Official: Mikel Arteta is the new Arsenal manager.
I don't see that it really matters that we were competing with peak cheat City really. We competed with them, that's the only relevant point to my mind. They weren't some mythical beast that couldn't be tamed. We were two points off winning and beating peak cheat City. That pedestal people put them on isn't as impressive to me when we were so close, yet threw it away by dropping points in home games in draws with likes of Spurs and Fulham , and losses to West Ham and Villa, amongst other games we should have done better in.
Liverpool just now are on better points tally than we were on game 29 last year, and on target to equal City's 91 points.
I'm not putting them on a pedestal, just pointing out that Liverpool was not a factor last season.
They were level on points with us in second place this time last year.
I genuinely think that his time should be done at the end of the season.
I get the hope that he can deliver with the right signings and that he didn't suddenly become a bad coach again after the relative highs of the last two seasons, however I think he will struggle to turn this around. PSV result aside, our team is really bland without Saka, Havertz or Jesus, with only the former being consistently reliable. The players and him just seem bereft of energy and attacking ideas. We haven't won in 3 league games, and if we have a so so performance for our last 10 games, that will be a third of the season which has been "wasted". I don't see the shoots of any tactical or personnel experiments that look like they could hold value going into next season which we can buy into even if our chance at the title is gone. All I feel is a manager going through the motions ahead of trying again next season. However, that period of time between now and end of season is long, and if we fail to regain any positive vibes/momentum, then I think he will find it extremely difficult to remotivate most of this squad for next season. Basically, the players don't look like they are in the presence of someone who can still inspire when things get difficult.
Our team is bland without all of our starting attacking players? What shock.
We were bland before Saka and Havertz got injured as well. It's just even worse now.
We're in a tough spot as fans, fellas.
The bottom line is that we've got no attack and even tactical switches are akin to shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. It's a slow motion car crash that's probably going to get worse. Arteta doesn't seem to have any answers and looks to be losing his rag to boot.
Might be best to just switch off for the remainder of the season, see what Arsenal Football Club does come the summer and then make a call on whether it's worth investing time and interest next year.
SimplyThePest agree with this but despite all the troubles I wouldn’t completely rule us out of the CL. I’ve seen enough football to suggest we can still do something even v Real Madrid/Atletico Madrid.
- Edited
Sicario2 - Tier 1 Wishful thinking, Sic. The two Madrid sides are real heavyweights, particularly the white one. Too much quality on the pitch and in the dugout for us at this point.
There is definitely some exaggeration of our challenges here. We can't be both completely awful and also disappointed we didn't smash United. It's one or the other.
Our defense is incredible. We now need to rejig our offense and how we attack. Good discussion actually on Arseblog about all of this today
@"Claudius"#
Sicario2 - Tier 1 we need 2 more forwards that create their own space and generate overloads. gabby jesus circa 2022 type of stuff, at both the ST and LW positions. having that will offset the blander elements of tetball.
We should have gone all in on Kvara.
https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/arsenal-fc-calafiori-arteta-position-change-b1217515.html
As for Arteta, I was immediately struck by how much he cared about getting to know me. One day on the phone he sent me some photos of my family and asked me to say what each member of the family meant to me.
The boss is kind of nuts.
Qwiss Bloody hell, mad Mikel, sat in his office in the dead of night creeping around Calafiori's Instagram screenshotting photos of his family members... 
Bizarre
Mikel is a strange dude.