Southampton away - Today, 15:00: Page 13 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Southampton away - Today, 15:00

Ricky1985

The team is really average from a quality point of view right now to be fair to Arteta. Watching Cedric, Tavares, Lokonga, Xhaka, Nketiah... it just isn't gonna happen with so many of those guys playing. They're mid-table players. At best. Put those players in Southampton's team and not one of them would stand out. And that was half our team today.

We needed Tierney and Partey badly. Tomiyasu instead of Cedric too and Lacazette not to revert back to being terrible.

4th is going to be tough. Maybe if Partey comes back soon we have a chance, but that's not on the cards as far as I know.

lorddulaarsenal

Bizarre thing is fourth is still in our hands

Shady

Ricky1985 wrote:
The team is really average from a quality point of view right now to be fair to Arteta. Watching Cedric, Tavares, Lokonga, Xhaka, Nketiah... it just isn't gonna happen with so many of those guys playing. They're mid-table players. At best. Put those players in Southampton's team and not one of them would stand out. And that was half our team today.

We needed Tierney and Partey badly. Tomiyasu instead of Cedric too and Lacazette not to revert back to being terrible.

4th is going to be tough. Maybe if Partey comes back soon we have a chance, but that's not on the cards as far as I know.

I think most would agree with that lot being average, but that is an indictment on Arteta. He was promoted to manager and has a say in squad building. He and Edu deserve the blame for this poor squad building. After we let Auba go, how many proven goalscorers did we leave ourselves with, in the middle of a top 4 battle?

Klaus

Ricky1985 wrote:
The team is really average from a quality point of view right now to be fair to Arteta. Watching Cedric, Tavares, Lokonga, Xhaka, Nketiah... it just isn't gonna happen with so many of those guys playing. They're mid-table players. At best. Put those players in Southampton's team and not one of them would stand out. And that was half our team today.

The issue is that he himself has signed, kept or extended the contracts of all of them. And the ones that could help who aren't midtable have been left in the freezer, like Pepé, or we're paying them to score boatloads for other clubs.

KurtEisner

Shady wrote:
Ricky1985 wrote:
The team is really average from a quality point of view right now to be fair to Arteta. Watching Cedric, Tavares, Lokonga, Xhaka, Nketiah... it just isn't gonna happen with so many of those guys playing. They're mid-table players. At best. Put those players in Southampton's team and not one of them would stand out. And that was half our team today.

We needed Tierney and Partey badly. Tomiyasu instead of Cedric too and Lacazette not to revert back to being terrible.

4th is going to be tough. Maybe if Partey comes back soon we have a chance, but that's not on the cards as far as I know.

I think most would agree with that lot being average, but that is an indictment on Arteta. He was promoted to manager and has a say in squad building. He and Edu deserve the blame for this poor squad building. After we let Auba go, how many proven goalscorers did we leave ourselves with, in the middle of a top 4 battle?

One, and his last start was in October.

Clrnc

Ricky, we have consistently played like this throughout arteta tenure no matter what players we have. On a good run we had individual talents to bail us out and rode our luck but it is always going to catch back at us. We are extremely boring to watch, we don't create chances consistently, we isolate our strikers and provided them with no services. It's a common recurring theme.

We are not talking about quality at all when we face those 3 teams and their respective quality. No way

Qwiss

Ricky1985 wrote:
The team is really average from a quality point of view right now to be fair to Arteta. Watching Cedric, Tavares, Lokonga, Xhaka, Nketiah... it just isn't gonna happen with so many of those guys playing. They're mid-table players. At best. Put those players in Southampton's team and not one of them would stand out. And that was half our team today.

You don't get the excuse of having Eddie up top when you banished Auba. Nor do you get the excuse of Xhaka being shit when you blocked his move away. The rest he brought to the club. This is Artetas team now 100%, their quality doesn't excuse his failure any more.

KurtEisner

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:
Bizarre thing is fourth is still in our hands

This is true, not throwing in the towel just yet, beating the likes of Chelsea, United, West Ham and Spurs is a lot harder than beating Southampton, but it's far from impossible. I'm not getting my hopes up though.

Ricky1985

Klaus wrote:
Ricky1985 wrote:
The team is really average from a quality point of view right now to be fair to Arteta. Watching Cedric, Tavares, Lokonga, Xhaka, Nketiah... it just isn't gonna happen with so many of those guys playing. They're mid-table players. At best. Put those players in Southampton's team and not one of them would stand out. And that was half our team today.

The issue is that he himself has signed, kept or extended the contracts of all of them. And the ones that could help who aren't midtable have been left in the freezer, like Pepé, or we're paying them to score boatloads for other clubs.

Arteta's made massive changes to the squad, and nearly all of them have been very good in my opinion, so I'm certainly not going to bash him for the presence of these players. It takes times.

We will be better next season, much better, but it sucks that we lose a whole load of options by not being able to get over the line for the Champions League. If we had our best team we could do it, but we don't have the squad to cope when we lose 3 or 4 of our best.

Ricky1985

Clrnc wrote:
Ricky, we have consistently played like this throughout arteta tenure no matter what players we have. On a good run we had individual talents to bail us out and rode our luck but it is always going to catch back at us. We are extremely boring to watch, we don't create chances consistently, we isolate our strikers and provided them with no services. It's a common recurring theme.

We are not talking about quality at all when we face those 3 teams and their respective quality. No way

Yeah, I don't agree at all.

We play a very high level of football, even whilst carrying 3 or 4 average players in our best XI, but try to play that football with 5 or 6 mid-tablers and it's not happening.

Klaus

We're never going to change Ricky. We lost to Southampton, not to Chelsea. It's the way we approach and play football that is the big issue. It's the one consistent theme throughout the last few years. We were supposed to be better this season and we're not. We were supposed to be better last season and we weren't. We can't afford to waste more time here, we need to move on now.

Gazza M

Ricky1985 wrote:
The team is really average from a quality point of view right now to be fair to Arteta. Watching Cedric, Tavares, Lokonga, Xhaka, Nketiah... it just isn't gonna happen with so many of those guys playing. They're mid-table players. At best. Put those players in Southampton's team and not one of them would stand out. And that was half our team today.

We needed Tierney and Partey badly. Tomiyasu instead of Cedric too and Lacazette not to revert back to being terrible.

4th is going to be tough. Maybe if Partey comes back soon we have a chance, but that's not on the cards as far as I know.

the problem is most of these players wouldn't be at the club, but arteta actually chose to proactively intervene on the sales of guys like xhaka, and went out and bought the likes of Cedric, lokonga and tavares. lokonga and xhaka should've been melted down into 1 proper midfielder, nketiah and lacazette could've been sold earlier if a striker was any kind priority for the club instead of watching them run their deals down, its a mystery why Cedric was bought in the first place, and tavares looks like a waste of time.

KurtEisner

Ricky1985 wrote:
Klaus wrote:
The issue is that he himself has signed, kept or extended the contracts of all of them. And the ones that could help who aren't midtable have been left in the freezer, like Pepé, or we're paying them to score boatloads for other clubs.

Arteta's made massive changes to the squad, and nearly all of them have been very good in my opinion, so I'm certainly not going to bash him for the presence of these players. It takes times.

We will be better next season, much better, but it sucks that we lose a whole load of options by not being able to get over the line for the Champions League. If we had our best team we could do it, but we don't have the squad to cope when we lose 3 or 4 of our best.

It took Klopp about half a season and that Liverpool team was fucking horrible. Arteta himself signed Lokonga, he banished our only serviceable striker, he signed Tavares, he extended Xhaka and he's been the manager for 2 and a half years now. If he can't get his team to play good football against the likes of Southampton with the season on the line, he needs to fuck off. I believe in the potential of this team and I'd loathe to see it wasted because the club goes all in on a rookie.

Clrnc

Klaus wrote:
We're never going to change Ricky. We lost to Southampton, not to Chelsea. It's the way we approach and play football that is the big issue. It's the one consistent theme throughout the last few years. We were supposed to be better this season and we're not. We were supposed to be better last season and we weren't. We can't afford to waste more time here, we need to move on now.

Took the words out of my mouth. It's literally my biggest gripe about this entire team. The way we are setup to play football, the approach and the mentality of it. The quality of players is by now a very lame and not valid excuse when we are losing to teams with worse quality, but play better football.

GooneriC

We will be losing the likes of Saka Saliba and Martinelli very quickly if this continues. Then what quality will we have left? No player who has any sort of ambition will want to come here , even if we offer tons of money. There are many better options currently in terms of teams and management.

mdgoonah41

did ricky actually say we play a very high level of football or am i hallucinating?

MistaT

😆

You just don't understand it md

KurtEisner

mdgoonah41 wrote:
did ricky actually say we play a very high level of football or am i hallucinating?

I think he meant that we're aiming to play a very high level brand of football, which is infinitely harder to execute when you have 5 or 6 average/bad players playing. I don't agree, but let's not start ridiculing each other's opinions, I'm guessing everyone's mood is bad enough as it is.

Clrnc

I would love to know where people have the certainty that we are "aiming" to play the kind of football they think we will other than from Artetas mouth. The overwhelming evidence is that it is simply not true

The only ever time I have seen us play and control a team well at a somewhat high level under Arteta is the home match against City in January. That, as things stand is more of an outlier

FEBravo

Qwiss! wrote:
Sicario wrote:
Didn’t watch it as I hate streaming but numbers don’t lie.

You not watching the matches makes your opinions a lot more understandable.

Something at least made me smile since the match. Cheers

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