opponents goal and often struggle to score, not some contrived reason like missing one defender or that we don't have enough training time. When we were flying after Dubai, we were also playing midweek and you don't hear these excuses ironically.
Also, people like to big our manager and team up and keep saying next year is our year, it's okay not to win this year again because the process is right, the boardroom is sound, structure of the club is good etc. Shit on Chelsea's joke transfer strategy and horrible boardroom and they will never win anything. Suddenly they change a manager and is firing now, so narrative became "Chelsea has the deepest squad and best attack, we can't compete. They have signed many brilliant players". The same players that was shat on just weeks ago in the summer.
If Liverpool or Chelsea win it, they are lucky, despite the fact that their xG shows that are not lucky to win. If we win last minute games through set piece or penalties, we are not lucky because our set piece xG proves we deserves to win. The hypocrisy is really funny. How's it that every team can change it up and not affect their performances but we miss one defender or midfielder and then "theres no way we could win, our injuries are horrendous"? It was barely 1 month ago we were so happy with the our squad depth and how many different midfield permutations we could change for games.
Every year we need new players, our players ain't good enough. We can't expect Arteta to do much more than that. For 5 consecutive seasons now. From ""inherited terrible players > not his squad > not fully his squad > squad depth not good enough > his squad but we have injuries > Edu's fault"". We need to be real. Stop with the excuses, the real reasons we always falter is far simpler than that.
Who is conjuring up excuses for failing to win at home to Everton Clarence? Nobody has done that here as far as I can see.
In a more humorous vein, I've just been alerted to another merch drop, I think we've had more merch drops over the last week than wins this month...
Clrnc Also, people like to big our manager and team up and keep saying next year is our year, it's okay not to win this year again because the process is right, the boardroom is sound, structure of the club is good etc. Shit on Chelsea's joke transfer strategy and horrible boardroom and they will never win anything.
Firstly I've gotta apologise for cherry-picking, but I think this section of a long and thoughtful post sums up my problems with it.
Thing is, I support what's been done as far as the Project™ is concerned and I've also been warning we won't get endless opportunities with this squad, and that it'll cost us badly not to convert the investment into trophies. These two things aren't exclusive. The structure and process at the club are pretty good and much better than before, but structure and process still aren't a cabinet full of silverware.
Most of us have been worried about that since at least the back half of 22–23 (that draw to Liverpool, fucking hell), whatever we think about Arteta, recruitment or any other aspect of Arsenal.
For all this fresh chat about Liverpool and Chelsea, both clubs were shit last season. We were runners-up in the league then because City happened to still be very, very good. And Chelsea's transfer strategy is a joke and all those seven year contracts are still going to fuck them.
It's a crying shame we're off the place, but we're not witnessing a huge trailing off and decline of the Project™ at the moment. We'll continue to be competitive. It's good if there's a bit of angst about where we're at, because I sense we're still very close to winning a major trophy. As with the past two seasons, we're at a moment where we actually could win the league or Champions League and frankly that's still a pleasantly unfamiliar feeling.
The rest of this season looms as a personal test for Mikel Arteta. The way I see it, he needs to get us ticking over again properly in the league, and we need to be pushing things further in the Champions League. Can he do it? It seems to me that both objectives are entirely possible at this point. If we do what we did from this point last season now, we'll probably win the title.
I'll be ready to gnash and wail with the best of us if the season truly disintegrates, but it hasn't happened just yet.
RocktheCasbah xmas is coming I for one hope that some ones bought me that lovely maroon and navy zip up the players have been wearing before matches.
Qwiss it is lush, that. I'd have bought it myself but I know how much I've worn the blue and yellow Originals Beckenbauer which was put out a year(ish) ago.
Think I'm getting a bit tubby for trackie tops... 
Last season Odegaard would have put one or two of those chances away and it's a different game. This season just feels like everything is a bit off - fitness, injuries, sharpness, cohesion, referees, scheduling. These are not excuses mind - we should be doing a bit better to overcome them - it's an observation of how I feel that nothing seems to be quite right.