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.

Well against Everton as well they aren't a great team and we really couldn't do anything but throwing crosses in which is so stupid and it's hard to not look at the manager why were we doing that.it isn't just the players for me and we've had some bad luck but I also think our football and limitations are really showing this season.

I like Arteta. A lot even, and I'm proud of the direction he has helped take the club in since he became the manager. I just wish he would take more risks. I'll give two examples.
My heart sank at Bournemouth, twice. First, seeing the line-up ahead of the game realizing we were starting SEVEN defensive players. Then, when Saliba was sent off, watching Arteta sub off Sterling. The same Sterling who looked to be the only offensive threat on the pitch, and this after a few minutes without subs where we showed that we could actually cope with the players on the field.
Second example is our last game, against Everton. Still can't for the life of me figure out why Arteta would take Odegaard off 'for tactical reasons', as he said in the post game presser. In a game where we are completely dominant, chasing a goal, it would have been so nice to see Arteta being willing to play both Odegaard and Nwaneri. Instead, we ended up making 5 subs but not really changing anything structurally. We basically just ended the game with 5 lesser players on the pitch.
Hopefully, this is something that Arteta will improve. And soon. He is a smart man, a really good manager, and I hope he will evolve as a manager when it comes to being willing to take more risks on the pitch.

Normal people who are chasing a goal sub a defender for an attacker. Not old Mik though. Need those four defenders to play against the lone target man.

Gurgen "If you can't win it, don't lose it."

Gurgen tbf he lived through some traumatic annihilations under wenger as a result of devil may care defending. he's managing like a guy who hasn't buried those demons

Are we playing this Boxing Day? If so, we really need GJ to be ESR from 2020.

Gazza M It's been a big miss. He was a dynamo covering large amounts of ground but also very active on the ball, creating space for both Martinelli and Saka. Between striker and L8, we need to find someone with a bit more of this drive, the way guys like Harry Kane, Wirtz or Musiala will get on the ball

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert it's not Easter but hopefully Jesus will be (re)born come Christmas.

Gazza M

Id be tempted to put Jesus back in for a run of games with Kai looking jaded. He’s managed to stay fit for a while and is starting to look sharper physically. Injecting a bit of chaos can’t hurt.

if there's one thing about arteta, it's that he has somehow pulled us out of these funks every season. I'm interested so see if has another trick bag to turn things around.

Gazza M my one critique of comments like that (and to be fair, I don't know the context so may be picking up the wrong inferences) but I've never been a fan of (our) managers saying we deserved to win games, usually explicitly or implicitly backed up by stats other than how many goals we scored.

probably because all of his undoubtedly labyrinthine models indicate that we should have won those games, and its an outlier that we didnt. he needs to put some more weighting on the ol' goals for column

Don Pacifico yeah I'm all for stats to shed insight but I think they've been used more and more to say whatever the outcome of the result this stat shows we are the true better team or winners. They can help understand but a bit too often they seem to become the metric I feel like the arsenal vision guys sometimes go too far in that direction in how they sum up things.

On the Arteta funk thing whilst that's been true so far the other side is we seen to regularly have them and haven't devised a way to mitigate it which is a little worrying from the coaching side.

awooga83 a simple stat like xG is a very simple, sober way to assess what happened on the chance creation side of the game. At the end of the day, you win by scoring more than the other team. xG tells you if you were doing enough to make this happen. We have too many games with sub 2 xG when teams give us the low/mid block. Given variance around the mean, we don’t give ourselves enough room to win all these games. You want to be 2.5xG u moth over a goal xG Diff in order to start to make things certain.