AAStyle- wrote:
Hard to keep yourself in top 4? For sure! But is that an excuse? How long Wenger managed to keep us there? That is the way of a top tier manager.
Burnsy I feel that you are trying to build excuses for Arteta in advance.
Guilty as charged, perhaps. It's just so easy to see what the new lines of complaint will be, and how little some will enjoy relative success if we get there because it'll mean more Arteta.
I've got my criticisms which I'm laying out all the time, but we're playing a brand of football that could actually be effective for the rest of the season—if we figure out that central role.
Having nearly 80% of the ball first half against Brentford—that's """control""" working, much as we hate to admit it.
The squad is young and inspiring and they play for the manager. We don't go into matches wondering if we're going to go from 4-0 up to a 4-4 draw. When we go down to 10 as we have frequently lately, we're extremely hard to break down.
There are pieces missing and players who've been poorly treated, but it's obvious that Arteta's "project" also has some upside. I'm invested in this season's struggle, I'm behind the effort to reach top four that seems plausible now.
Yeah I agree with many of the concerns about what's happening, but the problems seem no worse to me than those of the decade of stagnation we just endured.
If we achieve top four we'll be at the level Wenger was at in terms of results, but the question of how to progress from there will be entirely different from what it was before—ie not relying on a miracle from four diminutive attacking mids, a donkey, two aging warhorses, a headless chicken and two or three regular footballers as we've formerly had to do.
It could all fall apart, but on the other hand another couple of wins on the trot ... some of us are enjoying the glittering fragments of optimism around I guess.
